eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Selective life-long suppression of an odor processing channel in response to critical period experience

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Hans C Leier
   2. Julius Jonaitis
   3. Alexander J Foden
   4. Abigail J Wilkov
   5. Annika E Ross
   6. Paola Van der Linden Costello
   7. Heather T Broihier
   8. Andrew M Dacks

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study in the Drosophila antennal lobe, which contains multiple non-equivalent sensory channels, provides valuable new insight into how early-life sensory experience can produce lasting, cell-type-specific changes in neural circuit function. The work convincingly demonstrates that glial-mediated pruning during a defined developmental window leads to persistent suppression of odor responses in one olfactory neuron type, while sparing another. The evidence is solid and supported by multiple complementary approaches, although some mechanistic interpretations remain speculative and would benefit from additional functional testing.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Modeling metabolic disease susceptibility and resilience in genetically diverse mice

   This article has 14 authors:

   1. Candice N Baker
   2. Jeffrey M Harder
   3. Daniel A Skelly
   4. Isabella Gerdes Gyuricza
   5. Margaret Gaca
   6. Matthew Vincent
   7. Allison Ingalls
   8. Mark P Keller
   9. Alan D Attie
   10. Madeleine Braun
   11. Michael Stitzel
   12. Edison T Liu
   13. Nadia Rosenthal
   14. Gary A Churchill

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     The authors used three genetically diverse mouse models to investigate the impact of genome diversity on metabolic disease outcomes, such as obesity and glucose tolerance. This study is important because it integrates comprehensive metabolic analyses and multi-tissue phenotyping across sexes to reveal pathways relevant to obesity and its complications; the data are convincing and uncover several pathways that advance understanding of disease etiology while suggesting potential therapeutic avenues to prevent obesity-related health risks. There are limitations, such as a limited number of mouse strains used in the work, the 9-week feeding regime may be too short to capture full metabolic remodeling, and the mechanisms by which the immune-adipose axis impacts the broader phenotype are not fully described. Overall, the study is compelling, but the manuscript could be improved by justifying the strain selection, addressing the concern about the feeding duration, and providing stronger mechanistic support or discussion.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Large-scale identification of plasma membrane repair proteins revealed spatiotemporal cellular responses to plasma membrane damage

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Yuta Yamazaki
   2. Keiko Kono

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This work provides an important resource identifying 72 proteins as novel candidates for plasma membrane and/or cell wall damage repair in budding yeast, and describes the temporal coordination of exocytosis and endocytosis during the repair process. The data are convincing; however, additional experimental validation will better support the claim that repair proteins shuttle between the bud tip and the damage site.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Spatially Periodic Computation in the Entorhinal-Hippocampal Circuit During Navigation

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Bo Zhang
   2. Xin Guan
   3. Dean Mobbs
   4. Jia Liu

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study provides valuable results on how entorhinal and hippocampal activity may support human thinking in perceptual spaces. It replicates the hexagonal symmetry of fMRI activity in the entorhinal cortex, reports novel findings on 3-fold symmetry in both behavioral performance and hippocampal fMRI activity, and links these results within a computational model. However, the methods – while potentially creative and interesting – are not fully justified or explained, and the conclusions remain incomplete. With further explanation, justification, and interpretation, this work could represent a significant step forward in understanding how cognitive maps are utilized.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. In vivo mapping of striatal neurodegeneration in Huntington’s disease with Soma and Neurite Density Imaging

   This article has 13 authors:

   1. Vasileios Ioakeimidis
   2. Marco Palombo
   3. Chiara Casella
   4. Lucy Layland
   5. Carolyn B McNabb
   6. Robin Schubert
   7. Philip Pallmann
   8. Monica E Busse
   9. Cheney JG Drew
   10. Sundus Alusi
   11. Timothy Harrower
   12. Anne E Rosser
   13. Claudia Metzler-Baddeley

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important manuscript presents a novel application of the SANDI (Soma and Neurite Density Imaging) model to study microstructural alterations in the basal ganglia of individuals with Huntington's disease (HD). The compelling methods, to our understanding, the first application of SANDI to neurodegenerative diseases, provide strong evidence for HD-related neurodegeneration in the striatum, account significantly for striatal atrophy, and correlate with motor impairments. The integration of novel diffusion acquisition and modelling methods with multimodal behavioural data are both of high value in their own right, and create a framework for future studies.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Allosteric effects of the coupling cation in melibiose transporter MelB

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Parameswaran Hariharan
   2. Yuqi Shi
   3. Rosa Viner
   4. Lan Guan

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This manuscript presents useful insights into the molecular basis underlying the positive cooperativity between the co-transported substrates (galactoside sugar and sodium ion) in the melibiose transporter MelB. Building on years of previous studies, this work improves on the resolution of previously published structures and reports the presence of a water molecule in the sugar binding site that would appear to be key for its recognition, introduces further structures bound to different substrates, and utilizes HDX-MS to further understand the positive cooperativity between sugar and the co-transported sodium cation. Although the experimental work is solid, the presentation of the data lacks clarity, and in particular, the HDX-MS data interpretation requires further explanation in both methodology and discussion, as well as a clearer description of the new insight that is obtained in relation to previous studies. The work will be of interest to biologists and biochemists working on cation-coupled symporters, which mediate the transport of a wide range of solutes across cell membranes.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. A genome-wide MAGIC kit for recombinase-independent mosaic analysis in Drosophila

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Yifan Shen
   2. Ann T Yeung
   3. Payton Ditchfield
   4. Elizabeth Korn
   5. Rhiannon Clements
   6. Xinchen Chen
   7. Bei Wang
   8. Michael Sheen
   9. Parker A Jarman
   10. Chun Han

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     The study showcases a significant and important enhancement of the MAGIC transgenesis method, by extending it genome-wide to all chromosomes. The authors convincingly demonstrate that the MAGIC mosaic clones can be generated for genes from all, including the 4th chromosome. With this toolkit extension, the method is now most likely set to strongly rival the classical FRT/Flp recombination system for gene manipulation in flies.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. A cell atlas of the developing human outflow tract of the heart and its adult derivatives

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. Rotem Leshem
   2. Syed Murtuza Baker
   3. Joshua Mallen
   4. Lu Wang
   5. John Dark
   6. Andrew D Sharrocks
   7. Karen Piper Hanley
   8. Neil A Hanley
   9. Magnus Rattray
   10. Simon D Bamforth
   11. Nicoletta Bobola

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study provides valuable insights into human valve development by integrating snRNA-seq and spatial transcriptomics to characterize cell populations and regulatory programs in the embryonic and fetal outflow tract. The methods, data, and analyses are solid overall, but with some weaknesses that can be strengthened. The findings will be of interest to those who work in the field of heart development and congenital heart disease.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Male-Biased Cyp17a2 Governs Antiviral Sexual Dimorphism in Fish via STING Stabilization and Viral Protein Degradation

   This article has 15 authors:

   1. Long-Feng Lu
   2. Bao-jie Cui
   3. Sheng-Chi Shi
   4. Yang-Yang Wang
   5. Can Zhang
   6. Xiao Xu
   7. Meng-Ze Tian
   8. Zhen-Qi Li
   9. Na Xu
   10. Zhuo-Cong Li
   11. Dan-Dan Chen
   12. Li Zhou
   13. Gang Zhai
   14. Zhan Yin
   15. Shun Li

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This manuscript describes a useful study describing an interesting infection phenotype that differs between adult male and female zebrafish. The authors argue that male-biased expression of Cyp17a2 is implicated in mediating infection levels through STING and USP8 activity regulation. Thus, this study highlights an unexpected factor involved in antiviral immunity that could open new avenues of investigation for infection, metabolism, and other contexts. Although the manuscript presents some evidence supporting its main claims, the evidence for the main argument made in the study on sex dimorphism remains incomplete at this stage.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Challenges in Replay Detection by TDLM in Post-Encoding Resting State

    This article has 6 authors:

    1. Simon Kern
    2. Juliane Nagel
    3. Lennart Wittkuhn
    4. Steffen Gais
    5. Ray Dolan
    6. Gordon Feld

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      This study presents valuable findings on the ability of a state-of-the-art method – temporally delayed linear modelling (TDLM) – to detect the replay of sequences in human memory. The investigation provides convincing evidence that TDLM has limitations in its sensitivity to detect replay when being applied to extended (minutes-long) rest periods, though a more thorough treatment of the relationship to prior positive findings would make the demonstration even stronger. The work will be of particular interest to researchers investigating memory reactivation in humans, especially using iEEG, MEG, and EEG.

    Reviewed by eLife