eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. The endoderm cell trajectory of urochordate Styela clava reveals the dual developmental origin and evolution of digestive tract

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Yonghang Ge
   2. Wei Zhang
   3. Penghui Liu
   4. Jianqing Bi
   5. Haiyan Yu
   6. Bo Dong
   7. Jiankai Wei

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This potentially important paper questions the evolutionary origin of the tunicate endoderm, using single-cell sequencing on a developmental series of the ascidian Styela clava that covers metamorphosis and gut development. The authors base their conclusions on a comparison with the development of mouse gut endoderm, where they point out similarities in the origin of tissues, perhaps representing a case of "deep homology". This work has the potential to make a significant contribution to the field of chordate evolution, but in its current form, the evidence it presents is incomplete and is limited by a problematic discussion of evolutionary implications and by major issues regarding the clarity and cogency of data presentation.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. DEER of Singly Labelled Proteins to Evaluate Supramolecular Packing of Amyloid Fibrils

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Karen Tsay
   2. Asif Equbal
   3. Yuanxin Li
   4. Tiffany Tsui
   5. Songi Han
   6. Yann Fichou

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study presents a valuable methodological contribution exploiting the DEER background decay to quantify supramolecular packing in amyloid fibrils. The evidence is incomplete: the observation of D < 1 is inconsistent with the theoretical lower bound of the model, and it remains unclear whether this reflects a genuine systematic limitation or falls within experimental uncertainty.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Modulating inter-mitochondrial contacts to increase membrane potential for mitigating blue light damage

   This article has 16 authors:

   1. Yuxin Wang
   2. Kangqiang Qiu
   3. Weiwei Zou
   4. Prativa Amom
   5. Tushar H Ganjawala
   6. Eugene Lee
   7. Zhiqi Tian
   8. Xiuqiong Xu
   9. Taosheng Huang
   10. Nien-Pei Tsai
   11. Donglu Shi
   12. Ping Kang
   13. Hua Bai
   14. Amanda L Zacharias
   15. Kai Zhang
   16. Jiajie Diao

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     In this work, the authors demonstrated that blue light mediated mitochondrial contacts attenuated blue light induced mitochondrial dysfunction, and validated this in human cells and C. elegans. This valuable work has the potential to provide novel perspectives into the field of mitochondrial biology but the supporting data are incomplete.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. The Locomoting State Selectively Amplifies Activity of Sensitizing Neurons in Primary Visual Cortex

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Antonio J Hinojosa
   2. Yehor Kosiachkin
   3. Sina E Dominiak
   4. Benjamin D Evans
   5. Leon Lagnado

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This manuscript presents a valuable analysis of how locomotion modulates the activity of different subtypes of cortical neurons in the mouse primary visual cortex, showing that locomotion more strongly increases responses in sensitizing than in depressing excitatory cells. This data is then used to constrain a model of the responses. While the data are very interesting, the analyses remain incomplete, in particular due to concerns surrounding the modelling.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Distinct allosteric remodeling of HIV-1 Env dynamics on virions by gp41-directed antibodies reveals two modes of neutralization

   This article has 15 authors:

   1. Wang Xu
   2. Narendra Kumar Gonepudi
   3. Junyu Liu
   4. Yufan He
   5. Revansiddha Katte
   6. Ran Wang
   7. Harry Baffour Awuah
   8. Yang Han
   9. Baoshan Zhang
   10. Jian Yu
   11. Bo Hu
   12. David D Ho
   13. Priyamvada Acharya
   14. Peter D Kwong
   15. Maolin Lu

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This manuscript reports an important study in which the authors apply smFRET imaging to probe HIV-1 Env conformational dynamics in the presence of antibodies. Previous implementations of smFRET imaging of HIV-1 Env, which focus on gp120 conformation, have yielded limited information on antibodies that target gp41. Through the cutting-edge application of smFRET imaging, the study provides convincing insights into the mechanisms of action of relevant antibodies.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Cellular basis of accelerated whole-tooth regeneration

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Talha Mubeen
   2. Haowen He
   3. George W Gruenhagen
   4. Anoushka Satoskar
   5. Jeffrey T Streelman

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study provides valuable insights into the cellular dynamics underlying accelerated tooth regeneration in a vertebrate model. Using single-nucleus RNA sequencing across multiple time points, the authors present a well-structured analysis of cell populations, trajectories, and intercellular signaling events associated with this process. The strength of evidence is solid but incomplete, as the conclusions are primarily supported by computational inference, without experimental validation of key findings.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Gelsolin Counteracts ER Stress-Driven Inflammatory Circuits in Psoriasis-like Dermatitis

   This article has 20 authors:

   1. Daisuke Ori
   2. Haruna Okude
   3. Riko Konishi
   4. Motoya Murase
   5. Shuya Hiroki
   6. Saki Takahara
   7. Towa Tanaka
   8. Rina Toyodome
   9. Norisuke Kano
   10. Takumi Kawasaki
   11. Ken J Ishii
   12. Kouji Kobiyama
   13. Hideyuki Nakashima
   14. Kinichi Nakashima
   15. Miwa Sasai
   16. Masahiro Yamamoto
   17. Yutaro Kumagai
   18. Akio Tsuru
   19. Kenji Kohno
   20. Taro Kawai

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This paper provides a valuable observation that imiquimod, a compound often used to induce a psoriasis-like skin inflammation in mice, has a TLR7-independent effect acting through the unfolded protein response and binding to Gelsolin. However, the mechanism connecting Gelsolin to skin inflammation presented in this paper is incomplete and requires further investigation. These findings are of interest to the field of skin immunology.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Beyond the Focus of Expansion: Retinal curl as a functional signal for heading estimation

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Kontessa I Zorpala
   2. Joan López-Moliner

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study provides an important and biologically plausible account of how human perceptual judgments of heading direction are influenced by a specific pattern of motion in optic flow fields known as retinal curl. By combining psychophysical experiments and neural modeling, the authors demonstrate that what was previously considered an incidental "nuisance" signal actually serves as a functional control signal for estimating heading and steering toward a fixated target. While the evidence for the role of curl signals is convincing and advances our understanding of vision-based navigation, the work's impact would be strengthened by situating these findings among other cues that contribute to heading estimation, and by clarifying both the time course of these computations and their generalizability across different navigational contexts.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. The overall and sequence-specific degradation of soil extracellular 16S rRNA genes across China: rates and influential factors

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Ting Li
   2. Song Zhang
   3. Zelin Wang
   4. Wei Huang
   5. Zejin Zhang
   6. Fang Wang
   7. Dong Liu
   8. Xiaoyong Cui
   9. Rongxiao Che

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study introduces an innovative experimental design to address a crucial and timely issue in microbial ecology: the potential bias in soil microbial community analyses caused by extracellular DNA degradation. While the evidence showing variable degradation rates of extracellular DNA is convincing, additional conceptual, methodological, and statistical clarifications could reinforce the claims and the study's contribution to the field. This research will appeal to microbial ecologists and researchers interested in using molecular techniques to evaluate microbial community structure.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Long-range neural pathways for octopus chemotactile processing revealed from periphery-to-brain by centimeter-field microCT

    This article has 15 authors:

    1. Andrew Sugarman
    2. Daniel Vanselow
    3. David Northover
    4. Stephen L Senft
    5. Carolyn Zaino
    6. Maksim A Yakovlev
    7. Jessica Christ
    8. Justin D Silverman
    9. Mee S Ngu
    10. Khai C Ang
    11. Steve Wang
    12. Wen-Sung Chung
    13. Patrick La Riviere
    14. Roger T Hanlon
    15. Keith C Cheng

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      In this study, the authors use microCT to image an intact hatchling octopus and segment major organ systems, including the vascular, respiratory, digestive, and nervous systems. The resulting dataset is of good quality, and its release through a public web interface is a valuable resource for the community to explore cephalopod mesoscale anatomy. However, the authors claim to have elucidated previously uncharacterized chemotactile pathways from the suckers to the brain, for which there is incomplete evidence, as microCT does not reveal structural connectivity. In addition, the language is often overly complex, obscuring the main points and making it difficult to assess the strength of individual claims. This article would benefit from more cautious framing of the anatomical findings and complementary neuronal tracing experiments to support the proposed pathways.

    Reviewed by eLife