eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Policy-Gradient Reinforcement Learning as a General Theory of Practice-Based Motor Skill Learning

   This article has 1 author:

   1. Adrian M Haith

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable computational study presents a conceptually simple and biologically plausible reinforcement-learning framework for motor learning based on policy-gradient methods. The evidence supporting the conclusions is convincing, including rigorous mathematical derivations of learning rules for the mean and variance of motor commands and simulation results for three sets of experimental data, based on three different motor learning tasks from the literature. However, there is a lack of a clear description of the specific conditions under which this framework yields unique mechanistic insights or predictive values, hence falling short of qualifying as a "general theory of motor learning". The work will be of interest to researchers in computational motor learning and motor neuroscience.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Mosaic of somatic mutations in one of Earth’s largest organisms, Pando

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Rozenn M Pineau
   2. Karen E Mock
   3. Jesse Morris
   4. Vachel Kraklow
   5. Andrea Brunelle
   6. Aurore Pageot
   7. William C Ratcliff
   8. Zachariah Gompert

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This useful study examines patterns of clonal reproduction and somatic mutations in 'Pando', a massive, quaking aspen clone consisting of ~47000 stems. Because the study relies on relatively low-coverage, reduced-representation genomic resequencing data for the detection of somatic mutations, the evidence provided for several of the primary conclusions about clone age and the relationship between mutation accumulation and geographic distance is incomplete.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Expression of specific var gene subtypes is differentially associated with severe malaria syndromes

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Henry Ndugwa
   2. Michelle Muthui
   3. J Alexandra Rowe
   4. Samson M Kinyanjui
   5. Cheryl Andisi Kivisi
   6. Abdirahman I Abdi

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study uses a large cohort of clinical malaria cases collected over 18 years to address a critical knowledge gap regarding the role of PfEMP1 variants across distinct severe malaria syndromes. The conclusions are potentially of importance and interest to those who study malaria severity, but the evidence is incomplete, largely due to a lack of clarity on data inclusion and the correct use of statistical tests. More up-to-date data analysis methods would further strengthen the conclusions.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Turning aging cells into a live vaccine: engineered senescent cancer cells with adjuvant celecoxib for immunotherapy

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Yuewei Wang
   2. Ante Ou
   3. Yanli Luo
   4. Yanrong Gao
   5. Yi Zhang
   6. Linxi Qin
   7. Yongzhuo Huang

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study presents a novel immunotherapy strategy for cancer. The authors develop a whole-tumor cell vaccine comprised of senescent tumor cells and a COX2 inhibitor in a hydrogel matrix. They present convincing evidence of the efficacy of this approach in preclinical models, demonstrating that prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) modulates the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP) toward an immunostimulatory state, although more mechanistic/functional work would strengthen their conclusions. This work is timely and will be of interest to immunologists and others interested in the development of novel cancer therapies.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Nerve Injury-Induced Protein 2 preserves lysosomal membrane integrity to suppress ferroptosis

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Jin Zhang
   2. Miranda Bustamante
   3. Yang Shi
   4. Ken-ichi Nakajima
   5. Xinbin Chen

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This fundamental work uncovers an unexpected lysosomal function for NINJ2 and links it to ferroptosis and cancer biology. The evidence supporting the conclusions appears to be convincing. Additional mechanistic clarification, particularly around the NINJ2-LAMP1 interaction and ferroptosis specificity, will further strengthen the manuscript. This work will be of general interest to the community of ferroptosis and cancer biology.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Dynamic RNA Polymerase compartments organize the transcription of gene clusters

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Yi-Hui Wang
   2. Hannah L Hertz
   3. Wen Tang

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This manuscript explores the dynamic behaviors of Pol II and Pol III puncta that encompass the SL1 and 5S genes, following up on the authors' prior studies on ATTF-6. The authors show that ATTF-6 is required for RNA Pol II but not RNA Pol III foci, demonstrating that within the gene cluster, the regulation of RNA Pol II and RNA Pol III remain distinct from each other. The study is useful for analyzing understudied gene families, but it is incomplete and needs additional edits and experiments.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Capturing instantaneous neural signal-behavior relationships with concurrent functional mixed models

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Al W Xin
   2. Erjia Cui
   3. Francisco Pereira
   4. Gabriel Loewinger

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable work extends a previously published regression framework for trial-aligned photometry data incorporating functional variables. However, the evidence is generally incomplete, due to the way that within-trial changes in variables have been incorporated into an inherently cross-trial analysis framework, which will limit general adoption. The ideas in this work will be of interest to researchers analyzing photometry signals.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Effects of knockdown of autophagy pathway genes on C. elegans longevity are highly condition dependent

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Kuei Ching Hsiung
   2. Hannah Chapman
   3. Xiaoya Wei
   4. Xiaoyu Sun
   5. Isadora Rawlinson
   6. David Gems

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study presents a valuable finding on the condition dependence of autophagy-mediated lifespan regulation in C. elegans. The evidence is solid, as the data broadly support the main claims, although variability between biological replicates and limited mechanistic exploration leave some conclusions less firmly established. The work will be of interest to researchers studying autophagy, ageing, and intracellular trafficking.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. No evidence for disassortative mating based on HLA in a small-scale, endogamous population

   This article has 12 authors:

   1. Gillian L Meeks
   2. Brooke Scelza
   3. Katherine. M Kichula
   4. Catrinel Berevoescu
   5. Kristin Hardy
   6. Ticiana DJ Farias
   7. Genelle F Harrison
   8. Nicholas R Pollock
   9. Neus Font-Porterias
   10. Sean Prall
   11. Paul J Norman
   12. Brenna M Henn

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study addresses the long-debated hypothesis that humans preferentially choose partners with dissimilar immune genes, using data from a small-scale society that allows comparison between arranged and self-chosen partnerships. Across multiple analyses controlling for genome-wide relatedness and examining functional immune diversity, the authors find no evidence of HLA/MHC-based (dis)assortative mating, suggesting that immune gene variation has limited influence on mate choice in this relatively homogeneous population and that the observed patterns instead reflect selection acting directly on immune loci. While the strength of the evidence is compelling for this population, several conclusions rely on indirect reconstruction methods and imputed data for a very complex region of the genome, which may limit how firmly some claims can be supported.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. ANTIPODE Provides a Global View of Cell Type Homology and Transcriptomic Divergence in the Developing Mammalian Brain

    This article has 10 authors:

    1. Matthew T Schmitz
    2. Jingwen W Ding
    3. Sara Nolbrant
    4. Reed McMullen
    5. Chang N Kim
    6. Bryan J Pavlovic
    7. Tomasz J Nowakowski
    8. Trygve E Bakken
    9. Chun Jimmie Ye
    10. Alex A Pollen

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      This valuable study is an approach to integrating and comparing single-cell genomics data across species. The evidence supporting the conclusions of this work is solid, and ANTIPODE presents an updated methodological approach to determining how gene expression at the cell-type level has evolved. Thus, ANTIPODE should provide broad utility to studies of comparative neurogenomics and be of use to neuroscientists and evolutionary biologists.

    Reviewed by eLife