eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Food-washing monkeys recognize the law of diminishing returns

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Jessica E Rosien
   2. Luke D Fannin
   3. Justin D Yeakel
   4. Suchinda Malaivijitnond
   5. Nathaniel J Dominy
   6. Amanda Tan

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This is a valuable study that tests the functional role of food-washing behavior in removing tooth-damaging sand and grit in long-tailed macaques and whether dominance rank predicts level of investment in the behavior. The evidence that food-washing is deliberate is compelling and the evidence that individual investment in the behavior varies is solid. Overall, the paper should be of interest to researchers interested in foraging behavior, cognition, and primate evolution.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Decoding phase separation of prion-like domains through data-driven scaling laws

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. M Julia Maristany
   2. Anne Aguirre Gonzalez
   3. Jorge R Espinosa
   4. Jan Huertas
   5. Rosana Collepardo-Guevara
   6. Jerelle A Joseph

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     The authors performed extensive coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations of 140 different prion-like domain variants to interrogate how specific amino acid substitutions determine the driving forces for phase separation. The analyses are solid, and the derived predictive scaling laws can aid in identifying potential phase-separating regions in uncharacterized proteins. Overall, this is a valuable contribution to the field of biomolecular condensates. It exemplifies how data-driven methodologies can uncover new insights into complex biological phenomena.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. The phytoplasma SAP54 effector acts as a molecular matchmaker for leafhopper vectors by targeting plant MADS-box factor SVP

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Zigmunds Orlovskis
   2. Archana Singh
   3. Adi Kliot
   4. Weijie Huang
   5. Saskia A Hogenhout

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study highlights an important discovery: a bacterial pathogen's effector influences plant responses that in turn affect how the leafhopper insect vector for the bacteria is attracted to the plants in a sex-dependent manner. The research is backed by convincing physiological and transcriptome analyses. This study unveils a complex interdependence between the pathogen effector, male leafhoppers, and a plant transcription factor in modulating female attraction to the plant, shedding light on previously unexplored aspects of plant-bacteria-insect interactions.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Sex-peptide targets distinct higher order processing neurons in the brain to induce the female post-mating response

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Mohanakarthik P Nallasivan
   2. Deepanshu ND Singh
   3. Mohammed Syahir RS Saleh
   4. Matthias Soller

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study delivers valuable new insights into the neural circuits involved in post-mating responses (PMR) in Drosophila females, supported by convincing evidence that the circuits for mating receptivity and egg-laying are distinct. The new experimental evidence adds to the current understanding the neural circuits and molecular mechanisms underpinning PMR.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. PIM kinase control of CD8 T cell protein synthesis and cell trafficking

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Julia M Marchingo
   2. Laura Spinelli
   3. Shalini Pathak
   4. Doreen A Cantrell

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     These important findings detail the role of Pim1 and Pim2 in controlling the behaviour and activity of 'killer' T cells; a vital cell within of our immune system. The authors capitalized on high resolution quantitative analysis of the proteomes and transcriptomes of Pim1/Pim2-deficient CD8 T cells to provide compelling evidence for how the PIM1/2 kinases control TCR-driven activation and IL-2/IL-15-driven proliferation and differentiation into effector T cells. It's also noteworthy that Pim1/Pim2 impact is better revealed through quantitative proteomics than transcriptomics.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Diverse prey capture strategies in teleost larvae

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Duncan S Mearns
   2. Sydney A Hunt
   3. Martin W Schneider
   4. Ash V Parker
   5. Manuel Stemmer
   6. Herwig Baier

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important body of work uses state-of-the-art quantitative methods to characterize and compare behaviors across five different fish species to understand which features are conserved and which ones are differentiated. The convincing results from this study will be of interest to ethologists and also have potential utility in understanding the neural mechanisms leading to these behaviors.

   Reviewed by eLife, Arcadia Science

7. Systematic annotation of a complete adult male Drosophila nerve cord connectome reveals principles of functional organisation

   This article has 23 authors:

   1. Elizabeth C Marin
   2. Billy J Morris
   3. Tomke Stürner
   4. Andrew S Champion
   5. Dominik Krzeminski
   6. Griffin Badalamente
   7. Marina Gkantia
   8. Christopher R Dunne
   9. Katharina Eichler
   10. Shin-ya Takemura
   11. Imaan FM Tamimi
   12. Siqi Fang
   13. Sung Soo Moon
   14. Han SJ Cheong
   15. Feng Li
   16. Philipp Schlegel
   17. Sebastian E Ahnert
   18. Stuart Berg
   19. Janelia FlyEM Project Team
   20. Gwyneth M Card
   21. Marta Costa
   22. David Shepherd
   23. Gregory SXE Jefferis

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This fundamental study provides a near-comprehensive anatomical description and annotation of neurons in a male Drosophila ventral nerve cord, based on large-scale circuit reconstruction from electron microscopy. This connectome resource will be of substantial interest to neuroscientists interested in sensorimotor control, neural development, and analysis of brain connectivity. However, although the evidence is extensive and compelling, the presentation of results in this very large manuscript lacks clarity and concision.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Human adherent cortical organoids in a multiwell format

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Mark van der Kroeg
   2. Sakshi Bansal
   3. Maurits Unkel
   4. Hilde Smeenk
   5. Steven A Kushner
   6. Femke MS de Vrij

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This paper describes an important advance in an in vitro neural culture system to generate mature, functional, diverse, and geometrically consistent cultures, in a 384-well format with defined dimensions and the absence of the necrotic core, which persists for up to 300 days. The well-based format and conserved geometry make it a promising tool for arrayed screening studies. Some of the evidence is incomplete and could benefit from a more direct head-to-head comparison with more standard culture methods and standardization of cell seeding density as well as further data on reproducibility in each well and for each cell line.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. SARS-CoV-2 methyltransferase nsp10-16 in complex with natural and drug-like purine analogs for guiding structure-based drug discovery

   This article has 15 authors:

   1. Viviane Kremling
   2. Sven Falke
   3. Yaiza Fernández-García
   4. Christiane Ehrt
   5. Antonia Kiene
   6. Bjarne Klopprogge
   7. Emilie Scheer
   8. Fabian Barthels
   9. Philipp Middendorf
   10. Sebastian Kühn
   11. Stephan Günther
   12. Matthias Rarey
   13. Henry N Chapman
   14. Dominik Oberthür
   15. Janina Sprenger

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important study describes the crystallographic screening of a number of small molecules against a viral enzyme critical for the 5' capping of SARS-CoV-2 RNA and viral replication. While the high-quality crystal structures and complementary biophysical assays in this study provide solid evidence to support the major claims regarding how these small molecule compounds bind to the viral enzyme, the mismatch between the antiviral activity and binding to the viral enzyme of several small molecule compounds could have been more thoroughly investigated or discussed. This paper would be of interest to the fields of coronavirus biology, structural biology, and drug discovery.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Unanticipated mechanisms of covalent inhibitor and synthetic ligand cobinding to PPARγ

    This article has 2 authors:

    1. Jinsai Shang
    2. Douglas J Kojetin

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      This landmark study elucidates the intricate structural mechanisms by which both covalent and non-covalent synthetic ligands can co-occupy the binding pocket of the nuclear receptor transcription factor PPARγ. Through a compelling integration of structural, biochemical, and biophysical evidence, the authors challenge the reliability of two commonly used covalent inhibitors. These findings have far-reaching implications for the broader field of nuclear receptor research. This work will be of high interest to structural biologists and biochemists exploring ligand interactions within the nuclear receptor superfamily.

    Reviewed by eLife