eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Androgen deprivation triggers a cytokine signaling switch to induce immune suppression and prostate cancer recurrence

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Kai Sha
   2. Renyuan Zhang
   3. Aerken Maolake
   4. Shalini Singh
   5. Gurkamal Chatta
   6. Kevin H Eng
   7. Kent L Nastiuk
   8. John J Krolewski

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This potentially valuable work aimed at a better understanding of the mechanisms of response and resistance to androgen deprivation therapy in prostate cancer using genetically engineered mouse models. A key observation relates to the timing of TNF blockage therapy and the concept of a "TNF switch." The solid data were collected using conventional approaches and the conclusions are mostly justified, particularly with the inclusion of more detailed statistics in the revision. The work will be of interest to the prostate cancer research community.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Sex differences in bile acid homeostasis and excretion underlie the disparity in liver cancer incidence between males and females

   This article has 15 authors:

   1. Megan E Patton
   2. Sherwin Kelekar
   3. Lauren J Taylor
   4. Angela E Dean
   5. Qianying Zuo
   6. Rhishikesh N Thakare
   7. Sung Hwan Lee
   8. Emily C Gentry
   9. Morgan Panitchpakdi
   10. Pieter Dorrestein
   11. Yazen Alnouti
   12. Zeynep Madak-Erdogan
   13. Ju-Seog Lee
   14. Milton J Finegold
   15. Sayeepriyadarshini Anakk

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study provides valuable insights into the influence of sex on bile acid metabolism and the risk of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). The data to support that there are inter-relationships between sex, bile acids, and HCC in mice are convincing, although this is a largely descriptive study. Future studies are needed to understand the interaction of sex hormones, bile acids, and chronic liver diseases and cancer at a mechanistic level. Also, there is not enough evidence to determine the clinical significance of the findings given the differences in bile acid composition between mice and men.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Dynamic readout of the Hh gradient in the Drosophila wing disc reveals pattern-specific tradeoffs between robustness and precision

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Rosalío Reyes
   2. Arthur D Lander
   3. Marcos Nahmad

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study presents a valuable finding on the precision conferred by dynamical interpretation of morphogen gradients. The evidence supporting the claims of the authors is convincing, with compelling theoretical analysis and solid yet incomplete experimental data. With the experimental part strengthened, the work could be of interest to the developmental biology and developmental systems biology communities.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Plasticity of the proteasome-targeting signal Fat10 enhances substrate degradation

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Hitendra Negi
   2. Aravind Ravichandran
   3. Pritha Dasgupta
   4. Shridivya Reddy
   5. Ranabir Das

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This manuscript probes the ways in which a protein tag might influence the structure, dynamics and stability of a covalently-attached substrate protein. Such findings are of important significance to several fields, particularly in understanding how these influences control the abundance of proteins within a cell. The evidence provided to support the authors' conclusions are, however, incomplete and further control experiments are necessary to fully support the proposed model.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Basal ganglia output (entopeduncular nucleus) coding of contextual kinematics and reward in the freely moving mouse

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Anil K Verma Rodriguez
   2. Josue O Ramírez-Jarquin
   3. Román Rossi-Pool
   4. Fatuel Tecuapetla

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study reports on electrophysiological recording of the spiking activity of single neurons in the entopeduncular nucleus (EPN) in freely-moving mice performing an auditory discrimination task. The data show that the activity of single EPN neurons is modulated by reward and movement kinematics, with the latter further affected by task contexts (e.g. movement toward or away from a reward location). The results provide solid evidence for the conclusions. There is some ambiguity as to whether the data contain the population of EPN neurons characterized in previous studies that obtained different results. Investigations separating confounding factors would be of benefit. Nonetheless, the work is overall of interest to those who study how the basal ganglia, particularly the EPN, contribute to behavior.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Evaluation of Gremlin-1 as a therapeutic target in metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis

   This article has 22 authors:

   1. Paul Horn
   2. Jenny Norlin
   3. Kasper Almholt
   4. Birgitte M Viuff
   5. Elisabeth D Galsgaard
   6. Andreas Hald
   7. Franziska Zosel
   8. Helle Demuth
   9. Svend Poulsen
   10. Peder L Norby
   11. Morten G Rasch
   12. Mogens Vyberg
   13. Jan Fleckner
   14. Mikkel Parsberg Werge
   15. Lise Lotte Gluud
   16. Marco R Rink
   17. Emma Shepherd
   18. Ellie Northall
   19. Patricia F Lalor
   20. Chris J Weston
   21. Morten Fog-Tonnesen
   22. Philip N Newsome

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important paper shows that the anti-gremlin-1 (GREM1) antibody is not effective at treating liver inflammation or fibrosis. Critically, the evidence also challenges existing data on the detection of GREM1 by ELISA in serum or plasma by demonstrating that high-affinity binding of GREM1 to heparin would lead to localisation of GREM1 in the ECM or at the plasma membrane of cells. The conclusions are supported by a convincing, well-controlled set of experiments.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Operation regimes of spinal circuits controlling locomotion and the role of supraspinal drives and sensory feedback

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Ilya A Rybak
   2. Natalia A Shevtsova
   3. Sergey N Markin
   4. Boris I Prilutsky
   5. Alain Frigon

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This fundamental state-of-the-art modeling study explores neural mechanisms underlying walking control in cats, demonstrating the probability of three different states of operation of the spinal circuitry generating locomotion at different speeds. The authors' biophysical modeling sufficiently reproduces and provides explanations for experimental data on how the locomotor cycle and phase durations depend on treadmill walking speed and points to new principles of circuit functional architecture and operating regimes underlying how spinal circuits interact with supraspinal signals and limb sensory feedback signals to produce different locomotor behaviors at different speeds, which are major unresolved problems in the field. The modeling evidence is compelling, especially in advancing our understanding of locomotion control mechanisms and will interest neuroscientists studying the neural control of movement.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Whole-body connectome of a segmented annelid larva

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Csaba Verasztó
   2. Sanja Jasek
   3. Martin Gühmann
   4. Luis Alberto Bezares-Calderón
   5. Elizabeth A Williams
   6. Réza Shahidi
   7. Gáspár Jékely

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study is an advancement towards the understanding of animal nervous system organization and evolution by providing an exceptional, high-quality and detailed description of the entire connectome of the 3-day larva of the marine annelid Platynereis dumerilii. It provides a wealth of data on cell type diversity and the modules that interconnect them. Its strength is the massive amount of high-quality data, although this is also partly a weakness as it can make the work difficult to read and digest scientifically. This work lays the foundations for studies on cell type diversity, segmental vs. intersegmental connectivity, and mushroom bodies, but will certainly also be of use to scientists interested in other nervous systems parts, their functions, and evolution.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Mapping patterns of thought onto brain activity during movie-watching

   This article has 23 authors:

   1. Raven Star Wallace
   2. Bronte Mckeown
   3. Ian Goodall-Halliwell
   4. Louis Chitiz
   5. Philippe Forest
   6. Theodoros Karapanagiotidis
   7. Bridget Mulholland
   8. Adam Turnbull
   9. Tamara Vanderwal
   10. Samyogita Hardikar
   11. Tirso RJ Gonzalez Alam
   12. Boris C Bernhardt
   13. Hao-Ting Wang
   14. Will Strawson
   15. Michael Milham
   16. Ting Xu
   17. Daniel S Margulies
   18. Giulia L Poerio
   19. Elizabeth Jefferies
   20. Jeremy I Skipper
   21. Jeffrey D Wammes
   22. Robert Leech
   23. Jonathan Smallwood

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study presents a valuable methodological advancement in quantifying thoughts over time. A novel multi-dimensional experience-sampling approach is presented, identifying data-driven patterns that the authors use to interrogate fMRI data collected during naturalistic movie-watching. The experimentation is inventive and the analyses carried out and results presented are convincing.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Perceptual and attentional impairments of conscious access involve distinct neural mechanisms despite equal task performance

    This article has 4 authors:

    1. Samuel Noorman
    2. Timo Stein
    3. Johannes Jacobus Fahrenfort
    4. Simon van Gaal

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      This important study provides new insights into the mechanisms that underlie perceptual and attentional impairments of conscious access. The paper presents convincing evidence of a dissociation between the early stages of low-level perception, which are impermeable to perceptual or attentional impairments, and subsequent stages of visual integration which are susceptible to perceptual impairment but resilient to attentional manipulations. This study will be of interest to scientists working on visual perception and consciousness.

    Reviewed by eLife