eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Goal-directed motor actions drive acetylcholine dynamics in sensory cortex

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. Jing Zou
   2. Jan Willem de Gee
   3. Zakir Mridha
   4. Simon Trinh
   5. Andrew Erskine
   6. Miao Jing
   7. Jennifer Yao
   8. Stefanie Walker
   9. Yulong Li
   10. Matthew McGinley
   11. Samuel Andrew Hires

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study provides important evidence that links acetylcholine responses in the sensory cortex to motor actions during perceptual tasks, rather than to rewards. The evidence for the association between acetylcholine responses and motor actions is solid, but does not demonstrate the causal link implied by the title and abstract. The manuscript would benefit from a more detailed description of results and methodologies. This study is of broad interest to the neuroscience field.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Cell cycle and age-related modulations of mouse chromosome stiffness

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Ning Liu
   2. Wenan Qiang
   3. Philip W Jordan
   4. John F Marko
   5. Huanyu Qiao

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable paper describes the stiffness of meiotic chromosomes in both oocytes and spermatocytes. The authors identify differences in stiffness between meiosis I and II chromosomes, as well as an age-dependent increase in stiffness in meiosis I (and meiosis II) chromosomes, results that are highly significant for the field of chromosome biology. The report is, however, mostly descriptive and the mechanisms underlying age-dependent changes in chromosome stiffness remain unclear. The evidence suggesting that changes in stiffness are independent of cohesin, which is known to deteriorate with age, is still incomplete.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. mirror determines the far posterior domain in butterfly wings

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Martik Chatterjee
   2. Xin Yi Yu
   3. Noah K Brady
   4. Connor Amendola
   5. Gabriel C Hatto
   6. Robert D Reed

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study provides evidence of a deeply conserved role for the gene Mirror in providing positional identity in the posterior part of butterfly and fly wings, despite increased morphological complexity of butterfly wings. The findings are solid for the field of evo-devo. However, the tools in butterflies are more limited than in Drosophila and it is more difficult to determine which specific cells are mutant and whether the effect of mutation is cell-intrinsic. The work will be of interest to evolutionary and developmental biologists working on insect wing evolution and the evolution of patterning more generally.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Improving rice drought tolerance through host-mediated microbiome selection

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Alex Styer
   2. Dean Pettinga
   3. Daniel Caddell
   4. Devin Coleman-Derr

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This valuable study reports on a series of artificial selection experiments for microbiomes that confer drought tolerance to rice plants. A major strength is the solid experimental design with multiple soils, which will likely guide others in designing their experiments, but the study has also shortcomings in that the rescuing effect is not benchmarked against healthy well-watered plants, the sterilized controls do not add much information, and the dispersal between inocula confounds the interpretation of the results. In addition, while the type of work presented here is a first step towards the eventual goal of plant microbiome engineering, that goal is still mainly an ambition. The abstract would benefit from this being made clear, and the presentation would overall benefit from more extensive consideration of recent developments in the field.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Functional characteristics and computational model of abundant hyperactive loci in the human genome

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Sanjarbek Hudaiberdiev
   2. Ivan Ovcharenko

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study explores the sequence characteristics and conservation of high-occupancy target loci, regions in the human genome such as promoters and enhancers that are bound by a multitude of transcription factors. The computational analyses presented in this study are solid. This study would be a helpful resource for researchers performing ChIP-seq based analyses of transcription factor binding.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Testing the state-dependent model of subsecond time perception against experimental evidence

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Pirathitha Ravichandran-Schmidt
   2. Joachim Hass

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This useful paper explores a mathematical model of subsecond time perception, testing potential neural mechanisms behind the linear psychophysical law, Weber's law, and dopaminergic modulation of subjective durations. The model employed readout units to decode an interval. Nevertheless, the work is incomplete and presented as data-driven, but there is no analysis of empirical data.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Discovery of the 1-naphthylamine biodegradation pathway reveals a broad-substrate-spectrum enzyme catalyzing 1-naphthylamine glutamylation

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Shu-Ting Zhang
   2. Shi-Kai Deng
   3. Tao Li
   4. Megan E Maloney
   5. De-Feng Li
   6. Jim C Spain
   7. Ning-Yi Zhou

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important work identifies a p. aeruginosa strain and enzyme that can degrade 1-naphthylamine, a harmful industrial pollutant. Data resulting from in vivo and structural approaches are compelling, but additional mutagenesis would further test and establish the broad substrate specificity of NpaA1. With this additional data, this paper would be of high interest to biologists and enzymologists studying biodegradation of industrial pollutants.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Loss of ninein interferes with osteoclast formation and causes premature ossification

   This article has 14 authors:

   1. Thierry Gilbert
   2. Camille Gorlt
   3. Merlin Barbier
   4. Benjamin Duployer
   5. Marianna Plozza
   6. Ophélie Dufrancais
   7. Laure-Elene Martet
   8. Elisa Dalbard
   9. Loelia Segot
   10. Christophe Tenailleau
   11. Laurence Haren
   12. Christel Vérollet
   13. Christiane Bierkamp
   14. Andreas Merdes

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This valuable study offers new insight into the role of centrosome protein ninein in skeletal development through an analysis of the skeletal phenotype of ninein-deficient mice. While there is solid evidence supporting the conclusion that the absence of ninein leads to transient skeletal abnormalities and a lasting reduction in osteoclastogenesis, the evidence to substantiate the claim that enhanced ossification is attributed to reduced osteoclast formation/activity is insufficient. This work will be of interest to scientists in bone biology and skeletal development field.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Reversions mask the contribution of adaptive evolution in microbiomes

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Paul A Torrillo
   2. Tami D Lieberman

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This valuable study addresses the interpretation of patterns of synonymous and nonsynonymous diversity in microbial genomes. The authors present solid theoretical and computational evidence that adaptive mutations that revert the amino acids to an earlier state can significantly impact the observed ratios of synonymous and nonsynonymous mutations in human commensal bacteria. This paper will be of interest to microbiologists with a background in evolution.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Endosomal sorting protein SNX4 limits synaptic vesicle docking and release

    This article has 5 authors:

    1. Josse Poppinga
    2. Nolan J Barrett
    3. L Niels Cornelisse
    4. Matthijs Verhage
    5. Jan RT van Weering

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      This important study presents a series of results aimed at uncovering the involvement of the endosomal sorting protein SNX4 in neurotransmitter release. While the evidence supporting the conclusions is solid, the molecular mechanisms remain unclear. This paper will be of interest to cell biologists and neurobiologists.

    Reviewed by eLife