eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Alternative Splicing Across the Tree of Life: A Comparative Study

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Rebeca de la Fuente
   2. Wladimiro Díaz-Villanueva
   3. Vicente Arnau
   4. Andrés Moya

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     The authors examined the frequency of alternative splicing across prokaryotes and eukaryotes and found that the rate of alternative splicing varies with taxonomic groups and genome coding content. This solid work, based on nearly 1,500 high-quality genome assemblies, relies on a novel genome-scale metric that enables cross-species comparisons and that quantifies the extent to which coding sequences generate multiple mRNA transcripts via alternative splicing. This timely study provides an important basis for improving our general understanding of genome architecture and the evolution of life forms.

   Reviewed by eLife, Arcadia Science

2. On the role of VP3-PI3P interaction in birnavirus endosomal membrane targeting

   This article has 23 authors:

   1. Flavia A Zanetti
   2. Ignacio Fernandez
   3. Eduard Baquero
   4. Pablo Guardado-Calvo
   5. Andres Ferrino-Iriarte
   6. Sarah Dubois
   7. Etienne Morel
   8. Victoria Alfonso
   9. Milton Osmar Aguilera
   10. María E Celayes
   11. Luis Mariano Polo
   12. Laila Suhaiman
   13. Vanesa V Galassi
   14. Maria V Chiarpotti
   15. Carolina Allende-Ballestero
   16. Javier M Rodriguez
   17. Jose R Castón
   18. Diego Lijavetzky
   19. Oscar Taboga
   20. María I Colombo
   21. Mario Del Pópolo
   22. Félix A Rey
   23. Laura Ruth Delgui

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     Zanetti et al use convincing biophysical and cellular assays to investigate the interaction of the birnavirus VP3 protein with the early endosome lipid PI3P. The study provides valuable insights and will be of interest to virologists. In future studies, it would be interesting to demonstrate that VP3-PIP3P is a specific interaction and not a general interaction with other PIPs.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Protection afforded by post-infection SARS-CoV-2 vaccine doses: A cohort study in Shanghai

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Bo Zheng
   2. Bronner P Gonçalves
   3. Pengfei Deng
   4. Weibing Wang
   5. Jie Tian
   6. Xueyao Liang
   7. Ye Yao
   8. Caoyi Xue

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important work by Zheng and colleagues uses a large cohort database from Shanghai to identify that post-infection vaccination among previously vaccinated individuals provides significant low to moderate protection against re-infection. The evidence supporting the conclusion is convincing with some limitations, e.g., lack of symptom severity as an outcome, and no inclusion of time since infection as an independent variable). This study will be of interest to vaccinologists, public health officials and clinicians.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. High-throughput expansion microscopy enables scalable super-resolution imaging

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. John H Day
   2. Catherine M Della Santina
   3. Pema Maretich
   4. Alexander L Auld
   5. Kirsten K Schnieder
   6. Tay Shin
   7. Edward S Boyden
   8. Laurie A Boyer

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study develops a high throughput version of expansion microscopy that can be performed in 96-well plates. The engineered technology is convincing and compatible with standard microplates and automated microscopes and thus will be of broad interest. The application to hiPCS-derived cardiomyocytes treated with doxorubicin provides a solid proof-of-concept demonstrating the potential for high-throughput analysis.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. High-frequency terahertz stimulation alleviates neuropathic pain by inhibiting the pyramidal neuron activity in the anterior cingulate cortex of mice

   This article has 14 authors:

   1. Wenyu Peng
   2. Pan Wang
   3. Chaoyang Tan
   4. Han Zhao
   5. Kun Chen
   6. Huaxing Si
   7. Yuchen Tian
   8. Anxin Lou
   9. Zhi Zhu
   10. Yifang Yuan
   11. Kaijie Wu
   12. Chao Chang
   13. Yuanming Wu
   14. Tao Chen

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     Peng et al. reported important findings that 36THz high-frequency terahertz stimulation (HFTS) could suppress the activity of pyramidal neurons by enhancing the conductance of voltage-gated potassium channels. The significance of the findings in this paper is that chronic pain remains a significant medical problem, and there is a need to find non-pharmacological interventions for treatment. The authors present convincing evidence that high-frequency stimulation of the anterior cingulate cortex can alter neuronal activity and improve sensory pain behaviors in mice.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Unraveling the impact of congenital deafness on individual brain organization

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Lenia Amaral
   2. Xiaosha Wang
   3. Yanchao Bi
   4. Ella Striem-Amit

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study presents valuable data on the increase in individual differences in functional connectivity with the auditory cortex in individuals with congenital/early-onset hearing loss compared to individuals with normal hearing. The evidence supporting the study's claims is convincing, although additional work using resting-state functional connectivity in the future could further strengthen the results. The work will be of interest to neuroscientists working on brain plasticity and may have implications for the design of interventions and compensatory strategies.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Recording γ-secretase activity in living mouse brains

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Steven S Hou
   2. Yuya Ikegawa
   3. Yeseo Kwon
   4. Natalia Wieckiewicz
   5. Mei CQ Houser
   6. Brianna Lundin
   7. Brian J Bacskai
   8. Oksana Berezovska
   9. Masato Maesako

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     Hou and colleagues describe the the use of a previously characterized FRET sensor for use in determining gamma secretase activity in the brain of living mice. In an approach that targeted the sensor to neurons, they observe patterns of fluorescent sensor readout suggesting clustered regions of secretase activity. These results once validated would be valuable in the field of Alzheimer's Disease research, yet further validation of the approach is required, as the current evidence provided is inadequate to support the conclusions.

   Reviewed by eLife, Arcadia Science

8. Decoding contextual influences on auditory perception from primary auditory cortex

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Bernhard Englitz
   2. Sahar Akram
   3. Mounya Elhilali
   4. Shihab Shamma

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study explores the neural basis for a well known auditory illusion, often utilized in movie soundtracks, in which a sequence of two complex tones can be perceived as either rising or falling in pitch depending on the context in which they are presented. Convincing single-neuron data and analyses are presented to show that correlates of these pitch-direction changes are found in the ferret primary auditory cortex. While these findings provide an interesting link between cortical activity and perception, the manuscript could be clearer on the wider implications of the failure of traditional decoding models to account for these results.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Short-term social isolation acts on hypothalamic neurons to promote social behavior in a sex- and context-dependent manner

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Xin Zhao
   2. Yurim Chae
   3. Destiny Smith
   4. Valerie Chen
   5. Dylan DeFelipe
   6. Joshua W Sokol
   7. Archana Sadangi
   8. Katherine Tschida

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study substantially advances our understanding of the neural circuits that regulate social behavior by identifying a population of hypothalamic neurons in the preoptic area that promote social interactions following short-term isolation. The evidence supporting the authors' claims is solid, with well-designed experiments using validated activity-dependent tagging and manipulation methods, though some differences in outcomes between experiments highlight limitations of the tagging approach. The work will be of broad interest to neuroscientists studying social behavior, neural circuit function, and hypothalamic mechanisms and will represent a meaningful contribution to the field.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Formin-like 1β phosphorylation at S1086 is necessary for secretory polarized traffic of exosomes at the immune synapse in Jurkat T lymphocytes

    This article has 9 authors:

    1. Javier Ruiz-Navarro
    2. Sara Fernández-Hermira
    3. Irene Sanz-Fernández
    4. Pablo Barbeito
    5. Alfonso Navarro-Zapata
    6. Antonio Pérez-Martínez
    7. Francesc R Garcia-Gonzalo
    8. Víctor Calvo
    9. Manuel Izquierdo Pastor

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      This important study uses the Jurkat T cell model to study the role of Formin-like 1 β phosphorylation at S1086 on actin dynamics and exosome release at the immunological synapse. The evidence supporting these findings is compelling within the framework of the Jurkat model. As the Jurkat model is known to have a bias toward formin-mediated actin filament formation at the expense of Arp2/3-mediated branched F-actin foci observed in primary T cells, it will be beneficial in the future to confirm major findings in primary T cells.

    Reviewed by eLife