eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Altering the redox status of Chlamydia trachomatis directly impacts its developmental cycle progression

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Vandana Singh
   2. Scot P Ouellette

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     In this valuable study, the authors propose a model wherein the bacterial redox state plays a crucial role in the differentiation of Chlamydia trachomatis into elementary and reticulate bodies. They provide solid evidence to argue that a highly oxidising environment favours the formation of elementary bodies while a reducing condition slows down development. Overall, the study convincingly demonstrates that Chlamydial redox states play a role in differentiation, an observation that may have implications for the study of other bacterial systems.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Reprogramming of host energy metabolism mediated by the TNF-iNOS-HIF-1α axis plays a key role in host resistance to Plasmodium infection

   This article has 12 authors:

   1. Kely C Matteucci
   2. Nathalia PS Leite
   3. Patricia A Assis
   4. Isabella C Hirako
   5. Francielle Pioto
   6. Ogooluwa Ojelabi
   7. Juliana E Toller-kawahisa
   8. Leonardo G Vaz
   9. Diego L Costa
   10. João S Da silva
   11. José C Alves-Filho
   12. Ricardo T Gazzinelli

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study examines the role of TNF in modulating energy metabolism during parasite infection. The authors perform an elegant set of studies, however the evidence supporting the major claims of the manuscript is incomplete, particularly in highlighting a direct role for GLUT1 in monocytes. This work integrates an interesting set of observations that will be of interest to the Plasmodium and pathogenesis communities with an expanded set of experiments.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. The impact of different antimicrobial exposures on the gut microbiome in the ARMORD observational study

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Leon Peto
   2. Nicola Fawcett
   3. Musaiwale M Kamfose
   4. Claire Scarborough
   5. Andy Peniket
   6. Robert Danby
   7. Timothy EA Peto
   8. Derrick W Crook
   9. Martin J Llewelyn
   10. Ann Sarah Walker

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study offers a valuable assessment of the impact of antibiotics on the human gut microbiota across diverse observational cohorts. The findings presented are convincing, despite the observational design and residual confounding that may still contribute to discrepancies between the cross-sectional and longitudinal data. The work is relevant for researchers and clinicians interested in antimicrobial resistance and the impact of antibiotics on the host.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Changes in local mineral homeostasis facilitate the formation of benign and malignant testicular microcalcifications

   This article has 18 authors:

   1. Ida Marie Boisen
   2. Nadia Krarup Knudsen
   3. John E Nielsen
   4. Ireen Kooij
   5. Mathilde Louise Bagger
   6. Jovanna Kaludjerovic
   7. Peter O'Shaughnessy
   8. Peter W Andrews
   9. Noriko Ide
   10. Birgitte G Toft
   11. Anders Juul
   12. Arnela Mehmedbasic
   13. Anne Jørgensen
   14. Lee B Smith
   15. Richard Norman
   16. Ewa Rajpert-De Meyts
   17. Beate Lanske
   18. Martin Blomberg Jensen

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study reports the link between a disruption in testicular mineral (phosphate) homeostasis, FGF23 expression, and Sertoli cell dysfunction. The data supporting the conclusion are solid. This work will be of interest to biomedical researchers working on testis biology and male infertility. The assessment is based on the editors' critical evaluation of the authors' responses.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. The Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex pangenome is small and shaped by sub-lineage-specific regions of difference

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Mahboobeh Behruznia
   2. Maximillian Marin
   3. Daniel J Whiley
   4. Maha Reda Farhat
   5. Jonathan C Thomas
   6. Maria Rosa Domingo-Sananes
   7. Conor J Meehan

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This useful study analyzed 335 Mycobacterium tuberculosis Complex genomes and found that MTBC has a closed pangenome with few accessory genes. The research provides solid evidence for gene presence-absence patterns which support the appending conclusions however, the main criticism regarding the dominance of genome reduction remains.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Dimer-monomer transition defines a hyper-thermostable peptidoglycan hydrolase mined from bacterial proteome by lysin-derived antimicrobial peptide-primed screening

   This article has 12 authors:

   1. Li Zhang
   2. Fen Hu
   3. Zirong Zhao
   4. Xinfeng Li
   5. Mingyue Zhong
   6. Jiajun He
   7. Fangfang Yao
   8. Xiaomei Zhang
   9. Yuxuan Mao
   10. Hongping Wei
   11. Jin He
   12. Hang Yang

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This valuable study explores a new strategy of lysin-derived antimicrobial peptide-primed screening to find peptidoglycan hydrolases from bacterial proteomes. Using this strategy, the authors identified five peptidoglycan hydrolases from Acinetobacter baumannii, which they tested on various Gram-positive and Gram-negative pathogens for antimicrobial activity. The revised manuscript addressed most of the prior concerns, and the data presented are solid and will be of interest to microbiologists.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Habitat fragmentation mediates the mechanisms underlying long-term climate-driven thermophilization in birds

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Juan Liu
   2. Morgan W Tingley
   3. Qiang Wu
   4. Peng Ren
   5. Tinghao Jin
   6. Ping Ding
   7. Xingfeng Si

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This fundamental study substantially advances our understanding of how habitat fragmentation and climate change jointly influence bird community thermophilization in a fragmented island system. The authors provide convincing evidence using appropriate and validated methodologies to examine how island area and isolation affect the colonization of warm-adapted species and the extinction of cold-adapted species. This study is of high interest to ecologists and conservation biologists, as it provides insight into how ecosystems and communities respond to climate change.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Ih block reveals separation of timescales in pyloric rhythm response to temperature changes in Cancer borealis

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Kyra Schapiro
   2. JD Rittenberg
   3. Max Kenngott
   4. Eve Marder

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important study investigates neurobiological mechanisms underlying the maintenance of stable, functionally appropriate rhythmic motor patterns during changing environmental conditions - temperature in this study in the crab Cancer borealis stomatogastric central neural pattern generating circuits producing the rhythmic pyloric motor pattern, which is naturally subjected to temperature perturbations over a substantial range. The authors present compelling evidence that the neuronal hyperpolarization-activated inward current (Ih), known to contribute to rhythm control, plays a vital role in the ability of these circuits to appropriately adjust the frequency of rhythmic neural activity in a smooth monotonic fashion while maintaining the relative timing of different phases of the activity pattern that determines proper functional motor coordination transiently and persistently to temperature perturbations. This study will be of interest to neurobiologists studying rhythmic motor circuits and systems and their physiological adaptations.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Sequential replacement of PSD95 subunits in postsynaptic supercomplexes is slowest in the cortex

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Katie Morris
   2. Edita Bulovaite
   3. Takeshi Kaizuka
   4. Sebastian Schnorrenberg
   5. Candace T Adams
   6. Noboru Komiyama
   7. Lorena Mendive-Tapia
   8. Seth GN Grant
   9. Mathew H Horrocks

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important study explores how cells maintain subcellular structures in the face of constant protein turnover, focusing on neurons, whose synapses must be kept stable over long periods of time for memory storage. Using proteins from knock-in mice expressing tagged variants of the synaptic scaffold protein PSD95, nanobodies, and multiple imaging methods, there is compelling evidence that PSD95 proteins form complexes at synapses in which single protein copies are sequentially replaced over time. This happens at different rates in different synapse types and is slowest in areas where PSD95 lifetime is the longest and long-term memories are stored. While of general relevance to cell biology, these findings are of particular interest to neuroscientists because they support the hypothesis put forward by Francis Crick that stable synapses, and hence stable long-term memories, can be maintained in the face of short protein lifetimes by sequential replacement of individual subunits in synaptic protein complexes.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Microstructural asymmetries of the planum temporale predict functional lateralization of auditory-language processing

    This article has 13 authors:

    1. Peipei Qin
    2. Qiuhui Bi
    3. Zeya Guo
    4. Liyuan Yang
    5. Haokun Li
    6. Peng Li
    7. Xinyu Liang
    8. Junhao Luo
    9. Xiangyu Kong
    10. Yirong Xiong
    11. Bo Sun
    12. Sebastian Ocklenburg
    13. Gaolang Gong

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      The authors studied the relationship between structural and functional lateralization in the planum temporale region of the brain, whilst also considering the morphological presentation of a single or duplicated Heschl's gyrus. The analyses are compelling due to a large sample size, inter-rater reliability, and corrections for multiple comparisons. The associations in this important work might serve as a reference for future targeted-studies on brain lateralization.

    Reviewed by eLife