eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Reconstructing voice identity from noninvasive auditory cortex recordings

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Charly Lamothe
   2. Etienne Thoret
   3. Régis Trapeau
   4. Bruno L Giordano
   5. Julien Sein
   6. Sylvain Takerkart
   7. Stephane Ayache
   8. Thierry Artieres
   9. Pascal Belin

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study used deep neural networks (DNN) to reconstruct voice information (viz., speaker identity), from fMRI responses in the auditory cortex and temporal voice areas, and assessed the representational content in these areas with decoding. A DNN-derived feature space approximated the neural representation of speaker identity-related information. The findings are valuable and the approach solid, yielding insight into how a specific model architecture can be used to relate the latent spaces of neural data and auditory stimuli to each other.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. A Kv2 inhibitor combination reveals native neuronal conductances consistent with Kv2/KvS heteromers

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Robert G Stewart
   2. Matthew James Marquis
   3. Sooyeon Jo
   4. Brandon J Harris
   5. Aman S Aberra
   6. Verity Cook
   7. Zachary Whiddon
   8. Vladimir Yarov-Yarovoy
   9. Michael Ferns
   10. Jon T Sack

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     Some delayed rectifier currents in neurons are formed by the combination of Kv2 and silent subunits, KvS. However, we lack the tools to identify these heteromeric channels in vivo. In this important study by the Sack group, the authors identify a pharmacological tool that can reveal the presence of KvS subunits as components of the delayed rectifier potassium currents in selected neurons. The experimental evidence presented in the manuscript is compelling and represents a significant advance that should be of interest to a wide community of neuroscientists and channel physiologists.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Human EEG and artificial neural networks reveal disentangled representations and processing timelines of object real-world size and depth in natural images

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Zitong Lu
   2. Julie Golomb

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study combines EEG, neural networks and multivariate pattern analysis to show that real-world size, retinal size and real-world depth are represented at different latencies. The evidence presented is convincing and the work will be of broader interest to the experimental and computational vision community.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. The TTLL10 polyglycylase is stimulated by tubulin glutamylation and inhibited by polyglycylation

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Steven W Cummings
   2. Yan Li
   3. Jeffrey O Spector
   4. Christopher Kim
   5. Antonina Roll-Mecak

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     In their study, Cummings et al. provide a valuable advance in understanding the hierarchical regulation of tubulin polyglycylation, demonstrating that TTLL8 initiates monoglycylation which is a prerequisite for TTLL10-mediated polyglycylation. The evidence supporting these mechanistic insights is solid, relying on a compelling combination of purified biochemical assays, mass spectrometry, and microscopy. The work is further valued for revealing an unexpected crosstalk between polyglycylation and polyglutamylation that ensures a balanced post-translational modification landscape for proper cilia function.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. An Intranet of Things approach for adaptable control of behavioral and navigation-based experiments

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. John C Bowler
   2. George Zakka
   3. Hyun Choong Yong
   4. Wenke Li
   5. Bovey Rao
   6. Zhenrui Liao
   7. James B Priestley
   8. Attila Losonczy

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     Bowler et al. present a software/hardware system for behavioral control of navigation-based virtual reality experiments, particularly suited for pairing with 2-photon imaging but applicable to a variety of techniques. This system represents a valuable contribution to the field of behavioral and systems neuroscience, as it provides a standardized, easy to implement, and flexible system that could be adopted across multiple laboratories. The authors provide compelling evidence of the functionality of their system by reporting benchmark tests and demonstrating hippocampal activity patterns consistent with standards in the field. This work will be of interest to systems neuroscientists looking to integrate flexible head-fixed behavioral control with neural data acquisition.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Evolutionary rescue of spherical mreB deletion mutants of the rod-shape bacterium Pseudomonas fluorescens SBW25

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. Paul Richard J Yulo
   2. Nicolas Desprat
   3. Monica L Gerth
   4. Barbara Ritzl-Rinkenberger
   5. Andrew D Farr
   6. Yunhao Liu
   7. Xue-Xian Zhang
   8. Michael Miller
   9. Felipe Cava
   10. Paul B Rainey
   11. Heather L Hendrickson

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study combines convincing evolution experiments with molecular and genetic techniques to study how a genetic lesion in MreB that causes rod-shaped cells to become spherical, with concomitant deleterious fitness effects, can be rescued by natural selection. The detailed mechanistic investigation increases our understanding of how mreB contributes to cell wall synthesis and shows how compensatory mutations may reestablish its homogeneity.

   Reviewed by eLife, Arcadia Science

7. Intracellular expression of a fluorogenic DNA aptamer using retron Eco2

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Mahesh A Vibhute
   2. Corbin Machatzke
   3. Saskia Krümpel
   4. Malte Dirks
   5. Katrin Bigler
   6. Daniel Summerer
   7. Hannes Mutschler

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study presents a method for expressing single-stranded DNA fluorescent aptamers in E. coli using a retron-based strategy. The evidence supporting the successful expression and folding of DNA aptamers is solid, with clear demonstration of fluorescence after extraction, though the aptamers do not function in living cells. The method represents an important technical advance that will likely become standard for DNA aptamer expression in bacterial systems.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Conservation of the cooling agent binding pocket within the TRPM subfamily

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Kate Huffer
   2. Matthew CS Denley
   3. Elisabeth V Oskoui
   4. Kenton J Swartz

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     In this valuable study, Huffer et al posit that non-cold sensing members of the TRPM subfamily of ion channels (e.g., TRPM2, TRPM4, TRPM5) contain a binding pocket for icilin that overlaps with the one found in the cold-activated TRPM8 channel. After examining a body of TRP channel cryo-EM structures to identify the conserved site, this study presents convincing electrophysiological evidence supporting the presence of an icilin binding pocket within TRPM4. This study shows that icilin has modulatory effects on the TRPM4 channel and will be of direct interest to those working in the TRP-channel field, but it also has implications for studies of somatosensation, taste, as well as pharmacological targeting of the TRPM subfamily.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Adventitial fibroblasts direct smooth muscle cell-state transition in pulmonary vascular disease

   This article has 25 authors:

   1. Slaven Crnkovic
   2. Helene Thekkekara Puthenparampil
   3. Shirin Mulch
   4. Valentina Biasin
   5. Nemanja Radic
   6. Jochen Wilhelm
   7. Marek Bartkuhn
   8. Ehsan Bonyadi Rad
   9. Alicja Wawrzen
   10. Ingrid Matzer
   11. Ankita Mitra
   12. Ryan D Leib
   13. Bence Miklos Nagy
   14. Anita Sahu-Osen
   15. Francesco Valzano
   16. Natalie Bordag
   17. Matthias Evermann
   18. Konrad Hoetzenecker
   19. Andrea Olschewski
   20. Senka Ljubojevic-Holzer
   21. Malgorzata Wygrecka
   22. Kurt Stenmark
   23. Leigh M Marsh
   24. Vinicio de Jesus Perez
   25. Grazyna Kwapiszewska

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This fundamental research conducted a molecular comparison between smooth muscle cells and adjacent fibroblast cells within lung blood vessels affected by pulmonary arterial hypertension. The study identified distinct disease-related states in each cell type and provided deeper insights into their interactions and communication. While certain conclusions should be interpreted with caution due to inherent methodological limitations, the study's findings remain convincing and robust. This is supported by the use of advanced and complementary techniques, as well as the rare isolation of diseased lung blood vessel cells from the same donor, enabling direct comparison.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. A synthetic method to assay polycystin channel biophysics

    This article has 4 authors:

    1. Megan Larmore
    2. Orhi Esarte Palomero
    3. Neha Kamat
    4. Paul G DeCaen

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      The authors have developed a valuable approach that employs cell-free expression to reconstitute ion channels into giant unilamellar vesicles for biophysical characterisation. The work is convincing and will be of particular interest to those studying ion channels that primarily occur in organelles and are therefore not amenable to be studied by more traditional methods.

    Reviewed by eLife