eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Spatially targeted inhibitory rhythms differentially affect neuronal integration

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Drew B Headley
   2. Benjamin Latimer
   3. Adin Aberbach
   4. Satish S Nair

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study assesses through simulations how several features of local cortical circuits - interneuron subtypes, their specific targeting of dendritic compartments, and certain brain rhythms - together affect the integration of synaptic inputs by a pyramidal cell. Employing several carefully considered simulation setups they convincingly demonstrate that beta rhythms are best suited to modulate and control dendritic Ca-spikes while gamma rhythms affect their coupling to somatic spiking, or how basal inputs are directly integrated into somatic spikes. However, the baseline setup may be idealized for the generation of the events in question and it would be beneficial if the similarity to the in-vivo activity regime was demonstrated further. The results will be relevant for neuroscientists studying local circuits or developing more abstract theories at the systems level.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Task-dependent coarticulation of movement sequences

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Hari Teja Kalidindi
   2. Frederic Crevecoeur

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This valuable paper presents convincing evidence that changing the constraint of how long to stop at an intermediate target significantly influences the degree of coarticulation of two sequential reaching movements, as well as their response to mechanical perturbations. Using an optimal-control framework, the authors offer a normative explanation of how both co-articulated and separated sequential movement can be understood as an optimal solution to the task requirements.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Targeting plasmid-encoded proteins that contain immunoglobulin-like domains to combat antimicrobial resistance

   This article has 12 authors:

   1. Alejandro Prieto
   2. Luïsa Miró
   3. Yago Margolles
   4. Manuel Bernabeu
   5. David Salguero
   6. Susana Merino
   7. Joan Tomas
   8. Juan Alberto Corbera
   9. Anna Perez-Bosque
   10. Mario Huttener
   11. Luis Ángel Fernández
   12. Antonio Juarez

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important and novel study addresses the challenge of antimicrobial resistance by targeting plasmid proteins that interfere with plasmid transfer as a strategy to limit the spread of antibiotic-resistance genes. The evidence presented and the integration of two approaches to tackle antimicrobial resistance is convincing. This work will interest those working on plasmid transfer and antimicrobial resistance.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Pervasive relaxed selection on spermatogenesis genes coincident with the evolution of polygyny in gorillas

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Jacob D. Bowman
   2. Neide Silva
   3. Erik Schüftan
   4. Joana M. Almeida
   5. Rion Brattig-Correia
   6. Raquel A. Oliveira
   7. Frank Tüttelmann
   8. David Enard
   9. Paulo Navarro-Costa
   10. Vincent J. Lynch

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important work reports that genome-wide patterns of relaxed purifying selection on genes involved in male fertility may represent a response to the reduced sperm competition in the gorillas' mating system. However, the evidence supporting the conclusion is incomplete and needs to be strengthened. This work will be of interest to researchers working on evolution and reproductive biology.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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