eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Biocalcification in porcelaneous foraminifera

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Zofia Dubicka
   2. Jarosław Tyszka
   3. Agnieszka Pałczyńska
   4. Michelle Höhne
   5. Jelle Bijma
   6. Max Jense
   7. Nienke Klerks
   8. Ulf Bickmeyer

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This manuscript provides important information on the calcification process, especially the properties and formation of freshly formed tests (the foraminiferan shells), in the miliolid foraminiferan species Pseudolachlanella eburnea. The evidence from the high-quality SEM images is convincing although the fluorescence images only provide indirect support for the calcification process.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Human pannexin 1 channel is not phosphorylated by Src tyrosine kinase at Tyr199 and Tyr309

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Zheng Ruan
   2. Junuk Lee
   3. Yangyang Li
   4. Juan Du
   5. Wei Lü

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The current manuscript re-examines an established claim in the literature that human PANX-1 is regulated by Src kinase phosphorylation at two tyrosine residues, Y199 and Y309. This issue is important for our understanding of Pannexin channel regulation. The authors present an extensive series of experiments that fail to detect PANX-1 phosphorylation at these sites. Although the authors' approach is more rigorous than the previous studies, this work relies primarily on negative results that are not unambiguously definitive; the work nonetheless provides a compelling reason for the field to reexamine conclusions drawn in earlier studies.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Human DCP1 is crucial for mRNA decapping and possesses paralog-specific gene regulating functions

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Ting-Wen Chen
   2. Hsiao-Wei Liao
   3. Michelle Noble
   4. Jing-Yi Siao
   5. Yu-Hsuan Cheng
   6. Wei-Chung Chiang
   7. Yi-Tzu Lo
   8. Chung-Te Chang

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study attempts to understand the functional roles of the human DCP1 paralogs in regulating RNA decay by DCP2. Using a combination of cellular-based assays and in vitro assays, the authors conclude that DCP1a/b plays a role in regulating DCP2 activity. While this revised version presents some new and interesting observations on human DCP1, the underlying data to support its claims remain incomplete. Overall, these results will be useful to the RNA community.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. CoCoNuTs are a diverse subclass of Type IV restriction systems predicted to target RNA

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Ryan T Bell
   2. Harutyun Sahakyan
   3. Kira S Makarova
   4. Yuri I Wolf
   5. Eugene V Koonin

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This paper marks a fundamental advance in our understanding of prokaryotic Type IV restriction systems. The authors provide an encyclopedic overview of a hitherto uncharacterized branch of these systems, which they name CoCoNuTs, for coiled-coil nuclease tandems. They provide compelling evidence that these nucleases target RNA and are part of an echeloned defense response following viral infection. This article will be of great interest to scientists studying prokaryotic immunity mechanisms, as well as broadly to protein scientists engaged in the analysis, classification, and functional annotation of the proteome of life.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Chemoproteomics validates selective targeting of Plasmodium M1 alanyl aminopeptidase as an antimalarial strategy

   This article has 18 authors:

   1. Carlo Giannangelo
   2. Matthew P Challis
   3. Ghizal Siddiqui
   4. Rebecca Edgar
   5. Tess R Malcolm
   6. Chaille T Webb
   7. Nyssa Drinkwater
   8. Natalie Vinh
   9. Christopher Macraild
   10. Natalie Counihan
   11. Sandra Duffy
   12. Sergio Wittlin
   13. Shane M Devine
   14. Vicky M Avery
   15. Tania De Koning-Ward
   16. Peter Scammells
   17. Sheena McGowan
   18. Darren J Creek

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The manuscript makes an important contribution to antimalarial drug discovery, utilizing diverse systems biology methodologies. It focuses on an improved M1 metalloprotease inhibitor and provides compelling evidence for the utility of chemoproteomics in pinpointing PfA-M1 targeting. Additionally, metabolomic analysis reveals specific alterations in the final steps of hemoglobin breakdown. These findings highlight the potential of the developed methodology not only for PfA-M1 targeting but also for other inhibitors targeting various malarial proteins or pathways.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Mesoscale functional organization and connectivity of color, disparity, and naturalistic texture in human second visual area

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Hailin Ai
   2. Weiru Lin
   3. Chengwen Liu
   4. Nihong Chen
   5. Peng Zhang

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study builds on previous findings showing modular organisation of primate visual cortical areas by presenting important results about the cortical processing of colour, disparity and naturalistic textures in the human visual cortex at the spatial scale of cortical layers and columns using state-of-the-art high-resolution fMRI methods at ultra-high magnetic field strength (7 T). Solid evidence supports an interesting layer-specific informational connectivity analysis to infer information flow across early visual areas for processing disparity and color signals. While the question of how the modularity of representation relates to cortical hierarchical processing is interesting, the findings that texture does not map onto previously established columnar architecture in V2 is suggestive. The successful application of high-resolution fMRI methods to study the functional organization along cortical columns and layers is relevant to a broad readership interested in general neuroscience.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Daptomycin forms a stable complex with phosphatidylglycerol for selective uptake to bacterial membrane

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Pragyansree Machhua
   2. Vignesh Gopalakrishnan Unnithan
   3. Yu Liu
   4. Yiping Jiang
   5. Lingfeng Zhang
   6. Zhihong Guo

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study describes the molecular mechanism of daptomycin insertion into bacterial membranes. The authors provide solid in vitro evidence for the early events of daptomycin interaction with phospholipid headgroups and stronger, specific interaction with phosphatidylglycerol. This work will be of interest to bacterial membrane biologists and biochemists working in the antimicrobial resistance field.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Factorized visual representations in the primate visual system and deep neural networks

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Jack W Lindsey
   2. Elias B Issa

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The study makes a valuable empirical contribution to our understanding of visual processing in primates and deep neural networks, with a specific focus on the concept of factorization. The analyses provide convincing evidence that high factorization scores are correlated with neural predictivity. This work will be of interest to systems neuroscientists studying vision and could inspire further research that ultimately may lead to better models of or a better understanding of the brain.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. A non-conducting role of the Cav1.4 Ca2+ channel drives homeostatic plasticity at the cone photoreceptor synapse

   This article has 14 authors:

   1. J Wesley Maddox
   2. Gregory J Ordemann
   3. Juan AM de la Rosa Vázquez
   4. Angie Huang
   5. Christof Gault
   6. Serena R Wisner
   7. Kate Randall
   8. Daiki Futagi
   9. Nihal A Salem
   10. Dayne Mayfield
   11. Boris V Zemelman
   12. Steven DeVries
   13. Mrinalini Hoon
   14. Amy Lee

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     Based on analyses of retinae from genetically modified mice, and from wild-type ground squirrel and macaque, employing microscopic imaging, electrophysiology, and pharmacological manipulations, this valuable study on the role of Cav1.4 calcium channels in cone photoreceptor cells (i) shows that the expression of a Cav1.4 variant lacking calcium conductivity supports the development of cone synapses beyond what is observed in the complete absence of Cav1.4, and (ii) indicates that the cone pathway can partially operate even without calcium flux through Cav1.4 channels, thus preserving behavioral responses under bright light. The evidence for the function of Cav1.4 protein in synapse development is convincing and in agreement with a closely related earlier study by the same authors on rod photoreceptors. The mechanism of compensation of Cav1.4 loss by Cav3 remains unclear but appears to involve post-transcriptional processes. As congenital Cav1.4 dysfunction can cause stationary night blindness, this work relates to a wide range of neuroscience topics, from synapse biology to neuro-ophthalmology.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Visual working memories are abstractions of percepts

    This article has 2 authors:

    1. Ziyi Duan
    2. Clayton E Curtis

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife assessment

      This paper provides valuable insights into the neural substrates of human working memory. Through clever experimental design and rigorous analyses, the paper provides compelling evidence that the working memory representation of stimulus orientation is a reformatted version of the presented stimulus, though more work is needed to establish more generally that visual working memories are abstractions of percepts. This work will be of broad interest to cognitive neuroscientists working on the neural bases of visual perception and memory.

    Reviewed by eLife