eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Insights into early animal evolution from the genome of the xenacoelomorph worm Xenoturbella bocki

   This article has 20 authors:

   1. Philipp H Schiffer
   2. Paschalis Natsidis
   3. Daniel J Leite
   4. Helen E Robertson
   5. François Lapraz
   6. Ferdinand Marlétaz
   7. Bastian Fromm
   8. Liam Baudry
   9. Fraser Simpson
   10. Eirik Høye
   11. Anne C Zakrzewski
   12. Paschalia Kapli
   13. Katharina J Hoff
   14. Steven Müller
   15. Martial Marbouty
   16. Heather Marlow
   17. Richard R Copley
   18. Romain Koszul
   19. Peter Sarkies
   20. Maximilian J Telford

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The authors provide a high quality genome of the xenacoelomorph worm Xenoturbella bocki and discuss its structure and evolution. Understanding the genomic structure of this group provides important insights into bilaterian evolution. The authors make a solid case that the data they present can support the placement of Xenacoelomorpha within the deuterostomes rather than as a sister group to all other bilaterians, but do not unequivocally reject the competing scenario.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Deep Mutagenesis of a Transporter for Uptake of a Non-Native Substrate Identifies Conformationally Dynamic Regions

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Heather J Ellis
   2. Matthew Chan
   3. Balaji Selvam
   4. Evan Walter
   5. Christine A Devlin
   6. Steven K Szymanski
   7. Loren Keith Henry
   8. Diwakar Shukla
   9. Erik Procko

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     Serotonin is an important neurotransmitter and its synaptic concentration is controlled by re-uptake by the sodium-coupled serotonin transporter SERT. The manuscript by Chan et al reports results from a systematic deep mutagenesis approach to study the surface expression and APP+ (5HT analogue) transport mechanism of the human serotonin transporter. The authors complement this experimental evidence with large-scale molecular simulations of the transporter in the presence of APP+. The use of deep mutagenesis and large-scale adaptive sampling simulations is impressive, and could contribute to understanding the structural requirements for folding and how transporters evolve to recognize different substrates.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Convergence of inputs from the basal ganglia with layer 5 of motor cortex and cerebellum in mouse motor thalamus

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Kevin P Koster
   2. S Murray Sherman

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This investigation marks an important advancement in our understanding of motor thalamus connectivity, illustrating a complex integration of inputs that reshapes previous models. The study utilizes compelling methodologies that expose a dynamic synaptic network, although the evidence of triple-input convergence on individual neurons and for multiple driver type inputs onto motor thalamic neurons remains incomplete. Despite this, the findings provide a persuasive rationale for revisiting our perceptions of the thalamic role in motor control, with a call for further studies to substantiate the breadth of these functional interactions.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. An atlas of brain-bone sympathetic neural circuits in mice

   This article has 14 authors:

   1. Vitaly Ryu
   2. Anisa Azatovna Gumerova
   3. Ronit Witztum
   4. Funda Korkmaz
   5. Liam Cullen
   6. Hasni Kannangara
   7. Ofer Moldavski
   8. Orly Barak
   9. Daria Lizneva
   10. Ki A Goosens
   11. Sarah Stanley
   12. Se-Min Kim
   13. Tony Yuen
   14. Mone Zaidi

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This fundamental work advances our understanding of the central coding and control mechanisms regulating sympathetic nervous system efferent signals to bone. The evidence supporting the conclusion is mostly convincing, although the inclusion of higher resolution images for certain data and further discussions would strengthen the study. This paper holds potential interest for skeletal biologists and neuroscientists who study the brain-bone sympathetic neural circuits.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Limited column formation in the embryonic growth plate implies divergent growth mechanisms during pre- and postnatal bone development

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Sarah Rubin
   2. Ankit Agrawal
   3. Anne Seewald
   4. Meng-Jia Lian
   5. Olivia Gottdenker
   6. Paul Villoutreix
   7. Adrian Baule
   8. Tomer Stern
   9. Elazar Zelzer

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The study presents a valuable finding on quantifying the orientation and organization of chondrocyte columns in the prenatal and postnatal growth plate cartilage using advanced 3D imaging and a sophisticated image analysis pipeline. The evidence supporting the authors' conclusions regarding the lack of columns in the fetal growth plate is considered inadequate due to technical caveats, inconsistencies in the data and corresponding model, and failure to correctly put the findings in context.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. White matter structural bases for phase accuracy during tapping synchronization

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Pamela Garcia-Saldivar
   2. Cynthia de León
   3. Felipe A Mendez Salcido
   4. Luis Concha
   5. Hugo Merchant

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This paper is valuable in that it provides a critical missing link between measures of structural connectivity and rhythmic tapping abilities, pointing to some interesting possibilities for how tapping synchronization is carried out. The methodology and findings are solid, and of interest to those studying the neural mechanisms of timing.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Insulator-based dielectrophoresis-assisted separation of insulin secretory vesicles

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Mahta Barekatain
   2. Yameng Liu
   3. Ashley Archambeau
   4. Vadim Cherezov
   5. Scott Fraser
   6. Kate L White
   7. Mark A Hayes

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This paper presents a new method for separating organelles in an unbiased way. The method is applied to the separation of distinct subpopulations of insulin vesicles. There are concerns around whether the vesicles measured are in fact insulin vesicles and whether the observed changes in vesicle populations upon glucose stimulation are biologically meaningful, and thus it is difficult to assess at this stage how well the technique performs. This paper is likely to be of wide interest to cell biologists studying a variety of compartments, as well as to researchers in the beta cell field.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Novel Nuclear Roles for Testis-Specific ACTL7A and ACTL7B Supported by In Vivo Characterizations and AI Facilitated In Silico Mechanistic Modeling with Implications for Epigenetic Regulation in Spermiogenesis

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Pierre Ferrer
   2. Srijana Upadhyay
   3. James J. Cai
   4. Tracy M. Clement

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This valuable study reports that actin-related proteins may be involved in transcriptional regulation during spermatogenesis. The supporting data remain incomplete, and more extensive disentanglement from the canonical role of these actin-related proteins and the experimental validation of in silico predictions are required. This work will be of interest to reproductive biologists and other researchers working on non-canonical roles of actin and actin-related proteins.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Comparison of Tug-of-War Models Assuming Moran versus Branching Process Population Dynamics

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Khanh N. Dinh
   2. Monika K. Kurpas
   3. Marek Kimmel

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study uses numerical simulations to characterize and compare variants of two widely used mathematical models and then applies those models to inferring evolutionary parameters from breast cancer data. The copious numerical results will be of some interest to mathematical biologists working with similar models. The finding that many breast cancer mutations are mildly deleterious is valuable but the evidence supporting this claim is incomplete because the mathematical modelling and statistical methods are insufficiently justified and inadequately validated.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. The holocephalan ratfish endoskeleton shares trabecular and areolar mineralization patterns, but not tesserae, with elasmobranchs little skate and catshark

    This article has 4 authors:

    1. Oghenevwogaga Joseph Atake
    2. Fidji Berio
    3. Melanie Debiais Thibaud
    4. B Frank Eames

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      This important study significantly advances our understanding of the skeleton of cartilaginous fishes by using a range of state of the art and complementary approaches to compare the skeleton amongst three cartilagenous fishes (catshark, little skate and ratfish). The evidence presented is compelling and likely to impact several fields of study.

    Reviewed by eLife