eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Malaria parasite resistance to azithromycin is not readily transmitted by mosquitoes

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Hayley D. Buchanan
   2. Robyn McConville
   3. Lee M. Yeoh
   4. Michael F. Duffy
   5. Justin A. Boddey
   6. Geoffrey I. McFadden
   7. Christopher D. Goodman

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important work addressed the identifcation of antimalarial drug resistance mutations that do not readily transmit to new human hosts, focusing on azithromycin resistance. The technically challenging analyses of azithromycin-resistant parasites as they traverse the mosquito host and human liver are conducted using state-of-the-art tools, including humanized mice. While the claim regarding the lack of transmission by atovaquone-resistant P. berghei is convincing, the evidence for the lack of transmission by atovaquone-resistant P. falciparum is insufficient. This work will appeal to biologists and biomedical scientists in parasitology and drug discovery, offering insights into combating antimalarial drug resistance and understanding the fitness costs associated with drug-resistant parasites.

   Reviewed by eLife, Rapid Reviews Infectious Diseases

2. Modulation of α-synuclein aggregation amid diverse environmental perturbation

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Abdul Wasim
   2. Sneha Menon
   3. Jagannath Mondal

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study provides important biophysical insights into the molecular mechanism underlying the association of alpha-synuclein chains, which is essential for understanding the pathogenesis of Parkinson's disease. The data analysis is solid, and the methodology can help investigate other molecular processes involving intrinsically disordered proteins.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Root cap cell corpse clearance limits microbial colonization in Arabidopsis thaliana

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Nyasha Charura
   2. Ernesto Llamas
   3. Concetta De Quattro
   4. David Vilchez
   5. Moritz K Nowack
   6. Alga Zuccaro

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study investigated the involvement of programmed cell death (PCD) in Arabidopsis thaliana root cap cells and its effect on microbial colonization. The authors have reported the importance of timely corpse clearance in the root cap and a root cap-specific transcription factor in controlling microbial colonization by beneficial fungi. By demonstrating the connection between transcriptional control of PCD and microbial colonization, this study provides fundamental insights into how relationships are established and regulated at the root-microbiome interface. The strength of the evidence presented is convincing, providing a foundation for further research concerning the spatial and temporal dynamics of microbiome recruitment along the root axis.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes to study inflammation-induced aberrant calcium transient

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. Yuki Tatekoshi
   2. Chunlei Chen
   3. Jason Solomon Shapiro
   4. Hsiang-Chun Chang
   5. Malorie Blancard
   6. Davi M Lyra-Leite
   7. Paul W Burridge
   8. Matthew Feinstein
   9. Richard D'Aquila
   10. Priscilla Hsue
   11. Hossein Ardehali

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This useful study focuses on heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpFE), common in patients with HIV. Researchers used induced human pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (hiPSC-CMs) to stimulate HEFpEF) and found that inflammatory cytokines alter Ca2+ transients. SGLT2 inhibitors and mitochondrial antioxidants reversed this effect. While the study is incomplete and preliminary, its strength lies in introducing hiPSC-CMs as a tool for investigating HFpEF mechanisms. A major weakness was found to be limited functional assessment relevant to HFpEF.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. An in vitro approach reveals molecular mechanisms underlying endocrine disruptor-induced epimutagenesis

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Jake D Lehle
   2. Yu-Huey Lin
   3. Amanda Gomez
   4. Laura Chavez
   5. John R McCarrey

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important study, characterizing the epigenetic and transcriptomic response of a variety of cell types representative of somatic, germline, and pluripotent cells to BPS, reveals the cell type-specific changes in DNA methylation and the relationship with the genome sequence. The findings are convincing and provide a basis for future analyses in vivo. This work should be of interest to biomedical researchers who work on epigenetic reprogramming and epigenetic inheritance.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. DHCR24-mediated sterol homeostasis during spermatogenesis is required for sperm mitochondrial sheath formation and impacts male fertility over time

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Sona Relovska
   2. Huafeng Wang
   3. Xinbo Zhang
   4. Pablo Fernández-Tussy
   5. Kyung Jo Jeong
   6. Jungmin Choi
   7. Yajaira Suárez
   8. Jeffrey G. McDonald
   9. Carlos Fernández-Hernando
   10. Jean-Ju Chung

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This useful study reports data supporting the importance of sterol homeostasis in sperm development and consequently male reproduction. While most of the data are supportive of the conclusion, some remain incomplete and need more experimental verification. This work would be of interest to basic researchers and clinicians working on sterol homeostasis and male fertility.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. High-resolution awake mouse fMRI at 14 tesla

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. David Hike
   2. Xiaochen Liu
   3. Zeping Xie
   4. Bei Zhang
   5. Sangcheon Choi
   6. Xiaoqing Alice Zhou
   7. Andy Liu
   8. Alyssa Murstein
   9. Yuanyuan Jiang
   10. Anna Devor
   11. Xin Yu

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This is a valuable study describing an implementation of awake mouse fMRI with implanted head coils at high fields. The evidence presented is convincing, combining technical advances with interesting neuroscience applications showing that mice anticipate stimuli given at regular (but at irregular) intervals.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Effects of noise and metabolic cost on cortical task representations

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Jake Patrick Stroud
   2. Michal Wojcik
   3. Kristopher Torp Jensen
   4. Makoto Kusunoki
   5. Mikiko Kadohisa
   6. Mark J Buckley
   7. John Duncan
   8. Mark G Stokes
   9. Mate Lengyel

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This work provides a valuable analysis of the effect of two commonly used hyperparameters, noise amplitude and firing rate regularization, on the representations of relevant and irrelevant stimuli in trained recurrent neural networks (RNNs). The results suggest an interesting interpretation of prefrontal cortex (PFC) dynamics, based on comparisons to previously published data from the same lab, in terms of decreasing metabolic cost during learning. The evidence indicating that the mechanisms identified in the RNNs are the same ones operating in PFC was considered incomplete, but could potentially be bolstered by additional analyses and appropriate revisions.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Neural coding of multiple motion speeds in visual cortical area MT

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Xin Huang
   2. Bikalpa Ghimire
   3. Anjani Sreeprada Chakrala
   4. Steven Wiesner

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study concerns how macaque visual cortical area MT represents stimuli composed of more than one speed of motion. The study is valuable because little is known about how the visual pathway segments and preserves information about multiple stimuli, and the study involves perceptual reports from both humans and one monkey regarding whether there are one or two speeds in the stimulus. The study presents compelling evidence that (on average) MT neurons shift from faster-speed-takes-all at low speeds to representing the average of the two speeds at higher speeds. Ultimately, this study raises intriguing questions about how exactly the response patterns in visual cortical area MT might preserve information about each speed, since such information could potentially be lost in an average response as described here, depending on assumptions about how MT activity is evaluated by other visual areas.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. A memory model of rodent spatial navigation in which place cells are memories arranged in a grid and grid cells are non-spatial

    This article has 1 author:

    1. David E Huber

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      This important paper provides solid evidence for an alternative conceptualization of the functional role of the place and grid cell network in the medial temporal lobe for memory as opposed to spatial processing or navigation. The theory is extensive, tightly integrating data on various spatial cell types. It accounts for many experimental results and generates strong predictions for future studies that will be of interest to researchers in this field. The impact of the work would be strengthened if future experiments reveal that grid cells do indeed encode specific nonspatial features.

    Reviewed by eLife