eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Hierarchical encoding of natural sound mixtures in ferret auditory cortex

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Agnès Landemard
   2. Célian Bimbard
   3. Yves Boubenec

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This paper presents valuable findings on the processing of sound mixtures in the auditory cortex of ferrets, a species widely used for studies of auditory processing. Using the convenient and relatively high-resolution method of functional ultrasound imaging, the authors provide convincing evidence that background noise invariance emerges across the auditory cortical processing hierarchy. They also draw informative comparisons with previously published fMRI data obtained in humans. This work will be of interest to researchers studying the auditory cortex and the neural mechanisms underlying auditory scene analysis and hearing in noise.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Single-Cell Atlas of AML Reveals Age-Related Gene Regulatory Networks in t(8;21) AML

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Jessica Whittle
   2. Stefan Meyer
   3. Georges Lacaud
   4. Syed Murtuza Baker
   5. Mudassar Iqbal

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This manuscript provides a single-cell transcriptomic atlas for AML (222 samples comprising 748,679 cells) integrating data from multiple studies. They use this dataset to investigate t(8;21) AML, and they reconstruct the Gene Regulatory Network and enhancer Gene Regulatory Network, which allowed identification of interesting targets. This aggregation is useful and can help infer differences in genetic regulatory modules based on the age of disease onset, which may help explain age-related variations in prognosis and disease development. However, result interpretations and the motivation and critical analysis of the applied computational methods are incomplete, and the statistical analyses lack control experiments and should be improved to avoid potential selection bias in the later analyses.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Evidence from pupillometry, fMRI, and RNN modelling shows that gain neuromodulation mediates task-relevant perceptual switches

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Gabriel Wainstein
   2. Christopher J Whyte
   3. Kaylena A Ehgoetz Martens
   4. Eli J Müller
   5. Vicente Medel
   6. Britt Anderson
   7. Elisabeth Stöttinger
   8. James Danckert
   9. Brandon R Munn
   10. James M Shine

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable paper explores the idea that transient modulations of neural gain promote switches between distinct perceptual interpretations of ambiguous stimuli. The authors provide solid evidence for this idea by pupillometry (an indirect proxy of neuromodulatory activity), fMRI, neural network modeling, and dynamical systems analyses. The highly integrative nature of this approach is rare in the field.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. TopBP1 biomolecular condensates: a new therapeutic target in advanced-stage colorectal cancer

   This article has 16 authors:

   1. Laura Morano
   2. Nadia Vezzio-Vié
   3. Adam Aissanou
   4. Tom Egger
   5. Antoine Aze
   6. Solène Fiachetti
   7. Benoît Bordignon
   8. Cédric Hassen-Khodja
   9. Hervé Seitz
   10. Louis-Antoine Milazzo
   11. Véronique Garambois
   12. Laurent Chaloin
   13. Nathalie Bonnefoy
   14. Céline Gongora
   15. Angelos Constantinou
   16. Jihane Basbous

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study demonstrates that the GSK-3 inhibitor AZD2858 inhibits the formation of TOPBP1 condensates and hence DNA damage responses in colorectal cancer cells. The evidence supporting the claims of the authors is convincing, although uncovering how this drug blocks bio-condensate formation would have strengthened the study. The work will be of interest to cancer researchers searching for synergistic drug combination strategies.

     [Editors' note: this paper was reviewed by Review Commons.]

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Nuclear and cytosolic J-domain proteins provide synergistic control of Hsf1 at distinct phases of the heat shock response

   This article has 12 authors:

   1. Carmen Ruger-Herreros
   2. Lucia Svoboda
   3. Gurranna Male
   4. Aseem Shrivastava
   5. Markus Höpfler
   6. Katharina Jetzinger
   7. Jiri Koubek
   8. Günter Kramer
   9. Fabian den Brave
   10. Axel Mogk
   11. David S Gross
   12. Bernd Bukau

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study focuses on defining how the HSP70 chaperone system utilizes J-domain proteins to regulate the heat shock response-associated transcription factor HSF1. Using a combination of orthogonal techniques in yeast, this manuscript provides compelling evidence that the J-domain protein Apj1 facilitates attenuation of HSF1 transcriptional activity through a mechanism involving its dissociation from heat shock gene promoter regions. This work generates new insight into the fundamental mechanism of HSF1 transcriptional regulation and is a significant contribution of broad interest to cell biologists interested in proteostasis, chaperone networks, and stress-responsive signaling.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. A theory of brain-computer interface learning via low-dimensional control

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Jorge A Menéndez
   2. Jay A Hennig
   3. Matthew D Golub
   4. Emily R Oby
   5. Patrick T Sadtler
   6. Aaron P Batista
   7. Steven M Chase
   8. Byron M Yu
   9. Peter E Latham

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study proposes a network implementation of the "re-aiming" learning strategy, which has been hypothesized to underlie brain-computer interface learning. Combining theoretical arguments, numerical simulations, and analysis of experimental data, the authors provide convincing evidence for their hypothesis. This paper will likely be of broad interest to the systems neuroscience community.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Cross-species insemination reveals mouse sperm ability to enter and cross the fish micropyle

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Suma Garibova
   2. Eva Stickler
   3. Fatima Al Ali
   4. Maha A Abdulla
   5. Abbirami Sathappan
   6. Sahar Da’as
   7. Lilian Ghanem
   8. M Nadhir Djekidel
   9. Rick Portman
   10. Matteo A Avella

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study reports the conservation of sperm-egg envelope binding by demonstrating successful recognition of the micropyle in fish eggs by mouse sperm. The evidence supporting the conclusions drawn is convincing. This study will be of interest to reproductive biologists and clinicians studying the biology of fertilization and fertility.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Transcriptional coregulation in cis around a contact insulation site revealed by single-molecule microscopy

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Maciej A Kerlin
   2. Ilham Aboulfath-Ladid
   3. Julia Roensch
   4. Chloé Jaubert
   5. Aude Battistella
   6. Kyra JE Borgman
   7. Antoine Coulon

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study combines an innovative experimental approach with mathematical modeling to demonstrate that genes separated by strong topological boundaries can exhibit coordinated transcriptional bursting, providing new insights into how regulatory information is transmitted across the genome. The evidence is solid within the studied locus, but the interpretation and generality of the findings would be strengthened by additional validation using simulated data and broader application beyond a single genomic region. This work will be of interest to cell biologists and biophysicists working on transcription and chromatin.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Single-cell profiling of the lung immune cells of diabetes-tuberculosis comorbidity reveals reduced type-II interferon and elevated Th17 responses

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Shweta Chaudhary
   2. Mothe Sravya
   3. Falak Pahwa
   4. Sureshkumar V
   5. Prateek Singh
   6. Shivam Chaturvedi
   7. Debasisa Mohanty
   8. Debasis Dash
   9. Ranjan Kumar Nanda

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study presents a valuable finding on the intersection between tuberculosis and diabetes and the impact on immune responses, notably T cell and myeloid cell responses. The single-cell data collected and analyzed are convincing and provide a rich dataset to develop a more detailed understanding of cellular responses during Mtb infection of diabetic mice. Some of the mechanistic claims are incomplete, as there are no experiments performed to clearly define a role for IL-16 or IL-17 in disease. Inclusion of analysis of human samples would have strengthened the conclusions in the paper for translational impact, as well as the inclusion of a DM group alone in addition to DM-TB vs TB in some of the experiments.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Integrated transcriptomic analysis of human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived osteogenic differentiation reveals a regulatory role of KLF16

    This article has 18 authors:

    1. Ying Ru
    2. Meng Ma
    3. Xianxiao Zhou
    4. Divya Kriti
    5. Ninette Cohen
    6. Sunita D’Souza
    7. Christoph Schaniel
    8. Susan M Motch Perrine
    9. Sharon Kuo
    10. Oksana Pichurin
    11. Dalila Pinto
    12. Genevieve Housman
    13. Greg Holmes
    14. Eric Schadt
    15. Harm van Bakel
    16. Bin Zhang
    17. Ethylin Wang Jabs
    18. Meng Wu

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      The authors investigated KLF Transcription Factor 16 (KLF16) as an inhibitor of osteogenic differentiation, which plays a critical role in bone development, metabolism and repair. The results of the study are valuable as they could help to facilitate future research on the regulation of osteogenesis in vitro and in vivo. However, the evidence overall is incomplete, as validation by knockout mouse models would help to strengthen the conclusions.

    Reviewed by eLife