eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. 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

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. Mapping responses to focal injections of bicuculline in the lateral parafacial region identifies core regions for maximal generation of active expiration

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Annette Pisanski
   2. Mitchell Prostebby
   3. Clayton T Dickson
   4. Silvia Pagliardini

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This manuscript presents experiments that address the question of whether the lateral parafacial area (pFL) is active in controlling active expiration, which is particularly significant in patient populations that rely on active exhalation to maintain breathing (eg, COPD, ALS, muscular dystrophy). This study presents solid evidence for a valuable finding of pharmacological mapping of the core medullary region that contributes to active expiration and addresses the question of where these regions lie anatomically. Results from these experiments will be of value to those interested in the neural control of breathing and other neuroscientists as a framework for how to perform pharmacological mapping experiments in the future.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Predictably manipulating photoreceptor light responses to reveal their role in downstream visual responses

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Qiang Chen
   2. Norianne T Ingram
   3. Jacob Baudin
   4. Juan M Angueyra
   5. Raunak Sinha
   6. Fred Rieke

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This paper provides an important method that uses a computational model to predict photoreceptor currents in mammalian photoreceptors. By inverting the model, visual stimuli can be constructed to produce desired photoreceptor current responses. The authors provide compelling evidence that this approach can disentangle the effects of photoreceptor nonlinearities including light adaptation from downstream nonlinear processing, thus facilitating future studies of the higher visual system.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Visual homogeneity computations in the brain enable solving property-based visual tasks

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Georgin Jacob
   2. RT Pramod
   3. SP Arun

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study uses carefully designed experiments to generate a useful behavioural and neuroimaging dataset on visual cognition. The results provide solid evidence for the involvement of higher-order visual cortex in processing visual oddballs and asymmetry. However, the evidence provided for the very strong claims of homogeneity as a novel concept in vision science, separable from existing concepts such as target saliency, is incomplete. The authors and the reviewers do not agree on several points, which are explained in the reviews and author response.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Enkephalin-mediated modulation of basal somatic sensitivity by regulatory T cells in mice

   This article has 15 authors:

   1. Nicolas Aubert
   2. Madeleine Purcarea
   3. Julien Novarino
   4. Julien Schopp
   5. Alexis Audibert
   6. Wangtianrui Li
   7. Marie Fornier
   8. Léonie Cagnet
   9. Marie Naturel
   10. Armanda Casrouge
   11. Marie-Caroline Dieu-Nosjean
   12. Nicolas Blanchard
   13. Gilles Dietrich
   14. Cedric Peirs
   15. Gilles Marodon

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study presents a valuable finding on a new role of Foxp3+ regulatory T cells in sensory perception, which may have an impact on our understanding of somatosensory perception. The authors identified a previously unappreciated action of enkephalins released by immune cells in the resolution of pain and several upstream signals that can regulate the expression of the proenkephalin gene PENK in Foxp3+ Tregs. The generation of transgenic mice with conditional deletion of PENK in Foxp3+ cells and PENK fate-mapping is novel and generates compelling data; they also show a comprehensive analysis of Tregs in control and transgenic mice, longitudinal data on heat sensitivity and co-localization of PENK+ Tregs with thermal sensory neurons in the skin further supporting their hypothesis. The study would be of interest to the biologists working in the field of neuroimmunology and inflammation.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Longitudinal transcriptional changes reveal genes from the natural killer cell-mediated cytotoxicity pathway as critical players underlying COVID-19 progression

   This article has 14 authors:

   1. Matias A Medina
   2. Francisco Fuentes-Villalobos
   3. Claudio Quevedo
   4. Felipe Aguilera
   5. Raul Riquelme
   6. Maria Luisa Rioseco
   7. Sebastian Barria
   8. Yazmin Pinos
   9. Mario Calvo
   10. Ian Burbulis
   11. Camila Kossack
   12. Raymond A Alvarez
   13. Jose Luis Garrido
   14. Maria Ines Barria

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This valuable paper compares blood gene signature responses between small cohorts of individuals with mild and severe COVID-19. The authors provide solid evidence for distinct transcriptional profiles during early COVID-19 infections that may be predictive of severity, within the limitations of studying human patients displaying heterogeneity in infection timelines and limited cohort size.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Rifampicin tolerance and growth fitness among isoniazid-resistant clinical Mycobacterium tuberculosis isolates from a longitudinal study

    This article has 16 authors:

    1. Srinivasan Vijay
    2. Nguyen Le Hoai Bao
    3. Dao Nguyen Vinh
    4. Le Thanh Hoang Nhat
    5. Do Dang Anh Thu
    6. Nguyen Le Quang
    7. Le Pham Tien Trieu
    8. Hoang Ngoc Nhung
    9. Vu Thi Ngoc Ha
    10. Phan Vuong Khac Thai
    11. Dang Thi Minh Ha
    12. Nguyen Huu Lan
    13. Maxine Caws
    14. Guy E Thwaites
    15. Babak Javid
    16. Nguyen Thuy Thuong

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife assessment

      This valuable study demonstrates that there is significant variation in the susceptibility of isoniazid-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis clinical isolates to killing by rifampicin, in some cases at the same tolerance levels as bona fide resistant strains. The evidence provided is solid, with no clear genetic marker for increased tolerance, suggesting that there may be multiple routes to achieving this phenotype. The work will be of interest to infectious disease researchers.

    Reviewed by eLife