Latest preprint reviews

1. Discriminating neural ensemble patterns through dendritic computations in randomly connected feedforward networks

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Bhanu Priya Somashekar
   2. Upinder Singh Bhalla

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study presents valuable quantitative insights into the prevalence of functionally clustered synaptic inputs on neuronal dendrites. The simple analytical calculations and computer simulations provide solid support for the main arguments. The findings can lead to a more detailed understanding of how dendrites contribute to the computation of neuronal networks.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Regeneration following tissue necrosis is mediated by non-apoptotic caspase activity

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Jacob W Klemm
   2. Chloe Van Hazel
   3. Robin E Harris

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This manuscript reports fundamental discoveries on how necrotic cells contribute to organ regeneration through apoptotic signaling. These findings would be of broad interest to those who study wound repair and tissue regeneration. The strength of the evidence is solid, but would be stronger with additional quantifications and controls.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Hierarchical cortical plasticity in congenital sight impairment

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Roni O Maimon-Mor
   2. Mahtab Farahbakhsh
   3. Nicholas Hedger
   4. Andrew T Rider
   5. Elaine J Anderson
   6. Geraint Rees
   7. Tomas Knapen
   8. Michel Michaelides
   9. Tessa M Dekker

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study examines the stability and compensatory plasticity in the retinotopic mapping in patients with congenital achromatopsia. It provides convincing evidence for a stable mapping of the visual field in V1, alongside changes of the readout from V1 into V3, which shows revised receptive field location and size. With the controlling for potential confounding variables, this paper would be of interest to scientists studying the visual system, brain plasticity, and development.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Full factorial construction of synthetic microbial communities

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Juan Diaz-Colunga
   2. Pablo Catalan
   3. Magdalena San Roman
   4. Andrea Arrabal
   5. Alvaro Sanchez

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This manuscript introduces a new low-cost and accessible method for assembling combinatorially complete microbial consortia using basic laboratory equipment, which is a valuable contribution to the field of microbial ecology and biotechnology. The evidence presented is convincing, demonstrating the method's effectiveness through empirical testing on both synthetic colorants and Pseudomonas aeruginosa strains.

   Reviewed by eLife, Arcadia Science

5. Odors drive feeding through gustatory receptor neurons in Drosophila

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Hong-ping Wei
   2. Thomas Ka Chung Lam
   3. Hokto Kazama

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study provides important new insight into chemosensation by showing that odors activate taste sensory neurons in Drosophila to promote feeding behaviors. Using a convincing methodology, combining behavior analysis, electrophysiology, and calcium imaging, Kazama and colleagues have deepened our understanding of how this phenomenon modulates the feeding behavior, although in some cases additional controls would strengthen the conclusions. Here, the authors articulate a clear instance of a novel neural and behavioral mechanism for gustatory receptors in an olfactory response making this work relevant to researchers studying chemosensation, sensory biology, and insect behavior.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Age-dependent predictors of effective reinforcement motor learning across childhood

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Nayo M Hill
   2. Haley M Tripp
   3. Daniel M Wolpert
   4. Laura A Malone
   5. Amy J Bastian

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This work by Hill and colleagues offers valuable insights into the development of learning abilities involved in action control from toddlerhood to adulthood. Data across 4 experiments provide solid evidence that in a task involving noisy but continuous action, the ability to learn reward probability develops gradually and may be limited by spatial processing and probabilistic reward reasoning. Questions remain about whether the task truly measures motor learning or more generic cognitive capacities, and whether a proposed model of reinforcement-based motor learning adequately captures the data.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. A humoral immune response to parasitoid wasps in Drosophila is regulated by JAK/STAT, NF-κB and GATA

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Shuyu Olivia Zhou
   2. Jonathan P Day
   3. Bart Deplancke
   4. Alexandre B Leitão
   5. Francis M Jiggins

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study reports an extensive analysis of the way a humoral immune response to parasitoid wasp is expressed and regulated, building on previous work from the authors on an anti-parasitoid effector lectin. The solid evidence uses two complementary approaches to show which innate immune pathways are involved in the regulation of the anti-parasitoid response. The evidence would be stronger if some analytical and related concerns can be addressed. The work will be of relevance to the community of investigators studying insect immune cells as well as researchers interested in host defense against parasitism.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. TopOMetry systematically learns and evaluates the latent dimensions of single-cell atlases

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Davi Sidarta-Oliveira
   2. Ana Domingos
   3. Licio A Velloso

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study presents TopOMetry, an important novel dimensionality reduction method that addresses a signficant challenge in the analysis of single-cell RNA sequencing data. The authors provide convincing evidence of the method's utility across various tasks, including estimating intrinsic dimensionalities and identifying cell types. The work would benefit from more rigorous validation and a reorganization of the text.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Prebiotic Gas Flow Environment Enables Isothermal Nucleic Acid Replication

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Philipp Schwintek
   2. Emre Eren
   3. Christof Mast
   4. Dieter Braun

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important work shows how a simple geophysical setting of gas flow over a narrow channel of water can create a physical environment that leads to the isothermal replication of nucleic acids. The work presents convincing evidence for an isothermal polymerase chain reaction in careful experiments involving evaporation and convective flows, complimented with fluid dynamics simulations. This work will be of interest to scientists working on the origin of life and more broadly, on nucleic acids and diagnostic applications.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Monoclonal antibodies derived from B cells in subjects with cystic fibrosis reduce Pseudomonas aeruginosa burden in mice

    This article has 12 authors:

    1. Malika Hale
    2. Kennidy K Takehara
    3. Christopher D Thouvenel
    4. Dina A Moustafa
    5. Andrea Repele
    6. Mary F Fontana
    7. Jason Netland
    8. Sharon McNamara
    9. Ronald L Gibson
    10. Joanna B Goldberg
    11. David J Rawlings
    12. Marion Pepper

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      Treatment of Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PA) infections is challenging because of intrinsic and acquired antibiotic resistance to most antibiotic drug classes. Therefore, by using donor B cells in subjects with cystic fibrosis who undergo intermittent or chronic airway PA infections, the authors aimed to isolate B-cell receptors against PA virulence factors and examined their biological activities. The data are solid and the protective antibodies identified in this study could be useful for protection against PA.

    Reviewed by eLife