eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. The BTB-ZF gene Bm-mamo regulates pigmentation in silkworm caterpillars

   This article has 13 authors:

   1. Songyuan Wu
   2. Xiaoling Tong
   3. Chenxing Peng
   4. Jiangwen Luo
   5. Chenghao Zhang
   6. Kunpeng Lu
   7. Chunlin Li
   8. Xin Ding
   9. Xiaohui Duan
   10. Yaru Lu
   11. Hai Hu
   12. Duan Tan
   13. Fangyin Dai

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important study identifies the gene mamo as a new regulator of pigmentation in the silkworm Bombyx mori, a function that was previously unsuspected based on extensive work on Drosophila where the mamo gene is involved in gamete production. The evidence supporting the role of Bm-nano in pigmentation is convincing, including high-resolution linkage mapping of two mutant strains, expression profiling, and reproduction of the mutant phenotypes with state-of-the-art RNAi and CRISPR knock-out assays. The work will be of interest to evolutionary biologists and geneticists studying color patterns and evolution of gene networks.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Mitochondrial genomes of Pleistocene megafauna retrieved from recent sediment layers of two Siberian lakes

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Peter Andreas Seeber
   2. Laura Batke
   3. Yury Dvornikov
   4. Alexandra Schmidt
   5. Yi Wang
   6. Kathleen Stoof-Leichsenring
   7. Katie Moon
   8. Samuel H Vohr
   9. Beth Shapiro
   10. Laura S Epp

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This work presents convincing evidence for the presence of wooly mammoth/rhinoceros ancient environmental DNA (aeDNA) far from the time likely to host living individuals: what is effectively a genetic version of a geological inclusion. These are important findings that will have ramifications for the interpretation and conclusions extracted from aeDNA more generally.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Adaptation invariant concentration discrimination in an insect olfactory system

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Doris Ling
   2. Lijun Zhang
   3. Debajit Saha
   4. Alex Bo-Yuan Chen
   5. Baranidharan Raman

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study addresses an important question in sensory neuroscience: how the olfactory system distinguishes decreases in stimulus intensity from decreases in neural responses due to adaptation. Based on a combination of electrophysiological and behavioral analyses, solid evidence establishes that neural coding changes differently between intensity reductions and adaptation, with intensity changes altering which neurons are activated while adaptation preserves the active ensemble but reduces response magnitude. Intriguingly, behavioral responses tend to increase as the neural responses decrease, suggesting that core features of the odor response persist through adaptation. While the experimental results are convincing overall, the conclusions will be strengthened by future work recording behavior and neural dynamics in the same animals.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Lactate transporter MCT1 in hepatic stellate cells promotes fibrotic collagen expression in nonalcoholic steatohepatitis

   This article has 17 authors:

   1. Kyounghee Min
   2. Batuhan Yenilmez
   3. Mark Kelly
   4. Dimas Echeverria
   5. Michael Elleby
   6. Lawrence M Lifshitz
   7. Naideline Raymond
   8. Emmanouela Tsagkaraki
   9. Shauna M Harney
   10. Chloe DiMarzio
   11. Hui Wang
   12. Nicholas McHugh
   13. Brianna Bramato
   14. Brett Morrison
   15. Jeffery D Rothstein
   16. Anastasia Khvorova
   17. Michael P Czech

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This convincing manuscript represents a valuable advance in understanding the role of MCT1 – a transporter for lactate and other organic anions – in hepatocytes and hepatic stellate cells in the liver. The authors also generate exciting new tools to investigate hepatic stellate cell biology, and these may have much broader applications, but future studies are required to validate these new tools.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Structural basis for kinase inhibition in the tripartite E. coli HipBST toxin–antitoxin system

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. René L Bærentsen
   2. Stine V Nielsen
   3. Ragnhild B Skjerning
   4. Jeppe Lyngsø
   5. Francesco Bisiak
   6. Jan Skov Pedersen
   7. Kenn Gerdes
   8. Michael A Sørensen
   9. Ditlev E Brodersen

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important study presents an exhaustive structural analysis of a complete tripartite HipBST toxin-antitoxin system of the Enteropathogenic E. coli O127:H6, which represents a fascinating variation on the well-studied HipAB toxin-antitoxin system. The convincing data show that major features of the canonical HipAB system have been rerouted to form the tripartite HipBST, revealing a new mode of inhibition of a toxin kinase.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Integrative analysis of DNA replication origins and ORC-/MCM-binding sites in human cells reveals a lack of overlap

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Mengxue Tian
   2. Zhenjia Wang
   3. Zhangli Su
   4. Etsuko Shibata
   5. Yoshiyuki Shibata
   6. Anindya Dutta
   7. Chongzhi Zang

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The paper addresses the mechanism of initiation of DNA replication in human cells by analyzing published data on the location of origins of DNA replication and the location of binding sites in the genome for ORC and MCM2-7 complexes. There are some useful analyses of existing data but there are concerns regarding the conclusion that there might be alternative mechanisms for determining the location of origins of DNA replication in human cells compared to the well known mechanism known from many eukaryotic systems, including yeast, Xenopus, C. elegans and Drosophila. The lack of overlap between binding sites for ORC1 and ORC2, which are known to form a complex in human cells, is a particular concern and points to the evidence for the accurate localization of their binding sites in the genome being incomplete.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Small deviations in kinematics and body form dictate muscle performances in the finely tuned avian downstroke

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Marc E Deetjen
   2. Diana D Chin
   3. Ashley M Heers
   4. Bret W Tobalske
   5. David Lentink

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important study combines experiments and mathematical modelling to enhance our understanding of the interplay between the two flight muscles in birds during slow flight. The evidence for the findings is compelling, derived from new methods for measuring wing shape and force production combined with previously validated methods in muscle physiology. This work will be of broad interest to comparative biomechanists.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Mouthparts of the bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) exhibit poor acuity for the detection of pesticides in nectar

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Rachel H Parkinson
   2. Jennifer Scott
   3. Anna L Dorling
   4. Hannah Jones
   5. Martha Haslam
   6. Alex E McDermott-Roberts
   7. Geraldine A Wright

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study presents a valuable set of experiments to test whether Bombus terrestris bumblebees can detect lethal-level doses of a series of pesticides in nectar-mimicking sugary solutions. Behavioural essays were coupled with electrophysiological measurements to show that B. terrestris mouthparts cannot detect high levels of the tested pesticides. If confirmed using pesticide formulas, and other bumblebee species, the study will be of general interest in environmental science research. Most experimental data are compelling, and the conclusions are sound, but the write-up would benefit from a broader ecological context.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Landing force reveals new form of motion-induced sound camouflage in a wild predator

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Kim Schalcher
   2. Estelle Milliet
   3. Robin Séchaud
   4. Roman Bühler
   5. Bettina Almasi
   6. Simon Potier
   7. Paolo Becciu
   8. Alexandre Roulin
   9. Emily LC Shepard

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This fundamental work substantially advances our understanding of animals' foraging behaviour by monitoring the movement and body posture of barn owls in high resolution and assessing their foraging success. With a large dataset, the evidence supporting the main conclusions is compelling. This work provides new corroboration for motion-induced sound camouflage and has broad implications for understanding predator-prey interactions.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Overburdened ferroptotic stress impairs tooth morphogenesis

    This article has 6 authors:

    1. Haisheng Wang
    2. Xiaofeng Wang
    3. Liuyan Huang
    4. Chenglin Wang
    5. Fanyuan Yu
    6. Ling Ye

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife assessment

      This important study time elegantly demonstrates that ferroptotic stress may play critical roles in regulating tooth germ development. The evidence presented is compelling, based on an explant model and providing novel mechanistic insights into tooth development.

    Reviewed by eLife