eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. The AUX1-AFB1-CNGC14 module establishes a longitudinal root surface pH profile

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Nelson BC Serre
   2. Daša Wernerová
   3. Pruthvi Vittal
   4. Shiv Mani Dubey
   5. Eva Medvecká
   6. Adriana Jelínková
   7. Jan Petrášek
   8. Guido Grossmann
   9. Matyáš Fendrych

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study presents valuable findings that relate the pH pattern along the root surface of the plant Arabidopsis thaliana to the auxin response and gravitropic (changes in growth orientation) response. The evidence supporting the claims of the authors is solid, based on the observation of dynamic responses at a second-to-minute time scale and the systematic correlation between the observed changes in the longitudinal surface pH profile and changes in growth rate. The work will be of interest to a wide range of plant biologists working on plant development and responses to the environment.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Anemonefish have finer color discrimination in the ultraviolet

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Laurie J. Mitchell
   2. Amelia Phelan
   3. Fabio Cortesi
   4. N. Justin Marshall
   5. Wen-sung Chung
   6. Daniel C. Osorio
   7. Karen L. Cheney

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This paper studies color vision in anemonefish. The central conclusion of the paper is that anemonefish use signals from their UV cones to discriminate colors that would not otherwise be distinguishable; this differs from other fish in which UV cones extend the range of wavelengths of sensitivity but do not add a dimension to color vision. The work fits into a rich history of studies investigating how color vision fits into an animal's ecological niche. At the same time, the manuscript needs to more clearly establish and convey the degree to which each conclusion is supported by the data and where the limits of certainty lie.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Multiplexed microfluidic screening of bacterial chemotaxis

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Michael R Stehnach
   2. Richard J Henshaw
   3. Sheri A Floge
   4. Jeffrey S Guasto

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This manuscript presents a valuable new microfluidic tool that will allow researchers from different fields to rapidly quantify the chemotactic response of microbes to chemical gradients that have different strengths. Using planktonic bacteria, this paper convincingly shows that a multiplexed microfluidic device produces similar results to previously described microfluidic devices that generate only one gradient at a time. By performing on-chip dilutions, this device allows data for six different gradient strengths to be generated simultaneously, potentially reducing both experimental effort and biological variability.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Spatial determination and prognostic impact of the fibroblast transcriptome in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma

   This article has 16 authors:

   1. Wayne Croft
   2. Hayden Pearce
   3. Sandra Margielewska-Davies
   4. Lindsay Lim
   5. Samantha M Nicol
   6. Fouzia Zayou
   7. Daniel Blakeway
   8. Francesca Marcon
   9. Sarah Powell-Brett
   10. Brinder Mahon
   11. Reena Merard
   12. Jianmin Zuo
   13. Gary Middleton
   14. Keith Roberts
   15. Rachel M Brown
   16. Paul Moss

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment:

     This manuscript uses an innovative combination of spatial profiling with single-cell transcriptomics to define expression profiles of stromal components in proximal tumor regions compared to those in distal regions in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). Based on this, the authors claim that the presence of a proximal fibroblast population predicts worse outcomes for PDAC patients than the presence of a distal fibroblast population. While the work provides valuable insight into how different types of tumor stromal fibroblasts may affect PDAC outcomes, the work is currently incomplete and will benefit from more extended use of fibroblast and myeloid cell markers and efforts to better define the transcriptomic data generated.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Inferring sources of suboptimality in perceptual decision making using a causal inference task

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Sabyasachi Shivkumar
   2. Madeline S. Cappelloni
   3. Ross K. Maddox
   4. Ralf M. Haefner

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study of human perceptual decision-making provides important insights into the sources of suboptimality in human inference. The authors provide solid evidence by combining psychophysics in an audiovisual causal inference task with detailed modeling of the observed behavior. Additional control analyses should be carried out to validate the identifiability of distinct suboptimalities using the authors' modeling framework, and the generalizability of their findings in other conditions should be tested or discussed more explicitly.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. ECS1 and ECS2 suppress polyspermy and the formation of haploid plants by promoting double fertilization

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Yanbo Mao
   2. Thomas Nakel
   3. Isil Erbasol Serbes
   4. Saurabh Joshi
   5. Dawit G Tekleyohans
   6. Thomas Baum
   7. Rita Groß-Hardt

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment:

     This important study convincingly shows that the endopeptidases ECS1 and ECS2 repress the formation of polyspermy-derived triparental offspring and haploid induction by promoting double fertilization. While the underlying mechanisms remain to be further elucidated, the data presented in this study represent a valuable foundation for understanding the regulation of offspring genome size. This study will be of particular interest to the large community of scientists who are interested in plant reproduction and breeding.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Development and biophysical characterization of a humanized FSH–blocking monoclonal antibody therapeutic formulated at an ultra-high concentration

   This article has 16 authors:

   1. Satish Rojekar
   2. Anusha R Pallapati
   3. Judit Gimenez-Roig
   4. Funda Korkmaz
   5. Farhath Sultana
   6. Damini Sant
   7. Clement M Haeck
   8. Anne Macdonald
   9. Se-Min Kim
   10. Clifford J Rosen
   11. Orly Barak
   12. Marcia Meseck
   13. John Caminis
   14. Daria Lizneva
   15. Tony Yuen
   16. Mone Zaidi

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This development of a highly concentrated and potentially clinically valuable antibody formulation for MS-Hu6, a first-in-class FSH-blocking humanized antibody is of potential translational importance in the management of osteoporosis, obesity, and Alzheimer's disease. The meticulous methodology is thorough and compelling in its range of techniques examining the stability and physiochemical properties of the formulated MS-Hu6.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Sterol derivative binding to the orthosteric site causes conformational changes in an invertebrate Cys-loop receptor

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Steven De Gieter
   2. Casey I Gallagher
   3. Eveline Wijckmans
   4. Diletta Pasini
   5. Chris Ulens
   6. Rouslan G Efremov

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study presents valuable structures of a pentameric ligand-gated ion channel from a thermophilic worm that is a homologue of the well-known mammalian nicotinic receptors. Although the function of the worm receptor is unknown, the authors convincingly identify interesting features for this class of receptors including a steroid detergent that is bound in the canonical neurotransmitter site and that induces conformational changes of the extracellular domains. These observations will be of broad interest to the ligand-gated ion channel community, although it is difficult at this moment to relate these observations to channel function as the channel's activating ligand remains unknown.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Balancing true and false detection of intermittent sensory targets by adjusting the inputs to the evidence accumulation process

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Anna C Geuzebroek
   2. Hannah Craddock
   3. Redmond G O'Connell
   4. Simon P Kelly

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This research provides convincing evidence that standard behavioral modeling and EEG-derived signatures of the decision process may not agree on mechanisms underlying changes in decision strategy. The authors make a strong case for the importance of informing behavioral modeling with putative neural signatures of the corresponding decision processes. The assumptions of this neurally-informed modeling approach should be further explored and clarified to highlight not only its benefits but also potential caveats.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Task-dependent optimal representations for cerebellar learning

    This article has 4 authors:

    1. Marjorie Xie
    2. Samuel P Muscinelli
    3. Kameron Decker Harris
    4. Ashok Litwin-Kumar

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife assessment

      Models of cerebellar function and the coding of inputs in the cerebellum often assume that random stimuli are a reasonable stand-in for real stimuli. However, the important contribution of this paper is that conclusions about optimality and sparseness in these models do not generalize to potentially more realistic sets of stimuli, for example, those drawn from a low-dimensional manifold. While the mathematical modelling and analysis in the paper are convincing, one important limitation of the paper is that the neural dynamics and circuit architecture are not very specific to the cerebellum, and lack important biological detail.

    Reviewed by eLife