eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Meta-analysis reveals glucocorticoid levels reflect variation in metabolic rate, not ‘stress’

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Blanca Jimeno
   2. Simon Verhulst

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This work presents a fundamental meta-analysis on the causes of glucocorticoid variations in birds and mammals. It provides convincing evidence that an increase in metabolic rates increases glucocorticoid concentrations. The work will be of broad interest to animal physiologists.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. A dual function of the IDA peptide in regulating cell separation and modulating plant immunity at the molecular level

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Vilde Olsson Lalun
   2. Maike Breiden
   3. Sergio Galindo-Trigo
   4. Elwira Smakowska-Luzan
   5. Rüdiger GW Simon
   6. Melinka A Butenko

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This manuscript presents valuable findings on the role of a plant peptide in coordinating developmental and immune responses signaling. The evidence supporting the claims, while mainly descriptive and and somewhat limited due to the main conclusions being drawn from overexpression lines, is mostly solid. The findings are interesting, they align with existing models, and they are of relevance to plant pathologists and developmental biologists.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Structure of the Calvin-Benson-Bassham sedoheptulose-1,7-bisphosphatase from the model microalga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Théo Le Moigne
   2. Martina Santoni
   3. Lucile Jomat
   4. Stéphane D Lemaire
   5. Mirko Zaffagnini
   6. Nicolas Chéron
   7. Julien Henri

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study provides a valuable structural analysis of the Sedoheptulose-1,7-Bisphosphatase (SBPase) from Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. The data presented are solid and based on X-ray structures of the CrSBPase in an oxidized and reduced state, the authors identify a disulfide bond in close proximity to the dimer interface. They show that the redox-state of the CrSBPase impacts its oligomeric state and might also influence the activity of the protein.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Energetics of the microsporidian polar tube invasion machinery

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Ray Chang
   2. Ari Davydov
   3. Pattana Jaroenlak
   4. Breane Budaitis
   5. Damian C Ekiert
   6. Gira Bhabha
   7. Manu Prakash

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important study combines experiments and fluid mechanics modeling to determine the mechanism of the ultrafast ejection of the polar tube of the Microsporidia parasite and of transport through this tube. The methods and the analysis, based on the variation of the viscosity of the external medium, are compelling and allow for the first time to discriminate among proposed ejection mechanisms. This approach where simple physical principles are used for distinguishing between mechanisms when the precise geometry is inaccessible through imaging is potentially applicable to other systems in microbiology.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Novel axonemal protein ZMYND12 interacts with TTC29 and DNAH1, and is required for male fertility and flagellum function

   This article has 32 authors:

   1. Denis Dacheux
   2. Guillaume Martinez
   3. Christine E Broster Reix
   4. Julie Beurois
   5. Patrick Lores
   6. Magamba Tounkara
   7. Jean-William Dupuy
   8. Derrick Roy Robinson
   9. Corinne Loeuillet
   10. Emeline Lambert
   11. Zeina Wehbe
   12. Jessica Escoffier
   13. Amir Amiri-Yekta
   14. Abbas Daneshipour
   15. Seyedeh-Hanieh Hosseini
   16. Raoudha Zouari
   17. Selima Fourati Ben Mustapha
   18. Lazhar Halouani
   19. Xiaohui Jiang
   20. Ying Shen
   21. Chunyu Liu
   22. Nicolas Thierry-Mieg
   23. Amandine Septier
   24. Marie Bidart
   25. Véronique Satre
   26. Caroline Cazin
   27. Zine Eddine Kherraf
   28. Christophe Arnoult
   29. Pierre F Ray
   30. Aminata Toure
   31. Mélanie Bonhivers
   32. Charles Coutton

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important study reports the physiological role of ZMYND21 in the regulation of sperm flagellar development and male fertility. The data supporting the conclusion are solid, although the inclusion of more patients and ultrastructural studies would have further strengthened the study. This work will be of interest to clinicians and researchers who work on either sperm biology or ciliopathy due to cilial defects.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Anti-inflammatory therapy with nebulized dornase alfa for severe COVID-19 pneumonia: a randomized unblinded trial

   This article has 25 authors:

   1. Joanna C Porter
   2. Jamie Inshaw
   3. Vincente Joel Solis
   4. Emma Denneny
   5. Rebecca Evans
   6. Mia I Temkin
   7. Nathalia De Vasconcelos
   8. Iker Valle Aramburu
   9. Dennis Hoving
   10. Donna Basire
   11. Tracey Crissell
   12. Jesusa Guinto
   13. Alison Webb
   14. Hanif Esmail
   15. Victoria Johnston
   16. Anna Last
   17. Thomas Rampling
   18. Lena Lippert
   19. Elisa Theresa Helbig
   20. Florian Kurth
   21. Bryan Williams
   22. Aiden Flynn
   23. Pauline T Lukey
   24. Veronique Birault
   25. Venizelos Papayannopoulos

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This small-sized clinical trial comparing nebulized dornase-alfa to the best available care in patients hospitalized with COVID-19 pneumonia is valuable, but in its present form the paper is incomplete.

   Reviewed by eLife, Rapid Reviews Infectious Diseases, ScreenIT

7. Microplastics are present in women’s and cows’ follicular fluid and polystyrene microplastics compromise bovine oocyte function in vitro

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Nicole Grechi
   2. Roksan Franko
   3. Roshini Rajaraman
   4. Jan B. Stöckl
   5. Tom Trapphoff
   6. Stefan Dieterle
   7. Thomas Fröhlich
   8. Michael J. Noonan
   9. Marcia de A. M. M. Ferraz

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This manuscript represents a valuable study showing that microplastics indeed accumulate in both bovine and human ovarian follicular fluid. It also presented data that direct exposure of bovine eggs to polystyrene, a microplastic commonly found in follicular fluid, negatively affects oocyte maturation, probably through the downregulation of key proteins involved in oxidative stress, DNA damage, apoptosis, and oocyte maturation. Despite the solid supporting evidence, inclusion of the demographics and reasons for assisted reproduction of the human subjects used, as well as the details on quality control for proteomic analyses would further strengthen the study. The work will be of interest to reproductive toxicologists, regulatory scientists and reproductive health care professionals.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Eleven key measures for monitoring general practice clinical activity during COVID-19: A retrospective cohort study using 48 million adults’ primary care records in England through OpenSAFELY

   This article has 48 authors:

   1. Louis Fisher
   2. Helen J Curtis
   3. Richard Croker
   4. Milan Wiedemann
   5. Victoria Speed
   6. Christopher Wood
   7. Andrew Brown
   8. Lisa EM Hopcroft
   9. Rose Higgins
   10. Jon Massey
   11. Peter Inglesby
   12. Caroline E Morton
   13. Alex J Walker
   14. Jessica Morley
   15. Amir Mehrkar
   16. Seb Bacon
   17. George Hickman
   18. Orla Macdonald
   19. Tom Lewis
   20. Marion Wood
   21. Martin Myers
   22. Miriam Samuel
   23. Robin Conibere
   24. Wasim Baqir
   25. Harpreet Sood
   26. Charles Drury
   27. Kiren Collison
   28. Chris Bates
   29. David Evans
   30. Iain Dillingham
   31. Tom Ward
   32. Simon Davy
   33. Rebecca M Smith
   34. William Hulme
   35. Amelia Green
   36. John Parry
   37. Frank Hester
   38. Sam Harper
   39. Jonathan Cockburn
   40. Shaun O'Hanlon
   41. Alex Eavis
   42. Richard Jarvis
   43. Dima Avramov
   44. Paul Griffiths
   45. Aaron Fowles
   46. Nasreen Parkes
   47. Brian MacKenna
   48. Ben Goldacre

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This paper presents an important effort to develop an open source software framework for monitoring trends and variations in healthcare over time in England. They demonstrate a compelling example of how this system can track key health care indicators over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper will likely be mainly of interest to stakeholders in England, but could inspire the creation of similar systems in other countries.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Drift of neural ensembles driven by slow fluctuations of intrinsic excitability

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Geoffroy Delamare
   2. Yosif Zaki
   3. Denise J Cai
   4. Claudia Clopath

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This is an important theoretical study providing insight into how fluctuations in excitability can contribute to gradual changes in the mapping between population activity and stimulus, commonly referred to as representational drift. The authors provide convincing evidence that fluctuations can contribute to drift. Overall, this is a well-presented study that explores the question of how changes in intrinsic excitability can influence distinct memory representations.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Pharyngeal mechanosensory neurons control food swallow in Drosophila melanogaster

    This article has 5 authors:

    1. Jierui Qin
    2. Tingting Yang
    3. Kexin Li
    4. Ting Liu
    5. Wei Zhang

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife assessment

      This valuable study investigates the role of mechanosensory feedback during swallowing in adult Drosophila. The authors provide convincing evidence that three mechanotransduction channel genes are required for ingestion rhythms and localize the role of these genes to a specific subpopulation of pharyngeal mechanosensory neurons. However, there is incomplete evidence to support the conclusions that these sensory neurons are necessary for swallowing, respond to stretch during swallowing, and connect to the motor neurons that control swallowing. This work may be of interest to neuroscientists interested in motor control of feeding behavior.

    Reviewed by eLife