eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. The Mycobacterium ulcerans toxin mycolactone causes destructive Sec61-dependent loss of the endothelial glycocalyx and vessel basement membrane to drive skin necrosis

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. Louise Tzung-Harn Hsieh
   2. Belinda S Hall
   3. Jane Newcombe
   4. Tom A Mendum
   5. Sonia Santana Varela
   6. Yagnesh Umrania
   7. Michael J Deery
   8. Wei Q Shi
   9. Josué Diaz-Delgado
   10. Francisco J Salguero
   11. Rachel E Simmonds

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     The toxin mycolactone is produced by Mycobacterium ulcerans which is responsible for the Buruli ulcer lesions. The authors performed a valuable study showing the effects of mycolactone on blood vessel integrity. This convincing data provides new therapeutic targets to accelerate the healing of Buruli ulcer lesions.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. From silence to song: Testosterone triggers extensive transcriptional changes in the female canary HVC

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Meng‐Ching Ko
   2. Carolina Frankl‐Vilches
   3. Antje Bakker
   4. Nina Sohnius‐Wilhelmi
   5. Pepe Alcami
   6. Manfred Gahr

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This paper is of interest to neuroscientists studying the effects of sex hormones on neural and behavioral plasticity, and more specifically to researchers studying the neural mechanisms underlying birdsong plasticity. The experimental design is excellent, and the work provides a comprehensive resource for understanding the intersection between testosterone's influence on gene expression and behavior. However, the work also makes claims concerning cellular effects and gene regulatory mechanisms that extend beyond the data and under the current analyses are not rigorously supported.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. New hypotheses of cell type diversity and novelty from orthology-driven comparative single cell and nuclei transcriptomics in echinoderms

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Anne Meyer
   2. Carolyn Ku
   3. William L Hatleberg
   4. Cheryl A Telmer
   5. Veronica Hinman

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study is an excellent example of how one can use high-throughput technologies to address animal evolution from a cell-type perspective. The authors present a beautiful analysis of single-nucleus RNA-seq data from three embryonic stages in a sea star; this is the first single-cell data from this large group of echinoderms and the first single-nucleus transcriptomic study in any echinoderm. The authors demonstrate the presence of unique as well as previously unnoticed homologous cell types between a sea star and a sea urchin, discovery very intriguing to echinoderm developmental biologists, which will also be of great interest to scientists in the broad fields of evolution and development.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Brain and molecular mechanisms underlying the nonlinear association between close friendships, mental health, and cognition in children

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Chun Shen
   2. Edmund T Rolls
   3. Shitong Xiang
   4. Christelle Langley
   5. Barbara J Sahakian
   6. Wei Cheng
   7. Jianfeng Feng

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The findings of this study yield important new insights into the relationship between the number of close friends and mental health, cognition, and brain structure. Due to the large sample sizes, the evidence is solid but would have been improved if both of the analyzed datasets contained more closely matched measures. This work advances our understanding of how the friendship network relates to young adolescents' mental well-being and cognitive functioning and their underlying neural mechanisms.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Reconstructing the transport cycle in the sugar porter superfamily using coevolution-powered machine learning

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Darko Mitrovic
   2. Sarah E McComas
   3. Claudia Alleva
   4. Marta Bonaccorsi
   5. David Drew
   6. Lucie Delemotte

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This potentially important work proposes a novel approach, based on co-evolution analysis, machine-learning protocols and molecular dynamics simulations, to predict structures and energetics of the main states of the alternating access cycle of a family of membrane transporters, the sugar porters. The approach is compelling, especially the application of co-evolution and Alphafold to generate highly accurate models in different conformational states of a given protein, but the work is currently incomplete due to shortcomings in the calculation of the energy landscape. With this aspect strengthened, the manuscript will be of interest to the transporter and computational modeling communities.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Multi-centre analysis of networks and genes modulated by hypothalamic stimulation in patients with aggressive behaviours

   This article has 18 authors:

   1. Flavia Venetucci Gouveia
   2. Jurgen Germann
   3. Gavin JB Elias
   4. Alexandre Boutet
   5. Aaron Loh
   6. Adriana Lucia Lopez Rios
   7. Cristina Torres Diaz
   8. William Omar Contreras Lopez
   9. Raquel Chacon Ruiz Martinez
   10. Erich Talamoni Fonoff
   11. Juan Carlos Benedetti-Isaac
   12. Peter Giacobbe
   13. Pablo M Arango Pava
   14. Han Yan
   15. George M Ibrahim
   16. Nir Lipsman
   17. Andres Lozano
   18. Clement Hamani

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study presents useful structural and functional connectivity profiles of patients receiving deep brain stimulation in the posterior hypothalamus for severe and refractory aggressive behavior. The inclusion of data from multiple centers is compelling. However, the imaging analysis is incomplete and the interpretation of the findings is not solid.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Protein compactness and interaction valency define the architecture of a biomolecular condensate across scales

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Anton A Polyansky
   2. Laura D Gallego
   3. Roman G Efremov
   4. Alwin Köhler
   5. Bojan Zagrovic

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study reports a joint experimental and computational investigation of the structural features of biomolecular condensates formed by a specific intrinsically disordered protein. The authors also adapt emerging rules to discuss and physico-chemical determinants of these structures of condensates. Specifically, the authors adapt the analysis of fractal structures, co-opted from the field of colloidal chemistry / physics, and generate important insights regarding the network-like organization of disordered proteins within in silico facsimiles of condensates. The usage of these analyses in the context of studying all atom models for multi-chain assemblies intended to mimic the internal organization of condensates is very interesting. The work is of relevance to cell biology and structural biology.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. scRNA-sequencing in chick suggests a probabilistic model for cell fate allocation at the neural plate border

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Alexandre P Thiery
   2. Ailin Leticia Buzzi
   3. Eva Hamrud
   4. Chris Cheshire
   5. Nicholas M Luscombe
   6. James Briscoe
   7. Andrea Streit

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The study of Thiery et al. details the heterogeneous expression of a very large number of genes presumably associated with cell fate decisions in the ectoderm at the neural plate border in early avian embryos. The authors mostly succeed in presenting their very complex strategy of data analysis in a clear way but the work is incomplete with some conceptual weaknesses in how the authors describe and interpret their results. By focusing on one of the earliest cell fate decisions in the ectoderm of a vertebrate embryo, this study will be valuable to a broad range of developmental biologists.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Inconsistencies between human and macaque lesion data can be resolved with a stimulus-computable model of the ventral visual stream

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Tyler Bonnen
   2. Mark AG Eldridge

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study presents a useful application of a prior model published by the authors to a new dataset. The results from this approach were interesting and solid but the conclusions that one can make from the application of the model to only one paper are limited in scope and would depend on further probing to know if the model itself has face validity as a model of ventral visual stream function.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Impairment of lipid homeostasis causes lysosomal accumulation of endogenous protein aggregates through ESCRT disruption

    This article has 11 authors:

    1. John Yong
    2. Jacqueline E Villalta
    3. Ngoc Vu
    4. Matthew A Kukurugya
    5. Niclas Olsson
    6. Magdalena Preciado López
    7. Julia R Lazzari-Dean
    8. Kayley Hake
    9. Fiona E McAllister
    10. Bryson D Bennett
    11. Calvin H Jan

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      Protein and lipid homeostasis is essential for maintaining cellular functions but their crosstalk remains largely unknown. This important manuscript deals with this interesting topic and applies the powerful unbiased tools of somatic cell genetics to discover evidence suggesting a link between sphingolipids/cholesterol ester metabolism and lysosomal protein aggregation. The authors provide compelling orthogonal evidence to support their conclusions.

    Reviewed by eLife