eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Daily oscillation of the excitation/inhibition ratio is disrupted in two mouse models of autism

   This article has 15 authors:

   1. Michelle C.D. Bridi
   2. Nancy Luo
   3. Grace Kim
   4. Benjamin J. Menarchek
   5. Rachel A. Lee
   6. Bryan Rodriguez
   7. Daniel Severin
   8. Cristian Moreno
   9. Altagracia Contreras
   10. Christian Wesselborg
   11. Caroline O’Ferrall
   12. Ruchit Patel
   13. Sarah Bertrand
   14. Sujatha Kannan
   15. Alfredo Kirkwood

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study presents an important finding on the cause of the widely reported disruption of the excitation to inhibition (E-I) ratio change in Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) mouse models. The evidence supporting the main conclusions is solid and well-sampled. These results can be a starting point for studies that assess the functional role of daily oscillations of the E-I ratio in the pathophysiology of ASD, and possibly, reshape our understanding of the nature of the E/I balance alterations that contribute to normal and diseased circuits.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Novel repertoire of tau biosensors to monitor pathological tau transformation and seeding activity in living cells

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Erika Cecon
   2. Atsuro Oishi
   3. Marine Luka
   4. Delphine Ndiaye-Lobry
   5. Arnaud François
   6. Mathias Lescuyer
   7. Fany Panayi
   8. Julie Dam
   9. Patricia Machado
   10. Ralf Jockers

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     Understanding specific tau-tau interactions that play key roles in Alzheimer's disease and tauopathies will enable the elucidation of the toxic tau species involved in the pathogenesis of these diseases and therapeutic development in this area. In this paper, the authors developed a series of NanoBiT complementation-based tau biosensors to monitor tau intramolecular and intermolecular interactions. This paper will be of high interest to a broad target audience including researchers in the field of biophysics, biochemistry, cell biology, neuroscience, neuropathology, and drug discovery as well as physicians.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Increased cortical plasticity leads to memory interference and enhanced hippocampal-cortical interactions

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. Irene Navarro Lobato
   2. Adrian Aleman-Zapata
   3. Anumita Samanta
   4. Milan Bogers
   5. Shekhar Narayanan
   6. Abdelrahman Rayan
   7. Alejandra Alonso
   8. Jacqueline van der Meij
   9. Mehdi Khamassi
   10. Zafar U Khan
   11. Lisa Genzel

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important study reveals that slow plasticity in the neocortex is essential to prevent memory interference. The method of artificially increasing plasticity in the prefrontal cortex of rats during learning and its effect on sleep physiology, when memories are believed to be reprocessed, is solid. The work will be of interest to neuroscientists interested in learning and memory.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Distinct roles of forward and backward alpha-band waves in spatial visual attention

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Andrea Alamia
   2. Lucie Terral
   3. Malo Renaud D'ambra
   4. Rufin VanRullen

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     Alamia and colleagues investigate the direction of traveling waves in the alpha frequency band during visual spatial attention. The authors' novel perspective adopted here is valuable to understanding the functional relevance of alpha oscillations for spatial attention. The observed pattern of results is consistent with distinct roles for travelling alpha waves in spatially opposite directions and makes a solid case for considering this new perspective on alpha rhythms in human cognitive function.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Identification of a conserved S2 epitope present on spike proteins from all highly pathogenic coronaviruses

   This article has 26 authors:

   1. Rui P Silva
   2. Yimin Huang
   3. Annalee W Nguyen
   4. Ching-Lin Hsieh
   5. Oladimeji S Olaluwoye
   6. Tamer S Kaoud
   7. Rebecca E Wilen
   8. Ahlam N Qerqez
   9. Jun-Gyu Park
   10. Ahmed M Khalil
   11. Laura R Azouz
   12. Kevin C Le
   13. Amanda L Bohanon
   14. Andrea M DiVenere
   15. Yutong Liu
   16. Alison G Lee
   17. Dzifa A Amengor
   18. Sophie R Shoemaker
   19. Shawn M Costello
   20. Eduardo A Padlan
   21. Susan Marqusee
   22. Luis Martinez-Sobrido
   23. Kevin N Dalby
   24. Sheena D'Arcy
   25. Jason S McLellan
   26. Jennifer A Maynard

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     Silva and colleagues present useful findings related to the isolation of an anti-S2 antibody that recognizes a previously uncharacterized SARS-CoV2 Spike (S) epitope, adding to the growing repertoire of anti-S antibodies that broadly cross-react against human and zoonotic coronaviruses. The evidence supporting the claims of the authors is solid, although antibody effectiveness as a prophylactic or therapeutic reagent in an animal model would have strengthened the study. The work will be of interest to biologists working to develop pan-coronavirus therapies.

   Reviewed by eLife, ScreenIT

6. Inactivation of Invs/Nphp2 in renal epithelial cells drives infantile nephronophthisis like phenotypes in mouse

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Yuanyuan Li
   2. Wenyan Xu
   3. Svetlana Makova
   4. Martina Brueckner
   5. Zhaoxia Sun

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     Germline inactivation of NPHP2, which encodes a protein that localizes to the transition zone at the base of the primary cilium, results in infantile kidney cysts and fibrosis. In this study, the authors provide solid evidence that increased cell proliferation and fibrosis precede cyst formation in Nphp-2 mouse models, that mutant renal epithelial cells are responsible for the phenotype, and that genetic inhibition of ciliogenesis in this model reduces disease severity. They also show that valproic acid, a drug that affects a number of cellular targets and is used to treat other human conditions, slows disease progression. One limitation of the study is that it provides limited insights into the mechanisms responsible for any of its interesting observations.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. lncRNA read-through regulates the BX-C insulator Fub-1

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Airat Ibragimov
   2. Xin Yang Bing
   3. Yulii V Shidlovskii
   4. Michael Levine
   5. Pavel Georgiev
   6. Paul Schedl

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This fundamental work substantially advances our understanding of how neighboring genes on a chromosome can be separately controlled in time and space. The evidence supporting the conclusions is compelling, with state-of-the-art genetic perturbations and imaging. The work will be of broad interest to geneticists and cell biologists.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Phantasus, a web application for visual and interactive gene expression analysis

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Maksim Kleverov
   2. Daria Zenkova
   3. Vladislav Kamenev
   4. Margarita Sablina
   5. Maxim N Artyomov
   6. Alexey A Sergushichev

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study presents a useful tool called Phantasus, a web application to analyze gene expression data generated by microarray or RNA-seq technologies. The web application will help biologists end users, and non-bioinformatics experts to analyze new data or replicate transcriptomic studies. Local use of the Phantasus through its Bioconductor package reveals an incomplete functionality concerning the current best practices in analyzing bulk RNA-seq data.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. A transfer-learning approach to predict antigen immunogenicity and T-cell receptor specificity

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Barbara Bravi
   2. Andrea Di Gioacchino
   3. Jorge Fernandez-de-Cossio-Diaz
   4. Aleksandra M Walczak
   5. Thierry Mora
   6. Simona Cocco
   7. Rémi Monasson

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     In this important work, the authors present a sequence-based approach using transfer learning and Restricted Boltzmann Machines to predict antigen immunogenicity and specificity. The evidence and methodology are compelling. This work should be of interest to immunologists, computational biologists, and biophysicists.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. The CD73 immune checkpoint promotes tumor cell metabolic fitness

    This article has 7 authors:

    1. David Allard
    2. Isabelle Cousineau
    3. Eric H Ma
    4. Bertrand Allard
    5. Yacine Bareche
    6. Hubert Fleury
    7. John Stagg

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife assessment

      This important study demonstrates a non-canonical, cancer-cell intrinsic role of the ectonucleotidase CD73 in the regulation of cancer cell metabolism. The evidence supporting the claims is solid, although further experimental details and conditions would strengthen the evidence provided.

    Reviewed by eLife