eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Reported transgenerational responses to Pseudomonas aeruginosa in C. elegans are not robust

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. D. Patrick Gainey
   2. Andrey V. Shubin
   3. Craig P. Hunter

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important study reports numerous attempts to replicate reports on transgenerational inheritance of a learned behavior, pathogen avoidance, in C. elegans. While the authors observe parental effects that are limited to a single generation (also called intergenerational inheritance), the authors failed to find any evidence for transmission over multiple generations, or transgenerational inheritance. The experiments presented are meticulously described, making for compelling evidence that in the authors' hands transgenerational inheritance cannot be observed, although there remains the possibility that subtle differences in culture conditions or lab environment explain the failure to reproduce previous observations. Given the prominence of the original reports of transgenerational inheritance, the present study is of broad interest to anyone studying genetics, epigenetics, or learned behavior.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Distinct Activation Mechanisms of CXCR4 and ACKR3 Revealed by Single-Molecule Analysis of their Conformational Landscapes

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Christopher T Schafer
   2. Raymond F Pauszek
   3. Martin Gustavsson
   4. Tracy M Handel
   5. David P Millar

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This manuscript describes the characterization of the conformational dynamics of two chemokine receptors at the single-molecule level using FRET. The authors make a convincing case for attributing the distinct interaction and pharmacology of the two receptors to differences in their conformational energy landscape. These important findings will be of interest to scientists working on activation mechanisms of GPCRs and signal transduction.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Bam complex associated proteins in Escherichia coli are functionally linked to peptidoglycan biosynthesis, membrane fluidity and DNA replication

   This article has 16 authors:

   1. Jack A Bryant
   2. Kara A Staunton
   3. Hannah M Doherty
   4. Micheal B Alao
   5. Xuyu Ma
   6. Joanna Morcinek-Orłowska
   7. Emily CA Goodall
   8. Jessica Gray
   9. Mathew Milner
   10. Jeffrey A Cole
   11. Felicity de Cogan
   12. Timothy J Knowles
   13. Monika Glinkowska
   14. Danesh Moradigaravand
   15. Ian R Henderson
   16. Manuel Banzhaf

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This is a useful study that generated a rich inventory of genetic interactions with the potential to produce new insight into the molecular function of Bam-associated proteins. The interactions with genes of unknown function are of special interest as they may suggest experiments to find the functions of these genes. The overall data provided to support their conclusions is solid, but there is a major concern with known polar effects on certain mutations, which should be addressed by complementation.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. The paradox of extremely fast evolution driven by genetic drift in multi-copy gene systems

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Xiaopei Wang
   2. Yongsen Ruan
   3. Lingjie Zhang
   4. Xiangnyu Chen
   5. Zongkun Shi
   6. Haiyu Wang
   7. Bingjie Chen
   8. Miles E Tracy
   9. Chung-I Wu
   10. Haijun Wen

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study presents a useful theoretical model of molecular evolution and attempts to use it to resolve the paradox of rapid evolution of ribosomal RNA genes. While intuitive, the model's underlying issue is grouping many factors under "variance in reproductive success" without explicitly modeling the molecular processes. This limitation, along with insufficient consideration of technical challenges in alignment and variants calling, provides incomplete support for the authors' claim that the observed paradoxical patterns in rRNA genes can largely be explained by homogenizing processes, such as gene conversion, unequal crossover and replication slippage.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Structural basis for molecular assembly of fucoxanthin chlorophyll a/c-binding proteins in a diatom photosystem I supercomplex

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Koji Kato
   2. Yoshiki Nakajima
   3. Jian Xing
   4. Minoru Kumazawa
   5. Haruya Ogawa
   6. Jian-Ren Shen
   7. Kentaro Ifuku
   8. Ryo Nagao

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study presents a high-resolution cryoEM structure of the supercomplex between photosystem I (PSI) and fucoxanthin chlorophyll a/c-binding proteins (FCPs) from the model diatom Thalassiosira pseudonana CCMP1335, revealing subunits, protein:protein interactions and pigments not previously seen in other diatoms or red/green photosynthetic lineages. Combining structural, sequence and phylogenetic analyses, the authors provide convincing evidence of conserved motifs crucial for the binding of FCPs, accompanied by interesting speculation about the mechanisms governing the assembly of PSI-FCP supercomplexes in diatoms and their implications for related PSI-LHC supercomplexes in plants. The findings set the stage for functional experiments that will further advance the fields of photosynthesis, bioenergy, ocean biogeochemistry and evolutionary relationships between photosynthetic organisms.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Spatial integration of sensory input and motor output in Pseudomonas aeruginosa chemotaxis through colocalized distribution

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Zhengyu Wu
   2. Maojin Tian
   3. Sanyuan Fu
   4. Min Chen
   5. Rongjing Zhang
   6. Junhua Yuan

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This valuable study by Wu et al presents data on bacterial cell organization, with the goal of demonstrating that the two structures that account for bacterial motility - the chemotaxis complex and the flagella - colocalize to the same pole in Pseudomonas aeruginosa cells and expose the regulation underlying their spatial organization and functioning. The subject is of importance and the manuscript is well written. However, the work is incomplete and the conclusions are too strong for the presented data. This manuscript will be of interest to cell biologists, mainly those studying bacteria, but not only, if the evidence is substantiated, the assumptions clarified, and the novelty is made clear during the revision process.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. An applicable and efficient retrograde monosynaptic circuit mapping tool for larval zebrafish

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. Tian-Lun Chen
   2. Qiu-Sui Deng
   3. Kun-Zhang Lin
   4. Xiu-Dan Zheng
   5. Xin Wang
   6. Yong-Wei Zhong
   7. Xin-Yu Ning
   8. Ying Li
   9. Fu-Qiang Xu
   10. Jiu-Lin Du
   11. Xu-Fei Du

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important study provides substantial technical development for neural circuit tracing in larval zebrafish, a widely used model for systems and developmental neurobiology, and the tool could greatly benefit neural circuit research by enabling a detailed investigation of circuit structure and function in a major model organism. The supporting evidence is solid, although a more detailed description of validation experiments would have increased confidence in the technique's utility. The work will interest zebrafish neurobiologists who are working on identifying novel neuronal connectivity patterns, provided that reagents generated in this study are made widely available; issues such as glial cell labeling, detailed toxicity analysis, and the impact of virus dose on tracing efficiency need further exploration to enhance the findings' applicability and robustness.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. sisterless A is required for activation of Sex lethal in the Drosophila germline

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Raghav Goyal
   2. Ellen Baxter
   3. Mark Van Doren

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This useful study reports that the Drosophila transcription factor sisterless A (sisA) regulates the expression of Sex-lethal (Sxl) in female germ cells. The data supporting claims regarding the genetic requirement of sisA are convincing, but the characterization of the cis-regulatory elements controlling Sxl expression in the female germline is viewed as incomplete. The work will be of significant interest to colleagues studying reproductive biology and sex determination.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Formin-like 1β phosphorylation at S1086 is necessary for secretory polarized traffic of exosomes at the immune synapse in Jurkat T lymphocytes

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Javier Ruiz-Navarro
   2. Sara Fernández-Hermira
   3. Irene Sanz-Fernández
   4. Pablo Barbeito
   5. Alfonso Navarro-Zapata
   6. Antonio Pérez-Martínez
   7. Francesc R Garcia-Gonzalo
   8. Víctor Calvo
   9. Manuel Izquierdo Pastor

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study uses the Jurkat T cell model to study the role of Formin-like 1 β phosphorylation at S1086 on actin dynamics and exosome release at the immunological synapse. The evidence supporting these findings is compelling within the framework of the Jurkat model. As the Jurkat model is known to have a bias toward formin-mediated actin filament formation at the expense of Arp2/3-mediated branched F-actin foci observed in primary T cells, it will be beneficial in the future to confirm major findings in primary T cells.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Re-focusing visual working memory during expected and unexpected memory tests

    This article has 2 authors:

    1. Sisi Wang
    2. Freek van Ede

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife assessment

      This important study examined the dynamics of attentional reorientation in working memory by assessing alpha-band lateralization in EEG recordings and saccade bias and provides convincing evidence for a second stage of internal attentional deployment during WM. This work provides novel insights into the dynamic mechanism in WM and will be of broad interest and impact to cognitive neuroscience, including attention and working memory. Performing additional analysis to disentangle the roles of saccade and micro-saccade and to show behavioral relevance would further strengthen the conclusion.

    Reviewed by eLife