eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. An ecological network approach for detecting and validating influential organisms for rice growth

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Masayuki Ushio
   2. Hiroki Saito
   3. Motoaki Tojo
   4. Atsushi J Nagano

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     There is a tremendous need to increase agricultural productivity with means that are both practical and efficient. Drawing on data from variable field environments, this important study provides a theoretical framework for the identification of new factors with presumed relevance for crop growth. This framework can be applied in the context of both agricultural and ecological studies. There is solid evidence for several of the authors' claims, but the impact of the study is limited due to missing functional validation of candidate species in the field. Plant biologists and ecologists working in agricultural and natural environments will find the work interesting.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Higher social tolerance is associated with more complex facial behavior in macaques

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Alan V Rincon
   2. Bridget M Waller
   3. Julie Duboscq
   4. Alexander Mielke
   5. Claire Pérez
   6. Peter R Clark
   7. Jérôme Micheletta

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study shows important evidence of the correlation between social tolerance and communicative complexity in a comparison of three macaque species. Notably, the authors use an innovative, detailed methodology for quantifying facial expressions during social interactions. The results are convincing regarding a positive association between social complexity and facial behaviour, which should stimulate further comparative research in this field.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Microhomology-mediated circular DNA formation from oligonucleosomal fragments during spermatogenesis

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Jun Hu
   2. Zhe Zhang
   3. Sai Xiao
   4. Yalei Cao
   5. Yinghong Chen
   6. Jiaming Weng
   7. Hui Jiang
   8. Wei Li
   9. Jia-Yu Chen
   10. Chao Liu

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study provides important information on the biogenesis of eccDNAs during spermatogenesis. The data presented are solid and supportive of the concussion that eccDNAs in spermatogenic cells are not derived from miotic recombination hotspots but rather represent oligonucleosomal DNA fragments from apoptotic male germ cells, whose ends are ligated through microhomology-mediated end-joining. This work is of interest to researchers working on germ cell biology and cancer biology.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. We couldn't get details of this article at this time:
   10.1101/2022.11.08.515699

5. Remapping in a recurrent neural network model of navigation and context inference

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Isabel IC Low
   2. Lisa M Giocomo
   3. Alex H Williams

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important work provides evidence that artificial recurrent neural networks can be used to investigate neural mechanisms underlying reversible remapping of spatial representations. Authors perform convincing state of the art analyses showing how population activity preserves the encoding of spatial position despite remappings due to the tracking of an internal variable. This paper will be of interest to neuroscientists studying contextual computations, neural representation of space and links between artificial neural networks and the brain.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Judging the difficulty of perceptual decisions

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Anne Löffler
   2. Ariel Zylberberg
   3. Michael N Shadlen
   4. Daniel M Wolpert

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This behavioral modeling study investigates how humans make decisions on the difficulty of perceptual categorization tasks. The study finds that such judgments are best described by an evidence-accumulation model that includes a dynamic comparison of difficulty-related evidence, which terminates when the difference in evidence between two tasks reaches a predetermined bound – a valuable finding for research in perceptual decision-making. The paper provides compelling behavioral evidence for the proposed model through: 1) quantitative model selection/validation procedures, and 2) qualitative analyses of the relation between the optimal model of the task and the human data (and the proposed model).

   Reviewed by eLife

7. We couldn't get details of this article at this time:
   10.1101/2022.10.22.513336

8. We couldn't get details of this article at this time:
   10.1101/2023.02.05.527193

9. Bacterial DNA on the skin surface overrepresents the viable skin microbiome

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Ellen M Acosta
   2. Katherine A Little
   3. Benjamin P Bratton
   4. Jaime G Lopez
   5. Xuming Mao
   6. Aimee S Payne
   7. Mohamed Donia
   8. Danelle Devenport
   9. Zemer Gitai

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     In this important study, the authors provide convincing evidence that current DNA-based microbial genomics for skin bacteria cannot always detect the source of sequenced DNA and whether it originated from viable or non-viable bacteria. Additionally, the authors demonstrated in humans and mice that most of the viable bacteria reside inside hair follicles rather than the surface of the skin per se. Overall, the work has significance beyond a single discipline and will be of interest to those studying microbiomes.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Mitochondrial electron transport chain, ceramide, and coenzyme Q are linked in a pathway that drives insulin resistance in skeletal muscle

    This article has 18 authors:

    1. Alexis Diaz-Vegas
    2. Søren Madsen
    3. Kristen C Cooke
    4. Luke Carroll
    5. Jasmine XY Khor
    6. Nigel Turner
    7. Xin Y Lim
    8. Miro A Astore
    9. Jonathan C Morris
    10. Anthony S Don
    11. Amanda Garfield
    12. Simona Zarini
    13. Karin A Zemski Berry
    14. Andrew P Ryan
    15. Bryan C Bergman
    16. Joseph T Brozinick
    17. David E James
    18. James G Burchfield

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife assessment

      This important study highlights a potential connection between fatty acid intrusion into myocytes and increases in mitochondrial ceramide that cause deficits in coenzyme Q and consequent insulin resistance. The authors primarily use the L6 myocyte model, which may not fully recapitulate in vivo conditions, however, the manuscript shows compelling data in mice that substantially supports the L6 cell results. Overall, this study provides a strong framework for a compelling pathway of myocyte dysfunction and for continued efforts to test the important hypotheses that are presented.

    Reviewed by eLife