eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Fixation can change the appearance of phase separation in living cells

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Shawn Irgen-Gioro
   2. Shawn Yoshida
   3. Victoria Walling
   4. Shasha Chong

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     Chemical fixation of cells is ubiquitous in microscopy. However, fixation artifacts can lead the incorrect interpretations of biological processes. In here, Irgen-Gioro et al. show that in the context of liquid condensates formed by liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS), paraformaldehyde (PFA) fixation can lead to artifacts such as changes in the number, appearance, or disappearance of liquid condensates, when comparing fixed to live cells. This will be of great interest not only for those in the LLPS field but for cell biologists, in general, using fixed samples for microscopy.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Spatial frequency representation in V2 and V4 of macaque monkey

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Ying Zhang
   2. Kenneth E Schriver
   3. Jia Ming Hu
   4. Anna Wang Roe

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This manuscript makes a major contribution to the study of early visual representation in primates by showing that intermediate cortical areas V2 and V4, as well as primary cortical area V1 (previously shown), contain orthogonal maps of orientation and spatial frequency, which are recursive across the visual field representation. This is a fundamental principle of functional mapping across the two-dimensional cortical surface that ensures and optimizes the complete representation of all combinations across two coding dimensions.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Exploiting the mediating role of the metabolome to unravel transcript-to-phenotype associations

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Chiara Auwerx
   2. Marie C Sadler
   3. Tristan Woh
   4. Alexandre Reymond
   5. Zoltán Kutalik
   6. Eleonora Porcu

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     Auwerx and colleagues take a new approach to mine large datasets of the intermediary molecular data between GWAS and phenotype, touncover molecular mechanisms that lead from a GWAS hit to a phenotypic effect. The approach should be of great use to all (human) geneticists. Revisions are necessary to ensure that the significant findings from this approach are understood by the bioinformatic community and that these methods can be applied generally, given that the paper's main novelty is in its approach to mine large datasets, rather than a specific, key molecular finding.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Compartmentalization and persistence of dominant (regulatory) T cell clones indicates antigen skewing in juvenile idiopathic arthritis

   This article has 13 authors:

   1. Gerdien Mijnheer
   2. Nila Hendrika Servaas
   3. Jing Yao Leong
   4. Arjan Boltjes
   5. Eric Spierings
   6. Phyllis Chen
   7. Liyun Lai
   8. Alessandra Petrelli
   9. Sebastiaan Vastert
   10. Rob J de Boer
   11. Salvatore Albani
   12. Aridaman Pandit
   13. Femke van Wijk

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     In this study, the authors performed mass cytometry (CyTOF) analysis and T cell receptor (TCR) sequencing to study immune cell composition and expansion of joint-derived Tregs and non-Tregs in Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (JIA). They studied different joints affected at the same time and found that the composition and functional characteristics of immune infiltrates are strikingly similar between joints within one patient. The research design of this study is appropriate and the methods used in this study are adequately described in the manuscript. The study may be potentially beneficial for the JIA treatment.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. The clinical pharmacology of tafenoquine in the radical cure of Plasmodium vivax malaria: An individual patient data meta-analysis

   This article has 13 authors:

   1. James A Watson
   2. Robert J Commons
   3. Joel Tarning
   4. Julie A Simpson
   5. Alejandro Llanos Cuentas
   6. Marcus VG Lacerda
   7. Justin A Green
   8. Gavin CKW Koh
   9. Cindy S Chu
   10. François H Nosten
   11. Richard N Price
   12. Nicholas PJ Day
   13. Nicholas J White

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This competently performed retrospective analysis presents important findings concerning the clinical use of tafenoquine, a drug against Plasmodium vivax malaria. The assembly of the majority of global tafenoquine pharmacology data from clinical treatment studies provides compelling evidence in support of the drug's regimen that includes an increase in dosing, which would lead to a significant enhancement of the drug efficacy, hence a decrease in recurrent parasitemia. The manuscript could benefit from a more detailed analysis and discussion concerning the side effects of the drug affecting more susceptible populations.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Survival of mineral-bound peptides into the Miocene

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Beatrice Demarchi
   2. Meaghan Mackie
   3. Zhiheng Li
   4. Tao Deng
   5. Matthew J Collins
   6. Julia Clarke

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     The paper pushes the known preservation of ancient proteins, and their successful recovery, into the late Miocene. The results of the study also have implications for avian taxonomic classification. The findings reported in the paper are a welcome addition to the field of paleoproteomics and encourage future research on ancient proteins in deep antiquity and across various taxa. The paper will be of great interest to paleoscientists.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Presynaptic contact and activity opposingly regulate postsynaptic dendrite outgrowth

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Emily L Heckman
   2. Chris Q Doe

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This paper deploys elegant genetic tools to understand how synapses are formed in the Drosophila central nervous system. The synaptic connections between two identified neurons in the Drosophila central nervous system are used as a system to document the role of cell ablation and activity in dendrite growth and circuit wiring. In so doing, they identify a brief window of time that appears critical for these wiring and growth decisions.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Participation in the nationwide cervical cancer screening programme in Denmark during the COVID-19 pandemic: An observational study

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Tina Bech Olesen
   2. Henry Jensen
   3. Henrik Møller
   4. Jens Winther Jensen
   5. Marianne Waldstrøm
   6. Berit Andersen

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This article shows how the COVID-19 pandemic affected cervical cancer screening participation in the organized screening program of Denmark. Through registry data covering the entire population, the study shows that while short-term (90 days) participation after invitation dropped, long-term (365 days) participation remained stable. These results will be of interest to public health specialists and researchers working on pandemic recovery efforts related to cancer screening worldwide.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Succinate mediates inflammation-induced adrenocortical dysfunction

   This article has 20 authors:

   1. Ivona Mateska
   2. Anke Witt
   3. Eman Hagag
   4. Anupam Sinha
   5. Canelif Yilmaz
   6. Evangelia Thanou
   7. Na Sun
   8. Ourania Kolliniati
   9. Maria Patschin
   10. Heba Abdelmegeed
   11. Holger Henneicke
   12. Waldemar Kanczkowski
   13. Ben Wielockx
   14. Christos Tsatsanis
   15. Andreas Dahl
   16. Axel Karl Walch
   17. Ka Wan Li
   18. Mirko Peitzsch
   19. Triantafyllos Chavakis
   20. Vasileia Ismini Alexaki

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     Acute inflammation in mammals activates the hypothalamic pituatary axis leading to increased glucocorticoid release, which is required to restrain the inflammatory response. However, in settings of severe or prolonged inflammation, such as that seen in sepsis, there is reduced adrenal steridogenesis. The studies described in this paper provide a plausible mechanism for adrenal resistance which develops during excessive inflammation.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Coordinated evolution at amino acid sites of SARS-CoV-2 spike

    This article has 5 authors:

    1. Alexey Dmitrievich Neverov
    2. Gennady Fedonin
    3. Anfisa Popova
    4. Daria Bykova
    5. Georgii Bazykin

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife assessment

      Neverov and colleagues analyze patterns of correlated changes of amino acids in the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein to identify networks of interacting positions using an improved version of the previously validated method. Identifying such patterns of co-evolution is important for a better understanding of spike-protein evolution. The evidence for the identified co-evolving pairs is solid, though the degree of certainty varies among the different identified groups of potentially interacting positions.

    Reviewed by eLife