eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. The RAM signaling pathway links morphology, thermotolerance, and CO2 tolerance in the global fungal pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Benjamin J Chadwick
   2. Tuyetnhu Pham
   3. Xiaofeng Xie
   4. Laura C Ristow
   5. Damian J Krysan
   6. Xiaorong Lin

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study provides compelling evidence for the involvement of RAM pathway in the survival of C. neoformans in high CO2 concentrations. The work is important to understand how this fungus adapts to the high CO2 concentrations in host tissues. The experimental approach combines genetic and biochemical approaches to explore a complex topic that is of essential for cryptococcal pathogenesis.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Community diversity is associated with intra-species genetic diversity and gene loss in the human gut microbiome

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Naïma Jesse Madi
   2. Daisy Chen
   3. Richard Wolff
   4. B Jesse Shapiro
   5. Nandita R Garud

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The authors re-analyzed a previously published dataset and identify patterns suggestive of increased bacterial biodiversity in the gut may creating new niches that lead to gene loss in a focal species and promote generation of more diversity. Two limitations are (i) that sequencing depth may not be sufficient to analyze strain-level diversity and (ii) that the evidence is exclusively based on correlations, and the observed patterns could also be explained by other eco-evolutionary processes. The claims should be supported by a more detailed analysis, and alternative hypotheses that the results do not fully exclude should be discussed. Understanding drivers of diversity in natural microbial communities is an important question that is of central interest to biomedically oriented microbiome scientists, microbial ecologists and evolutionary biologists.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Sparse dimensionality reduction approaches in Mendelian randomisation with highly correlated exposures

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Vasileios Karageorgiou
   2. Dipender Gill
   3. Jack Bowden
   4. Verena Zuber

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This paper is of broad interest to infer the causal effect of exposures on outcomes. It proposed an interesting idea for the identification of risk factors amongst highly correlated traits in a Mendelian randomization paradigm. The intuition for this method is clearly presented. However, critical details about implementation are missing and its application is not sufficiently demonstrated in the current form.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Single spikes drive sequential propagation and routing of activity in a cortical network

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Juan Luis Riquelme
   2. Mike Hemberger
   3. Gilles Laurent
   4. Julijana Gjorgjieva

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This manuscript is relevant to experimental and theoretical neuroscientists interested in the trade-off between chaos and reliability in the brain, and may also pique the interest of the machine learning community, particularly those seeking to understand the computational capacity of recurrent neural networks. The findings are valuable, with practical and theoretical implications for this subfield. Using a spiking neural network model firmly anchored in experimental data from the turtle brain, the authors examine the reliability and flexibility of spike train sequences and determine the differential roles of strong and weak connections. The results show clearly that strong but sparse connections in a sub-network can produce a highly reliable response to single spikes, with reliability and multiplexing across sub-networks controlled by weak connectivity. The strength of evidence for the claims is convincing, using appropriate and validated methodology in line with current state-of-the-art.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Cross-talk between red blood cells and plasma influences blood flow and omics phenotypes in severe COVID-19

   This article has 12 authors:

   1. Steffen M Recktenwald
   2. Greta Simionato
   3. Marcelle GM Lopes
   4. Fabia Gamboni
   5. Monika Dzieciatkowska
   6. Patrick Meybohm
   7. Kai Zacharowski
   8. Andreas von Knethen
   9. Christian Wagner
   10. Lars Kaestner
   11. Angelo D'Alessandro
   12. Stephan Quint

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This report illustrates the marked alteration of red blood cell (RBC) morphology that occurs with COVID-19 infection. Of particular importance is the observation that RBC morphology is dramatically affected whether cells are suspended in plasma from healthy vs COVID-infected blood. The claims of the manuscript are well supported by the data, and the approaches used are thoughtful and rigorous. The results are important for consideration of the broader pathophysiology of COVID-19, particularly with regard to the impact on vascular biology.

   Reviewed by eLife, ScreenIT

6. Relating pathogenic loss-of-function mutations in humans to their evolutionary fitness costs

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Ipsita Agarwal
   2. Zachary L Fuller
   3. Simon R Myers
   4. Molly Przeworski

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This paper directly estimates the fitness cost of loss-of-function mutations in almost every gene in the human genome, providing an interpretable measure of the severity of mutations. The authors then compare datasets of presumably healthy individuals and individuals affected by severe complex disorders or genetic disorders, finding enrichment of de novo loss-of-function mutations in highly constrained genes among probands alongside other illuminating results. This important study will be useful to researchers interested in interpreting and prioritizing disease-causing mutations and in the process of human evolution. Overall, the approach is elegant and the results are of high quality and compelling.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. A genetic variant of fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH) exacerbates hormone-mediated orexigenic feeding in mice

   This article has 15 authors:

   1. Georgia Balsevich
   2. Gavin N Petrie
   3. Daniel E Heinz
   4. Arashdeep Singh
   5. Robert J Aukema
   6. Avery C Hunker
   7. Haley A Vecchiarelli
   8. Hiulan Yau
   9. Martin Sticht
   10. Roger J Thompson
   11. Francis S Lee
   12. Larry S Zweifel
   13. Prasanth K Chelikani
   14. Nils C Gassen
   15. Matthew N Hill

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     In this manuscript, the authors address the variable results and data regarding the role of the FAAH variant (C385A at the nucleotide level and P129T at the protein level) in the control of feeding. The authors hypothesize that the variable results might be due to the environmental context, specifically stress related conditions. They designed studies to address the role of glucocorticoids in regulating feeding and metabolism.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Object representation in a gravitational reference frame

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Alexandriya MX Emonds
   2. Ramanujan Srinath
   3. Kristina J Nielsen
   4. Charles E Connor

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     In this study the authors show that neural tuning for object orientation in IT is unaffected by whole-body tilt, suggesting that neurons are encoding objects relative to the gravitational vertical. However, these observations could also be because IT neurons may encode object orientation relative to cues and not due to gravity, or due to dynamic, compensatory torsional eye movements made by the animals. With these concerns adequately addressed, this would be an important study showing that IT neurons may play a role not only in object recognition but more broadly in physical scene understanding.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. lncRNA H19/Let7b/EZH2 axis regulates somatic cell senescence

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Manali Potnis
   2. Justin Do
   3. Olivia El Naggar
   4. Eishi Noguchi
   5. Christian Sell

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     In this manuscript, Sell et al., investigate the role of the long non-coding RNA H19 in regulating cellular senescence. Using several cell models they identify upstream and downstream effectors of H19 including let-7 and EZH2. The advances in this work include the identification of a specific cascade of factors connecting H19, senescence and the actions of rapamycin.

   Reviewed by eLife, ASAPbio crowd review

10. Transiently heritable fates and quorum sensing drive early IFN-I response dynamics

    This article has 5 authors:

    1. Laura C Van Eyndhoven
    2. Vincent PG Verberne
    3. Carlijn VC Bouten
    4. Abhyudai Singh
    5. Jurjen Tel

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife assessment

      This study presents a valuable finding that adds to a growing body of evidence reporting heritable cell states that can guide fate choices in single cells, in this case the fate of early IFN-I response. The evidence supporting the claims of the authors is solid, although testing the generalizability of the result to other cell types or contexts and strengthening the link to epigenetic regulation would have strengthened the study. Overall, this work will be of interest to a wide set of scientists, including cell biologists, immunologists, and systems biologists.

    Reviewed by eLife