eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Coordinated head direction representations in mouse anterodorsal thalamic nucleus and retrosplenial cortex

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Marie-Sophie H van der Goes
   2. Jakob Voigts
   3. Jonathan P Newman
   4. Enrique HS Toloza
   5. Norma J Brown
   6. Pranav Murugan
   7. Mark T Harnett

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The paper will be of interest to cognitive neuroscientists in the field of spatial navigation as well as to systems neuroscientists interested in neural representations. Using simultaneous electrophysiological recordings in the anterior thalamus and the retrosplenial cortex, the study investigates the coordination of neurons coding for the head direction in this thalamocortical network. Environmental manipulations led to a near-synchronous update of the head direction signal encoded by the two populations. Further data analysis is needed to support the main claim of the study.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Cryo-EM structures of an LRRC8 chimera with native functional properties reveal heptameric assembly

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Hirohide Takahashi
   2. Toshiki Yamada
   3. Jerod S Denton
   4. Kevin Strange
   5. Erkan Karakas

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This paper, which provides useful information on the assembly of volume-regulated anions channels formed by LRRC8 proteins, will be of interest scientists in the field of ion channels. The authors report the structure of a LRRC8C-LRRC8A chimera with native functional properties as a heptameric complex with a lipid-filled pore. This is very interesting and well-presented work, but the evidence supporting the physiological relevance of the heptameric assembly and the hypothesized role of lipids is still incomplete.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Reevaluation of Piezo1 as a gut RNA sensor

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Alec R Nickolls
   2. Gabrielle S O'Brien
   3. Sarah Shnayder
   4. Yunxiao Zhang
   5. Maximilian Nagel
   6. Ardem Patapoutian
   7. Alexander T Chesler

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This is an important study that resolves a controversy about a proposed molecular linkage between the fields of mechanobiology and RNA signaling. While prior research had claimed that a specific mechanosensitive ion channel in the gut responds to a specific fecal RNA, this study provides compelling evidence that the mechanosensitive ion channel does not respond to the RNA.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. A striatal circuit balances learned fear in the presence and absence of sensory cues

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Michael Kintscher
   2. Olexiy Kochubey
   3. Ralf Schneggenburger

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This paper will interest neuroscientists working in the field(s) of basal ganglia, amygdala, and fear learning. Overall this is an important study that examines the contribution of an understudied brain region to fear conditioning in male subjects. Some conclusions will benefit from additional verification and evaluation of the specificity of the findings to the amygdala-striatal transition zone relative to adjacent regions.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Establishment of transgenic fluorescent mice for labeling synapses and screening synaptogenic adhesion molecules

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Lei Yang
   2. Jingtao Zhang
   3. Sen Liu
   4. Yanning Zhang
   5. Li Wang
   6. Xiaotong Wang
   7. Shanshan Wang
   8. Ke Li
   9. Mengping Wei
   10. Chen Zhang

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The fluorescently tagged SYT-1 mouse line will be useful for the field. Importantly, the authors used a comprehensive set of immunohistochemical and physiological experiments to demonstrate that the fluorescence tagging did not alter the function of SYT-1. These are important control experiments that will make the strain useful for physiological experiments in the future. However, the advance of this manuscript is less clear.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Italian population-based cancer screening activities and test coverage: Results from national cross-sectional repeated surveys in 2020

   This article has 13 authors:

   1. Paolo Giorgi Rossi
   2. Giuliano Carrozzi
   3. Patrizia Falini
   4. Letizia Sampaolo
   5. Giuseppe Gorini
   6. Manuel Zorzi
   7. Paola Armaroli
   8. Carlo Senore
   9. Priscilla Sassoli de Bianchi
   10. Maria Masocco
   11. Marco Zappa
   12. Francesca Battisti
   13. Paola Mantellini

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This paper provides important evidence for the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cancer screening for breast, cervix, and colorectal cancer in Italy. The authors compared Invitation and examination coverage, as well as conducted telephone interviews, investigated the population screening test coverage, before and during the pandemic, according to educational attainment, perceived economic difficulties and citizenship. Their findings convincingly show that the lockdown and pandemic restrictions caused delays in screening activities but particularly increased the pre-existing individual and geographical inequalities in access.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Applying causal discovery to single-cell analyses using CausalCell

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Yujian Wen
   2. Jielong Huang
   3. Shuhui Guo
   4. Yehezqel Elyahu
   5. Alon Monsonego
   6. Hai Zhang
   7. Yanqing Ding
   8. Hao Zhu

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The paper describes an online tool, CausalCell, intended for the analysis of causal links in single-cell datasets. Regarding its significance, this work is timely and important, with potentially broad applications as a generally useful tool. However, there are major concerns about the suitability of the tool for its intended purpose, and the extent of validation in the current manuscript is incomplete.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Weakening of the cognition and height association from 1957 to 2018: Findings from four British birth cohort studies

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. David Bann
   2. Liam Wright
   3. Neil M Davies
   4. Vanessa Moulton

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This paper provides valuable evidence for a weakening of the association between cognitive ability and height from 1957 to 2018 in the UK. The authors find the strength of the association declined over this time frame. These associations were further attenuated after accounting for proxy measures of social class. This paper is a solid contribution to debates about how genetic, environmental, and social factors have affected the joint distribution of height and cognitive ability over the last 60 years.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Identify Non-mutational p53 Functional Deficiency in Human Cancers

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Qianpeng Li
   2. Yang Zhang
   3. Sicheng Luo
   4. Zhang Zhang
   5. Ann L Oberg
   6. David E Kozono
   7. Hua Lu
   8. Jann N Sarkaria
   9. Lina Ma
   10. Liguo Wang

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment:

     This study by Li et al describes an interesting attempt to predict the functional status of the p53 tumor suppressor in tumors where no DNA mutations in p53 could be identified. To this end, the authors employed SVM models to train the algorithm for the detection of 'p53 inactivation' features contrasting normal and tumor tissues. The approach could be a valuable tool for attributing tumors with unknown p53 status. The authors provide solid evidence supporting their findings and the concept of the study is solid, but in its current formulation, some of the bioinformatic analyses are incomplete, particularly related to the selection of associated genes and the potential mechanism(s).

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Structure of human phagocyte NADPH oxidase in the resting state

    This article has 8 authors:

    1. Rui Liu
    2. Kangcheng Song
    3. Jing-Xiang Wu
    4. Xiao-Peng Geng
    5. Liming Zheng
    6. Xiaoyin Gao
    7. Hailin Peng
    8. Lei Chen

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife assessment

      NOX2 is the most well-studied member of the NADPH oxidase family, membrane enzymes that produce reactive oxygen species (ROS), and the proper function of NOX2 is critical for innate immunity against pathogens in mammals. This study reports a high-resolution structure of the NOX2-p22 complex, providing valuable information for a mechanistic understanding of NOX2 activation at the molecular level.

    Reviewed by eLife