eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Chloride ions evoke taste sensations by binding to the extracellular ligand-binding domain of sweet/umami taste receptors

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Nanako Atsumi
   2. Keiko Yasumatsu
   3. Yuriko Takashina
   4. Chiaki Ito
   5. Norihisa Yasui
   6. Robert F Margolskee
   7. Atsuko Yamashita

   This article has been curated by 2 groups:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This fundamental study presents solid evidence for T1r (sweet /umami) taste receptors as chloride (Cl-) receptors, based on a combination of state-of-the-art techniques to demonstrate that T1r receptors from Medaka fish bind chloride and that this binding induces a conformational change in the heteromeric receptor. This conformational change leads to low-concentration chloride-specific action potential firing in nerves from neurons containing these receptors in mice, results that represent an important advance in our understanding of the logic of taste perception.

   • Curated by Biophysics Colab

     Endorsement statement (17 November 2022)

     The preprint by Atsumi et al. describes how chloride binding to sweet- and umami-sensing proteins (T1R taste receptors) can evoke taste sensation. The authors use an elegant combination of structural, biophysical and electrophysiological approaches to locate a chloride binding site in the ligand-binding domain of medaka fish T1r2a/3 receptors. They convincingly show that low mM concentrations of chloride induce conformational changes and, using single fiber recordings, establish that mouse chorda tympani nerves are activated by chloride in a T1R-dependent manner. This suggests that chloride binding to sweet receptors could mediate the commonly reported sweet taste sensation following ingestion of low concentrations of table salt. The findings will be of broad relevance to those studying taste sensation and ligand recognition in GPCRs.

     (This endorsement by Biophysics Colab refers to version 2 of this preprint, which has been revised in response to peer review of version 1.)

   Reviewed by eLife, Biophysics Colab

2. Flying squirrels use a mortise-tenon structure to fix nuts on understory twigs

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Han Xu
   2. Lian Xia
   3. John R Spence
   4. Mingxian Lin
   5. Chunyang Lu
   6. Yanpeng Li
   7. Jie Chen
   8. Tushou Luo
   9. Yide Li
   10. Suqin Fang

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This valuable study presents a potentially interesting contribution on animal caching behaviour. At present, evidence that the flying squirrels themselves modified the nuts is incomplete, but there are clear video observations of them associating with the nuts. Either way, the images of the modified nuts and the detailed descriptions of the caching behaviour describe a new technique for storing nuts in a tropical rainforest.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Ancient trans-species polymorphism at the Major Histocompatibility Complex in primates

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Alyssa Lyn Fortier
   2. Jonathan K Pritchard

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important manuscript presents a thorough analysis of trans-specific polymorphism (TSP) in Major Histocompatibility Complex gene families across primates. The analysis makes the most of currently available genomic data and methods to substantially increase the amount and evolutionary time that TSPs can be observed. Both false negative TSPs due to missing genes at the assembly and/or annotation level, as well as false positives due to read mismapping with missing paralogs, are well assessed and discussed. Overall the evidence provided is compelling, and the manuscript clearly delineates the path for future progress on the topic.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. A frameshift in Yersinia pestis rcsD alters canonical Rcs signalling to preserve flea-mammal plague transmission cycles

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Xiao-Peng Guo
   2. Hai-Qin Yan
   3. Wenhui Yang
   4. Zhe Yin
   5. Viveka Vadyvaloo
   6. Dongsheng Zhou
   7. Yi-Cheng Sun

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This valuable study substantially advances our understanding of the phenotypic divergence of the plague-causing bacterium, Yersinia pestis, from a closely related species, Yersinia pseudotuberculosis, which causes much milder disease. The authors provide convincing evidence that a frameshift mutation in the Y. pestis rcsD gene changes a signaling pathway that contributes to the flea-mammal transmission of plague. The work shows how small genetic differences can alter pathogenicity and stress survival.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Synchronous multi-segmental activity between metachronal waves controls locomotion speed in Drosophila larvae

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Yingtao Liu
   2. Eri Hasegawa
   3. Akinao Nose
   4. Maarten F Zwart
   5. Hiroshi Kohsaka

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     Exploiting the power of the Drosophila larva as a model, Liu et al.'s important study sheds light on the neuronal mechanisms of speed regulation during locomotion. The data obtained using a combination of functional and structural approaches are mostly rigorous and convincing, but there are concerns about the small number of animals analysed in some of the behavioural experiments.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Zooanthroponotic transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and host-specific viral mutations revealed by genome-wide phylogenetic analysis

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Sana Naderi
   2. Peter E Chen
   3. Carmen Lia Murall
   4. Raphael Poujol
   5. Susanne Kraemer
   6. Bradley S Pickering
   7. Selena M Sagan
   8. B Jesse Shapiro

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important study offers compelling evidence, in the form of a rigorous and clear analysis of SARS-CoV-2 mutations observed within non-human animal hosts, of viral mutations that may provide an adaptive advantage within hosts. The authors could, however, improve the description of some elements of their methods and analysis approach, and they should cite additional relevant literature. The findings are relevant to those interested in the ecology of infectious disease, epidemiology, and specifically those who are interested in the genetic underpinnings of pandemic potential.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. MorphoFeatures for unsupervised exploration of cell types, tissues, and organs in volume electron microscopy

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Valentyna Zinchenko
   2. Johannes Hugger
   3. Virginie Uhlmann
   4. Detlev Arendt
   5. Anna Kreshuk

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This paper introduces a fundamentally new automated method for assigning cell types and distinguishing organs in electron microscope (EM) reconstructions, a process that was previously manual. The authors present compelling evidence that their approach works as well or better than human efforts, in at least one species. This new method can help avoid a known bottleneck in EM reconstructions, one that will otherwise limit the ability of EM to scale up to larger volumes and target additional animal species. The main limitation is that the method has only been tested on a single species, but if tests show similar performance on other animals, the method will likely become a mainstay of EM reconstruction efforts.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Antisense oligonucleotide therapy rescues disturbed brain rhythms and sleep in juvenile and adult mouse models of Angelman syndrome

   This article has 15 authors:

   1. Dongwon Lee
   2. Wu Chen
   3. Heet Naresh Kaku
   4. Xinming Zhuo
   5. Eugene S Chao
   6. Armand Soriano
   7. Allen Kuncheria
   8. Stephanie Flores
   9. Joo Hyun Kim
   10. Armando Rivera
   11. Frank Rigo
   12. Paymaan Jafar-nejad
   13. Arthur L Beaudet
   14. Matthew S Caudill
   15. Mingshan Xue

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This manuscript has a number of important findings in the interesting area of attempts to rescue neurodevelopmental phenotypes in the postnatal setting. Ameliorating some of the symptoms of Angelman syndrome at later stages is potentially of major clinical significance and this study provides support for that possibility. More generally, this study also shows that treatment of a syndrome like Angelman with antisense oligonucleotides to modulate allele-specific expression at later stages of life has potential.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Population codes enable learning from few examples by shaping inductive bias

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Blake Bordelon
   2. Cengiz Pehlevan

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This manuscript presents a theory of generalization in neural population codes and proposes sample efficiency as a new normative principle distinct from efficient coding. The theory suggests that, with small numbers of training examples, generalization performance depends exclusively on the population code's 'kernel' (pairwise similarity between population activity patterns), and that sample-efficient learning depends on whether the task is aligned with the population's inductive bias (i.e., the top eigenfunctions of the kernel). The theory can be used to identify the set of 'easily learnable' stimulus-response mappings from neural data which makes strong behavioral predictions that can be easily evaluated.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. FGF21 protects against hepatic lipotoxicity and macrophage activation to attenuate fibrogenesis in nonalcoholic steatohepatitis

    This article has 19 authors:

    1. Cong Liu
    2. Milena Schönke
    3. Borah Spoorenberg
    4. Joost M Lambooij
    5. Hendrik JP van der Zande
    6. Enchen Zhou
    7. Maarten E Tushuizen
    8. Anne-Christine Andreasson
    9. Andrew Park
    10. Stephanie Oldham
    11. Martin Uhrbom
    12. Ingela Ahlstedt
    13. Yasuhiro Ikeda
    14. Kristina Wallenius
    15. Xiao-Rong Peng
    16. Bruno Guigas
    17. Mariëtte R Boon
    18. Yanan Wang
    19. Patrick CN Rensen

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife assessment

      The authors present an important study of the effects of chronic hepatic FGF21 overexpression on the development of non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) in a model of obesity and dyslipidemia, i.e. ApoE3-Leiden CETP transgenic mice fed a western diet. NASH is a major global health problem and exogenous FGF21 treatment has been explored as a therapeutic strategy. The authors find that chronic overexpression of FGF21 blocks weight gain on the western diet, and even induces some weight loss compared to the control diet. The findings are convincing and methodologically sound.

    Reviewed by eLife