eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. The impact of lag time to cancer diagnosis and treatment on clinical outcomes prior to the COVID-19 pandemic: A scoping review of systematic reviews and meta-analyses

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Parker Tope
   2. Eliya Farah
   3. Rami Ali
   4. Mariam El-Zein
   5. Wilson H Miller
   6. Eduardo L Franco

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The results of this work show a non-determinant effect of the COVID pandemic on the logistics of patient care from diagnosis to treatment modalities. The significance of this scoping review relates to the methodologic design of future outcome measures in cancer reporting that include time measurements between important clinical decision points or treatments in a standardized fashion. Without this standardization in reporting, comparisons to different length intervals are impossible and may have a significant impact on patient outcomes. The strength of the evidence is compelling, given the exhaustive nature of the literature review. This work should be seen by all oncologic units and research groups so that time benchmarks can be established that correlate to patient outcomes. These measurements require oncology society uptake and reporting to be effective.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Eco-evolutionary feedback can stabilize diverse predator-prey communities

   This article has 1 author:

   1. Stephen Martis

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This useful theoretical and numerical study shows that evolution can stabilize predator and prey populations in a generalized Lotka-Volterra framework with high variance species-species interactions. It demonstrates an example of evolutionary bet hedging, rescuing species at risk of extinction due to destabilizing predator-prey interactions. The methodology is solid, but some modeling choices are quite specific, limiting direct applicability to concrete systems. The study should be useful to the community working on theoretical ecology and evolution, and the ecology-evolution coupling should resonate with a broader audience.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Associations of genetic and infectious risk factors with coronary heart disease

   This article has 13 authors:

   1. Flavia Hodel
   2. Zhi Ming Xu
   3. Christian Wandall Thorball
   4. Roxane de La Harpe
   5. Prunelle Letang-Mathieu
   6. Nicole Brenner
   7. Julia Butt
   8. Noemi Bender
   9. Tim Waterboer
   10. Pedro Manuel Marques-Vidal
   11. Peter Vollenweider
   12. Julien Vaucher
   13. Jacques Fellay

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study confirms a role of traditional cardiovascular risk factors (age, sex, cholesterol levels, weight) and polygenetic risk scores when predicting coronary heart disease in a large prospective cohort. It further reports an independent effect of seropositivity from past infection with a commensal bacterium F. nucleatum as a risk factor. The work is based on solid data and methodology and constitutes an important contribution to the understanding of disease risk, but the role of infection needs independent replication.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Recognition of galactose by a scaffold protein recruits a transcriptional activator for the GAL regulon induction in Candida albicans

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Xun Sun
   2. Jing Yu
   3. Cheng Zhu
   4. Xinreng Mo
   5. Qiangqiang Sun
   6. Dandan Yang
   7. Chang Su
   8. Yang Lu

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This important manuscript investigates the circuitry connecting the galactose utilization regulon of the human pathogen and model organism Candida albicans to the sensing of galactose. In the non-pathogenic model yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae this circuit represents a textbook model that rivals the lac operon as a teaching tool. Using a broad array of mainly classical approaches, this study convincingly demonstrates the transcriptional activators that are required for galactose (and GlcNAc) responsive galactose metabolic genes in C. albicans. The recognition of just how different the regulation of the galactose pathway across fungal species represents an important advance in our understanding of the evolution of the regulatory control of these circuits, and would make a nice addition to the textbook version of eukaryotic gene regulation.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Redox regulation of KV7 channels through EF3 hand of calmodulin

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. Eider Nuñez
   2. Frederick Jones
   3. Arantza Muguruza-Montero
   4. Janire Urrutia
   5. Alejandra Aguado
   6. Covadonga Malo
   7. Ganeko Bernardo-Seisdedos
   8. Carmen Domene
   9. Oscar Millet
   10. Nikita Gamper
   11. Alvaro Villarroel

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     Oxidation regulation of neuronal Kv7 channels contributes to the regulation of brain excitability. The manuscript concludes that this regulation is due to a disruption of the interaction between the S2S3 linker of Kv7 with the CaM EF3 site. The proposed mechanism is potentially important, but there are several weaknesses with the presentation and interpretation of the data that need to be addressed.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Interplay of adherens junctions and matrix proteolysis determines the invasive pattern and growth of squamous cell carcinoma

   This article has 12 authors:

   1. Takuya Kato
   2. Robert P Jenkins
   3. Stefanie Derzsi
   4. Melda Tozluoglu
   5. Antonio Rullan
   6. Steven Hooper
   7. Raphaël AG Chaleil
   8. Holly Joyce
   9. Xiao Fu
   10. Selvam Thavaraj
   11. Paul A Bates
   12. Erik Sahai

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This study addresses several gaps that are evident with regards to cancer cell invasion in tissue. The approaches taken by this group encompassing mathematical modeling and experimental procedures are for the most part rigorous. The study is deemed as of high potential impact.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Granger causality analysis for calcium transients in neuronal networks, challenges and improvements

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Xiaowen Chen
   2. Faustine Ginoux
   3. Martin Carbo-Tano
   4. Thierry Mora
   5. Aleksandra M Walczak
   6. Claire Wyart

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This manuscript provides a solid and valuable analysis of the advantages and potential pitfalls of the application of Granger Causality to calcium imaging data that should be of interest to a wide range of neuroscience researchers. Granger Causality is a key tool in assessing the temporal relationships between variables, but one that is susceptible to many types of artifacts. The rigor of the authors' application of the methodology to calcium imaging data in particular leads to a more robust understanding of the effects of measurement artifacts and analysis choices on the results. There was some concern, however, about whether all of the findings would apply outside feedforward neural circuits and it was unclear how some of the results relate to others that currently exist in the literature.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Tracking multiple conformations occurring on angstrom-and-millisecond scales in single amino-acid-transporter molecules

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Yufeng Zhou
   2. John H Lewis
   3. Zhe Lu

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This paper presents a single-molecule polarization microscopy study aimed at monitoring the arginine/agmatine antiporter AdiC as it transiently exchanges between conformational states. This approach measures how a bis-TMR fluorophore anchored onto helix 6a changes its orientation in the microscope, and the authors identify four states that they propose correspond to the key steps in the transport cycle (inward-open, inward occluded, outward occluded and outward open). This is a cutting-edge and challenging approach that sets the stage for direct measurements of conformational equilibria and will thus be of interest to anyone studying transport mechanisms. However, additional investigation is required to validate the robustness of the post-processing of the single-molecule data to yield the four-state model compared to alternate models, to test the robustness of the data with transport mutants/conditions that would slow or eliminate states, and to consolidate transitions that are observed that conflict with previous observations of obligatory coupling in AdiC.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. State-specific morphological deformations of the lipid bilayer explain mechanosensitive gating of MscS ion channels

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Yein Christina Park
   2. Bharat Reddy
   3. Navid Bavi
   4. Eduardo Perozo
   5. José D Faraldo-Gómez

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     The manuscript reports a new structure of the small conductance mechanosensitive channel MscS from E. coli in the open state, together with coarse-grained and atomistic molecular dynamics simulations of MscS and the related channel MSL1 of plant mitochondria in closed and open states. The important finding is that the surrounding lipid bilayer is severely distorted in the closed state only, with the protein inducing high curvature in the inner leaflet due to the membrane protruding into the cytoplasm. The authors argue convincingly that the role of membrane tension is to increase the energy of the protein-membrane system in this closed state compared to the relatively flat-membrane open state, in contrast to the previous proposal that tension-induced gating is driven by expansion of the in-plane area of the protein. The finding may be relevant for the understanding of ion channel mechano-sensation more generally, including of the PIEZO1 channel.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Rapid learning of predictive maps with STDP and theta phase precession

    This article has 4 authors:

    1. Tom M George
    2. William de Cothi
    3. Kimberly L Stachenfeld
    4. Caswell Barry

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife assessment

      This article presents a model that uses spike timing-dependent plasticity and theta phase precession of spiking neurons to generate representations similar to those learned by temporal difference learning to form successor representations. This work is important for bridging between biologically detailed mechanisms shown in experimental data and the more abstract models in the reinforcement framework literature. The simulations are compelling, but several aspects may rely on unrealistic assumptions, so further work is necessary to determine whether such a learning process could actually occur in the brain.

    Reviewed by eLife