eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Temporal derivative computation in the dorsal raphe network revealed by an experimentally driven augmented integrate-and-fire modeling framework

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Emerson F Harkin
   2. Michael B Lynn
   3. Alexandre Payeur
   4. Jean-François Boucher
   5. Léa Caya-Bissonnette
   6. Dominic Cyr
   7. Chloe Stewart
   8. André Longtin
   9. Richard Naud
   10. Jean-Claude Béïque

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     Harkin and colleagues explore functional properties of dorsal raphe serotonin neurons using the approach called a generalized integrate-and-fire [aGIF] model, which incorporates a relatively small number of salient biophysical properties of a specific neuron type, and whose parameters are optimized based on voltage dynamics obtained experimentally. The authors make an interesting finding that after-hyperpolarization and A-type potassium currents, in combination with heterogeneous feedforward inhibition from local GABA neurons, give rise to a derivative-like input-output relationship in serotonin neurons.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. ATP6AP2-to-MMP14, a key pathway for osteoblast to osteocyte transition

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Lei Xiong
   2. Hao-Han Guo
   3. Jin-Xiu Pan
   4. Xiao Ren
   5. Daehoon Lee
   6. Lin Mei
   7. Wen-Cheng Xiong

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This manuscript is of interest to readers in the field of bone biology. It identifies a novel role for the vacuolar ATPase accessory protein ATP6AP2 within the osteoblast lineage and shows that loss of ATP6AP2 in the mature osteoblast results in disorganized bone formation. A similar, but milder, bone disorganization phenotype is also observed when this gene is knocked out in osteocytes. The authors show that this bone phenotype is partially rescued via restoration of MMP14 action.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Phenotyping single-cell motility in microfluidic confinement

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Samuel A Bentley
   2. Hannah Laeverenz-Schlogelhofer
   3. Vasileios Anagnostidis
   4. Jan Cammann
   5. Marco G Mazza
   6. Fabrice Gielen
   7. Kirsty Y Wan

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This paper reports on the development of an impressive microfluidic platform for the study of motility, and motility transitions, exhibited by single algal cells in circular confinement. Building on previous work that showed a three-state motility repertoire for certain green algae, the present work uses extremely long time series and a variety of physical perturbations to show how those dynamics can be altered by environmental conditions. The work will be of interest to a wide range of scientists studying motility and nonequilibrium dynamics, but its impact would be improved by a more insightful analysis of the voluminous data, with connections to physical principles.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. The genetic risk of gestational diabetes in South Asian women

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. Amel Lamri
   2. Jayneel Limbachia
   3. Karleen M Schulze
   4. Dipika Desai
   5. Brian Kelly
   6. Russell J de Souza
   7. Guillaume Paré
   8. Deborah A Lawlor
   9. John Wright
   10. Sonia S Anand
   11. On behalf of for the Born in Bradford and START investigators

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This paper asks whether a risk score integrating the impact of common genetic variants across the genome (polygenic risk score) on Type II Diabetes is also to any degree predictive of diabetes in pregnancy (Gestational diabetes or GDM).The study population comprises women of South Asian ancestry, who are particularly susceptible to GDM. Strong evidence is presented in favour of the hypothesis of the hypothesis in two sizeable cohorts, one from Canada and the other from the UK. The paper will be useful to those studying women's health in pregnancy, and in particular GDM, which is associated with a number of adverse pregnancy outcomes.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Environmental DNA from archived leaves reveals widespread temporal turnover and biotic homogenization in forest arthropod communities

   This article has 18 authors:

   1. Henrik Krehenwinkel
   2. Sven Weber
   3. Rieke Broekmann
   4. Anja Melcher
   5. Julian Hans
   6. Rüdiger Wolf
   7. Axel Hochkirch
   8. Susan Rachel Kennedy
   9. Jan Koschorreck
   10. Sven Künzel
   11. Christoph Müller
   12. Rebecca Retzlaff
   13. Diana Teubner
   14. Sonja Schanzer
   15. Roland Klein
   16. Martin Paulus
   17. Thomas Udelhoven
   18. Michael Veith

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     We admired the study by Krehenwinkel and colleagues for its novelty, depth, and ecological breadth, but have questions regarding the laboratory, bioinformatic and statistical methodologies that require clarification. It is likely to make a substantial impact in the field of plant-based arthropod metabarcoding, revealing ecological insights that can be derived from existing bio-banked material. The work, which creatively exploits herbarium material to track arthropod communities, will be interesting to a general audience in addition to ecologists, foresters, phytopathologists, and industry.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Phenome-wide Mendelian randomization study of plasma triglyceride levels and 2600 disease traits

   This article has 13 authors:

   1. Joshua K Park
   2. Shantanu Bafna
   3. Iain S Forrest
   4. Áine Duffy
   5. Carla Marquez-Luna
   6. Ben O Petrazzini
   7. Ha My Vy
   8. Daniel M Jordan
   9. Marie Verbanck
   10. Jagat Narula
   11. Robert S Rosenson
   12. Ghislain Rocheleau
   13. Ron Do

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This manuscript will be of interest to cardiovascular clinicians, medical geneticists, pharmaceutical companies, and the general cardiovascular disease research community. The study adds evidence for the causal role of triglyceride to several atherosclerotic cardiovascular diseases. Their use of Mendelian Randomization method is appropriate and provides convincing support to their findings, which may provide insights on the mechanism of TG biology and drug repurposing of TG-lowering agents.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. A genetic and linguistic analysis of the admixture histories of the islands of Cabo Verde

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. Romain Laurent
   2. Zachary A Szpiech
   3. Sergio S da Costa
   4. Valentin Thouzeau
   5. Cesar A Fortes-Lima
   6. Françoise Dessarps-Freichey
   7. Laure Lémée
   8. José Utgé
   9. Noah A Rosenberg
   10. Marlyse Baptista
   11. Paul Verdu

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     The authors leverage genotyping data from the islands of Cabo Verde to study its admixture history and to gain insights into the onset of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. They find that patterns of ancestry between the islands are not the same, suggesting diversity in the founding populations of these islands. These results provide a nice example of how ancestry patterns vary across admixed populations due in part to their unique local history and social practices of that time.

     (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 and Reviewer #2 agreed to share their names with the authors.)

   Reviewed by eLife

8. SIMMER employs similarity algorithms to accurately identify human gut microbiome species and enzymes capable of known chemical transformations

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Annamarie E Bustion
   2. Renuka R Nayak
   3. Ayushi Agrawal
   4. Peter J Turnbaugh
   5. Katherine S Pollard

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment:

     The authors aim to predict bacterial enzymes responsible for drug biotransformation, and the work showcases the potential of this approach as a hypothesis generator for characterizing and validating novel bacterial enzymes in vitro. The authors describe the relevance of an accurate input (in terms of reaction completeness, including cofactors and reaction products) as paramount for the quality of the prediction. The conclusions, however, require additional experimental and non-experimental validations.

     (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #2 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Descending neuron population dynamics during odor-evoked and spontaneous limb-dependent behaviors

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Florian Aymanns
   2. Chin-Lin Chen
   3. Pavan Ramdya

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment:

     This manuscript uses a genetically-encoded calcium indicator to assess neural activity across a population of axons connecting the fly's brain to its ventral nerve cord while the tethered fly behaves on a floating ball. Changes in fluorescence signal correlate better with states such as walking, resting, and grooming than with particular limb movements or joint angles, suggesting that specific descending neurons represent the larger behavioral subdivisions. The preparation and large-scale analysis represent a significant step forward in determining how the brain compresses sensory and state information to convey commands to the ventral nervous system for behavior execution by motor circuits.

     (This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

   Reviewed by eLife

10. The Na+/K+ pump dominates control of glycolysis in hippocampal dentate granule cells

    This article has 5 authors:

    1. Dylan J Meyer
    2. Carlos Manlio Díaz-García
    3. Nidhi Nathwani
    4. Mahia Rahman
    5. Gary Yellen

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      This report describes evidence that the main driving force for stimulation of glycolysis in dentate granule cell neurons in acute hippocampal slices from mouse by electrical activity comes from influx of Na+ including Na+ exchanging into the cell for Ca2+. The findings are presented very clearly and the authors' interpretations seem reasonable. This is important and impactful because it identifies the major energy demand in excited neurons that stimulates glycolysis to supply more ATP.

    Reviewed by eLife