eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. The acid ceramidase/ceramide axis controls parasitemia in Plasmodium yoelii-infected mice by regulating erythropoiesis

   This article has 12 authors:

   1. Anne Günther
   2. Matthias Hose
   3. Hanna Abberger
   4. Fabian Schumacher
   5. Ylva Veith
   6. Burkhard Kleuser
   7. Kai Matuschewski
   8. Karl Sebastian Lang
   9. Erich Gulbins
   10. Jan Buer
   11. Astrid M Westendorf
   12. Wiebke Hansen

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This study provides evidence that murine acid ceramidase (Ac) is required for normal erythropoiesis and development of rodent malaria. The findings are of interest in understanding molecular processes involved in regulating erythropoiesis, as well as the potential to develop host-directed therapies for malarial parasites that target human reticulocytes.

     (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 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

   Reviewed by eLife

2. The role of anterior insular cortex inputs to dorsolateral striatum in binge alcohol drinking

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. David L Haggerty
   2. Braulio Munoz
   3. Taylor Pennington
   4. Gonzalo Viana Di Prisco
   5. Gregory G Grecco
   6. Brady K Atwood

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     Haggerty et al. reported findings examining how changes in brain function are involved in alcohol binge drinking, with a selective focus on the synaptic and circuit alterations that occur in the anterior insular cortex inputs within the dorsolateral striatum. They show that chronic alcohol drinking produces glutamatergic synaptic adaptations and by stimulating this circuit, binge drinking could be reduced without altering either water consumption or general performance for select reinforcing, anxiogenic or locomotor behaviors. The results of this study may specifically improve our understanding of the neurocircuitry mediating a common alcohol use disorder associated behavior referred to as "front-loading" or excessive drinking during the very beginning of the session.

     (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

3. Targeted depletion of uterine glandular Foxa2 induces embryonic diapause in mice

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Mitsunori Matsuo
   2. Jia Yuan
   3. Yeon Sun Kim
   4. Amanda Dewar
   5. Hidetoshi Fujita
   6. Sudhansu K Dey
   7. Xiaofei Sun

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This manuscript reports the complex interactions that take place in the uterus between the endometrium and the blastocyst during and after embryonic diapause, a period of suspended animation that occurs in some mammals including the mouse, the model used here. The authors showed that one gene, Foxa2, interacts with two other genes, Msx1 and LIF, to control the success and duration of diapause. This will be of broad interest to researchers in the field of developmental biology and reproduction. It is a carefully done study, providing new information on the complex process that is diapause in which an embryo goes into suspended animation until it receives appropriate signaling from the uterine endometrial secretions to reactivate.

     (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

4. Intergenerational adaptations to stress are evolutionarily conserved, stress-specific, and have deleterious trade-offs

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Nicholas O Burton
   2. Alexandra Willis
   3. Kinsey Fisher
   4. Fabian Braukmann
   5. Jonathan Price
   6. Lewis Stevens
   7. L Ryan Baugh
   8. Aaron Reinke
   9. Eric A Miska

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     The authors study intergenerational adaptation patterns in four relatively closely related nematode species, using previously established experimental procedures. Phenotypic and transcriptomic data are used to compare responses to stress triggers in the offspring generation between the species. The authors conclude that at least some of the responses are evolutionary conserved.

     (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

5. Decreased recent adaptation at human mendelian disease genes as a possible consequence of interference between advantageous and deleterious variants

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Chenlu Di
   2. Jesus Murga Moreno
   3. Diego F Salazar-Tortosa
   4. M Elise Lauterbur
   5. David Enard

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This paper is of interest for scientists studying human genetic adaptation and disease. The work improves on previous studies addressing the question of recent positive selection on genes underlying Mendelian diseases, by examining larger datasets of disease genes as well as carefully controlling for confounding factors that could result in disease genes and non-disease genes showing different patterns of genetic variation. The authors suggest that interference between strongly deleterious recessive mutations can reduce adaptation at disease genes, although this conclusion is weakened by the fact that the signal is only observed in Africa.

     (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 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

   Reviewed by eLife

6. NHE6 depletion corrects ApoE4-mediated synaptic impairments and reduces amyloid plaque load

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. Theresa Pohlkamp
   2. Xunde Xian
   3. Connie H Wong
   4. Murat S Durakoglugil
   5. Gordon Chandler Werthmann
   6. Takaomi C Saido
   7. Bret M Evers
   8. Charles L White
   9. Jade Connor
   10. Robert E Hammer
   11. Joachim Herz

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This paper is of interest to a broad range of neuroscientists, particularly those interested in ApoE biology and Alzheimer's disease (AD), as it reveals a novel mechanism that counteracts AD-linked amyloid plaque burden and synapse dysfunction in mice. Overall, the methodology is sound, sophisticated, and employs animal models that more closely mimic human diseases, and the results are interesting and compelling. Whilst the mechanistic hypothesis proposed by the authors is consistent with the data, plausible alternative explanations remain.

     (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

7. Mapping circuit dynamics during function and dysfunction

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Srinivas Gorur-Shandilya
   2. Elizabeth M Cronin
   3. Anna C Schneider
   4. Sara Ann Haddad
   5. Philipp Rosenbaum
   6. Dirk Bucher
   7. Farzan Nadim
   8. Eve Marder

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This manuscript presents a method to characterize diverse neural activity patterns arising from a small invertebrate circuit. This is of practical interest to invertebrate neuroscientists. The application of unsupervised methods to characterize qualitatively distinct regimes of spiking neural circuits is very interesting. The challenges and lessons learned in this study are therefore of broader interest to those seeking to quantitatively characterize large sets of neural data across many subjects. The survey could be improved by further validation of the derived clusters.

     (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 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Emergence and function of cortical offset responses in sound termination detection

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Magdalena Solyga
   2. Tania Rinaldi Barkat

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     There has been a great deal of recent interest in the neural basis for offset responses given their hypothesised importance to perception. This tests the relevance of offset responses to duration perception in a mouse model in addition to examining the brain basis. The work is thorough and well executed. The work demonstrates offset responses that occurs for the first time in auditory cortex distinct from A1 where prevention of offsets by activating cells causes worsening of behavioural performance.

     (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 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Zika virus causes placental pyroptosis and associated adverse fetal outcomes by activating GSDME

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. Zikai Zhao
   2. Qi Li
   3. Usama Ashraf
   4. Mengjie Yang
   5. Wenjing Zhu
   6. Jun Gu
   7. Zheng Chen
   8. Changqin Gu
   9. Youhui Si
   10. Shengbo Cao
   11. Jing Ye

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     The manuscript addresses an important question with broad relevance to the fields of virology, reproductive biology and immunology, and cell death. The primary conclusion of viral-induced cell death is well supported. Some mechanistic details of the pathway remain unclear.

     (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. Transition to siblinghood causes a substantial and long-lasting increase in urinary cortisol levels in wild bonobos

    This article has 6 authors:

    1. Verena Behringer
    2. Andreas Berghänel
    3. Tobias Deschner
    4. Sean M Lee
    5. Barbara Fruth
    6. Gottfried Hohmann

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      Evaluation Summary:

      This paper documents in wild bonobos significant physiological changes in response to becoming a sibling for the first time. The authors find that new siblings' cortisol increases dramatically, while their neopterin (a marker of immune function) decreases. This paper will be of interest to those who study development, life history transitions, and colleagues at the intersection of physiology and behavior, in particular in primates and other mammals with slow life histories.

      (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 #3 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

    Reviewed by eLife