eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Diverse states and stimuli tune olfactory receptor expression levels to modulate food-seeking behavior

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Ian G McLachlan
   2. Talya S Kramer
   3. Malvika Dua
   4. Elizabeth M DiLoreto
   5. Matthew A Gomes
   6. Ugur Dag
   7. Jagan Srinivasan
   8. Steven W Flavell

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This study asks how diverse signals are integrated at the cellular level to generate adaptive behaviors. The authors show that prolonged food deprivation (i.e. fasting) of C. elegans broadly alters gene expression in food sensing neurons, thereby altering foraging behavior and chemosensory neuron responses to food. The fasting-induced genes include many chemoreceptors, one of which mediates responses to specific volatile components of food. Finally, they show that food controls the expression of a fasting-induced chemoreceptor via multiple external (i.e. sensory) and internal (potentially metabolic) cues. The paper is of importance to scientists with an interest in adaptive behaviour as well as the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying integration of stimuli.

     (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. “Integration of multimodal data in the developing tooth reveals candidate dental disease genes”

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Emma Wentworth Winchester
   2. Alexis Hardy
   3. Justin Cotney

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This study, which will be of interest to basic scientists and clinicians in the fields of dental and craniofacial malformations, explores the validity and usefulness of mouse teeth as a model for studying the role of enhancers in human dental development and disease, based on a multi-layered integrated analysis of genetic data with different available data from mice and humans. The results from the study can provide a useful tool for the manipulation of expression of reporter or other genes in a tooth- or enamel-specific manner.

     (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

3. CriSNPr, a single interface for the curated and de novo design of gRNAs for CRISPR diagnostics using diverse Cas systems

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Asgar H Ansari
   2. Manoj Kumar
   3. Sajal Sarkar
   4. Souvik Maiti
   5. Debojyoti Chakraborty

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     The web-based software developed in this study will be of interest to researchers who develop CRISPR-based diagnostic methods. The use of CRISPR-Cas to rapidly identify specific mutations in both cancer and infection is an evolving field with good potential to play a role in future research and diagnostics. This software will facilitate the implementation of such technologies and is therefore useful.

     (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

4. A high-throughput yeast display approach to profile pathogen proteomes for MHC-II binding

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Brooke D Huisman
   2. Zheng Dai
   3. David K Gifford
   4. Michael E Birnbaum

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     The manuscript builds on previous work to design yeast display libraries representing full viral proteomes with overlapping 15-mer peptides binding to specific HLA-DR alleles, and therefore potentially immunogenic for CD4 T cell responses. The authors use SARS-CoV-2 and dengue viruses as proof of concept and identify a number of potentially immunogenic peptides not predicted by current algorithms. The methods are interesting and promising and will be of interest to a wide range of researchers in immunological and infectious disease studies.

     (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 name with the authors.)

   Reviewed by eLife, ScreenIT

5. Using adopted individuals to partition indirect maternal genetic effects into prenatal and postnatal effects on offspring phenotypes

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Liang-Dar Hwang
   2. Gunn-Helen Moen
   3. David M Evans

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This paper will be of interest to scientists interested in intergenerational transmission of phenotypes through genetic pathways. The authors propose an innovative and sound method to leverage the adoption of a design for disentangling prenatal and postnatal genetic effects. Additional analyses are needed to address the limitations of the model applied to the specific dataset that was used to illustrate the method.

     (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

6. Dynamic allostery in substrate binding by human thymidylate synthase

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Jeffrey P Bonin
   2. Paul J Sapienza
   3. Andrew L Lee

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     The authors analyze the mechanisms of entropically driven cooperativity in the human thymidylate synthase (hTS), an enzyme essential for DNA replication and a promising target for anticancer drugs. The authors conclude that the cooperative binding of dUMP ligands to its two identical sites arises from a disproportionate reduction in the enzyme's conformational entropy upon binding the first ligand. The results provide rare insights into the mechanisms of ligand binding for an essential human protein and should be of great interest to readers interested in enzyme structure/dynamics/function relationships, cooperativity and allostery, and possible drug targeting of thymidylate synthase.

     (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

7. A neurogenic signature involving monoamine Oxidase-A controls human thermogenic adipose tissue development

   This article has 13 authors:

   1. Javier Solivan-Rivera
   2. Zinger Yang Loureiro
   3. Tiffany DeSouza
   4. Anand Desai
   5. Sabine Pallat
   6. Qin Yang
   7. Raziel Rojas-Rodriguez
   8. Rachel Ziegler
   9. Pantos Skritakis
   10. Shannon Joyce
   11. Denise Zhong
   12. Tammy Nguyen
   13. Silvia Corvera

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This manuscript uses a species-hybrid model in which functional human white and thermogenic adipose tissues develop in mice. Interestingly, human adipose tissue is fully able to recruit mouse vascular networks and sympathetic innervation during human adipocyte development. These findings provide novel and valuable information about the development of human thermogenic adipose tissue.

     (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

8. A CRISPR screen in intestinal epithelial cells identifies novel factors for polarity and apical transport

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Katharina MC Klee
   2. Michael W Hess
   3. Michael Lohmüller
   4. Sebastian Herzog
   5. Kristian Pfaller
   6. Thomas Müller
   7. Georg F Vogel
   8. Lukas A Huber

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     Here, the authors performed a CRISPR/Cas9 loss of function screen in polarized human epithelial cells to identify novel regulators of epithelial polarization and polarized membrane trafficking. This study provides a powerful resource for future investigations to unravel the complexity and diversity of mechanisms underlying epithelial polarization and polarized cargo transport. Furthermore, this dataset may represent an essential contribution to investigating novel congenital diseases associated with these processes, e.g., microvillus inclusion disease and necrotizing enterocolitis. A few experiments are suggested to bolster the authors' conclusions regarding the roles of key hits.

     (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 and Reviewer #3 agreed to share their names with the authors.)

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Consistent coordination patterns provide near perfect behavior decoding in a comprehensive motor program for insect flight

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Joy Putney
   2. Marko Angjelichinoski
   3. Robert Ravier
   4. Silvia Ferrari
   5. Vahid Tarokh
   6. Simon Sponberg

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This manuscript bridges neurophysiology and biomechanics and is of broad interest in improving our understanding of insect flight control. Here, Putney et al. record the activity of the flight muscles of tethered hawkmoths and demonstrate that the direction of the visual stimulus to which the insect responds can be classified using precisely timed information on muscle activity from a subset of the flight muscles. This is an important step in identifying the mapping from visual input to motor output, albeit that the mapping identified here is qualitative (i.e. classification of visual stimulus direction) rather than quantitative (i.e. prediction of output torque or apparent angular velocity of self-motion).

     (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

10. Effectiveness of rapid SARS-CoV-2 genome sequencing in supporting infection control for hospital-onset COVID-19 infection: Multicentre, prospective study

    This article has 51 authors:

    1. Oliver Stirrup
    2. James Blackstone
    3. Fiona Mapp
    4. Alyson MacNeil
    5. Monica Panca
    6. Alison Holmes
    7. Nicholas Machin
    8. Gee Yen Shin
    9. Tabitha Mahungu
    10. Kordo Saeed
    11. Tranprit Saluja
    12. Yusri Taha
    13. Nikunj Mahida
    14. Cassie Pope
    15. Anu Chawla
    16. Maria-Teresa Cutino-Moguel
    17. Asif Tamuri
    18. Rachel Williams
    19. Alistair Darby
    20. David L Robertson
    21. Flavia Flaviani
    22. Eleni Nastouli
    23. Samuel Robson
    24. Darren Smith
    25. Matthew Loose
    26. Kenneth Laing
    27. Irene Monahan
    28. Beatrix Kele
    29. Sam Haldenby
    30. Ryan George
    31. Matthew Bashton
    32. Adam A Witney
    33. Matthew Byott
    34. Francesc Coll
    35. Michael Chapman
    36. Sharon J Peacock
    37. COG-UK HOCI Investigators
    38. The COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) consortium
    39. Joseph Hughes
    40. Gaia Nebbia
    41. David G Partridge
    42. Matthew Parker
    43. James Richard Price
    44. Christine Peters
    45. Sunando Roy
    46. Luke B Snell
    47. Thushan I de Silva
    48. Emma Thomson
    49. Paul Flowers
    50. Andrew Copas
    51. Judith Breuer

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      Evaluation Summary:

      This is a very extensive evaluation of the impact of rapid availability of whole-gemome sequencing results from SARS-CoV2 to inform infection control policies in hospital settings. It, most likely, is the largest analysis of its kind, clearly demonstrating the possibilities and challenges with this innovative technique.

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

    Reviewed by eLife, ScreenIT