eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Synaptic Organization of Surface AMPARs Changes by Brain Region and Tauopathy

   This article has 13 authors:

   1. Rohit M Vaidya
   2. Jiahao Zhang
   3. Duncan Nall
   4. Rujuta Pendharkar
   5. Yongjae Lee
   6. Eung Chang Kim
   7. Donghan Ma
   8. Fang Huang
   9. Hiroshi Nonaka
   10. Shigeki Kiyonaka
   11. Itaru Hamachi
   12. Hee Jung Chung
   13. Paul R Selvin

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This is an important study that establishes a novel and enabling 3D super-resolution imaging approach for visualizing the nanoscale organization of AMPA receptors in thick mouse brain tissue. The biological findings are of importance and interest to the neuroscience field, with potential implications for neurodegenerative disease research. However, the evidence remains incomplete and some of the biological conclusions would benefit from strengthened quantitative analysis and revisions to the manuscript to ensure that the interpretations are appropriately aligned with what is supported by the analysis.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. The microtubule-associated proteins CKAP2 and its paralog CKAP2-Like control ciliogenesis in human cells

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Luiz E da Silva
   2. Gabriel Campolina-Silva
   3. Jenine Afani
   4. Clémence Belleannée
   5. Susanne Bechstedt

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     In this valuable study, the authors build on previous work demonstrating that the microtubule-associated protein CKAP2 functions at the mitotic spindle to regulate microtubule dynamics for proper chromosome segregation. Here, the authors show that CKAP2 and its paralog CKAP2L also function at the cilium to regulate cilium formation and Hedgehog signaling. The writing is clear, the experiments and data are generally convincing, and the proper data analysis is carried out; however, the evidence supporting the proposal that CKAP2 and CKAP2L compensate for each other is incomplete. Overall, the findings advance the field in our knowledge of microtubule-associated proteins with roles in both the mitotic spindle and the cilium.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Cross-Kingdom Control: Yeast Prion Protein [MRPL10+] Modulates Host Physiology in Drosophila

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Chih-Chun Janet Lin
   2. Jessica Y Jiang
   3. Maushmi D Chitale
   4. Elissa J Cosgrove
   5. Alexandria Van Elgort
   6. Asha M Jain
   7. Julia C Kelso
   8. Xinyue Cui
   9. Nilay Yapici
   10. Andrew G Clark

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study shows first that yeast strains potentially associated with the [MRPL10+] prion state strongly influence Drosophila cold tolerance and locomotor behavior, and it goes on to exploit natural variation to identify host pathways contributing to these responses. The evidence for host physiology and genetics is solid, but the evidence for MRPL10 prion causality is incomplete because the prion state has not been directly validated in the yeast strains used. The study would be substantially strengthened either by establishing the presence of the MRPL10 prion state, or by tempering the prion-specific causal claims and framing involvement of MPRL10 or other prions in the yeast strains as a plausible but unproven mechanism. The work will be of interest to many fields, including quantitative genetics, insect physiology and microbe-host interactions.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Fitness flux in SARS-CoV-2 and influenza H3N2

   This article has 1 author:

   1. Trevor Bedford

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study presents a comparative framework for quantifying adaptation in SARS-CoV-2 and influenza H3N2 from changes in clade frequencies, enabling comparison of rates of adaptation across the two viruses on a common per-generation scale and showing that a simple count of mutations performs as well as much more sophisticated protein language models in predicting variant fitness. The evidence supporting the quantitative estimates of fitness flux is currently incomplete because the analysis assumes a single, time-independent fitness for each clade; for antigenically evolving viruses, clade fitness changes with population immunity, and it remains unclear how this assumption affects the estimated fitness flux. The interpretation of cumulative fitness flux in relation to changes in absolute fitness over time also requires clarification.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Glia regulate local retinoic acid levels to specify neuronal specialisation for high-acuity vision

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Manuela Lahne
   2. Roxana Lungu
   3. Madison Snorton
   4. Takeshi Yoshimatsu
   5. Ryan B MacDonald

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study investigates how retinoic acid signaling and retinal support cells called Müller glia might contribute to regional differences in the morphology and function of cone photoreceptors - light-sensitive neurons in the zebrafish retina - and may have broader implications for understanding how non-neuronal cells such as glia shape neuronal cell specialization in other regions of the nervous system. Despite well-executed imaging and pharmacological experiments, the evidence remains incomplete because the proposed mechanism is not established as specific to Müller glia, and broader effects on retinal development, cell growth, maturation, and/or differentiation could explain the observed shortening of light-sensitive structures. The work will interest researchers studying vision, nervous system development, and interactions between neurons and their supporting cells.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Domain-general computational integration in the Sense of Agency

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Amir Harduf
   2. Ophir Netzer
   3. Oz Mashiah
   4. Adam Zaidel
   5. Roy Salomon

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study examines how temporal and spatial discrepancies between an action and its visual feedback are combined in judgments related to the sense of agency. Using a virtual-reality reaching task and computational modeling, the authors show that both discrepancies influence self-attribution and that a multiplicative model outperforms the prespecified alternatives, a result reproduced in a preregistered replication. The evidence is convincing for the conclusion that temporal and spatial information is integrated. Other models - beyond multiplication - may in principle account equally well for the observed data; sharpening these claims and situating the findings more clearly within Bayesian accounts of cue integration would further strengthen this key contribution.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Pharmacogenetic manipulation of Locus coeruleus activity in monkeys demonstrates its role in cognitive effort

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Pauline Perez
   2. Sebastien Bouret

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This valuable study uses chemogenetic inactivation techniques in behaving macaque monkeys to ask whether the locus coeruleus (LC), an area that is involved in the control of arousal, is also involved in regulating access to mental resources for a task that requires working memory. The data show that moderate locus coeruleus inhibition impairs foraging efficiency without affecting response times, total rewards accrued, or overall motivation. However, the evidence supporting the more specific claim that the locus coeruleus regulates cognitive and/or working memory function is currently incomplete, as the experimental design is confounded by elapsed time, lacks formal statistical interaction tests, and relies on behavioral measures that cannot cleanly separate effort allocation from working memory capacity or strategy shifts. These limitations may be ameliorated with further analyses.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Inhibitory Control, Shifting, and Working Memory Updating Domains form Cognitive Phenotypes in Non-human Primates

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Xuan Wen
   2. Leo Malchin
   3. Adam Neumann
   4. Thilo Womelsdorf

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     The primary aim of this study is to measure the different dimensions of executive function in non-human primates and the classification of animals into distinct cognitive phenotypes. To achieve this, it uses a multi-task touchscreen battery for six rhesus macaques with repeated measurements to examine how performance across inhibitory control, shifting/learning, working memory, and updating covaries within and across individuals. Overall, this is an important finding with relevance for anyone interested in behavioural assessment of cognitive functions in non-human primates or dimensionality of executive functions. The strength of evidence is overall convincing, with some minor methodological weaknesses that should be addressable in future versions.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. A Sterol-Binding Cavity Underlies Sterol Recognition and Differential Activation of the ABCG5/G8

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Fatemeh Rezaei
   2. Isra F Omar
   3. Danny Farhat
   4. Zi-Wen Weng
   5. Kadambari Vijay Sai
   6. Qing-Fang Xiao
   7. Yuan-Chih Chang
   8. Shang-Te Danny Hsu
   9. Jyh-Yeuan Lee

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This work presents valuable findings that identify ergosterol binding by the human ABC transporter ABCG5/G8 and show that ergosterol stimulates its ATPase activity more strongly than cholesterol, advancing understanding of sterol recognition and transport. The evidence from single-particle cryo-EM, molecular dynamics simulations, and biochemical assays is convincing, although additional structures and mutational studies would strengthen the proposed mechanism. These results provide key insight into the molecular basis of sterol recognition and regulation of ABCG5/G8 and will be of interest to researchers studying sterol transport and ABC transporter function.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Mechanics and fate stochasticity shape stem cell distribution in tissues

    This article has 3 authors:

    1. Johannes C Krämer
    2. Edouard Hannezo
    3. Jens Elgeti

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      This is a useful and clearly presented study showing how simple feedback between cell crowding and cell growth can maintain tissue balance and lead to the spontaneous formation of stem-cell clusters. The evidence supporting the behavior of the model is solid, but the significance of the clustering result would be strengthened by relating the emphasizing the differences to prior studies, and potentially relating the clustering mechanism to properties of critical birth-death processes in two dimensions.

    Reviewed by eLife