eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Phorbolester-activated Munc13-1 and ubMunc13-2 exert opposing effects on dense-core vesicle secretion

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Sébastien Houy
   2. Joana S Martins
   3. Noa Lipstein
   4. Jakob Balslev Sørensen

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     Houy and co-workers investigated the function of Munc13-1 and ubMunc13-2 in chromaffin cells and the interaction with phorbol esters (PMA). They combined calcium uncaging, capacitance measurements, amperometry, and activity-dependent movements of the EGFP-labeled Munc13 proteins. This study reveals that phorbolesters have a stimulatory effect via ubMunc13-2 but an inhibitory effect via Munc13-1. These opposing effects of the two Munc13 paralogs are surprising considering the closely related domain architectures.

     (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

2. Tuning of motor outputs produced by spinal stimulation during voluntary control of torque directions in monkeys

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Miki Kaneshige
   2. Kei Obara
   3. Michiaki Suzuki
   4. Toshiki Tazoe
   5. Yukio Nishimura

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     In this manuscript, the authors specifically look at the interaction between epidural stimulation of the spinal cord and the descending input evoked voluntarily in 2 intact monkeys. The results show that spinal stimulation could facilitate or suppress voluntarily evoked EMG and wrist torque, depending on voluntarily evoked activity as well as the stimulation parameters. This shows that spinal stimulation could enhance the descending inputs in cases of partial lesions. The conclusions of this paper are well supported by data, although they could be made stronger with additional analysis and clarification.

     (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. An expanded toolkit for Drosophila gene tagging using synthesized homology donor constructs for CRISPR-mediated homologous recombination

   This article has 13 authors:

   1. Oguz Kanca
   2. Jonathan Zirin
   3. Yanhui Hu
   4. Burak Tepe
   5. Debdeep Dutta
   6. Wen-Wen Lin
   7. Liwen Ma
   8. Ming Ge
   9. Zhongyuan Zuo
   10. Lu-Ping Liu
   11. Robert W Levis
   12. Norbert Perrimon
   13. Hugo J Bellen

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This manuscript will be of general interest to Drosophila researchers, whose work has long relied on the tools generated by the Gene Disruption Project (GDP). This manuscript provides a notable update on the work of the GDP. In it, the authors demonstrate the efficacy of new, streamlined transformation vectors, which they use to generate several hundred novel gene-specific Gal4 driver lines using CRISPR technology. The new vectors promise to allow the GDP to complete its goal of creating null mutations for every gene in the fly genome. The elegant functionality of the new vectors will also likely be of interest to workers outside of Drosophila.

     (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 feed-forward pathway drives LRRK2 kinase membrane recruitment and activation

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. Edmundo G Vides
   2. Ayan Adhikari
   3. Claire Y Chiang
   4. Pawel Lis
   5. Elena Purlyte
   6. Charles Limouse
   7. Justin L Shumate
   8. Elena Spínola-Lasso
   9. Herschel S Dhekne
   10. Dario R Alessi
   11. Suzanne R Pfeffer

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This paper, which is of interest to membrane biologists and colleagues in signal transduction, examines the interesting question of whether LRRK2 recruitment to membranes may regulate its activity. Membrane association involves binding to membrane-tethered Rab GTPases via LRRK2's armadillo domain, and the authors propose an elegant feedforward mechanism to describe how recruitment could lead to Rab phosphorylation, but not all features of the feed-forward model are directly supported by data.

     (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

5. Gain, not concomitant changes in spatial receptive field properties, improves task performance in a neural network attention model

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Kai J Fox
   2. Daniel Birman
   3. Justin L Gardner

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This manuscript by Fox, Birman, and Gardner combines human behavioral experiments with spatial attention manipulation and computational modeling (image-computable convolutional neural network models) to investigate the computational mechanisms that may underlie improvements in behavioral performance when deploying spatial attention. Through carefully controlled manipulations of computational architecture and parameters, the authors dissociate the effects of different tuning properties (e.g. tuning gain vs. tuning shifts) and conclude that increases in gain are the primary means by which attention improves behavioral performance. The analyses and results are technically sound and clearly presented, but the generality of the conclusions is limited by certain modeling/task choices made in the work.

     (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

6. Ecology, more than antibiotics consumption, is the major predictor for the global distribution of aminoglycoside-modifying enzymes

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Léa Pradier
   2. Stéphanie Bedhomme

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This paper will be of interest to microbiologists, clinicians, and public health workers with an interest in the possible impact of antibiotic use and regulations. The scope of the study is unusually high, integrating economic and geographical factors as well as genomic data among others. However, reasonable alternative explanations can be identified such that the data do not strongly favor the preferred hypothesis put forward by the authors.

     (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

7. Starting to have sexual intercourse is associated with increases in cervicovaginal immune mediators in young women: a prospective study and meta-analysis

   This article has 16 authors:

   1. Sean M Hughes
   2. Claire N Levy
   3. Fernanda L Calienes
   4. Katie A Martinez
   5. Stacy Selke
   6. Kenneth Tapia
   7. Bhavna H Chohan
   8. Lynda Oluoch
   9. Catherine Kiptinness
   10. Anna Wald
   11. Mimi Ghosh
   12. Liselotte Hardy
   13. Kenneth Ngure
   14. Nelly R Mugo
   15. Florian Hladik
   16. Alison C Roxby

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This study finds that the levels of many immune markers are higher in vaginal samples in women taken after initiation of vaginal sex than before initiation of vaginal sex. This result may indicate that initiation of vaginal sex potentially influences vaginal immune responses, but it is possible that unmeasured confounding and selection bias might contribute to some of the difference across samples. This study will be of highest interest to those interested in how immune markers can change within individuals over 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. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Large-scale analysis and computer modeling reveal hidden regularities behind variability of cell division patterns in Arabidopsis thaliana embryogenesis

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Elise Laruelle
   2. Katia Belcram
   3. Alain Trubuil
   4. Jean-Christophe Palauqui
   5. Philippe Andrey

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     The manuscript presents a high-quality quantitative analysis of plant embryo cell division in 3D. Authors combine computer modeling with detailed microscopy imaging to reveal underlying patterns and biases in cell divisions. The manuscript will likely be of interest to cell and developmental biologists. The conclusion can be straightened following additional analysis and data interpretation.

     (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

9. Connectomic analysis of the Drosophila lateral neuron clock cells reveals the synaptic basis of functional pacemaker classes

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Orie T Shafer
   2. Gabrielle J Gutierrez
   3. Kimberly Li
   4. Amber Mildenhall
   5. Daphna Spira
   6. Jonathan Marty
   7. Aurel A Lazar
   8. Maria de la Paz Fernandez

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This paper analyses the synaptic connections of two subsets of clock neurons in the Drosophila brain, the small ventral lateral neurons and the dorsal lateral neurons that control the sleep-wake behavior. The study reveals interesting features of the clock network, including the high heterogeneity of the LNd subset and the existence of non-clock cells that are predicted to act as "inter-clock neurons". The manuscript will be of interest to chronobiologists and neuroscientists working on neuronal networks, and it provides new insights into circadian clock network organization that may be of general value. The data analysis is rigorous, and the conclusions are justified by the data.

     (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. Effects of an IgE receptor polymorphism acting on immunity, susceptibility to infection, and reproduction in a wild rodent

    This article has 7 authors:

    1. Klara M Wanelik
    2. Mike Begon
    3. Janette E Bradley
    4. Ida M Friberg
    5. Joseph A Jackson
    6. Christopher H Taylor
    7. Steve Paterson

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      Evaluation Summary:

      This study provides a comprehensive analysis of the effects of polymorphism in an immune gene (the immunoglobulin E receptor Fcer1a) on immune responses, resistance to infection, and reproductive fitness in a wild rodent population. The authors claim to have found evidence for sex-specific effects of Fcer1a polymorphism, a result that would have broad implications for our understanding of the maintenance of genetic variation. The support for this claim is currently rather weak.

      (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