eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. The role of surface adhesion on the macroscopic wrinkling of biofilms

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Steffen Geisel
   2. Eleonora Secchi
   3. Jan Vermant

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     The wrinkling of growing biofilms is considered in this paper experimentally in a clever set of experiments in a microfluidic setup that reveals aspects of the onset of the wrinkling instability and the formation of hollow channels within which bacteria move. Variations in the adhesive properties of the underlying surface are shown to affect the instability. While the results will surely be of interest to researchers in a range of areas, the connection with theoretical results needs further development.

     (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. Projected resurgence of COVID-19 in the United States in July—December 2021 resulting from the increased transmissibility of the Delta variant and faltering vaccination

   This article has 60 authors:

   1. Shaun Truelove
   2. Claire P Smith
   3. Michelle Qin
   4. Luke C Mullany
   5. Rebecca K Borchering
   6. Justin Lessler
   7. Katriona Shea
   8. Emily Howerton
   9. Lucie Contamin
   10. John Levander
   11. Jessica Kerr
   12. Harry Hochheiser
   13. Matt Kinsey
   14. Kate Tallaksen
   15. Shelby Wilson
   16. Lauren Shin
   17. Kaitlin Rainwater-Lovett
   18. Joseph C Lemairtre
   19. Juan Dent
   20. Joshua Kaminsky
   21. Elizabeth C Lee
   22. Javier Perez-Saez
   23. Alison Hill
   24. Dean Karlen
   25. Matteo Chinazzi
   26. Jessica T Davis
   27. Kunpeng Mu
   28. Xinyue Xiong
   29. Ana Pastore y Piontti
   30. Alessandro Vespignani
   31. Ajitesh Srivastava
   32. Przemyslaw Porebski
   33. Srinivasan Venkatramanan
   34. Aniruddha Adiga
   35. Bryan Lewis
   36. Brian Klahn
   37. Joseph Outten
   38. Mark Orr
   39. Galen Harrison
   40. Benjamin Hurt
   41. Jiangzhuo Chen
   42. Anil Vullikanti
   43. Madhav Marathe
   44. Stefan Hoops
   45. Parantapa Bhattacharya
   46. Dustin Machi
   47. Shi Chen
   48. Rajib Paul
   49. Daniel Janies
   50. Jean-Claude Thill
   51. Marta Galanti
   52. Teresa K Yamana
   53. Sen Pei
   54. Jeffrey L Shaman
   55. Jessica M Healy
   56. Rachel B Slayton
   57. Matthew Biggerstaff
   58. Michael A Johansson
   59. Michael C Runge
   60. Cecile Viboud

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     In this paper, the authors presented the joint efforts from nine modeling teams to provide six-month projection of the COVID-19 pandemic across the US, in view of the circulation of the more transmissible Delta variant. All of the nine models projected substantial Fall resurgences based on data as of 3 July 2021, but the actual resurgence scale as of 31 July 2021 had exceeded the projections of all of the nine models. This suggests that transmission may be even higher than expected given model assumptions, and that forecasts beyond more than a few weeks are likely to be highly uncertain. This paper will be of high interest to public health specialists, forecast modelers, and members of the general public interested in the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic and the impact of public health interventions in the USA.

     (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, ScreenIT

3. Gill developmental program in the teleost mandibular arch

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Mathi Thiruppathy
   2. Peter Fabian
   3. J Andrew Gillis
   4. J Gage Crump

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     In this manuscript, the authors use zebrafish histological staining, lineage tracing, enhancer transgenes, and mutants to find evidence for the gill origin of the vertebrate jaws hypothesis. This study nicely integrates into the literature on the origins of the mandibular jaw including discussion of fossil evidence and work in chondrichthyans and tests the hypotheses that the pseudobranch is derived from the mandibular arch, and that the pseudobranch is a segmental homolog of the gills. This paper will be impactful to the field of developmental biology both because the fate mapping methods used are generally applicable to a range of other lineage questions and because evidence for a gill arch origin of the jaw is an important contribution to vertebrate evolutionary biology.

     (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. Generation and timing of graded responses to morphogen gradients

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Shari Carmon
   2. Felix Jonas
   3. Naama Barkai
   4. Eyal D. Schejter
   5. Ben-Zion Shilo

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This is an interesting study addressing an overlooked feature of morphogen gradient interpretation. By studying transcriptional activation of early zygotic genes during early Drosophila development the authors' findings suggest that morphogens, which are known to pattern tissues in distinct domain of gene expression, can also induce a graded transcriptional response within these domains.

     (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. On the origin of universal cell shape variability in confluent epithelial monolayers

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Souvik Sadhukhan
   2. Saroj Kumar Nandi

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     By theoretically analysing the energy of a confluent epithelial tissue, the authors unveil the reason for nearly universal shape fluctuations that have been reported earlier. With a better justification of some of the underlying approximations used by the authors, the manuscript would be relevant for all people with an interest in tissue structure and dynamics.

     (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. Admixture of evolutionary rates across a butterfly hybrid zone

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Tianzhu Xiong
   2. Xueyan Li
   3. Masaya Yago
   4. James Mallet

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     The authors leverage theory, simulations, and empirical population genomics to evaluate what are the consequences of differences in substitution rates in hybridizing species. This is a largely overlooked phenomenon. This study highlights the issue and demonstrates that two hybridizing species of Papilio have differences in their substitution rates. The work will be of interest to a large group of evolutionary biologists, especially those studying evolution at the whole-genome level.

     (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. ECM-integrin signalling instructs cellular position sensing to pattern the early mouse embryo

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Esther Jeong Yoon Kim
   2. Lydia Sorokin
   3. Takashi Hiiragi

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     The importance of extracellular matrix (ECM) in multicellular organization has been studied in many different contexts. This study investigates the role of the ECM in the formation of the very first cell types to form in a mammalian embryo. The authors find that it may help stabilize the cell fate of early inside cells and play a role in promoting the epithelial organization of the next cell type to form within the inner cell mass. With appropriate extended experimental analysis, this study could be of interest to the specialist mammalian development community .

     (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. Widespread introgression across a phylogeny of 155 Drosophila genomes

   This article has 15 authors:

   1. Anton Suvorov
   2. Bernard Y. Kim
   3. Jeremy Wang
   4. Ellie E. Armstrong
   5. David Peede
   6. Emmanuel R. R. D’Agostino
   7. Donald K. Price
   8. Peter Wadell
   9. Michael Lang
   10. Virginie Courtier-Orgogozo
   11. Jean R. David
   12. Dmitri Petrov
   13. Daniel R. Matute
   14. Daniel R. Schrider
   15. Aaron A. Comeault

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     The authors present an impressive view of introgression across the Drosophila clade. There is strong support for signals of introgression along numerous branches of the phylogeny. However, the placement of these introgression events on the phylogeny and their impact on genome-wide patterns of relatedness are less clear.

     (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. Nigrostriatal Dopamine Signals Sequence-Specific Action-Outcome Prediction Errors

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Nick G. Hollon
   2. Elora W. Williams
   3. Christopher D. Howard
   4. Hao Li
   5. Tavish I. Traut
   6. Xin Jin

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This manuscript is of interest to neuroscientists conducting reward learning and basal ganglia research. It combines optogenetics and dopamine recordings to demonstrate that dopamine release in the dorsal striatum is smaller following self-stimulation than unpredicted stimulation of dopamine neurons. These results build on similar findings recently shown for the ventral striatum. Further development of the underlying mechanism or the behavioral significance would broaden the scope of the paper.

     (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. Global variation in force-of-infection trends for human Taenia solium taeniasis/cysticercosis

    This article has 10 authors:

    1. Matthew A Dixon
    2. Peter Winskill
    3. Wendy E Harrison
    4. Charles Whittaker
    5. Veronika Schmidt
    6. Astrid Carolina Flórez Sánchez
    7. Zulma M Cucunuba
    8. Agnes U Edia-Asuke
    9. Martin Walker
    10. María-Gloria Basáñez

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      Evaluation Summary:

      Basic epidemiological parameters such as the force of infection (rate at which susceptible individuals acquire the infection) remain undetermined for human infection with the neglected food-borne zoonotic cestode Taenia solium, which may cause taeniasis and cysticercosis. Dixon and colleagues address this major gap by fitting simple mathematical models to datasets that describe the prevalence of taeniasis and cysticercosis in several countries. Importantly, they found that infection acquisition rates per year vary widely (up to two orders of magnitude) across endemic settings and provide an approach for mapping the global public health impact of taeniasis and cysticercosis.

      (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