eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Two novel, tightly linked, and rapidly evolving genes underlie Aedes aegypti mosquito reproductive resilience during drought

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. Krithika Venkataraman
   2. Nadav Shai
   3. Priyanka Lakhiani
   4. Sarah Zylka
   5. Jieqing Zhao
   6. Margaret Herre
   7. Joshua Zeng
   8. Lauren A Neal
   9. Henrik Molina
   10. Li Zhao
   11. Leslie B Vosshall

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     In this manuscript, of interest to those studying insect reproductive biology and specifically mosquitoes, the authors show that females of the yellow fever mosquito retain eggs when fresh water is not readily available. The authors then use RNA expression analyses to identify genes potentially involved in the trait. This leads the authors to focus on two genes that seem to be recent duplicates. The authors generate genetic knockouts and use these to show that these two alleles affect the trait in question. The study includes interesting and technically impressive experiments, but the framing in the context of previous work could be improved.

     (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. Effector target-guided engineering of an integrated domain expands the disease resistance profile of a rice NLR immune receptor

   This article has 12 authors:

   1. Josephine HR Maidment
   2. Motoki Shimizu
   3. Adam R Bentham
   4. Sham Vera
   5. Marina Franceschetti
   6. Apinya Longya
   7. Clare EM Stevenson
   8. Juan Carlos De la Concepcion
   9. Aleksandra Białas
   10. Sophien Kamoun
   11. Ryohei Terauchi
   12. Mark J Banfield

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     Engineering NLR proteins to improve disease resistance in crop plants is a major goal of the field. This study applies knowledge from structural and evolutionary studies of the rice NLR protein Pik-1 and cognate effector protein AVR-Pik to engineering of new disease resistance genes. The authors nicely demonstrate that it is indeed possible to engineer resistance proteins with broad recognition specificity for the rice blast fungus. The work is of interest to colleagues in synthetic biology, protein engineering and plant-pathogen interactions.

     (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

3. Human thymopoiesis produces polyspecific CD8+ α/β T cells responding to multiple viral antigens

   This article has 18 authors:

   1. Valentin Quiniou
   2. Pierre Barennes
   3. Vanessa Mhanna
   4. Paul Stys
   5. Helene Vantomme
   6. Zhicheng Zhou
   7. Federica Martina
   8. Nicolas Coatnoan
   9. Michele Barbie
   10. Hang-Phuong Pham
   11. Béatrice Clémenceau
   12. Henri Vie
   13. Mikhail Shugay
   14. Adrien Six
   15. Barbara Brandao
   16. Roberto Mallone
   17. Encarnita Mariotti-Ferrandiz
   18. David Klatzmann

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife assessment

     This paper reports on important observations regarding human CD8 T cells that express shared T cell receptors amongst individuals and exhibit poly-specificity directed mainly to several unrelated viral antigens. Although the majority of the claims are convincingly supported by results from both in silico and experimental approaches, mechanistic molecular details underlying poly-specificity remain incomplete. The results from these studies will enhance the ongoing debate on T cell specificity and potentially, will impact fields related to immunology, for example, immunoparasitology, cell biology, and vaccine development.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Identification of phenotypically, functionally, and anatomically distinct stromal niche populations in human bone marrow based on single-cell RNA sequencing

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Hongzhe Li
   2. Sandro Bräunig
   3. Parashar Dhapolar
   4. Göran Karlsson
   5. Stefan Lang
   6. Stefan Scheding

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     The manuscript by Li and coworkers characterizes sorted human non-hematopoietic bone marrow cells by scRNA-seq and predicts their lineage relationships and possible interactions with mature and immature hematopoietic cells. Transcriptionally-different stromal cell subsets are identified, and their lineage relationships, cell-cell interactions and possible specialized functions are inferred or predicted from in-silico studies, paving the way for future functional and validation studies. This resource significantly adds to the current understanding human non-hematopoietic bone marrow stromal cells and their hematopoietic regulatory functions.

     (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

5. Functional gradients in the human lateral prefrontal cortex revealed by a comprehensive coordinate-based meta-analysis

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Majd Abdallah
   2. Gaston E Zanitti
   3. Valentin Iovene
   4. Demian Wassermann

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     A meta-analysis of over 14,000 fMRI studies revealed a principle rostral-caudal gradient in the lateral prefrontal cortex. This gradient reflected an internal/external axis, which helps to organize the LPFC's involvement in widespread processes from affect, to memory, to control, and action. This is an important contribution to the literature, particularly as a meta-analytic approach has not been applied to this axis of organization and can complement the limitations of single studies. The evidence for the conclusions could be strengthened by ruling out bias in the analysis and drawing a clearer relationship to functional networks.

     (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

6. Personality traits are consistently associated with blood mitochondrial DNA copy number estimated from genome sequences in two genetic cohort studies

   This article has 19 authors:

   1. Richard F Oppong
   2. Antonio Terracciano
   3. Martin Picard
   4. Yong Qian
   5. Thomas J Butler
   6. Toshiko Tanaka
   7. Ann Zenobia Moore
   8. Eleanor M Simonsick
   9. Krista Opsahl-Ong
   10. Christopher Coletta
   11. Angelina R Sutin
   12. Myriam Gorospe
   13. Susan M Resnick
   14. Francesco Cucca
   15. Sonja W Scholz
   16. Bryan J Traynor
   17. David Schlessinger
   18. Luigi Ferrucci
   19. Jun Ding

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This paper makes a comprehensive survey of the relationship between mtDNAcn and the personality dimensions, as well as how and whether they mediate the relationships between personality dimensions and mortability as well as other behavioural measures that may lead to mortality. More work needs to be performed to truly understand the relationship between personality dimensions and mortality, as well as the physiological traits (like mtDNAcn) that may be mediating it.

     (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. Gene interaction perturbation network deciphers a high-resolution taxonomy in colorectal cancer

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Zaoqu Liu
   2. Siyuan Weng
   3. Qin Dang
   4. Hui Xu
   5. Yuqing Ren
   6. Chunguang Guo
   7. Zhe Xing
   8. Zhenqiang Sun
   9. Xinwei Han

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     Liu et al. describes an unsupervised method that clusters colorectal cancer samples based on perturbations to gene interactions. They show that this method strongly suggests 6 distinct clusters of samples and identifies phenotypes associated with the clusters, including survival, drug response, immune phenotype, response to immune checkpoint inhibitors and perturbed pathways. This is an interesting and significant manuscript, which has been well conducted.

     (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. Covalent disruptor of YAP-TEAD association suppresses defective Hippo signaling

   This article has 26 authors:

   1. Mengyang Fan
   2. Wenchao Lu
   3. Jianwei Che
   4. Nicholas P Kwiatkowski
   5. Yang Gao
   6. Hyuk-Soo Seo
   7. Scott B Ficarro
   8. Prafulla C Gokhale
   9. Yao Liu
   10. Ezekiel A Geffken
   11. Jimit Lakhani
   12. Kijun Song
   13. Miljan Kuljanin
   14. Wenzhi Ji
   15. Jie Jiang
   16. Zhixiang He
   17. Jason Tse
   18. Andrew S Boghossian
   19. Matthew G Rees
   20. Melissa M Ronan
   21. Jennifer A Roth
   22. Joseph D Mancias
   23. Jarrod A Marto
   24. Sirano Dhe-Paganon
   25. Tinghu Zhang
   26. Nathanael S Gray

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     Fan and colleagues disclose the development of covalent TEAD inhibitors and they report on the therapeutic potential of this class of agents in the treatment of TEAD-YAP-driven cancers (e.g., malignant pleural mesothelioma, MPM). Optimized derivatives of a previously reported covalent TEAD inhibitor are described and characterized, using diverse profiling approaches that range from biochemical and cell-based assays to X-ray co-crystallographic analysis and in vivo efficacy in a relevant mouse xenograft model. The manuscript represents an impressive and deep characterization of this small molecule class. The authors' claims and conclusions are very well supported and justified by the data, although differentiation from a very closely related compound termed K-975 is not entirely clear as currently presented.

     (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. BRCA2 BRC missense variants disrupt RAD51-dependent DNA repair

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Judit Jimenez-Sainz
   2. Joshua Mathew
   3. Gemma Moore
   4. Sudipta Lahiri
   5. Jennifer Garbarino
   6. Joseph P Eder
   7. Eli Rothenberg
   8. Ryan B Jensen

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This study provides a thorough functional analysis of three mutations in the BRCA2 gene that do not seem to necessarily cause breast cancer. The authors use functional assays in cancer cells and with recombinant proteins to determine that two BRCA2 variants, S1221P and T1980I, are indeed pathogenic, while the T13461 variant is fully functional and benign. The strength of the study is the rigorous assessment of these mutations in a variety of established assays for BRCA2. The work is likely to have a broad impact in the breast cancer field.

     (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

10. An inhibitory circuit from central amygdala to zona incerta drives pain-related behaviors in mice

    This article has 11 authors:

    1. Sudhuman Singh
    2. Torri D Wilson
    3. Spring Valdivia
    4. Barbara Benowitz
    5. Sarah Chaudhry
    6. Jun Ma
    7. Anisha P Adke
    8. Omar Soler-Cedeño
    9. Daniela Velasquez
    10. Mario A Penzo
    11. Yarimar Carrasquillo

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      Evaluation Summary:

      This manuscript from Singh and colleagues investigates neural connections between the central amygdala and the zona incerta, two subcortical brain regions previously implicated in pain, and further describes the role of the zona incerta to preclinical pain-related behavior in mice. This study employed anatomical tracing, electrophysiology, optogenetics, chemogenetics, and behavioral assays in various pain modalities to link the zona incerta to pain modulation by providing new evidence for a direct inhibitory connection from the central amygdala to the zona incerta that could explain neuropathic pain hypersensitivity. While rigorous, well written, and well executed, the study in its current form lacked evidence to directly support the PKCδ neurons in the central amygdala projecting to the zona incerta as being explicitly involved in this process.

      (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