eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. An M protein coiled coil unfurls and exposes its hydrophobic core to capture LL-37

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Piotr Kolesinski
   2. Kuei-Chen Wang
   3. Yujiro Hirose
   4. Victor Nizet
   5. Partho Ghosh

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This manuscript , which focuses on Streptococcus pyogenes M proteins and the antimicrobial peptide LL-37, will be of broad interest to individuals interested in host-pathogen interactions as well as protein-protein interactions.The manuscript provides both structural and functional insight in these areas, including new understanding of how coiled coil proteins can participate in protein-protein interactions and potentially inspiring protein designers and synthetic biologists to design mimetic systems that exploit the principles described here.

     (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. Measurements of damage and repair of binary health attributes in aging mice and humans reveal that robustness and resilience decrease with age, operate over broad timescales, and are affected differently by interventions

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Spencer Farrell
   2. Alice E Kane
   3. Elise Bisset
   4. Susan E Howlett
   5. Andrew D Rutenberg

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     The key contribution of this paper is to measure frailty longitudinally in mice and humans to model 'robustness' (the ability to resist damage) and 'resilience' (the ability to recover from damage). To model these concepts, a frailty index (FI) composed of multiple binary parameters is calculated, but with the novel contribution that newly detected changes represent damage and that the parameters that have previously been detected but are not detected currently represent damage repair. Statistical steps then derive resilience and robustness and their changes over time. The sophisticated attempts to effectively model longitudinal data and rigorous analytic approach are strengths, as is the use of both human and animal species and intervention studies. A few overarching concerns were raised, primarily pertaining to the potential risk of over-conceptualized links between deficit index and biologic constructs of 'damage' and 'repair', but it nonetheless advances a growing field interested in measuring the longitudinal change in biologic age.

     (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

3. Mettl3-mediated m6A modification of Fgf16 restricts cardiomyocyte proliferation during heart regeneration

   This article has 16 authors:

   1. Fu-Qing Jiang
   2. Kun Liu
   3. Jia-Xuan Chen
   4. Yan Cao
   5. Wu-Yun Chen
   6. Wan-Ling Zhao
   7. Guo-Hua Song
   8. Chi-Qian Liang
   9. Yi-Min Zhou
   10. Huan-Lei Huang
   11. Rui-Jin Huang
   12. Hui Zhao
   13. Kyu-Sang Park
   14. Zhenyu Ju
   15. Dongqing Cai
   16. Xu-Feng Qi

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     The manuscript identified m6A RNA methylation (via increased m6A writer, Mettl3 expression) as a critical regulator of cardiomyocyte proliferation during the initial regenerative window that was proposed earlier in the mouse heart. The authors have comprehensively profiled Mettl3 expression and Mettl3-dependent m6A regulation during cardiac regeneration using a variety of in vivo models as well as using in vitro primary cardiomyocytes to identify Fgf16 as a key downstream mRNA transcript for m6A RNA modification by Mettl3. Furthermore, they show that m6A-dependent cytoplasmic decay of Fgf16 mRNA in a Ythdf2-dependent pathway is the key underlying mechanism regulating cardiac regeneration in these models. In sum, a well-designed study with new data that shows suppression of a developmentally induced phenomenon as a therapeutic option for inducing cardiac proliferation.

     (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

4. Control of craniofacial development by the collagen receptor, discoidin domain receptor 2

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. Fatma F Mohamed
   2. Chunxi Ge
   3. Shawn A Hallett
   4. Alec C Bancroft
   5. Randy T Cowling
   6. Noriaki Ono
   7. Abdul-Aziz Binrayes
   8. Barry Greenberg
   9. Benjamin Levi
   10. Vesa M Kaartinen
   11. Renny T Franceschi

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     The authors report that discoidin domain receptor 2 (DDR2), a non-integrin collagen receptor, is required in Gli1+ cells for the development of the craniofacial skeleton. It is known that mutations in DDR2 are associated with craniofacial abnormalities, such as midface hypoplasia and open fontanels. This paper is of potential interest to craniofacial skeletal developmental researchers. While the data quality is high, the paper helps to confirm what has been recently published by the same 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. Reviewer #2 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Structure of Mycobacterium tuberculosis Cya, an evolutionary ancestor of the mammalian membrane adenylyl cyclases

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Ved Mehta
   2. Basavraj Khanppnavar
   3. Dina Schuster
   4. Ilayda Kantarci
   5. Irene Vercellino
   6. Angela Kosturanova
   7. Tarun Iype
   8. Sasa Stefanic
   9. Paola Picotti
   10. Volodymyr M Korkhov

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This manuscript reports the first full-length structure of membrane-bound adenylyl cyclase from the pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The structure provides insights into its potential mechanism of action and reveals similarities to its mammalian counterpart. Thus, this paper is of potential interest to a broad audience including the fields of infectious diseases, signaling, and evolutionary biologists.

     (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. Effects of side-effect risk framing strategies on COVID-19 vaccine intentions: a randomized controlled trial

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Nikkil Sudharsanan
   2. Caterina Favaretti
   3. Violetta Hachaturyan
   4. Till Bärnighausen
   5. Alain Vandormael

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This randomized clinical trial is based on 8,998 participants from the U.S. and the U.K. to examine the association between risk-framing nudges and the willingness to get a Covid vaccine. This manuscript would be of interest to behavioral scientists, particularly behavioral economists. Findings from this work reveal that (1) nudging can substantially increase the likelihood of Covid vaccination; (2) using different nudging frames matters and may produce different results.

     (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, ScreenIT

7. Integration of visual and antennal mechanosensory feedback during head stabilization in hawkmoths

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Payel Chatterjee
   2. Agnish Dev Prusty
   3. Umesh Mohan
   4. Sanjay P Sane

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This paper will be of interest to neuroscientists who study navigation and multisensory integration. In it, the authors use several manipulations to convincingly show that hawkmoths use mechanosensory feedback from their antennae to stabilize their head when their body rotates quickly or when they have little visual input. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that control of head angle in insects that lack halteres results from a multimodal feedback loop that integrates visual and antennal mechanosensory feedback. This advances our understanding of how such stabilizing reflexes work beyond Dipteran flies, where much prior work has focused.

     (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

8. Adaptation of Drosophila larva foraging in response to changes in food resources

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Marina E Wosniack
   2. Dylan Festa
   3. Nan Hu
   4. Julijana Gjorgjieva
   5. Jimena Berni

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This paper contributes to the growing body of literature that investigates foraging in complex landscapes. It is therefore of interest to neuroscientists and ecologists. The paper effectively combines behavioral experiments with phenomenological modeling to investigate which navigational strategies are responsive to the type and distribution of food patches. The main experimental results pertaining to food strategy are well supported, with secondary results limited by the low sample sizes.

     (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

9. Murine endothelial serine palmitoyltransferase 1 (SPTLC1) is required for vascular development and systemic sphingolipid homeostasis

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. Andrew Kuo
   2. Antonio Checa
   3. Colin Niaudet
   4. Bongnam Jung
   5. Zhongjie Fu
   6. Craig E Wheelock
   7. Sasha A Singh
   8. Masanori Aikawa
   9. Lois E Smith
   10. Richard L Proia
   11. Timothy Hla

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This study reveals the importance of sphingolipids in endothelial cell biology. The authors have examined the role of the Sptlc1 gene in retinal injury as well as in the production of sphingolipid metabolites. These studies provide key insight into how endothelial cell production of sphingolipids alters vascular repair and systemic metabolism.

     (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. Modeling osteoporosis to design and optimize pharmacological therapies comprising multiple drug types

    This article has 7 authors:

    1. David J Jörg
    2. Doris H Fuertinger
    3. Alhaji Cherif
    4. David A Bushinsky
    5. Ariella Mermelstein
    6. Jochen G Raimann
    7. Peter Kotanko

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      Evaluation Summary:

      This paper will be of interest to the pharmacology community with interest in available drug treatments for osteoporosis and how to optimize these. The key findings of the paper are based on in silico results and indicate that combined drug treatments may be more efficient in treatment of osteoporosis. This could have a significant impact on clinical management of osteoporosis patients.

      (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