eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Collective dynamics support group drumming, reduce variability, and stabilize tempo drift

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Dobromir Dotov
   2. Lana Delasanta
   3. Daniel J Cameron
   4. Edward W Large
   5. Laurel Trainor

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     The paper will be of great interest to scientists looking for new approaches to understanding group behavior, especially within the fields of human cognition, neurosciences, and musicology. Taking joint drumming as a model of collective dynamics, and combining several quantitative methods, the authors characterize how human behavior changes, at the individual- and group-level, as a function of group numerosity. An important take home message of this work is that not everything we know from studies involving dyads should be necessarily generalized to larger groups.

     (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

2. Gene and protein expression and metabolic flux analysis reveals metabolic scaling in liver ex vivo and in vivo

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Ngozi D Akingbesote
   2. Brooks P Leitner
   3. Daniel G Jovin
   4. Reina Desrouleaux
   5. Dennis Owusu
   6. Wanling Zhu
   7. Zongyu Li
   8. Michael N Pollak
   9. Rachel J Perry

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     The study provides evidence that specific transcriptional responses may underpin the observation that metabolic rates often scale inversely with body mass. The conclusions are supported by direct measurement of metabolic fluxes in mouse and rat livers, although generalizations to other settings remain to be rigorously tested. The study has broad implications for researching and studying animal metabolism and physiology.

     (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

3. SRSF10 is essential for progenitor spermatogonia expansion by regulating alternative splicing

   This article has 18 authors:

   1. Wenbo Liu
   2. Xukun Lu
   3. Zheng-Hui Zhao
   4. Ruibao SU
   5. Qian-Nan Li Li
   6. Yue Xue
   7. Zheng Gao
   8. Si-Min Sun Sun
   9. Wen-Long Lei
   10. Lei Li
   11. Geng An
   12. Hanyan Liu
   13. Zhiming Han
   14. Ying-Chun Ouyang
   15. Yi Hou
   16. Zhen-Bo Wang
   17. Qing-Yuan Sun
   18. Jianqiao Liu

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This manuscript describes an extensive molecular and cellular analysis of spermatogenesis in male mice in the absence of splicing factor Srsf10; a factor known to be involved in alternative splicing. Loss of Srf10 did not prevent formation of spermatogonia in testes, but did inhibit spermatogonia from entering meiosis and producing meiotic spermatocytes. These results should be of interest to molecular, developmental, and reproductive biologists. However, the conclusions require additional experimental support and the molecular basis of the observations need to be more clearly defined.

     (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

4. A generalized cortical activity pattern at internally generated mental context boundaries during unguided narrative recall

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Hongmi Lee
   2. Janice Chen

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This manuscript is of interest to cognitive neuroscientists working on topics broadly related to memory, event segmentation and mental context. It presents an interesting set of new analyses related to internally versus externally driven changes in mental context. The idea is innovative and the analyses and methods are thoughtful and rigorous. There are some concerns about the degree to which the interpretations are supported by the data, but they could potentially be resolved with additional control analyses.

     (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, Reviewer #2 and Reviewer #3 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

   Reviewed by eLife

5. DIP2 is a unique regulator of diacylglycerol lipid homeostasis in eukaryotes

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. Sudipta Mondal
   2. Priyadarshan Kinatukara
   3. Shubham Singh
   4. Sakshi Shambhavi
   5. Gajanan S Patil
   6. Noopur Dubey
   7. Salam Herojeet Singh
   8. Biswajit Pal
   9. P Chandra Shekar
   10. Siddhesh S Kamat
   11. Rajan Sankaranarayanan

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     The DISCO-interacting protein 2 (DIP2) family consists of poorly characterized proteins linked to lipid metabolism, with a previously unclear role in cell physiology. DIP2 proteins contain putative fatty acyl-AMP ligase domains (FAALs), which are thought to influence fatty acid activation and attachment to various metabolites. Here, the authors analyze the role of budding yeast ScDIP2, and propose that it regulates a specific sub-pool of diacylglycerol (DAG) lipids and their conversion into storage triglycerides. While the exact molecular mechanism is not clear yet, this study will be of interest to cell biologists interested in lipids, metabolism, and ER stress.

     (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

6. Systematic lncRNA mapping to genome-wide co-essential modules uncovers cancer dependency on uncharacterized lncRNAs

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Ramkrishna Mitra
   2. Clare M Adams
   3. Christine M Eischen

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     Mitra et al. developed an analysis framework using large-scale pan-cancer omics datasets to discover the roles of 30 long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) in cancer proliferation and growth. Direct function-testing experiments were also performed to validate the biological mechanisms of two lncRNAs. The analysis framework developed here can serve as a resource to study the functions of lncRNA in cancer, and the computational framework can also be further extended to study cancer-relevant transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulation.

     (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

7. WhyD tailors surface polymers to prevent premature bacteriolysis and direct cell elongation in Streptococcus pneumoniae

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Josué Flores-Kim
   2. Genevieve S Dobihal
   3. Thomas G Bernhardt
   4. David Z Rudner

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This study explores autolysis regulation in the gram positive pathogen Streptococcus Pneumoniae and finds that the turnover of wall teichoic acids at the septum controls cell elongation. Specifically, a possible new enzyme WhyD regulates the level of wall teichoic acids (WTA) at the bacterial septum, limiting the number of WTA-associated autolysins such as LytA at division sites. The study provides new insights into the molecular interactions between enzymes that regulate PG-associated polymers and enzymes that hydrolyze to regulate cell morphogenesis. In principle, such regulation will also apply to other monoderm bacteria. This article will be of interest to microbiologists who are studying bacterial cell envelope dynamics. The experimental data support the conclusions drawn and the work provides tools, concepts and remaining questions to address that will be instrumental to understand the mechanism underpinning autolytic control.

     (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

8. Quantitative MRI reveals differences in striatal myelin in children with DLD

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Saloni Krishnan
   2. Gabriel J Cler
   3. Harriet J Smith
   4. Hanna E Willis
   5. Salomi S Asaridou
   6. Máiréad P Healy
   7. Daniel Papp
   8. Kate E Watkins

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This is a paper that will be of broad interest to cognitive scientists, cognitive neuroscientists and speech pathologists who study language disorders. They apply a new structural neuro-imaging technique - multi-parameter mapping (MPM) to a very large sample of children with and without developmental language disorders. MPM allows them to identify localized structural differences (particularly myelin) that cannot be observed with other techniques. It offers convincing evidence that differences in a range of neural structures--including theoretically motivated left hemisphere language areas, and procedural learning--can be linked to variation in language ability.

     (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 and Reviewer #3 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

   Reviewed by eLife

9. 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

10. 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