eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Hydrop enables droplet-based single-cell ATAC-seq and single-cell RNA-seq using dissolvable hydrogel beads

   This article has 13 authors:

   1. Florian V De Rop
   2. Joy N Ismail
   3. Carmen Bravo González-Blas
   4. Gert J Hulselmans
   5. Christopher Campbell Flerin
   6. Jasper Janssens
   7. Koen Theunis
   8. Valerie M Christiaens
   9. Jasper Wouters
   10. Gabriele Marcassa
   11. Joris de Wit
   12. Suresh Poovathingal
   13. Stein Aerts

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This paper introduces a flexible microfluidics-based single-cell genomics technology that expands and improves over existing custom droplet-based scRNA-seq protocols (inDrops and Drop-seq) in important ways: better data quality, simplified workflow, high cell recovery, and flexibility towards other single-cell applications, as exemplified by HyDrop-based single-cell ATAC-seq. Its flexibility should allow the research community to develop and implement new and custom workflows on this platform, including single-cell multi-omics technologies.

     (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. Roosting ecology and the evolution of bat landing maneuvers

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. David B. Boerma
   2. Sharon M. Swartz

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     Bat landings are remarkable because they are typically inverted and can involve two, three or four limbs securing the substrate, ranging from cave ceilings to leaves. How different bat species accomplish landing in such a remarkable dynamic fashion and how this ability may have evolved is a mystery. Boersma and Swartz resolved this question by studying how a wide range of bat species land in a unique biomechanics field study conducted across the world, which they complemented with a phylogenetic analysis that provides new insights into how bat landing behavior may have evolved in relation to substrate mechanics. The new evolutionary insight into how bat landing style relates to peak substrate contact force will be of interest to comparative biomechanists, movement ecologists and evolutionary biologists alike. Finally, the markedly different landing strategies for complex natural surfaces may inspire roboticists to design more effective landing and grasping solutions for complex surfaces.

     (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

3. Ca2+ inactivation of the mammalian ryanodine receptor type 1 in a lipidic environment revealed by cryo-EM

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Ashok R Nayak
   2. Montserrat Samsó

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     Inactivation of ryanodine receptors (RyR1) is an important physiologic phenomenon disruption of which leads to skeletal muscle and heart diseases. By comparing cryoEM structures of RyR1 in closed, open, and inactivated states, this study provides structural insights into RyR1 calcium-dependent inactivation (CDI). The results rationalize how some disease-causing mutations in RyR1 eliminate CDI of the channel. The study will be of interest to ion channel structural biologists and physiologists studying skeletal muscle pathologies.

     (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. Sampling alternative conformational states of transporters and receptors with AlphaFold2

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Diego del Alamo
   2. Davide Sala
   3. Hassane S Mchaourab
   4. Jens Meiler

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     In this work, del Alamo and colleagues illustrate the ability of recent Deep Learning techniques to predict diverse conformational states in proteins, as opposed to single static models reflecting individual states. Although they are limited to a small number of test cases of membrane proteins, the examples are of interest to members of the community, who are currently unable to reliably model the essential conformational changes required for function, at least until Deep Learning methods can be improved along these lines.

     (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

5. Taller height and risk of coronary heart disease and cancer: A within-sibship Mendelian randomization study

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Laurence J Howe
   2. Ben Brumpton
   3. Humaira Rasheed
   4. Bjørn Olav Åsvold
   5. George Davey Smith
   6. Neil M Davies

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     The authors examined the role of height in cancer, coronary heart disease and cardiovascular disease risk factors, using four different designs. They found that height increases risk of cancer and decreases risk of coronary heart disease, while the associations for the cardiovascular disease risk factors were largely null. This will be mainly of interest to epidemiologists.

     (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. Regulation of protein complex partners as a compensatory mechanism in aneuploid tumors

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Gökçe Senger
   2. Stefano Santaguida
   3. Martin H Schaefer

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This paper will be of interest to the cancer biology community. The study leverages high-throughput genomic and proteomic data to evaluate the role of aneuploidy on functional pathway changes in cancer.

     (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

7. A general decoding strategy explains the relationship between behavior and correlated variability

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Amy M Ni
   2. Chengcheng Huang
   3. Brent Doiron
   4. Marlene R Cohen

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This manuscript will be of interest to the community interested in how the coordinated activity of neurons influence both coding and behaviour. It successfully combines a sophisticated model of the visual system with data analysis to support a well-formulated hypothesis of the importance of general decoding. This is a potentially important contribution, that addresses a widely observed, but puzzling, relation between perceptual performance and noise correlations.

     (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. Reprogramming and redifferentiation of mucosal-associated invariant T cells reveal tumor inhibitory activity

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Chie Sugimoto
   2. Yukie Murakami
   3. Eisuke Ishii
   4. Hiroyoshi Fujita
   5. Hiroshi Wakao

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This paper describes a reprogramming platform for studying mucosal-associated invariant T (MAIT) cells that can overcome the current technology limitations in studying MAITs. With more detailed elucidation the identity of reprogrammed MAIT cells compared to endogenous MAITs, this paper will of broad interest to those studying the role of these cells in tumor immunity.

     (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. A plasma membrane-localized polycystin-1/polycystin-2 complex in endothelial cells elicits vasodilation

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Charles E MacKay
   2. Miranda Floen
   3. M Dennis Leo
   4. Raquibul Hasan
   5. Tessa AC Garrud
   6. Carlos Fernández-Peña
   7. Purnima Singh
   8. Kafait U Malik
   9. Jonathan H Jaggar

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This study is potentially of high significance to a broad audience of scientists working on vascular reactivity and the role of ion channels in controlling endothelial cell signaling and vessel contractility. The study uses novel Endothelial cell specific knockout mice of Polycystin-1 and 2 (PC1 and PC2) proteins to show the requirement of PC1 and PC2 in flow-mediated vasodilation, how PC-1 and PC-2 interact and that their functions are interdependent. The findings from this study are novel and significant. The animal models used in this study are state of the art and the data overall are of high quality. However, additional data are needed to support the conclusions of the study. Further, additional controls and clarifications are required.

     (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

10. Linking rattiness, geography and environmental degradation to spillover Leptospira infections in marginalised urban settings: An eco-epidemiological community-based cohort study in Brazil

    This article has 18 authors:

    1. Max T Eyre
    2. Fábio N Souza
    3. Ticiana SA Carvalho-Pereira
    4. Nivison Nery
    5. Daiana de Oliveira
    6. Jaqueline S Cruz
    7. Gielson A Sacramento
    8. Hussein Khalil
    9. Elsio A Wunder
    10. Kathryn P Hacker
    11. José E Hagan
    12. James E Childs
    13. Mitermayer G Reis
    14. Mike Begon
    15. Peter J Diggle
    16. Albert I Ko
    17. Emanuele Giorgi
    18. Federico Costa

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      Evaluation Summary:

      Leptospirosis is an important zoonotic disease with a major global health impact. Although the role of rats as hosts is well known, it is less clear how important the fine-scale local and simultaneous presence of infected rats is relative to contact with water that could have been contaminated by rats elsewhere, or some time in the past. This study leverages a fine-scaled spatial dataset on human infection data and rat abundance to address this question, using a carefully developed statistical model that incorporates key variables and takes into account spatial variation. The models show that 'rattiness', a proxy for local rat abundance, might be an important driver of human infection risk, suggesting that rodent control measures might be an avenue for lowering the risk of infection with Leptospira bacteria.

      (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