eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Echolocating toothed whales use ultra-fast echo-kinetic responses to track evasive prey

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Heather Vance
   2. Peter T Madsen
   3. Natacha Aguilar de Soto
   4. Danuta Maria Wisniewska
   5. Michael Ladegaard
   6. Sascha Hooker
   7. Mark Johnson

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This paper on echolocation-mediated responses to prey movements will be of interest to a broad audience, including ethologists and neuroscientists as well as those more generally interested in the natural world. Its strengths come from the use of data from both wild and captive animals of different species of toothed whales, as well as trained harbour porpoises, enabling generalization of the findings and conclusions on sensory-motor feedback.

     (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. Motor planning brings human primary somatosensory cortex into action-specific preparatory states

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Giacomo Ariani
   2. J Andrew Pruszynski
   3. Jörn Diedrichsen

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     The authors studied the neural correlates of planning and execution of single finger presses in a 7T fMRI study focusing on primary somatosensory (S1) and motor (M1) cortices. BOLD patterns of activation/deactivation and finger-specific pattern discriminability indicate that M1 and S1 are involved not only during execution, but also during planning of single finger presses. These results contribute to a developing story that the role of primary somatosensory cortex goes beyond pure processing of tactile information and will be of interest for researchers in the field of motor control and of systems neuroscience.

     (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 #3 agreed to share their names with the authors.)

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Classification and genetic targeting of cell types in the primary taste and premotor center of the adult Drosophila brain

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Gabriella R Sterne
   2. Hideo Otsuna
   3. Barry J Dickson
   4. Kristin Scott

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This manuscript will be of interest to scientists working on adult Drosophila behavior, especially as it relates to a region called subesophageal zone. This area is an important integration center for different nervous system functions, including taste information processing and motor control of mouth parts and body movements. Specifically, it provides genetic tools (sparse gal-4 lines) that target different cell types in the subesophageal zone for future functional analysis.

     (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. A zebrafish embryo screen utilizing gastrulation identifies the HTR2C inhibitor pizotifen as a suppressor of EMT-mediated metastasis

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Joji Nakayama
   2. Lora Tan
   3. Yan Li
   4. Boon Cher Goh
   5. Shu Wang
   6. Hideki Makinoshima
   7. Zhiyuan Gong

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This manuscript develops a novel approach using the zebrafish to identify suitable drugs against the spread of cancer. With some stronger support of the methodology and conclusions, it will be of interest to cancer biologists, developmental biologists, and pharmacologists.

     (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. Hsp40s play complementary roles in the prevention of tau amyloid formation

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Rose Irwin
   2. Ofrah Faust
   3. Ivana Petrovic
   4. Sharon Grayer Wolf
   5. Hagen Hofmann
   6. Rina Rosenzweig

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This paper addresses the intriguing hypothesis that different molecular chaperones may recognize and bind distinct tau species, and thus may use different mechanisms to prevent tau aggregation. The findings are very interesting and advance our understanding of how chaperones can counteract the deleterious effect of tau amyloidogenesis.

     (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. Environmental fluctuations reshape an unexpected diversity-disturbance relationship in a microbial community

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Christopher P Mancuso
   2. Hyunseok Lee
   3. Clare I Abreu
   4. Jeff Gore
   5. Ahmad S Khalil

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     How species diversity responds to external perturbations (such as resource influxes and dilutions) is an important ecological question. Using soil microbial communities in devices where perturbations can be introduced in various forms and mathematical modelling, this study nicely illustrates how diversity is influenced by perturbations.

     (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. Witnessing the structural evolution of an RNA enzyme

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Xavier Portillo
   2. Yu-Ting Huang
   3. Ronald R Breaker
   4. David P Horning
   5. Gerald F Joyce

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     The plasticity of RNA folds and their ability to response to changes in selective pressure is a key aspect of understanding the evolution of life on this planet. The Class I ligase is a remarkably fast RNA ligase ribozyme that has been harnessed by a number of laboratories to power RNA polymerization. Thought by many to be the immutable catalytic core required for polymerization, Portillo et al. demonstrate evolutionary trajectories that result in a new and catalytically enhanced ligase core. An accumulation of mutations results in a the formation of a new pseudoknot structure immediately outside the active site of the ligase core. This new structure appears to more optimally position the P7-P6-P3 coaxially stacked stems of the ligase core with respect to the primer template substrate. Tracking the emergence of this new fold, which is correlated with an enhancement in RNA polymerization activity, is novel and interesting.

     (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 #3 agreed to share their names with the authors.)

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Binding affinity landscapes constrain the evolution of broadly neutralizing anti-influenza antibodies

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Angela M Phillips
   2. Katherine R Lawrence
   3. Alief Moulana
   4. Thomas Dupic
   5. Jeffrey Chang
   6. Milo S Johnson
   7. Ivana Cvijovic
   8. Thierry Mora
   9. Aleksandra M Walczak
   10. Michael M Desai

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     CR6261 and CR9114 are two antibodies that bind to the conserved stem of influenza hemagglutinin (HA) through their VH regions and differ by 14-18 mutations from their inferred germline sequences. The authors constructed large combinatorial libraries containing all combinations of 11 and 16 binding-surface mutations for CR6261 and CR9114. These were used in yeast surface display titrations to infer individual and epistatic contributions to binding diverse HAs and to infer possible evolutionary trajectories going from germline to the mature antibodies. The study provides a wealth of knowledge on amino acid contributions to binding affinity. The study informs our understanding of biochemical epistasis, and could potentially serve as a starting point for a more detailed understanding of antibody affinity maturation more generally.

     (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 #3 agreed to share their names with the authors.)

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Repeated origins, widespread gene flow, and allelic interactions of target-site herbicide resistance mutations

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Julia M Kreiner
   2. George Sandler
   3. Aaron J Stern
   4. Patrick J Tranel
   5. Detlef Weigel
   6. John R Stinchcombe
   7. Stephen I Wright

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This paper studies the evolution of herbicide resistance in Amaranthus tuberculatus, a widespread agricultural weed. By illuminating how adaptive mutations arose and spread in this remarkable example of rapid human-induced adaptation, the study will be of interest to a broad audience, ranging from plant biologists interested in herbicide resistance to evolutionary biologists and population geneticists studying the fundamental factors and processes that govern rapid adaptation. The paper applies innovative population genetic methodology to support its primary finding that resistance mutations have evolved multiple times in parallel.

     (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

10. A conserved strategy for inducing appendage regeneration in moon jellyfish, Drosophila, and mice

    This article has 12 authors:

    1. Michael J Abrams
    2. Fayth Hui Tan
    3. Yutian Li
    4. Ty Basinger
    5. Martin L Heithe
    6. Anish Sarma
    7. Iris T Lee
    8. Zevin J Condiotte
    9. Misha Raffiee
    10. John O Dabiri
    11. David A Gold
    12. Lea Goentoro

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      Evaluation Summary:

      This paper argues that simple nutritional interventions (L-leucine / insulin / sucrose) can trigger appendage regeneration in species various that do not regenerate appendages in normal conditions. Although the data on Drosophila are not fully convincing and further evidence is needed for this species, in the jellyfish Aurelia and in mice, the results are stunning and provide novel model systems for inducing appendage regeneration in animals and for studying the mechanisms underlying regeneration. These results strengthen an old idea that animals may have an intrinsic capacity to regenerate, which could be revealed by simple (e.g. nutritional) interventions. This paper will be of interest to readers in the field of signaling in regeneration and also in regenerative medicine.

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

    Reviewed by eLife