eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Piezo1 ion channels inherently function as independent mechanotransducers

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Amanda H Lewis
   2. Jörg Grandl

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     The work, when completed, will provide important mechanistic detail on how Piezo channels, the most important and versatile mechanoreceptor molecules, functionally interact in the plane of the plasma membrane. It will be of interest to the field of mechanobiology and sensory mechanotransduction.

     (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. Visualizing formation of the active site in the mitochondrial ribosome

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Viswanathan Chandrasekaran
   2. Nirupa Desai
   3. Nicholas O Burton
   4. Hanting Yang
   5. Jon Price
   6. Eric A Miska
   7. V Ramakrishnan

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     Ribosomes are among the most complex molecular machines a cell makes. The work by Chandrasekaran et al. contributes to our understanding of the molecular details of mitochondrial ribosome assembly, and how disruptions to this pathway may cause human disease. Using cryo-EM, the authors identified a subpopulation of immature human mitochondrial large ribosomal subunits that interact with assembly factors NSUN4, MTERF4 and GTPBP7. Based on this structure, they introduce mutations in C. elegans orthologs of these assembly factors that are expected to disrupt binding to the large subunit, and they show that these mutants cause sterility and disrupt mitochondrial proteostasis in the mutant animals. The work does not yet establish a direct link between the putative structural defects of the mutants and the observed developmental defects in C. elegans. Additional studies are needed to test the interesting possibility that this structure represents an on-pathway intermediate of mitoribosome biogenesis and/or ribosome recycling.

     (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

3. TRPM7 is critical for short-term synaptic depression by regulating synaptic vesicle endocytosis

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. Zhong-Jiao Jiang
   2. Wenping Li
   3. Li-Hua Yao
   4. Badeia Saed
   5. Yan Rao
   6. Brian S Grewe
   7. Andrea McGinley
   8. Kelly Varga
   9. Simon Alford
   10. Ying S Hu
   11. Liang-Wei Gong

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     Jiang et al. present a study on a novel role of the ion channel TRPM7 in the regulated release of neurotransmitters and hormones. Their analysis focused on TRPM7-deficient chromaffin cells and neurons, which they studied using electrophysiological and imaging techniques. The data indicate that TRPM7 is activated during the compensatory endocytotis process that follows secretory vesicle fusion. This TRPM7 activation increases Ca2+ influx into the cytosol during endocytosis, which boosts endocytosis and reduces the tendency of synapses to progressively fatigue in phases of prolonged stimulation. Multiple aspects of the present findings are novel, interesting, and important - they provide important new insights into the mechanisms by which transmitter and hormone release is fine-tuned. The mechanism of how secretory vesicles, and in particular synaptic vesicles, recycle is important to understand, as impairment in vesicle cycling in turn impairs synaptic transmission, and therefore brain function. However, there are several issues that remain to be addressed before the present data fully justify the conclusions put forward by the 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. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Individual variations in ‘brain age’ relate to early-life factors more than to longitudinal brain change

   This article has 31 authors:

   1. Didac Vidal-Pineiro
   2. Yunpeng Wang
   3. Stine K Krogsrud
   4. Inge K Amlien
   5. William FC Baaré
   6. David Bartres-Faz
   7. Lars Bertram
   8. Andreas M Brandmaier
   9. Christian A Drevon
   10. Sandra Düzel
   11. Klaus Ebmeier
   12. Richard N Henson
   13. Carme Junqué
   14. Rogier Andrew Kievit
   15. Simone Kühn
   16. Esten Leonardsen
   17. Ulman Lindenberger
   18. Kathrine S Madsen
   19. Fredrik Magnussen
   20. Athanasia Monika Mowinckel
   21. Lars Nyberg
   22. James M Roe
   23. Barbara Segura
   24. Stephen M Smith
   25. Øystein Sørensen
   26. Sana Suri
   27. Rene Westerhausen
   28. Andrew Zalesky
   29. Enikő Zsoldos
   30. Kristine Beate Walhovd
   31. Anders Fjell

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This paper is of interest to scientists within the field of lifespan developmental neuroscience. The data analysis is rigorous and the conclusions are justified by the data. The key claims of the manuscript are directly related to, and support, a more reasonable interpretation of previous known findings.

     (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. Rotational dynamics in motor cortex are consistent with a feedback controller

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Hari Teja Kalidindi
   2. Kevin P Cross
   3. Timothy P Lillicrap
   4. Mohsen Omrani
   5. Egidio Falotico
   6. Philip N Sabes
   7. Stephen H Scott

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     The authors use numerical simulations and analyses of neural data from non-human primates to investigate whether rotational dynamics in motor cortical population activity which are typically attributed to recurrent connections can alternatively be explained by sensory feedback alone. They find that neural networks performing the same tasks will produce rotational dynamics even without any internal recurrent units. Overall, this paper examines an important question in the motor control field. The authors should clarify in more detail how the case with no recurrent dynamics has been simulated and address/discuss the role of task structure in their conclusions. Once the authors address issues associated with precisely how they eliminated recurrence from their simulations, the results that rotational dynamics are not necessarily generated autonomously due to recurrent connections will be a valuable and important addition to the ongoing debate about the nature of these rotational dynamics.

     (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. TCR meta-clonotypes for biomarker discovery with tcrdist3 enabled identification of public, HLA-restricted clusters of SARS-CoV-2 TCRs

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Koshlan Mayer-Blackwell
   2. Stefan Schattgen
   3. Liel Cohen-Lavi
   4. Jeremy C Crawford
   5. Aisha Souquette
   6. Jessica A Gaevert
   7. Tomer Hertz
   8. Paul G Thomas
   9. Philip Bradley
   10. Andrew Fiore-Gartland

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     The paper by Mayer-Blackwell et al. builds on the idea that TCRs to the same antigen often share sequence similarities, which they quantify using a bespoke tool TCRdist3. Using this tool they develop the idea of a metaclone, a set of TCRs sharing similarities and potentially recognising the same antigen. They further show that such clonotypes show increased sharing between HLA-related individuals, and explore the use of such clonotypes in characterising antigen-specific immune response across cohorts of individuals. The paper is novel and of interest to a broad range of immunologists interested in repertoire. However, as raised in a series of detailed comments by the reviewers, the message of the paper needs to be sharpened and clearly focused on the development of the metaclone concept (with less emphasis on SARS-Cov-2. The concept of the metaclone itself, which is the main message of the paper, needs to be clarified, and characterised.

     (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, ScreenIT

7. Within-host evolutionary dynamics of seasonal and pandemic human influenza A viruses in young children

   This article has 28 authors:

   1. Alvin X Han
   2. Zandra C Felix Garza
   3. Matthijs RA Welkers
   4. René M Vigeveno
   5. Nhu Duong Tran
   6. Thi Quynh Mai Le
   7. Thai Pham Quang
   8. Dinh Thoang Dang
   9. Thi Ngoc Anh Tran
   10. Manh Tuan Ha
   11. Thanh Hung Nguyen
   12. Quoc Thinh Le
   13. Thanh Hai Le
   14. Thi Bich Ngoc Hoang
   15. Kulkanya Chokephaibulkit
   16. Pilaipan Puthavathana
   17. Van Vinh Chau Nguyen
   18. My Ngoc Nghiem
   19. Van Kinh Nguyen
   20. Tuyet Trinh Dao
   21. Tinh Hien Tran
   22. Heiman FL Wertheim
   23. Peter W Horby
   24. Annette Fox
   25. H Rogier van Doorn
   26. Dirk Eggink
   27. Menno D de Jong
   28. Colin A Russell

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This work offers an in-depth exploration of within-host influenza evolution that helps untangle the process by which global trends arise from host-level dynamics. The manuscript will be of interest to virologists and evolutionary biologists alike, and the dataset provides a unique opportunity to explore evolutionary dynamics late in acute infections of both endemic and emerging viruses. Technical concerns relating to data interpretation and modeling assumptions suggest that some results might change after further investigation.

     (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. Systematic morphological and morphometric analysis of identified olfactory receptor neurons in Drosophila melanogaster

   This article has 8 authors:

   1. Cesar Nava Gonzales
   2. Quintyn McKaughan
   3. Eric A Bushong
   4. Kalyani Cauwenberghs
   5. Renny Ng
   6. Matthew Madany
   7. Mark H Ellisman
   8. Chih-Ying Su

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     Nava Gonzales et al. have reconstructed in unprecedented detail the morphology of olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs) and supporting cells within the sensilla in D. melanogaster, characterising the majority of sensory hairs, and OSN types. The morphometric dataset collected will be a reference point for the field of olfaction research in Drosophila, and furthermore might inspire similar analyses of other sensory systems, building our understanding of how peripheral morphological features contribute to sensory neuron processing.

     (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

9. Activity-dependent modulation of synapse-regulating genes in astrocytes

   This article has 10 authors:

   1. Isabella Farhy-Tselnicker
   2. Matthew M Boisvert
   3. Hanqing Liu
   4. Cari Dowling
   5. Galina A Erikson
   6. Elena Blanco-Suarez
   7. Chen Farhy
   8. Maxim N Shokhirev
   9. Joseph R Ecker
   10. Nicola J Allen

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This paper describes the transcriptome and synaptogenic function of astrocytes in the developing visual cortex (VC), a widely used model for neural development. The central questions examined are two-fold: 1) deciphering layer specific organization of astrocytes and 2) how neuronal activity can influence layer specific astrocyte profiles that relate to synaptogenic gene families. Using bulk RNAseq and detailed histology, they demonstrate that expression of key synaptogenic genes are timepoint and layer specific during development, providing an essential resource for understanding how astrocytes change and impact the development of VC circuits. Moreover, the authors revealed that expression of synapse-regulating genes is also regulated by input from thalamic neuronal activity (using vGlut2 KO mice) and astrocyte calcium activity in vivo (using IP3R2 KO mice). They further demonstrate astrocyte molecular changes using snRNA-seq in VGlut2 cKO and Ip3r2 cKO mice. Collectively, these results show that neuronal activity drives the changes in astrocyte function and layer-specific expression of synaptogenic secreted proteins. Overall, this a rigorous and well conducted study that provides important and new information on astrocyte diversity, neuron-astrocyte interactions during development, and mechanisms underlying the expression of key astrocyte synaptogenic genes.

     (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. PARROT is a flexible recurrent neural network framework for analysis of large protein datasets

    This article has 2 authors:

    1. Daniel Griffith
    2. Alex S Holehouse

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      Evaluation Summary:

      The authors report a user-friendly software package (PARROT) that allows non-experts to use machine learning approaches to analyze high-throughput experiments on proteins. This package will allow more scientists to apply these powerful machine learning methods, thus increasing our ability to understand the chemistry and biological function of proteins.

      (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