eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. A projectome of the bumblebee central complex

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Marcel Ethan Sayre
   2. Rachel Templin
   3. Johanna Chavez
   4. Julian Kempenaers
   5. Stanley Heinze

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This paper addresses researchers interested in architecture and function of the insect central complex as it represents the first comprehensive projectome dataset of any central complex outside Drosophila. The authors use the bumblebee as representative for hymenopterans with their navigation skills. Further, they mine their data for conserved and diverged aspects compared to fly (Drosophila) knowledge and hypothesize how the differences may relate to diverged neural circuit function. Hence, they provide an excellent and comprehensive descriptive resource providing a point of reference for others and a starting point for comparative studies of neural circuits. In particular, this study is the first comprehensive description of columnar neurons in the bumblebee central complex, described through the lens of the recently published fruit fly connectome of the same, homologous neuropil. The comparative approach used here holds promise for describing neural circuits in bees and flies in shared frame of reference. The authors use an approach that reflects a compromise between quick collection of electron microscopy (EM) data and being able to fully reconstruct all neurons in the bumble bee's central complex. The authors are transparent about the method's limitations and draw appropriate conclusions.

     (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

2. Convergent and divergent brain structural and functional abnormalities associated with developmental dyslexia

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Xiaohui Yan
   2. Ke Jiang
   3. Hui Li
   4. Ziyi Wang
   5. Kyle Perkins
   6. Fan Cao

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     In this rigorously conducted meta-analytic study, the authors investigated the functional and structural abnormalities associated with developmental dyslexia across languages. Convergent and divergent functional and structural changes as well as language-universal and language-specific brain alternations related to dyslexia are found. In general, the study has generated important results and the findings are of interest to readers in educational psychology/neuroscience fields, especially those focusing on reading development and dyslexia. The analytic approach used in this study is cutting-edge, the data support the main claims, and a detailed discussion is presented.

     (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. A CTP-dependent gating mechanism enables ParB spreading on DNA

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Adam SB Jalal
   2. Ngat T Tran
   3. Clare EM Stevenson
   4. Afroze Chimthanawala
   5. Anjana Badrinarayanan
   6. David M Lawson
   7. Tung BK Le

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     Bacterial ParB partition proteins have the novel property that they employ an unusual nucleotide cofactor for complex assembly at their specific DNA binding site, parS. The impact of this study is on our general understanding of this novel class of nucleotide-dependent processes, and the role that nucleotide-protein interactions play in DNA binding and bacterial 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

4. BRAFV600E induces reversible mitotic arrest in human melanocytes via microRNA-mediated suppression of AURKB

   This article has 17 authors:

   1. Andrew S McNeal
   2. Rachel L Belote
   3. Hanlin Zeng
   4. Marcus Urquijo
   5. Kendra Barker
   6. Rodrigo Torres
   7. Meghan Curtin
   8. A Hunter Shain
   9. Robert HI Andtbacka
   10. Sheri Holmen
   11. David H Lum
   12. Timothy H McCalmont
   13. Matt W VanBrocklin
   14. Douglas Grossman
   15. Maria L Wei
   16. Ursula E Lang
   17. Robert L Judson-Torres

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This interesting, timely and well-done study focuses on the mechanism underlying nevus growth arrest, which has received renewed attention as a result of recent studies that question the dogma that such arrest is mediated by oncogene-induced senescence. Through experiments involving both cultured primary human melanocytes and cells derived from clinical samples, the authors show that Braf-oncogene-induced nevus cell growth arrest results from microRNA-dependent suppression of the mitotic kinase Aurkb, which influences whether Braf activity is proliferative versus antiproliferative. While the conclusions made within the manuscript are justified, and there is sound acknowledgment of certain pitfalls that could be addressed in future research, more expansive sample sizes and further in vivo work would aid in providing more clinical relevance. This manuscript would appeal to researchers in the melanoma field, especially those studying the underlying mechanisms behind phenotypic plasticity and tumor heterogeneity.

     (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. circFL-seq reveals full-length circular RNAs with rolling circular reverse transcription and nanopore sequencing

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Zelin Liu
   2. Changyu Tao
   3. Shiwei Li
   4. Minghao Du
   5. Yongtai Bai
   6. Xueyan Hu
   7. Yu Li
   8. Jian Chen
   9. Ence Yang

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This study provides an experimental and computational method for the identification and reconstruction of full-length circRNAs using nanopore sequencing,. With a better comparison to other existing methods in the field and a clearer demonstration of the advantages of the described methodology, the work would be of great interest to researchers in the circular RNA community.

     (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

6. Reduced antibody cross-reactivity following infection with B.1.1.7 than with parental SARS-CoV-2 strains

   This article has 29 authors:

   1. Nikhil Faulkner
   2. Kevin W Ng
   3. Mary Y Wu
   4. Ruth Harvey
   5. Marios Margaritis
   6. Stavroula Paraskevopoulou
   7. Catherine Houlihan
   8. Saira Hussain
   9. Maria Greco
   10. William Bolland
   11. Scott Warchal
   12. Judith Heaney
   13. Hannah Rickman
   14. Moria Spyer
   15. Daniel Frampton
   16. Matthew Byott
   17. Tulio de Oliveira
   18. Alex Sigal
   19. Svend Kjaer
   20. Charles Swanton
   21. Sonia Gandhi
   22. Rupert Beale
   23. Steve J Gamblin
   24. John W McCauley
   25. Rodney Stuart Daniels
   26. Michael Howell
   27. David Bauer
   28. Eleni Nastouli
   29. George Kassiotis

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This study describes reduced antibody cross-reactivity between the SARS-CoV-2 B.1.1.7 variant and the parental strain or the B.1.351 variant. Asymmetric antibody responses and reduced neutralizing antibodies against heterogeneous variants have been demonstrated in multiple studies. The current study reports reduction of B.1.1.7 COVID-19 sera against the SARS-CoV-2 parental strain and B.1.351. This observation is interesting and could be useful for future vaccine development. The work is of interest to virologists and infectious disease specialists.

     (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, ScreenIT

7. Switch-like and persistent memory formation in individual Drosophila larvae

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Amanda Lesar
   2. Javan Tahir
   3. Jason Wolk
   4. Marc Gershow

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     The authors perform a tour-de-force study of classical conditioning in fly larvae. Experiments are original, findings are exciting, and we expect this paper to have a substantial impact. There is potentially an issue in the assay of larvae preference taking an hour of unrewarded presentation of CO2, while the training and extinction happen on much shorter scales, muddying the ability to interpret the results. A mathematical model of the conditioning process is also missing, which also makes interpretation harder.

     (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. Integrin α5β1 nano-presentation regulates collective keratinocyte migration independent of substrate rigidity

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Jacopo Di Russo
   2. Jennifer L Young
   3. Julian WR Wegner
   4. Timmy Steins
   5. Horst Kessler
   6. Joachim P Spatz

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This paper is of great interest for researchers working in the filed of cell adhesion and cell migration. The authors show for the first time that alpha5beta1 ligand spacing profoundly influences the collective migration behaviour of keratinocytes. They demonstrate that this parameter can outcompete the well-known and studied influence of substrate stiffness.

     (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

9. Contrasting effects of Western vs Mediterranean diets on monocyte inflammatory gene expression and social behavior in a primate model

   This article has 14 authors:

   1. Corbin SC Johnson
   2. Carol A Shively
   3. Kristofer T Michalson
   4. Amanda J Lea
   5. Ryne J DeBo
   6. Timothy D Howard
   7. Gregory A Hawkins
   8. Susan E Appt
   9. Yongmei Liu
   10. Charles E McCall
   11. David M Herrington
   12. Edward H Ip
   13. Thomas C Register
   14. Noah Snyder-Mackler

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This is an interesting study aiming to link the evolutionary effects of dietary mismatch in humans to increased inflammatory responses and risk of chronic diseases. To uncover more insights into the causal links, the study used a non-human primate (macaque) model to show that the dietary switch from a Mediterranean to a modern Western diet leads to the polarisation of monocyte cell populations toward a more pro-inflammatory state, which in addition to increasing the chronic health risk can also impose behavioural changes such as anxiety and social isolation. The results of this study are convincing, interesting, and have fundamental importance in evolutionary biology, immunology and psychology. The extent to which these findings can be extrapolated to human populations remains to be established.

     (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. Genetic, cellular, and structural characterization of the membrane potential-dependent cell-penetrating peptide translocation pore

    This article has 17 authors:

    1. Evgeniya Trofimenko
    2. Gianvito Grasso
    3. Mathieu Heulot
    4. Nadja Chevalier
    5. Marco A Deriu
    6. Gilles Dubuis
    7. Yoan Arribat
    8. Marc Serulla
    9. Sebastien Michel
    10. Gil Vantomme
    11. Florine Ory
    12. Linh Chi Dam
    13. Julien Puyal
    14. Francesca Amati
    15. Anita Lüthi
    16. Andrea Danani
    17. Christian Widmann

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      Evaluation Summary:

      Although the role of membrane potential in Cell Permeable Peptides (CPP) translocation has been consistently described in artificial systems, this multi scale study, combining cell biology, genetics and in silico approaches, further extends this topic to a live cell context where it shows that internalization stops when the membrane polarization is decreased by the removal of potassium channels. It proposes an original mechanism of CPP translocation based on water pore formation, which should be of interest for biophysicists, cell biologists and for applications such as drug delivery.

      (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, Review Commons