eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Adult stem cells and niche cells segregate gradually from common precursors that build the adult Drosophila ovary during pupal development

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Amy Reilein
   2. Helen V Kogan
   3. Rachel Misner
   4. Karen Sophia Park
   5. Daniel Kalderon

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This manuscript describes a very extensive set of experiments charting the origin and fate of various cell populations in the Drosophila ovary that is a powerful system to explore interactions between adult stem cells and their niches. The authors put forward a new view of how different cell types acquire their fates during development. This is a more nuanced view than extant models, involving common progenitors from which different cell fates (stem cell, progeny and niche cells) arise gradually and relying on spatiotemporal cues.

     (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. Gut bacterial aggregates as living gels

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Brandon H Schlomann
   2. Raghuveer Parthasarathy

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This manuscript provides an innovative merging of biophysical models with imaging data to explain the physical structure of microbial communities in the gut of zebrafish. Using imaging data to examine cluster sizes for eight different bacterial strains in the larval zebrafish gut, the authors report a common family of size distributions and show that these distributions arise naturally from a simple biophysical model of aggregation that tends to condense the system to a single massive cluster, reminiscent of gel formation observed in non-living systems. Within-host microbial dynamics represent an area of tremendous interest, as the microbiome is increasingly recognized to play a role in host physiology. This work contributes to a new perspective by elucidating physical mechanisms driving spatial segregation of these communities, opening the door to future studies that incorporate traditional genomic and microbiological insight with the physical and mechanical dynamics of microbial communities in living hosts.

     (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. Schema representations in distinct brain networks support narrative memory during encoding and retrieval

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Rolando Masís-Obando
   2. Kenneth A Norman
   3. Christopher Baldassano

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This paper reports a methodologically rigorous investigation into the neural mechanisms supporting encoding and retrieval of specific and general information in the context of memory schemas for events, or "scripts." Its findings will be of general interest to neuroscientists and cognitive psychologists who work both with typical young adults (as studied int he present works) and in particular populations (e.g., development and/or aging; patients with brain damage). The work is particularly comprehensive in how it links both specific and general narrative representation at both encoding and retrieval with later memory behavior, which is a notable strength.

     (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. Microglia and CD206+ border-associated mouse macrophages maintain their embryonic origin during Alzheimer’s disease

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Xiaoting Wu
   2. Takashi Saito
   3. Takaomi C Saido
   4. Anna M Barron
   5. Christiane Ruedl

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This study by Wu et al., examined in a mouse model of Alzheimer how the lifespan and kinetics of both border-associated myeloid cells and microglia are affected. Taken together, these data provide evidence on the replenishment of CNS-associated myeloid cells under both steady-state and pathology.

     (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. Humans actively sample evidence to support prior beliefs

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Paula Kaanders
   2. Pradyumna Sepulveda
   3. Tomas Folke
   4. Pietro Ortoleva
   5. Benedetto De Martino

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     Kaanders et al. investigate how the sampling of visual information by human subjects is biased toward their previous choice. The novel experiments and rigorous analyses largely support the presence of a 'confirmation bias' when information sampling is under the subjects' control. After ruling out some remaining alternative explanations of the observed behavior the paper will be of broad interest in cognitive 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 #2 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Gastrointestinal helminths increase Bordetella bronchiseptica shedding and host variation in supershedding

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Nhat TD Nguyen
   2. Ashutosh K Pathak
   3. Isabella M Cattadori

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     Nguyen et al. examine how helminth co-infection alters shedding from a respiratory bacterial infection (Bordetella bronchiseptica), fitting a model to data from experimentally infected rabbits to link the presence/absence of two helminth species with immune responses (neutrophil and two antibody classes) and bacterial shedding. The authors find a larger frequency of intense bacterial shedding-supershedding events-among helminth-infected rabbits, and model results suggest that triple infection may be associated with faster bacterial replication in the respiratory tract and more rapid shedding of bacteria. Linking immune responses with infection outcomes is of enormous practical interest, as is identifying why certain hosts are superspreaders, but there are some limits to what can be gained from this data set and model framework.

     (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. Memory recall involves a transient break in excitatory-inhibitory balance

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Renée S Koolschijn
   2. Anna Shpektor
   3. William T Clarke
   4. I Betina Ip
   5. David Dupret
   6. Uzay E Emir
   7. Helen C Barron

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     Koolschijn and colleagues present a novel and timely investigation of the balance between excitation and inhibition to explore the role of glutamate and GABA during memory retrieval. The innovative use of rapidly interleaved fMRI and fMRS provides a compelling link between successful retrieval effects in hippocampus and inhibitory/excitatory dynamics in visual cortex. The study itself is well-motivated and well executed, complementing prior cross-species work, and provides an intriguing set of results to support the major claims. This paper will be noteworthy to those interested in hippocampus-mediated cortical dynamics during memory retrieval. The rigorous methodology also demonstrates the utility of fMRS in investigating complex cognitive processes.

     (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

8. The nematode worm C. elegans chooses between bacterial foods as if maximizing economic utility

   This article has 12 authors:

   1. Abraham Katzen
   2. Hui-Kuan Chung
   3. William T Harbaugh
   4. Christina Della Iacono
   5. Nicholas Jackson
   6. Elizabeth E Glater
   7. Charles J Taylor
   8. Stephanie K Yu
   9. Steven W Flavell
   10. Paul W Glimcher
   11. James Andreoni
   12. Shawn R Lockery

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This paper establishes a behavioural paradigm to study concepts developed in the field of economic decision making using the tractable model organisms C. elegans. It is therefore interesting to scientists studying the neuronal mechanisms of decision making and animal cognition.

     (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. Hippocampal sharp wave-ripples and the associated sequence replay emerge from structured synaptic interactions in a network model of area CA3

   This article has 11 authors:

   1. András Ecker
   2. Bence Bagi
   3. Eszter Vértes
   4. Orsolya Steinbach-Németh
   5. Mária R Karlócai
   6. Orsolya I Papp
   7. István Miklós
   8. Norbert Hájos
   9. Tamás F Freund
   10. Attila I Gulyás
   11. Szabolcs Káli

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     The theoretical study by Ecker et al. designs a minimal yet biologically plausible spiking neural network model for hippocampal region CA3 in order to pinpoint the mechanistic sources of important features of population activity (namely sharp wave ripples and replay) observed in vivo. It reproduces many properties of these network events and offers explanations for the observed dynamics. In doing so it demonstrates that the synaptic connectivity patterns formed during spatial exploration may be crucial to the occurrence of these phenomena. The study will be of interest primarily to theoretical researchers because of the many innovative approaches fielded to design the network and analyse its dynamics, and potentially also to experimentalists investigating the hippocampus.

     (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

10. Impaired HA-specific T follicular helper cell and antibody responses to influenza vaccination are linked to inflammation in humans

    This article has 13 authors:

    1. Danika L Hill
    2. Carly E Whyte
    3. Silvia Innocentin
    4. Jia Le Lee
    5. James Dooley
    6. Jiong Wang
    7. Eddie A James
    8. James C Lee
    9. William W Kwok
    10. Martin S Zand
    11. Adrian Liston
    12. Edward J Carr
    13. Michelle A Linterman

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      Evaluation Summary:

      This paper will be of significant interest to immunologists interested in understanding the determinants of antibody responses to vaccination. It uses tetramers to specifically identify and track CD4 T cell responses to influenza vaccination in younger and older adults, in an effort to understand why older individuals tend to have lower antibody responses to immunisation. The combination of tetramers, RNA sequencing and TCR clonotype tracking provides a powerful dataset to address fundamental questions of CD4 T cell immunology.

      (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