eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Viral load and contact heterogeneity predict SARS-CoV-2 transmission and super-spreading events

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Ashish Goyal
   2. Daniel B Reeves
   3. E Fabian Cardozo-Ojeda
   4. Joshua T Schiffer
   5. Bryan T Mayer

   Reviewed by eLife, ScreenIT

2. Anticipation of temporally structured events in the brain

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Caroline S Lee
   2. Mariam Aly
   3. Christopher Baldassano

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     The study addresses a topic that is timely and of general interest. The findings represent a potentially very interesting contribution to the important question of how the brain comes to predict the future, in particular lifelike sequences of events. However, some of the main conclusions would require further statistical support.

     (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

3. Fate mapping analysis reveals a novel murine dermal migratory Langerhans-like cell population

   This article has 13 authors:

   1. Jianpeng Sheng
   2. Qi Chen
   3. Xiaoting Wu
   4. Yu Wen Dong
   5. Johannes Mayer
   6. Junlei Zhang
   7. Lin Wang
   8. Xueli Bai
   9. Tingbo Liang
   10. Yang Ho Sung
   11. Wilson Wen Bin Goh
   12. Franca Ronchese
   13. Christiane Ruedl

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     The present study uses innovative approaches to further our knowledge of skin immunobiology. The corresponding results explain the expression of langerin on two fractions of dermal DC (CD103+ and CD103-) observed several years ago. The demonstration that epidermal LC do not contribute to LN populations in the steady state is completely unexpected and raises important questions about the in vivo function of the LC-like subset unveiled in the present study.

     (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

4. Confinement discerns swarmers from planktonic bacteria

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Weijie Chen
   2. Neha Mani
   3. Hamid Karani
   4. Hao Li
   5. Sridhar Mani
   6. Jay X Tang

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Summary: In this paper, the authors proposed a new approach by mounting a PDMS microwells of specific sizes on agar surface to confine swarming and planktonic SM3 cells. They found swarming bacteria exhibit a "single-swirl" motion pattern and concentrated planktonic bacteria exhibit "multi-swirls" motion pattern in the diameter range of 31-90 μm. The phase diagram shows that in smaller wells concentrated planktonic SM3 forms a single vortex and in larger wells swarming SM3 also breaks into mesoscale vortices.

     In addition, they conducted systematic experiments to explore parameters defining the divergence of motion patterns in confinement including cell density, cell length, cell speed and surfactant. They concluded that the single swirl pattern depends on cohesive cell-cell interaction mediated by biochemical factors removable through matrix dilution.

     This paper gives a new method to discern swarmers from planktonic bacteria and carefully studies the factors that influence the formation of bacterial vortices under restriction.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. Loss of MGA repression mediated by an atypical polycomb complex promotes tumor progression and invasiveness

   This article has 19 authors:

   1. Haritha Mathsyaraja
   2. Jonathen Catchpole
   3. Brian Freie
   4. Emily Eastwood
   5. Ekaterina Babaeva
   6. Michael Geuenich
   7. Pei Feng Cheng
   8. Jessica Ayers
   9. Ming Yu
   10. Nan Wu
   11. Sitapriya Moorthi
   12. Kumud R Poudel
   13. Amanda Koehne
   14. William Grady
   15. A McGarry Houghton
   16. Alice H Berger
   17. Yuzuru Shiio
   18. David MacPherson
   19. Robert N Eisenman

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Summary:

     The reviewers agreed that the paper provides strong in vivo data for a tumor-suppressive role for Mga in lung carcinogenesis. The authors convincingly show that MGA is important in oncogenesis. We note here that MGA is highly understudied (~200 publications) in and of itself despite its involvement with the MYC network for oncogenesis (~41,000 publications at the current time). Given a protein of 3000 amino acids, the number of potential protein partners and PTMs that might modify its tumor suppressor functions are staggering. However, the reviewers also noted that a previous paper has addressed the same topic and the novelty of the data presented here needs to be better explained and additional experiments are needed to strengthen and expand the new aspects.

     Reviewer #1 opted to reveal their name to the authors in the decision letter after review.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Probing the decision-making mechanisms underlying choice between drug and nondrug rewards in rats

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Youna Vandaele
   2. Magalie Lenoir
   3. Caroline Vouillac-Mendoza
   4. Karine Guillem
   5. Serge H Ahmed

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Summary:

     In this manuscript the authors perform a retrospective analysis in attempt to delineate the role of goal-directed versus habitual mechanisms underlying choice between drug and non-drug rewards. Specifically, the authors utilized data generated in their laboratory to assess cocaine-versus-saccharin choice following limited and extended training paradigms. A sequential choice model was used to assess the prediction that increased latencies during choice reflect goal-directed control; whereas no change in latencies reflects habitual control. Based on this model, the authors report that rats engage in goal-directed control after limited training, and adopt more habitual responding after extended training. The authors conclude that the sequential choice model is specific to habitual choice.

     While the Reviewers appreciate the approach and conceptual framework described in this manuscript, they are all in agreement that additional data and analyses are needed to better support the claims surrounding goal-directed versus habitual control of reward-seeking behavior. For example, an independent evaluation of whether the target behavior is in fact goal-directed or habitual seems necessary to support such claims. Reviewers’ comments and suggestions for improvement are included below.

     Reviewer #1 and Reviewer #2 opted to reveal their name to the authors in the decision letter after review.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Archaeal chromatin ‘slinkies’ are inherently dynamic complexes with deflected DNA wrapping pathways

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Samuel Bowerman
   2. Jeff Wereszczynski
   3. Karolin Luger

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     In their manuscript titled "Archaeal chromatin 'slinkies' are inherently dynamic complexes with deflected DNA wrapping pathways", Bowerman et al. use an elegant combination of cryo-EM, analytical ultracentrifugation and molecular dynamics simulations to investigate the structure and dynamics of archaeal histone — DNA complexes, termed archaeasomes to distinguish them from eukaryotic nucleosomes. This study builds upon the crystal structure of an archaeasome and the functional analysis of its disruption recently published by the same group (Mattiroli et al, 2017) by analyzing the dynamics of this complex and discussing how these dynamics could relate to archaeal genome biology. How chromatin evolved is a fundamental question in biology, marking a striking departure from the bacterial nucleoid. This current manuscript describes a rigorous biophysical study that not only provides substantial new insights into archaeal genome biology but also raises intriguing questions for future study. This manuscript will therefore no doubt be of interest not only to the archaeal research community but also to the field of chromatin biology.

     (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. Pervasive duplication of tumor suppressors in Afrotherians during the evolution of large bodies and reduced cancer risk

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Juan M Vazquez
   2. Vincent J Lynch

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Dendritic osmosensors modulate activity-induced calcium influx in oxytocinergic magnocellular neurons of the mouse PVN

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Wanhui Sheng
   2. Scott W Harden
   3. Yalun Tan
   4. Eric G Krause
   5. Charles J Frazier

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Rapid recycling of glutamate transporters on the astroglial surface

    This article has 3 authors:

    1. Piotr Michaluk
    2. Janosch Peter Heller
    3. Dmitri A Rusakov

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      Summary: In this study, Michaluk et al. examined the membrane dynamics of the main glial glutamate transporter GLT1 in hippocampal astrocytes, which was previously shown to shape synaptic transmission through regulating extracellular levels of glutamate. Using GLT1 tagged on its surface with a pH-sensitive fluorescent marker, GLT1-SEP, the authors performed (1) fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP) experiments to assess the basal and activity-dependent dynamics of surface GLT1-SEP and (2) super-resolution dSTORM imaging to determine the relationship between GLT1 and PSD-95, an excitatory synapse marker. A large proportion of surface GLT1-SEP underwent turnover with a surface lifetime of 22 s, whereas a smaller fraction (~25%) remained largely immobile, which was decreased upon increased activity. Notably, the cytoplasmic domain of GLT1-SEP was shown to attenuate the basal turnover of surface GLT1 and to facilitate its proximal localization to synapses; moreover, GLT1 cytoplasmic domain was required for activity-dependent increase in the mobile fraction.

      While previous studies using single molecule tracking have demonstrated a role for the lateral diffusion of GLT1 in controlling the recruitment of GLT1 near active synapses, the present study uses powerful optical approaches and analysis tools to access both the surface lateral mobility and the exchange between surface and intracellular pools of GLT1. Furthermore, characterization of the nanoscale organization of GLT1 relative to synapses and its dependence on the C-terminal domain of GLT1 is presented. Altogether, the results are interesting and valuable, and underscore the importance of the GLT1 C-terminus in the membrane turnover and in the activity-dependent lateral diffusion of the surface GLT1. Nevertheless, some of the conclusions are not strongly supported by the data shown.

      Reviewer #2 opted to reveal their name to the authors in the decision letter after review.

    Reviewed by eLife