eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. The BigBrainWarp toolbox for integration of BigBrain 3D histology with multimodal neuroimaging

   This article has 15 authors:

   1. Casey Paquola
   2. Jessica Royer
   3. Lindsay B Lewis
   4. Claude Lepage
   5. Tristan Glatard
   6. Konrad Wagstyl
   7. Jordan DeKraker
   8. Paule-J Toussaint
   9. Sofie L Valk
   10. Louis Collins
   11. Ali R Khan
   12. Katrin Amunts
   13. Alan C Evans
   14. Timo Dickscheid
   15. Boris Bernhardt

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     The manuscript introduces a new tool - BigBrainWarp - which consolidates several of the tools used to analyse BigBrain into a single, easy to use and well documented tool. The BigBrain project produced the first open, high-resolution cell-scale histological atlas of a whole human brain. The tool presented here should make it easy for any researcher to use the wealth of information available in the BigBrain for the annotation of their own neuroimaging data. This is an important resource, with diverse tutorials demonstrating broad application.

     (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, Reviewer #2 and Reviewer #3 agreed to share their names with the authors.)

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Cancer risk perception and physician communication behaviors on cervical cancer and colorectal cancer screening

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Diane M Harper
   2. Madiha Tariq
   3. Asraa Alhawli
   4. Nadia Syed
   5. Minal Patel
   6. Ken Resnicow

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     The manuscript by Harper et al. examines the cancer risk perceptions, provider communication behaviors and demographic factors influencing the uptake of both, cervical and colorectal cancer screening among 50- to 65-years-old women. Towards those goals, the authors adapted and administered behavioral questions from the Health Information National Trends Survey to a multiethnic population sample in Southeast Michigan. Self-reported cancer screenings for the tumors (as defined by the USPSTF updated guidelines) served as the variable outcome. The study has public health merit in its identification of distinct predictors for cervical cancer and colorectal cancer screenings. The insights from this work on screening behavior differences among women, the perception of cancer risks and impact of positive provider communication, point to the need for exploring new ways for more holistic and integrated cancer prevention with a targeted focus. The strengths of the study include (i) the identification of an unmet need in public health in a neglected patient population, (ii) the track-record of the seasoned investigators, and (iii) the recognition of two potentially actionable insights obtained from the study. Weaknesses of the work include (i) the descriptive and specialized nature of the manuscript, (ii) the regional setting of the study and the question of how generalizable their conclusions would be in other contexts, and (iii) the relatively incremental advance of the reported 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 #1 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Translational control of polyamine metabolism by CNBP is required for Drosophila locomotor function

   This article has 17 authors:

   1. Sonia Coni
   2. Federica A Falconio
   3. Marta Marzullo
   4. Marzia Munafò
   5. Benedetta Zuliani
   6. Federica Mosti
   7. Alessandro Fatica
   8. Zaira Ianniello
   9. Rosa Bordone
   10. Alberto Macone
   11. Enzo Agostinelli
   12. Alessia Perna
   13. Tanja Matkovic
   14. Stephan Sigrist
   15. Gabriella Silvestri
   16. Gianluca Canettieri
   17. Laura Ciapponi

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This paper is of interest and relevance to clinicians and researchers in the field of muscular dystrophy, a condition that causes loss of muscle function and mobility primarily in older patients. The presented experiments suggest that at least part of the pathology of DM2, a certain form of muscular dystrophy, is caused by defects in a gene that is required for the production of small molecules, called polyamines which are known to support muscle health and function. Interestingly, in a Drosophila model of DM2, feeding with polyamines can restore muscle function. The paper gains broad interest by the demonstration that consistent with the findings in Drosophila, muscle biopsies from human DM2 patients show decreased ODC and polyamine levels, raising the possibility of using polyamines for therapy or prevention.

     (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. Two different cell-cycle processes determine the timing of cell division in Escherichia coli

   This article has 5 authors:

   1. Alexandra Colin
   2. Gabriele Micali
   3. Louis Faure
   4. Marco Cosentino Lagomarsino
   5. Sven van Teeffelen

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     How the bacterium E.coli decides when to divide is an interesting, important, unsolved and highly controversial topic of interest to readers across disciplines, including microbiology, cell biology and statistical physics. Popular "single process" models invoke regulation at the step of replication initiation or at the step of cell division per se, whereas these authors have previously proposed a "concurrent cycles" model in which both processes are relevant, with different prominences in different situations. Consistent with the authors' motivating hypothesis, in the particular perturbed condition investigated in this work, a process different from DNA replication becomes increasingly important for division control as the degree of perturbation increases, which provides a new challenge to models for cell division control.

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

   Reviewed by eLife

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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