eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Colistin kills bacteria by targeting lipopolysaccharide in the cytoplasmic membrane

   This article has 13 authors:

   1. Akshay Sabnis
   2. Katheryn LH Hagart
   3. Anna Klöckner
   4. Michele Becce
   5. Lindsay E Evans
   6. R Christopher D Furniss
   7. Despoina AI Mavridou
   8. Ronan Murphy
   9. Molly M Stevens
   10. Jane C Davies
   11. Gérald J Larrouy-Maumus
   12. Thomas B Clarke
   13. Andrew M Edwards

   Reviewed by eLife

2. OPA1 deletion in brown adipose tissue improves thermoregulation and systemic metabolism via FGF21

   This article has 19 authors:

   1. Renata O Pereira
   2. Alex Marti
   3. Angela Crystal Olvera
   4. Satya Murthy Tadinada
   5. Sarah Hartwick Bjorkman
   6. Eric Thomas Weatherford
   7. Donald A Morgan
   8. Michael Westphal
   9. Pooja H Patel
   10. Ana Karina Kirby
   11. Rana Hewezi
   12. William Bùi Trân
   13. Luis Miguel García-Peña
   14. Rhonda A Souvenir
   15. Monika Mittal
   16. Christopher M Adams
   17. Kamal Rahmouni
   18. Matthew J Potthoff
   19. E Dale Abel

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     The new work utilizes several elegant genetic mouse models to evaluate the importance of the mitochondrial fusion protein OPA1 in thermogenic brown adipocytes. This well-written and rigorous study sheds insight into the importance of OPA1 in brown adipocytes and also uncovers an unexpected compensatory mechanism that ensures thermoregulation in mice.

     (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

3. Host-associated microbe PCR (hamPCR): accessing new biology through convenient measurement of both microbial load and community composition

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Derek S. Lundberg
   2. Pratchaya Pramoj Na Ayutthaya
   3. Annett Strauß
   4. Gautam Shirsekar
   5. Wen-Sui Lo
   6. Thomas Lahaye
   7. Detlef Weigel

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     Overall, we agree that this new method is potentially impactful although the full versatility of the approach is currently unclear for several reasons. We appreciated the application of the approach to distinct systems and also the relatively low cost of this technique. The diagrams presented (particularly in Figure 3) nicely convey the steps in the protocol with expected sample outcomes to further facilitate the ability of other researchers to employ hamPCR. Overall, we are very positive about this work, but given that the impact of this paper rests on whether or not the technique is widely adopted, some revisions will lower the barrier to entry for future researchers to adopt this approach.

     (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. BonVision – an open-source software to create and control visual environments

   This article has 12 authors:

   1. Gonçalo Lopes
   2. Karolina Farrell
   3. Edward A. B. Horrocks
   4. Chi-Yu Lee
   5. Mai M. Morimoto
   6. Tomaso Muzzu
   7. Amalia Papanikolaou
   8. Fabio R. Rodrigues
   9. Thomas Wheatcroft
   10. Stefano Zucca
   11. Samuel G. Solomon
   12. Aman B. Saleem

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     Increasingly, neuroscience experiments require immersive virtual environments that approximate natural sensory motor loops while permitting high-bandwidth measurements of brain activity. BonVision is an open-source graphics programming library that allows experimenters to quickly implement immersive 3D visual environments across display hardware and geometry with automated calibration and integration with hundreds of different neural recording technologies, behavioral apparatuses, etc. BonVision standardizes sharing complex, closed-loop visual tasks between labs with vastly different equipment, provides a concrete and easy way to do so, and should be of interest to a wide array of visual systems neuroscientists.

   Reviewed by eLife

5. GAF is essential for zygotic genome activation and chromatin accessibility in the early Drosophila embryo

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Marissa M Gaskill
   2. Tyler J Gibson
   3. Elizabeth D Larson
   4. Melissa M Harrison

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     This paper will be of interest to a broad audience of developmental biologists and molecular biologists in the field of transcriptional control and epigenetics. It evaluates the pioneer factor activity associated with GAGA-Factor during the process of zygotic genome activation. The experiments are rigorously performed and the data analysis supports the conclusions.

     This manuscript is in revision at eLife.

     (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. Identifying Plasmodium falciparum transmission patterns through parasite prevalence and entomological inoculation rate

   This article has 16 authors:

   1. Benjamin Amoah
   2. Robert S McCann
   3. Alinune N Kabaghe
   4. Monicah Mburu
   5. Michael G Chipeta
   6. Paula Moraga
   7. Steven Gowelo
   8. Tinashe Tizifa
   9. Henk van den Berg
   10. Themba Mzilahowa
   11. Willem Takken
   12. Michele van Vugt
   13. Kamija S Phiri
   14. Peter J Diggle
   15. Dianne J Terlouw
   16. Emanuele Giorgi

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     The association between metrics of malaria transmission based on prevalence of existing infections and the incidence of new infections has epidemiologically important consequences for malaria control and elimination efforts. The association between P. falciparum entomological inoculation rate and parasite prevalence has been previously characterized, and this report evaluates the added-value of spatio-temporal models to such analyses.

     (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

7. Unsupervised learning of haptic material properties

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Anna Metzger
   2. Matteo Toscani

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Heritable functional architecture in human visual cortex

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Ivan Alvarez
   2. Nonie J. Finlayson
   3. Shwe Ei
   4. Benjamin de Haas
   5. John A. Greenwood
   6. D. Samuel Schwarzkopf

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Evaluation Summary:

     The paper was viewed as generally sound. There main concern was that the findings were viewed as incremental without a demonstration of a link between the heritability of pRF properties and visual perception. The speculation in the Discussion about shared perceptual experience is intriguing, but psychophysical (or other) evidence would be needed to really make that point clearly. In addition, there was some discussion about the non-independence of vertices and correlation values. In the end, we all agreed that non-independent vertices may inflate correlation coefficient values, but that this is unlikely to substantially affect conclusions drawn from comparisons of monozygotic and dizygotic twins.

     (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

9. Subjective time is predicted by local and early visual processing

   This article has 4 authors:

   1. Yelena Tonoyan
   2. Michele Fornaciai
   3. Brent Parsons
   4. Domenica Bueti

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     Summary: This work uses electro-encephalographic (EEG) recordings combined with an interesting experimental approach to measure temporal expansion/compression. Specifically, the question addressed here is whether adaptation to visual motion affects perceived duration, and if so, how spatially confined these effects are with respect to the processing of the stimulus in early visual areas. The authors find consistent evidence that a visual reference is judged as shorter/longer depending on a previous adaptation. They report several EEG analyses suggesting the early visual activity is correlated with such temporal distortions. This manuscript is of potential interest to cognitive neuroscientists specifically interested in temporal aspects of visual processing and time perception. Although the paradigm is well suited to assess the authors' question, the behavioral data as well as the electrophysiological analyses show important shortcomings currently hindering the interpretation of the results, and necessitating substantial revisions to the current work. Additionally, further methodological details are required to strengthen the manuscript.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. Bone marrow adipocytes drive the development of tissue invasive Ly6Chigh monocytes during obesity

    This article has 17 authors:

    1. Parastoo Boroumand
    2. David C Prescott
    3. Tapas Mukherjee
    4. Philip J Bilan
    5. Michael Wong
    6. Jeff Shen
    7. Ivan Tattoli
    8. Yuhuan Zhou
    9. Angela Li
    10. Tharini Sivasubramaniyam
    11. Nancy Shi
    12. Lucie Y Zhu
    13. Zhi Liu
    14. Clinton Robbins
    15. Dana J Philpott
    16. Stephen E Girardin
    17. Amira Klip

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      Evaluation Summary:

      Using mice fed with high fat diet (HFD), Boroumand et al. observed a link between bone marrow (BM) adipocyte whitening and the expansion of BM Ly6Chi monocytes and derived cells in the adipose tissue. By adopting an in vitro approach, they also show that BM conditioned medium is able to metabolically rewire Ly6Chi monocytes notably concerning mitochondrial fission/fusion gene expression. They conclude that early changes in the BM adipocytes induced by HFD drive the activation of monocytes and influence the outcome of the disease.

      This study is of interest to those investigating BM adaptations to lipid signals as well as macrophage biologists interested in macrophage recruitment and differentiation in the context of obesity and beyond in inflammation.

      (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