eLife

Latest preprint reviews

1. Transcriptional coregulation in cis around a contact insulation site revealed by single-molecule microscopy

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Maciej A Kerlin
   2. Ilham Aboulfath-Ladid
   3. Julia Roensch
   4. Chloé Jaubert
   5. Aude Battistella
   6. Kyra JE Borgman
   7. Antoine Coulon

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study combines an innovative experimental approach with mathematical modeling to demonstrate that genes separated by strong topological boundaries can exhibit coordinated transcriptional bursting, providing new insights into how regulatory information is transmitted across the genome. The evidence is solid within the studied locus, but the interpretation and generality of the findings would be strengthened by additional validation using simulated data and broader application beyond a single genomic region. This work will be of interest to cell biologists and biophysicists working on transcription and chromatin.

   Reviewed by eLife

2. Single-cell profiling of the lung immune cells of diabetes-tuberculosis comorbidity reveals reduced type-II interferon and elevated Th17 responses

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Shweta Chaudhary
   2. Mothe Sravya
   3. Falak Pahwa
   4. Sureshkumar V
   5. Prateek Singh
   6. Shivam Chaturvedi
   7. Debasisa Mohanty
   8. Debasis Dash
   9. Ranjan Kumar Nanda

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study presents a valuable finding on the intersection between tuberculosis and diabetes and the impact on immune responses, notably T cell and myeloid cell responses. The single-cell data collected and analyzed are convincing and provide a rich dataset to develop a more detailed understanding of cellular responses during Mtb infection of diabetic mice. Some of the mechanistic claims are incomplete, as there are no experiments performed to clearly define a role for IL-16 or IL-17 in disease. Inclusion of analysis of human samples would have strengthened the conclusions in the paper for translational impact, as well as the inclusion of a DM group alone in addition to DM-TB vs TB in some of the experiments.

   Reviewed by eLife

3. Integrated transcriptomic analysis of human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived osteogenic differentiation reveals a regulatory role of KLF16

   This article has 18 authors:

   1. Ying Ru
   2. Meng Ma
   3. Xianxiao Zhou
   4. Divya Kriti
   5. Ninette Cohen
   6. Sunita D’Souza
   7. Christoph Schaniel
   8. Susan M Motch Perrine
   9. Sharon Kuo
   10. Oksana Pichurin
   11. Dalila Pinto
   12. Genevieve Housman
   13. Greg Holmes
   14. Eric Schadt
   15. Harm van Bakel
   16. Bin Zhang
   17. Ethylin Wang Jabs
   18. Meng Wu

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     The authors investigated KLF Transcription Factor 16 (KLF16) as an inhibitor of osteogenic differentiation, which plays a critical role in bone development, metabolism and repair. The results of the study are valuable as they could help to facilitate future research on the regulation of osteogenesis in vitro and in vivo. However, the evidence overall is incomplete, as validation by knockout mouse models would help to strengthen the conclusions.

   Reviewed by eLife

4. Shining light on the dark matter of pertussis: evidence for an asymptomatic carriage state from a longitudinal cohort of mother/infant dyads

   This article has 3 authors:

   1. Christian E Gunning
   2. Christopher J Gill
   3. Pejman Rohani

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This important study provides evidence for asymptomatic Bordetella pertussis carriage among mothers in a longitudinal cohort in Zambia, significantly advancing understanding of transmission dynamics. The evidence presented is convincing, with strengths including routine sampling irrespective of symptoms and rigorous qPCR methodology, although confirmatory diagnostics would further strengthen the claims. Overall, the study represents an influential contribution to the field of infectious disease epidemiology.

   Reviewed by Rapid Reviews Infectious Diseases, eLife

5. Patchy striatonigral neurons modulate locomotor vigor in response to environmental valence

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Sarah Hawes
   2. Bo Liang
   3. Braden Oldham
   4. Breanna T Sullivan
   5. Lupeng Wang
   6. Bin Song
   7. Lisa Chang
   8. Da-Ting Lin
   9. Huaibin Cai

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     The manuscript provides important findings on how striatal projection neurons regulate spontaneous locomotion speed in the context of implicit motivation and distinct contextual valence. The manuscript presented convincing supporting evidence for the findings. This work will be of broad interest to neuroscientists in the fields of basal ganglia, movement control, and cognition.

   Reviewed by eLife

6. Modular DNA barcoding of nanobodies enables multiplexed in situ protein imaging and high-throughput biomolecule detection

   This article has 6 authors:

   1. Shilin Zhong
   2. Ruiyu Wang
   3. Xinwei Gao
   4. Qingchun Guo
   5. Rui Lin
   6. Minmin Luo

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This fundamental manuscript presents a practical modification of the orthogonal hybridization chain reaction (HCR) technique, a promising yet underutilized method with broad potential for future applications across various fields. The authors advance this technique by integrating peptide ligation technology and nanobody-based antibody mimetics-cost-effective and scalable alternatives to conventional antibodies-into a DNA-immunoassay framework that merges oligonucleotide-based detection with immunoassay methodologies. Notably, they demonstrate with compelling evidence that this approach facilitates a modified ELISA platform capable of simultaneously quantifying multiple target protein expression levels within a single protein mixture sample.

   Reviewed by eLife

7. Fitness drivers of division of labor in vertebrates

   This article has 2 authors:

   1. Irene García-Ruiz
   2. Dustin R Rubenstein

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This useful study develops an individual-based model to investigate the evolution of division of labor in vertebrates, comparing the contributions of group augmentation and kin selection. The findings are solid in showing that, within the specific structure of the model and the parameter space explored, group augmentation can robustly favor the evolution of differentiated helper roles, particularly when age-dependent task switching and dominance dynamics are allowed to evolve. However, the evidence only partially supports the authors' broader claim that group augmentation is the primary driver of vertebrate division of labor. Several modelling assumptions, including the limited scope for synergistic task benefits, the restriction of helper effects to group-size-mediated benefits, and the relatively narrow exploration of cost and benefit parameters, constrain the potential for kin selection to generate division of labor and limit the generality of the conclusions.

   Reviewed by eLife

8. Five-Year Survival Outcomes for Breast Cancer Patients Across Continental Africa: A Contemporary Review of Literature with Meta Analysis

   This article has 9 authors:

   1. Augustina Badu-Peprah
   2. Ernest Kissi Kontor
   3. Adu-Gyamfi Benjamin
   4. Jessica Kumah
   5. Akosua Aya Essuman
   6. Bossoh Selorm
   7. Issahak Nurudeen
   8. Bismark Osei Owusu
   9. Nityanand Jain

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study presents a valuable meta-analysis that highlights low and highly variable breast cancer survival rates across Africa, emphasizing the pressing need for public health in Africa. The evidence supporting the claims of the authors is solid, although a clarification of the crude 5-year survival rates would have strengthened the study. The work will be of interest to scientists working in the field of public health and breast cancer.

   Reviewed by eLife

9. Causal associations between human plasma proteins and prostate cancer identified by proteome-wide Mendelian randomization

   This article has 7 authors:

   1. Lin Chen
   2. Yanlun Gu
   3. Yuke Chen
   4. Wei Yu
   5. Ying Zhou
   6. Zhuona Rong
   7. Xiaocong Pang

   This article has been curated by 1 group:

   • Curated by eLife

     eLife Assessment

     This study presents a meta-analysis of two independent genome-wide association studies (GWAS) that investigate the role of plasma proteins as potential biomarkers for enhancing the early detection of prostate cancer (PCa). The results provide useful confirmatory data that support existing evidence currently published. The evidence is incomplete: the study does not provide a comprehensive synthesis of all currently published work, does not explore other clinical outcomes related to prostatic disease, and its findings have not been validated through an external cohort study. These shortcomings notwithstanding, the work may be of interest to researchers studying correlates and predictors of prostate cancer risk.

   Reviewed by eLife

10. MorphoNet 2.0: An innovative approach for qualitative assessment and segmentation curation of large-scale 3D time-lapse imaging datasets

    This article has 7 authors:

    1. Benjamin Gallean
    2. Tao Laurent
    3. Kilian Biasuz
    4. Ange Clement
    5. Noura Faraj
    6. Patrick Lemaire
    7. Emmanuel Faure

    This article has been curated by 1 group:

    • Curated by eLife

      eLife Assessment

      This important work presents technical and conceptual advances with the release of MorphoNet 2.0, a versatile and accessible platform for 3D+T segmentation and analysis. The authors provide compelling evidence across diverse datasets, and the clarity of the manuscript together with the software's usability broadens its impact. Although the strength of some improvements is hard to fully gauge given sample complexity, the tool is a significant step forward that will likely impact many biological imaging fields.

    Reviewed by eLife