Evaluated articles

eLife Assessment

This valuable study provides solid evidence that MgdE, a conserved mycobacterial nucleomodulin, downregulates inflammatory gene transcription by interacting with the histone methyltransferase COMPASS complex and altering histone H3 lysine methylation. There are areas where the evidence could be strengthened, for example, GFP immunoblotting and examining MgdE localization during infection. To enhance impact, the authors could consider Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection experiments and/or reworking the manuscript to emphasize general relevance to microbiologists and cell biologists.

eLife Assessment

This study describes a genetic screen to identify deubiquitinases (DUBs) that counteract the activity of small-molecule degraders (PROTACs). The presented data are valuable, identifying OTUD6A and UCHL5 as DUBs that impact the efficacy and potency of PROTACs. While the conclusions are broadly supported and the methods employed are solid, the mechanistic depth and validation are incomplete. Overall, these findings merit further evaluation by the targeted protein degradation community when developing and optimizing PROTACs.

eLife Assessment

This study presents important findings on the insecticidal mechanism of betulin, a plant-derived metabolite, in controlling the aphid Myzus persicae and it provides a compelling demonstration that betulin targets the GABA receptor in aphids, with strong supporting evidence from transcriptomic, biochemical, electrophysiological, and genetic approaches. In particular, the identification of a specific conserved residue (THR228) critical for betulin binding advances our understanding of insect neuropharmacology and offers translational potential for pest management strategies. The evidence supporting the primary claims is solid, with well-integrated methodologies and appropriate controls; however, some interpretative and methodological limitations remain, including the option to further explore off-target effects, as well as the broader evolutionary and ecological context. Addressing these points would strengthen the broader implications of the study.

eLife Assessment

This manuscript reports a high-quality genome assembly of the European cuttlefish, Sepia officinalis, a representative species of the Cephalopod lineage. The data are based on current best practices for sequencing and genome assembly, including PacBio HiFi long reads and Hi-C chromatin conformation capture; the analysis is currently in parts incomplete, as further analyses are required to confirm the correct chromosome number. This genome will be a useful resource for the community of researchers interested in cuttlefish biology and comparative genomics in general.

eLife Assessment

This important study systematically investigates the effects of calnexin, an endoplasmic reticulum chaperone, on the drug response of approximately 230 disease-causing variants of the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) protein. Through deep mutational scanning, interactome profiling, and functional assays, the findings provide convincing evidence that calnexin significantly influences both CFTR expression and the efficacy of corrector drugs in a variant-specific manner. These insights advance our understanding of how cellular quality control machinery shapes the pharmacological responsiveness of CFTR variants, which are broadly relevant for researchers in protein folding and genetic disease therapeutics.

eLife Assessment

In this important contribution, Yan and colleagues describe a powerful and compelling strategy to generate concatamers of the BK channel and their fusion constructs with the auxiliary gamma subunits, which allows exploring contributions of individual subunits of the tetrameric channel to its gating and the study of heteromeric channel complexes of defined composition. Distinct examples are presented, which illustrate great diversity in the stoichiometric control of BK channel gating, depending on the site and nature of molecular perturbations. The molecular approaches could be extended to other membrane proteins whose N and C termini face opposite sides of the membrane.

eLife Assessment

This is a valuable study that explores the role of the conserved transcription factor POU4-2 in the maintenance, regeneration, and function of planarian mechanosensory neurons. The authors provide solid evidence provided by gene expression and functional studies to demonstrate that POU4-2 is required for the maintenance and regeneration of functional mechanosensory neurons in planarians. Furthermore, the authors identify conserved genes associated with human auditory and rheosensory neurons as potential targets of this transcription factor.

eLife Assessment

This study offers useful findings demonstrating the cartilage-protective effects of osteoactivin in inflammatory experimental models. The study provides compelling evidence that osteoactivin may serve as a promising therapeutic target for inflammatory joint diseases.

eLife Assessment

This important work provides mechanistic insights into the development of cardiac arrhythmia and establishes a new experimental use case for optogenetics in studying cardiac electrophysiology. The agreement between computational models and experimental observations provides a convincing level of evidence that wave train-induced pacemaker activity can originate in continuously depolarized tissue, with the limitation that there may be differences between depolarization arising from constant optogenetic stimulation, as opposed to pathophysiological tissue depolarization. Future experiments in vivo and in other tissue preparations would extend the generality of these findings.

eLife Assessment

This study presents a valuable finding about how receptor-ligand binding pathways with multi-site phosphorylation can show non-monotonic responses to increasing ligand affinity and to kinase activity. The authors provide convincing evidence through a simple ordinary differential equation model of such signaling networks with the key new ingredient of ligand-induced receptor degradation. The work will be of interest to physicists and biologists working on signal transduction and biological information processing.

eLife Assessment

This study introduces a useful method to estimate the probability that a malaria case is imported and to identify the geographic origin of parasites by using a Bayesian approach that integrates epidemiological, travel, and genetic data. The authors provide convincing evidence that the approach can reliably identify the main sources of malaria imports. This work will be of great interest to the area of genomic epidemiology and public health strategies aiming to eliminate malaria.

eLife Assessment

The findings are valuable, given that they highlight the flexible and future-oriented nature of working memory. However, the evidence for the claims about context/color generalization, behavioural relevance of context decoding, dimensionality reduction, neural geometry, the XOR representation, and the specific contribution of working memory is incomplete. The work could be reframed in terms of prospective remapping.

eLife Assessment

This study provides novel and convincing evidence that both dopamine D1 and D2 expressing neurons in the nucleus accumbens shell are crucial for the expression of cue-guided action selection, a fundamental component of decision-making. The research is systematic and rigorous in using optogenetic inhibition of either D1- or D2-expressing medium spiny neurons in the NAc shell to reveal attenuation of sensory-specific Pavlovian-Instrumental transfer, while largely sparing value-based decision on an instrumental task. Findings in this report build on prior research and resolve some conflicts in the literature regarding decision making.

eLife Assessment

This study provides potentially important findings on the understanding of circannual timing in mammals, for which iodothyronine deiodinases (DIOs) have been suggested to be of critical importance, yet functional genetic evidence has been missing. The authors aim to implicate dio3, the major inactivator of the biologically active thyroid hormone T3, in circannual timing in Djungarian hamsters, using a combination of correlative and gene knock-out experiments. Currently, several questions have been raised concerning either the methodological description and/or the design of the experiments, and so the experimental evidence is considered incomplete.

eLife Assessment

These findings are among some of the first to identify a behavioral and neurobiological substrate that disentangles nonassociative from associative fear responses following stress, providing a fundamental push forward in the field. The evidence supporting this is convincing and uses a variety of conceptual and technological approaches. This investigation will be of interest to neuroscientists and behaviourists broadly, as well as clinicians for its relevance to post-traumatic stress disorder.

eLife Assessment

The authors show that innate defensive behavior in mice is shaped by threat intensity, reward value, and social hierarchy, highlighting how value and social context influence instinctive decisions. The authors provide useful behavioural findings supported by strong data, yet the evidence is incomplete due to ambiguities about methodology and the computational model that remains largely descriptive.

eLife Assessment

This valuable study presents a theoretical framework for building continuous attractor networks that integrate with a wide range of topologies, which are of increasing relevance to neuroscientists. While the work offers solid evidence for most claims, the evidence supporting biological plausibility and key claims - such as the existence of a continuum of stable states and robustness across geometries - is currently incomplete and would benefit from further analysis or discussion. The study will be of interest to computational and systems neuroscientists working on neural dynamics and network models of cognition.

eLife Assessment

Avoidance of UV and blue light by the nematode C. elegans is mediated by the unusual transmembrane protein LITE-1, a non-canonical photoreceptor. In this valuable work, the authors provide convincing evidence that LITE-1 function is also required for avoidance of very high concentrations of the food-associated cue diacetyl, suggesting that it may also function as a diacetyl chemoreceptor. While the evidence for this idea is incomplete, these intriguing findings suggest an unexpected complexity in the function of this unusual photoreceptor.

eLife Assessment

This study examines how the neuronal cytoskeleton contributes to the formation of the axonal membrane-associated periodic skeleton (MPS) in embryonic dorsal root ganglia (DRG) neurons, using STED imaging. Conclusions are supported by convincing methods, data, and analyses. This useful work confirms previous data and improves our understanding of the roles of microtubules and actin dynamics in the chronological recruitment of MPS components.

eLife Assessment

This is a methodologically rich manuscript that is important for elucidating the neural mechanisms of expectation in perception. The analyses are convincing in extending analogous findings in attention and working memory. With further clarification, the findings will be of broad interest to vision researchers.