Evaluated articles

eLife assessment

The regulation of mitosis and the dynamics of the mitotic spindle in it are central to cell division with high fidelity and crucial for normal division and development and defects therein can lead to disease. A key component of ensuring the fidelity is the "spindle assembly checkpoint". This valuable study using convincing experimental approaches in fission yeast has revealed novel links between the MAP-kinase signalling pathway modulating the spindle assembly checkpoint.

eLife Assessment

This work investigates the functional difference between the most commonly expressed form of PTH, and a mutant form of PTH, identified in a patient with chronic hypocalcemia and hyperphosphatemia which characterizes hypoparathyroidism. The authors investigate the hypothesis that this mutant PTH assumes a dimeric form in vivo and serves anabolic functions in the bone. The data are compelling and the translational aspects are fundamental in understanding PTH-1 Receptor activation.

eLife assessment

This is a useful study that applies deep transfer learning to assign patient-level disease attributes to single cells of T2D and non-diabetic patients, including obese patients. This analysis identified a single cluster of T2D-associated β-cells; and two subpopulations of obese- β-cells derived from either non-diabetic or T2D donors. The findings were validated at the protein level using immunohistochemistry on islets derived from non-diabetic and T2D organ donors, contributing solid experimental evidence for the computational analyses.

eLife Assessment

ProtSSN is a valuable approach that generates protein embeddings by integrating sequence and structural information, demonstrating improved prediction of mutation effects on thermostability compared to competing models. The evidence supporting the authors' claims is compelling, with well-executed comparisons. This work will be of particular interest to researchers in bioinformatics and structural biology, especially those focused on protein function and stability.

eLife Assessment

This descriptive study used multiparameter spectral flow cytometry and clustering analysis of a subset of CD4 T cells, termed circulating T follicular helper (cTfh), responding to Plasmodium falciparum antigens, PfSEA -1A and PfGARP. The results from this comprehensive study provide valuable information regarding differences in cTfh response profiles between children and adults living in malaria-endemic Kenya and thus offer a potential usefulness towards improving choices of antigen candidates for malaria vaccines. However, the analysis and interpretation of antigen-specific CD4 cTfh responses remain incomplete.

eLife Assessment

This important study enhances our understanding of the foraging behaviour of aerial insectivorous birds. Using solid methodology, the authors have collected extensive data on bird movements and prey availability, which in turn provide support for the main claim of the study. The work will be of broad interest to behavioural ecologists.

eLife Assessment

This study investigates the role of Caspar (Casp), an orthologue of human Fas-associated factor-1, in regulating the number of primordial germ cells that form during Drosophila embryogenesis. The findings are important in that they reveal an additional pathway that contributes to germ cell specification and maintenance. The evidence supporting the conclusions is solid, as the authors identify Casp and its binding partner Transitional endoplasmic reticulum 94 (TER94) as factors that influence germ cell numbers.

eLife Assessment

This study presents convincing evidence of the role of an intestine-released neuropeptide, FLP-2, in the oxidative stress response of C. elegans, as well as for the neural circuit pathway that regulates its release in response to sensing reactive oxygen species (i.e., H2O2). These valuable results advance the understanding of gut-brain signaling and the neural circuit basis of behavioral responses to stress.

eLife Assessment

This study provides an important re-evaluation of modality-specific information processing in the thalamus of trained mice. Using an elegant task design that probes competing tactile and visual stimuli, the authors present compelling evidence that behavioral training reshapes the sensitivity of higher-order thalamic nuclei. Despite the powerful task design and the significance of the main findings, the origin of the cross-modal responses remains an open question and requires future investigation.

eLife Assessment

In this valuable study, Li et al., set out to understand the mechanisms of audiovisual temporal recalibration - the brain's ability to adjust to the latency differences that emerge due to different (distance-dependent) transduction latencies of auditory and visual signals - through psychophysical measurements and modeling. The analysis and specification of a formal model for this process provide convincing evidence to supports a role for causal inference in recalibration.

eLife assessment

This valuable study elucidates the essential role of the chromatin regulator KDM6B in the establishment and maintenance of neural stem cells (NSCs) in the mouse hippocampus. While the evidence supporting the authors' claims is largely solid, a more comprehensive investigation into the cellular and molecular events underlying the loss of hippocampal NSCs would have further strengthened the study. Nonetheless, the findings will be of interest to biologists studying neural development and NSCs.

eLife Assessment

This important study investigates the influence of the cingulate cortex on the development of the social vocalizations of marmoset monkeys by making bilateral lesions of this brain area in neonatal animals. The evidence supporting the authors' claims is convincing. The work will be of broad interest to cognitive neuroscientists, speech and language researchers, and primate neuroscientists.

eLife Assessment

This important study successfully applies an innovative chemogenetic tool to investigate cerebellar function to advance our understanding of the contributions of Purkinje cell populations to postural control in larval zebrafish. The evidence supporting the conclusions is convincing and supported by rigorous statistical analysis. The study highlights the power of combining genetically targeted perturbations with quantitative high-throughput behavioral analysis and original microscopy tools.

eLife assessment

This valuable study provides evidence that during learning of a simple detection task, the change in the rate of spike bursts is a signal that is distinct from the change in firing rate, and suggests that the change in bursting is more correlated with learning than other measures of change in activity. However, the evidence for the claim that bursting contributes to learning and attention is currently incomplete, because the authors did not take into account the potentially differential effects of learning-related changes in movement on bursting compared to non-burst spike events, and there is no meaningful way to measure attention in their task. Also, the study used an artificial microstimulation as the stimulus, which limits the generalization of these results to normal sensory-motor learning.

eLife Assessment

This important study advances our understanding of how FGF13 variants confer seizure susceptibility. By acting in a set of inhibitory interneurons, FGF13 regulates synaptic transmission and excitability. The data presented here are convincing and combine cell type-specific knockouts and electrophysiology, complemented by histology/RNA studies. Collectively, this research will be of interest to a wide audience, particularly those involved in the study of epilepsy, inhibitory neurons, and ion channels.

eLife assessment

The methods and findings of the current work are important and well-grounded. The strength of the evidence presented is convincing and backed up by rigorous methodology. The work, when elaborated on how to access the app, will have far-reaching implications for current clinical practice.

eLife Assessment

This work describes a new software platform for machine-learning-based segmentation of and particle-picking in cryo-electron tomograms. The program and its corresponding online database of trained models will allow experimentalists to conveniently test different models and share their results with others. The paper provides convincing evidence that the software will be valuable to the community.

eLife Assessment

The manuscript by Hills, et al. presents data that support multiple conclusions regarding the gene expression patterns of cells, especially chemosensory neurons. The evidence is largely solid, with transcriptomic analysis combined and validated by spatially resolved expression in tissue sections, but is incomplete in other ways with some claims not fully supported. This large-scale single-cell transcriptomics dataset is an important resource, alongside a thorough exploration of the molecular features of the different cell types within the mouse vomeronasal organ, including expression of chemosensory receptors.

eLife Assessment

This study provides an important resource by thoroughly benchmarking multiple sequencing-based tRNA quantification methods. The suggested best practice is supported by convincing evidence from in silico experiments in multiple scenarios.