Evaluated articles

eLife Assessment

This valuable study describes an apparatus, workflow, and proof-of-concept data for a system to study social cooperation in marmosets, an increasingly popular primate model for neuroscience. The apparatus and methodology have clear and convincing advantages over conventional methods based on manual approaches. However, claims of faster social learning or of finer-grained behavioural analysis in this setup will require further corroboration.

eLife Assessment

This manuscript presents important findings on a bacterial effector involved in plant symbiotic signaling. The effector proteolytically targets a key receptor while its activity is counteracted by host-mediated phosphorylation, revealing a dynamic interplay that fine-tunes symbiotic interactions. The evidence supporting these claims is solid, and the findings have potential signaling implications beyond bacterial interactions with plants.

eLife assessment

This study describes useful mouse models of knock-ins of human STING1 variants and an assessment of these variants' action in mouse immune cells. While the implications of the variants in the inflammatory response are of significant interest, limitations are still found in the authors' interpretation and conclusions made, and the evidence for the conclusion remains incomplete.

eLife Assessment

The neurotrophic factor Neuritin can moderate T-cell tolerance and immunity through both regulatory T (Treg) and effector T cells, promoting Treg cell expansion and suppression while dampening effector T cells to mediate the inflammatory response. Neuritin expression influences the membrane potential, ion channels, and nutrient transporter expression patterns of CD4+ T cells, contributing to differential metabolic states in Treg and effector T cells. These findings are solid and important for understanding immune regulation involving Treg cells and effector T cells.

eLife assessment

This important study demonstrates that the Pseudomonas aeruginosa-derived quorum sensing signal, 2-aminoacetophenone, induces immune tolerization in macrophages by perturbing metabolism, particularly in the context of mitochondrial respiration and bioenergetics. The authors present convincing evidence for 2-aminoacetophenone-mediated reduction of pyruvate transport into mitochondria, with downstream effects that result in reduced ATP production in tolerized macrophages. The work will be of interest to those studying host-pathogen interactions.

eLife Assessment

The authors utilized single-cell RNA-seq profiling of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patient tumor samples to generate useful insights into the determinants of immune checkpoint inhibitor (ICI) responsiveness in NSCLC patients. While some of the findings add weight to the current literature, the analysis is incomplete due to the small cohort size and heterogeneous population which has limited their ability to draw statistically supported conclusion after adjusting for multiple hypothesis testing, as well as the lack of functional characterization of the findings. This study would benefit from external cohorts to both validate the findings and justify the statistical analysis undertaken.

eLife Assessment

The paper illustrates a valuable approach to generating TCR transgenic mice specific for known epitopes. Solid evidence validates the described pipeline for identification of TCRs from single-cell datasets for the generation of TCR transgenic mice, while obviating the need for generation of T-cell lines and hybridomas.

eLife assessment

This manuscript uses public datasets of myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) patients to undertake a multi-omics analysis of clinical, genomic, and transcriptomic datasets. Useful findings are provided by way of interesting correlations of specific mutations with inflammation and differing clinical outcomes. The evidence is solid and interesting, and the manuscript is of substantive value to hematologists and clinical immunologists.

eLife assessment

This useful study draws on published single-cell and spatial transcriptomic data of colon cancer liver metastasis to clarify the pro- and anti-tumorigenic properties of NK cells. The authors discover increased GZMK+ resting NK cells in the tumor tissue and reduced abundance of KIR2DL4+ activated NK cells. However, the evidence is currently incomplete, as the models used to validate the hypothesis and claims are not adequate and lack the necessary controls.

eLife Assessment

In this manuscript, the authors describe a new AlphaFold2 pipeline called PabFold that can represent a useful tool for identifying linear antibody epitopes (B-cell epitopes) for different antigens. This information can be used in the selection of different reagents in competitive ELISA assays which can save time and reduce costs. Because several questions about the work remain, the study is currently incomplete.

eLife Assessment

This potentially useful study introduces an orthogonal approach for detecting RNA modification, without chemical modification of RNA, which often results in RNA degradation and therefore loss of information. Compared to previous versions, the most recent one is improved and sufficiently aligned with the standards of the field to merit consideration by the research community, making the evidence solid according to said standards. Nevertheless, uncertainty regarding false positive and false negative rates remains, as it does for some of the alternative approaches. With more rigorous validation, the approach might be of particular interest for sites in RNA molecules where modifications are rare.

eLife Assessment

This important study shows how genetic variation is associated with fecundity following a period of reproductive diapause in female Drosophila. The work identifies the olfactory system as central to successful diapause with associated changes in longevity and fecundity. While the methods used are convincing, a limitation of the study, as of any other laboratory-based investigation is the challenge of demonstrating how well measures for fitness related to diapause and its recovery correlates with realities encountered during development in the wild.

eLife assessment

In this interesting study, the authors have used light-sensitive mGlu5 negative allosteric modulators to determine the role of these receptors in a chronic pain model. These findings could be useful to the pain field, but the evidence supporting these claims is incomplete.

eLife assessment

This study presents a useful examination of dense neuroanatomy in human postmortem medial entorhinal cortex, using a large number of small electron microscopy image volumes sampled from multiple cortical layers and individuals. The authors use solid experimental and annotation techniques, demonstrating the suitability of postmortem tissue reconstructions for analysis and presenting careful, detailed measurements of synapse properties and overall tissue composition. However, there is inadequate support connecting these findings to claims about general connectivity in medial entorhinal cortex, since factors affecting interpretability like noise, the spatial scales examined, and relationships between structural properties and connectivity are not characterized. With a more thorough contextualization, this work would be of interest for studies of cellular neuroanatomy or brain network organization.

eLife assessment

This computational work represents a valuable and long overdue assessment of the potential mechanisms associating patterns of activity of entorhinal grid cells, recorded mostly in rodents, with the population property of hexasymmetry detected in non-invasive human studies. The methodic comparison of alternative hypotheses is compelling, and the conclusions are important for the future design of experiments assessing the neural correlates of human navigation across physical, virtual, or conceptual spaces.

eLife assessment

This important study combines across multiple complementary neuroscientific methods to understand the neural response to visual stimulus complexity in the human brain across lifespan. Lalwani et al., provide solid evidence, drawing from appropriate and validated methodology. A weakness is that key information about methodological details and controls is still outstanding, as is a discussion on how generalizable the findings are. With these elements strengthened, the study would be of broad interest to neuroscientists and biologists interested in aging and sensory processing.

eLife assessment

This study presents a valuable finding on prognostic values of serum CA125, CEA, and AFP for predicting patient outcomes of endometrial cancer. The evidence supporting the claims of the authors is solid, although inclusion of detailed discussion of present results with prior documented findings would have strengthened the study. The work will be of interest to scientists working on endometrial cancer.

eLife assessment

How and why nutritional requirements change over development and differ between species are significant questions with wide-ranging implications spanning ecology to health. In this manuscript, Talal et al. set out to address these questions in laboratory and field experiments with grasshoppers and in a comparative analysis of different species. The laboratory experiments are convincing but the field and comparative aspects are not sufficiently well developed. In general, the study offers some evidence of a universal shift from high protein to high carbohydrate intake during ontogeny in animals, but the methods are not clear and/or appropriate to support the goals and conclusions of the manuscript as it is.

eLife assessment

This important manuscript used state-of-the-art techniques and employed relevant animal models to provide both convincing and solid evidence supporting the regulatory role of microRNA cluster 221/222 in rheumatoid arthritis synovial fibroblast. The findings of this work offer significant advances to current knowledge which will be interesting to a wide range audience in the rheumatology and bone research fields. However, whereas models, techniques, and analyses are solid, certain concepts related to the role of immune and bone cells are limited.