Evaluated articles

eLife assessment

This important study presents new knowledge of the spermatogonial stem cell (SSC) niche in trans women after gender-affirming hormone therapy (GAHT). The evidence supporting the claims is convincing. The work will be of interest to researchers and clinicians working in the field of reproductive medicine and andrology.

eLife Assessment

This valuable study assesses through simulations how several features of local cortical circuits - interneuron subtypes, their specific targeting of dendritic compartments, and certain brain rhythms - together affect the integration of synaptic inputs by a pyramidal cell. Employing several carefully considered simulation setups they convincingly demonstrate that beta rhythms are best suited to modulate and control dendritic Ca-spikes while gamma rhythms affect their coupling to somatic spiking, or how basal inputs are directly integrated into somatic spikes. However, the baseline setup may be idealized for the generation of the events in question and it would be beneficial if the similarity to the in-vivo activity regime was demonstrated further. The results will be relevant for neuroscientists studying local circuits or developing more abstract theories at the systems level.

eLife assessment

This valuable paper presents convincing evidence that changing the constraint of how long to stop at an intermediate target significantly influences the degree of coarticulation of two sequential reaching movements, as well as their response to mechanical perturbations. Using an optimal-control framework, the authors offer a normative explanation of how both co-articulated and separated sequential movement can be understood as an optimal solution to the task requirements.

eLife assessment

This important and novel study addresses the challenge of antimicrobial resistance by targeting plasmid proteins that interfere with plasmid transfer as a strategy to limit the spread of antibiotic-resistance genes. The evidence presented and the integration of two approaches to tackle antimicrobial resistance is convincing. This work will interest those working on plasmid transfer and antimicrobial resistance.

eLife Assessment

This important study reports that genome-wide signatures of relaxed purifying selection in genes associated with male fertility may reflect an evolutionary response to reduced sperm competition in the gorilla mating system. The authors present compelling data that robustly support their central conclusion. This work will be of broad interest to investigators in evolutionary biology and reproductive biology.

eLife assessment

This study provides important evidence that links acetylcholine responses in the sensory cortex to motor actions during perceptual tasks, rather than to rewards. The evidence for the association between acetylcholine responses and motor actions is solid, but does not demonstrate the causal link implied by the title and abstract. The manuscript would benefit from a more detailed description of results and methodologies. This study is of broad interest to the neuroscience field.

eLife Assessment

This valuable paper describes the stiffness of meiotic chromosomes in both oocytes and spermatocytes. The authors identify differences in stiffness between meiosis I and II chromosomes, as well as an age-dependent increase in stiffness in meiosis I (and meiosis II) chromosomes, results that are highly significant for the field of chromosome biology. The report is, however, mostly descriptive and the mechanisms underlying age-dependent changes in chromosome stiffness remain unclear. The evidence suggesting that changes in stiffness are independent of cohesin, which is known to deteriorate with age, is still incomplete.

eLife Assessment

This important study provides evidence of a deeply conserved role for the gene Mirror in providing positional identity in the posterior part of butterfly and fly wings, despite increased morphological complexity of butterfly wings. The findings are solid for the field of evo-devo. However, the tools in butterflies are more limited than in Drosophila and it is more difficult to determine which specific cells are mutant and whether the effect of mutation is cell-intrinsic. The work will be of interest to evolutionary and developmental biologists working on insect wing evolution and the evolution of patterning more generally.

eLife assessment

This valuable study reports on a series of artificial selection experiments for microbiomes that confer drought tolerance to rice plants. A major strength is the solid experimental design with multiple soils, which will likely guide others in designing their experiments, but the study has also shortcomings in that the rescuing effect is not benchmarked against healthy well-watered plants, the sterilized controls do not add much information, and the dispersal between inocula confounds the interpretation of the results. In addition, while the type of work presented here is a first step towards the eventual goal of plant microbiome engineering, that goal is still mainly an ambition. The abstract would benefit from this being made clear, and the presentation would overall benefit from more extensive consideration of recent developments in the field.

eLife Assessment

This valuable study explores the sequence characteristics and conservation of high-occupancy target loci, regions in the human genome such as promoters and enhancers that are bound by a multitude of transcription factors. The computational analyses presented in this study are solid. This study would be a helpful resource for researchers performing ChIP-seq based analyses of transcription factor binding.

eLife assessment

This useful paper explores a mathematical model of subsecond time perception, testing potential neural mechanisms behind the linear psychophysical law, Weber's law, and dopaminergic modulation of subjective durations. The model employed readout units to decode an interval. Nevertheless, the work is incomplete and presented as data-driven, but there is no analysis of empirical data.

eLife assessment

This important work identifies a p. aeruginosa strain and enzyme that can degrade 1-naphthylamine, a harmful industrial pollutant. Data resulting from in vivo and structural approaches are compelling, but additional mutagenesis would further test and establish the broad substrate specificity of NpaA1. With this additional data, this paper would be of high interest to biologists and enzymologists studying biodegradation of industrial pollutants.

eLife assessment

This valuable study offers new insight into the role of centrosome protein ninein in skeletal development through an analysis of the skeletal phenotype of ninein-deficient mice. While there is solid evidence supporting the conclusion that the absence of ninein leads to transient skeletal abnormalities and a lasting reduction in osteoclastogenesis, the evidence to substantiate the claim that enhanced ossification is attributed to reduced osteoclast formation/activity is insufficient. This work will be of interest to scientists in bone biology and skeletal development field.

eLife assessment

This valuable study addresses the interpretation of patterns of synonymous and nonsynonymous diversity in microbial genomes. The authors present solid theoretical and computational evidence that adaptive mutations that revert the amino acids to an earlier state can significantly impact the observed ratios of synonymous and nonsynonymous mutations in human commensal bacteria. This paper will be of interest to microbiologists with a background in evolution.

eLife Assessment

This important study presents a series of results aimed at uncovering the involvement of the endosomal sorting protein SNX4 in neurotransmitter release. While the evidence supporting the conclusions is solid, the molecular mechanisms remain unclear. This paper will be of interest to cell biologists and neurobiologists.

eLife Assessment

This study provides convincing evidence that the quality of research in female-dominated fields of research is systematically undervalued by the research community. The authors' findings are based on analyses of data from a research assessment exercise in New Zealand and data on funding success rates in Australia, Canada, the European Union and the United Kingdom. This work is an important contribution to the discourse on gender biases in academia, underlining the pervasive influence of gender on whole fields of research, as well as on individual researchers.

eLife Assessment

The authors used comprehensive approaches to identify Gyc76C as an ITPa receptor in Drosophila. They revealed that ITPa acts via Gyc76C in the renal tubules and fat body to modulate osmotic and metabolic homeostasis. The designed experiments, data, and analyses convincingly support the main claims. The findings are important to help us better understand how ITP signals contributes to systemic homeostasis regulation.

eLife assessment

Here, the authors developed a cell-based screening assay for the identification of small molecule inhibitors of nonsense-mediated decay (NMD), and used it to validate KVS0001, a new small molecule SMG1 kinase inhibitor derived from the existing inhibitor SMG1i-11, showing it inhibits NMD in cultured cells leading to expression of neoantigens from NMD-targeted genes and slows tumor growth of cancer cell lines possessing a significant number of out-of-frame indel mutations. The conclusions are supported by convincing evidence, and the significance of this work consists in the development of a new and very promising NMD inhibitor drug that acts as an inhibitor of the SMG1 NMD kinase and is effective in animal tumor studies. This is an important advance for the field, as previous NMD inhibitors were not specific, lacked efficacy, or were very toxic and hence not suitable for animal applications.

eLife Assessment

This study reports useful information on the mechanisms by which a high-fat diet induces arrhythmias in the model organism Drosophila. Specifically, the authors propose that adipokinetic hormone (Akh) secretion is increased with this diet, and through binding of Akh to its receptor on cardiac neurons, arrhythmia is induced. The authors have revised their manuscript, but in some areas the evidence remains incomplete, which the authors say future studies will be directed to closing the present gaps. Nonetheless, the data presented will be helpful to those who wish to extend the research to a more complex model system, such as the mouse.

eLife Assessment

This study presents valuable findings on the role of the satiety hormone cholecystokinin typically associated with feeding in the control of a pituitary hormone, FSH, which is a critical regulator of reproductive physiology. The authors provide solid pharmacological evidence that cholecystokinin is sufficient to regulate FSH and compelling genetic evidence that one of its receptors is required for gonadal development, with uncertainties remaining about the physiological regulation and necessity of the peptide. The work will be of interest to reproductive biologists, especially those with an interest in the endocrine control of fertility.