Evaluated articles

eLife assessment

Roe et al. provide a large-sample analysis of hemispheric lateralisation in brain structure, synthesising local cortical thickness and surface area data from 7 different datasets. The study provides a rich descriptive catalogue of phenomena related to hemispheric anatomical asymmetries. These results are convincing and will prove an important point of reference to neuroscientists who might want to compare their own future results to the ones from this large and varied data set.

eLife Assessment

This fundamental study substantially advances our current understanding of mechanotransduction within endothelial cells. The evidence provided by the authors in the revised manuscript is compelling, which taken together, provides strong support for the authors' major findings. The work will be of broad interest to cell biologists and vascular biologists.

eLife assessment

In this important study, the authors present a human telencephalon-eye organoid model that exhibits remarkable pathfinding and growth of retinal ganglion cell (RGC) axons. The identification of cell-surface markers for RGCs could have value for understanding the molecular mechanisms involved in RGC axon development and regeneration. The strength of evidence is compelling for future studies to investigate RGC neurite outgrowth and brain-eye connectivity in humans.

eLife assessment

This important manuscript reveals signatures of co-evolution of two nucleosome remodeling factors, Lsh/HELLS and CDCA7, which are involved in the regulation of eukaryotic DNA methylation. The results suggest that the roles for the two factors in DNA methylation maintenance pathways can be traced back to the last eukaryotic common ancestor and that the CDC7A-HELLS-DNMT axis shaped the evolutionary retention of DNA methylation in eukaryotes. The solid evolutionary analyses form a strong basis for experimental follow-up studies. The work should be of interest to colleagues in the fields of evolutionary biology, chromatin biology and genome biology.

eLife assessment

This important study describes the coordinated regulation of cellular size and protein translation in response to chronic stress as an adaptive mechanism, termed the 'rewiring stress response' regulated by the heat shock response. The evidence supporting this conclusion is solid, utilizing diverse methods to monitor and manipulate cell size and evaluate stress resistance. The study could be strengthened by the inclusion of more experiments focused on defining the mechanistic basis of this coordination and broadening the scope of the specific role of the 'rewiring stress response' across different chronic cellular stresses. This work will be of broad interest to researchers interested in diverse fields including cellular proteostasis, stress-responsive signaling, and aging and senescence.

eLife assessment

This study makes a connection between cellular metabolism and proteostasis through MAGIC, a previously proposed protein quality control pathway of clearance of cytosolic misfolded and aggregated proteins by importing into mitochondria. The authors reveal the role of Snf1, a yeast AMPK, in preventing the import of misfolded proteins to mitochondria for MAGIC controlled by the transcription factor Hap4, depending on the cellular metabolic status. The key message is important, although the evidence for physiological relevance of MAGIC for overall cellular proteostasis and its molecular regulation by Snf1 remains incomplete.

eLife assessment

This manuscript provides a useful reconstruction of the structure of the sirtuin-class histone deacetylase Sirt6 bound to a nucleosome based on cryo-EM observations, and additional characterization of the flexibility of the histone tails in the complex based on molecular dynamics simulations. While similar structures have recently been published elsewhere, this solid study supports the conclusions of those papers and also includes new insights into the potential dynamics of Sirt6 bound to a nucleosome, insights that help explain its substrate specificity.

eLife assessment

This valuable study contributes to understanding how retinal activity shapes the response properties of excitatory and inhibitory neurons in a major visual target, the superior colliculus. The evidence supporting the claim is convincing: the work is technically excellent yet the interpretation of these results assumes an unbiased sampling and integration of the RGC axon in the SC, a caveat pointed out by the authors. Overall, this study provides insights into the integration of visual information from the eye to the brain, and this work will be of interest to visual neuroscientists.

eLife assessment

This paper is important because of its integration of movement and contextual information to control a virtual arm for individuals with upper-limb differences. The provided evidence convincingly demonstrates the approach's feasibility for manipulating a single object shape in different orientations within a virtual environment. However, additional improvements are needed for this proof-of-concept neuro-model to fulfil practical requirements.

eLife assessment

This important study demonstrates a link between an acute high fat diet, microglial metabolism and improved higher cognitive function. The evidence supporting the proposed mechanism in vivo is incomplete at this stage due to non-trivial technical limitations but the authors provide convincing in vitro metabolic characterization of primary microglia cultures to support the model. This work will be of interest to a broad audience in the field of neuroscience, metabolism, and immunology.

eLife assessment

This study presents a rather valuable finding that IQGAP1 interacts with TNFAIP2, which activates Rac1 to promote drug resistance in TNBC. The evidence supporting the claims of the authors is quite solid. The work will be of interest to scientists working on breast cancer.

eLife assessment

The findings of this article provide valuable information on the changes of cell clusters induced by chronic periodontitis. The observation of a new fibroblast subpopulation, named AG fibroblasts, is interesting, and the strength of evidence presented is solid.

eLife assessment

The study's results offer a fundamental insight into how ACC1-mediated fatty-acid synthesis affects the survival and pathogenicity of iNKT cells in allergic asthma. The inclusion of mouse models, involving genetic adjustments and reconstitution experiments, along with the disparities found in iNKT cells between allergic asthma patients and control subjects in human studies, adds compelling evidence that substantiates these findings.

eLife assessment

This study is of fundamental importance, addressing the regulation of the carbon concentrating mechanism in cyanobacteria. It is a well-controlled investigation of low affinity regulatory binding of small molecules, processes that are typically difficult to examine. The work provides compelling evidence that the adenylate pool, rather than any single metabolite, regulates a key bicarbonate transporter (SbtA) to provide efficient bicarbonate supply while preventing futile cycling that can result from escape of unfixed CO2.

eLife assessment

This fundamental study identifies the components of the N6-methyladenosine methyltransferase complexes in yeasts, with major differences with the same complexes in mammals and flies. The evidence supporting the conclusions is convincing, with rigorous high-throughput sequencing approaches and detailed functional analysis. This work will be of broad interest to colleagues in the RNA modification and meiosis fields.

eLife assessment

This is an important study that addresses the interesting question of whether stimulation of DA input to prefrontal cortex during adolescence can be used to rescue genetic defects on DA regulation of PFC function. The conclusions are convincingly supported by the data together with discussion of some limitations of the approach. This story will of interest to a broad group of neuroscientists interested in regulation of prefrontal cortical function in behavior.

eLife assessment

This important study shows that pharmacologically enhanced catecholamine levels and increased voluntary spatial attention have overlapping as well as dissociable effects on performance on a visuospatial attention task and corresponding EEG markers. The findings provide solid evidence regarding how neuromodulatory arousal and selective spatial attention jointly shape perceptional decision-making.

eLife assessment

This important study expands on current knowledge of allosteric diversity in the human kinome by C-terminal splicing variants using as a paradigm DCLK1. The authors provide convincing evolutionary and some mechanistic evidence how C-terminal isoform specific variants generated by alternative splicing can regulate catalytic activity by means of coupling specific phosphorylation sites to dynamical and conformational changes controlling active site and substrate pocket occupancy, as well as protein-protein interactions. The data will be of interest to researchers in the kinase and signal transduction field.

eLife assessment

This useful study aims to characterize patterns of demographic aging in naked mole rats by quantifying mortality rates in a captive colony, up to approximately the median age of death. The study system is a fascinating case of unusual longevity and physiology in mammals, but because of limited sampling at older ages and missing analyses, the evidence for the main conclusion – that naked mole rats do not experience actuarial senescence – is incomplete for younger animals and inadequate for older animals. The work nevertheless provides data of interest to biodemographers and biomedical researchers interested in naked mole rats as a model for aging.

eLife assessment

This important study combines extensive phenotyping of genome-wide deletion mutants and machine learning-based prediction to generate a large scale resource for understanding the functions of thousands of fission yeast protein-coding genes. This resource is supported by convincing phenotyping data and state-of-the-art bioinformatic analyses and will be of interest to many geneticists.