Evaluated articles

eLife Assessment

The study presents data on the possible connection of respiratory pathologies like pneumonia in a cohort of dolphins with altered composition and concomitant perturbed biophysical properties of pulmonary surfactant complexes. Overall, it is a valuable contribution that could be of interest to scientists in the field. However, the study as it is appears somewhat incomplete and additional clarification and discussions are required in order to explain a few methodological questions that may limit the impact of the work considerably.

eLife Assessment

This important study examined age-related changes in cerebellar function by testing a large sample of younger and older adults, including 30 over 80 years old, on motor and cognitive tasks linked to the cerebellum and conducting structural imaging. Their findings show that cerebellar-dependent functions are mostly maintained or even enhanced across the lifespan, with cerebellar-mediated motor abilities remaining intact despite degeneration, in contrast to non-cerebellar measures. Overall, the authors provide compelling evidence in support of preserved cerebellar function with age. These results highlight the resilience and redundancy of cerebellar circuits and offer key insights into aging and motor behavior.

eLife Assessment

Using their unique Fish-On-Chips optofluidics platform, the authors make three important findings: the presence of precise coupling between saccades and tail flips can be used to discriminate between turning or gliding behaviours; aversive and appetitive chemosensory cues differentially modulate these behaviours; transformation from cue valence to behaviour is encoded by the pallium. The evidence supporting these findings is solid. The work advances our understanding of the ancient interplay between chemosensation and motor output through the modulation of eye-body coordination.

eLife Assessment

The presented findings are important for the field of cell-cycle control. They provide new insights into the origin of cell size variability in budding yeast. The strength of evidence is solid. However, the conclusions could be more strongly supported by additional analysis.

eLife Assessment

This important study employs functional magnetic resonance spectroscopy (fMRS) to demonstrate that GABAergic inhibition in the parietal cortex actively suppresses goal-irrelevant distractors, thereby facilitating goal-directed visual tracking. The data and analyses are solid, and the methodology is validated. However, the link between the metabolic changes and the purported functional mechanisms is incomplete due to concerns with experimental design and interpretations. The study will be of interest to researchers studying goal-directed behavior and neurochemical dynamics in cognitive processing.

eLife Assessment

This valuable work demonstrates that M. tuberculosis protein PPE2 perturbs adipose tissue biology by modulating adipogenesis, lipolysis, and inflammatory remodeling, thereby contributing to fat loss and insulin resistance during TB. Using M. smegmatis overexpression strains, PPE2-deficient Mtb mutants, and mouse models, the study links PPE2 to downregulation of PPAR-γ, C/EBP-α, adiponectin, and broader transcriptional changes in host fatty acid metabolism. These findings convincingly highlight, for the first time, a direct role for a bacterial virulence factor in TB-associated wasting. However, despite strong associative evidence, the mechanistic basis of PPE2-mediated regulation remains unresolved.

eLife Assessment

This valuable study identifies a novel regulator of stress-induced gene quiescence in C. elegans: the multi-Zinc-finger protein ZNF-236. The work provides evidence for an active mechanism that maintains the repressed state of inducible genes under basal conditions in the absence of stress. The claims for discovery made in the title and abstract are supported by solid experimental data. However, a deeper investigation into the mechanisms of ZNF-236 action could substantially enhance the manuscript's impact and value.

eLife Assessment

This study addresses an important problem in gene regulation, namely, which features of chromatin regulate potential RNA Polymerase 2 activity at a locus. The authors provided evidence that specific post-translational modifications of histones within the gene body are correlated with Pol II transcription, that these modifications are dynamic, and that they can be regulated by Pol II activity. The manuscript contributes to the concept of "fragile nucleosomes" as a unifying framework for key epigenetic drivers of transcription; however, the quality of the evidence provided is inadequate in support of the claims made, and further evidence teasing out the mechanistic aspects of the work would strengthen its impact. This work will be of interest to the fields of transcriptional regulation, chromatin structure, and epigenetics.

eLife Assessment

This important work advances our understanding of the development of the visual system. The data presented is compelling and provides a detailed single-cell atlas of post-natal anterior chamber development in mice, highlighting the trabecular meshwork and Schlemm's canal.

eLife Assessment

This study presents important findings on how cardiac regenerative capacity diverges across species by examining heart repair in two species of livebearers, platyfish and swordtails. In contrast to zebrafish, the livebearer species show persistent scarring after cryo-injury, and the work highlights how lineage-specific anatomical and immunological traits may constrain regenerative competence. The study is compelling, the data are convincing, and the results contribute to our understanding of the mechanisms underlying heart regeneration across vertebrates.

eLife Assessment

This is an important study on the sensory roles of Cerebrospinal fluid-contacting neurons (CBF-cn) in mammals. The authors identify PKD2L1 as the predominant pH-sensing channel CBF-cn and show how the apical extension is used as an amplifier of chemical changes in the content of the Cerebrospinal fluid. The evidence is solid in experimental design but limited in mechanistic interpretation, as the electrophysiological analyses require re-evaluation.

eLife Assessment

This fundamental study introduces a new biology-informed strategy for deep learning models aiming to predict mutational effects in antibody sequences. It provides convincing evidence that separating selection from the nucleotide-level mutation process improves performance over the objectives of protein language models inspired by natural language processing. This paper should be of interest to computational immunologists, but also to the broader community interested in deep learning for biological sequence data and evolution.

eLife Assessment

This fundamental work substantially advances our understanding of a major research question: whether collagen can be directly imaged with MRI. The evidence supporting the conclusion is compelling, with methods, data, and analyses that are more rigorous than those currently considered state-of-the-art. The work will be of high interest to MR physicists and clinicians, as collagen is the most abundant protein in the human body and plays an essential role in health.

eLife Assessment

Rickert and colleagues demonstrate that the host peptidoglycan-binding protein PGLYRP1 has both beneficial and detrimental effects on Bordetella pertussis infection in mice. Using a solid array of techniques, the study provides useful insights into how the peptidoglycan fragment tracheal cytotoxin alters host immune responses, dampening inflammatory responses later in B. pertussis infection. These studies indicate that release of peptidoglycan fragments with particular structures can be used by bacteria to modulate NOD1 versus NOD2 responses to their advantage.

eLife Assessment

This valuable work analyzes a large dataset of [NiFe]-CODHs, integrating genomic context, operon organization, and clade-specific gene neighborhoods to discern patterns of diversification and adaptation. A consistent examination of CODH genomic contexts, including CODH-HCP co-occurrence, informs interpretations of enzymatic activity, biotechnological potential, and differential functional roles, in line with current standards in genomic enzymology. With solid support, this work provides a broadly informative contribution to the field.

eLife Assessment

This potentially valuable manuscript focuses on the phosphorylation of residue T495 as a mechanism to inactivate HSP70 and disrupt cell cycle progression in response to DNA damage. The evidence supporting this model is solid, but would be significantly strengthened by additional studies defining the extent of T495 phosphorylation induced by DNA damage, identifying the kinase responsible for phosphorylating T495 of HSP70, and further elucidation of the functional implications of T495 phosphorylation in human cells. This work will be of interest to scientists focused on topics including chaperone biology, proteostasis, cell cycle progression, and DNA damage.

eLife Assessment

This study makes an important contribution by revealing how saccades selectively disrupt spatial working memory while sparing other object features, and by demonstrating how this mechanism is altered in aging and neurodegeneration. The findings are supported by convincing evidence derived from well-controlled eye-tracking experiments and systematic generative model comparisons. Together, the work provides a computationally grounded framework that is of importance for understanding trans-saccadic memory and its clinical relevance.

eLife Assessment

This study addresses a key question in developmental cognitive neuroscience by identifying early neural correlates of variability in language learning and showing how syllable tracking and word segmentation develop from birth to two years in infants with differing likelihoods of autism. The evidence is generally strong, with rigorous longitudinal EEG acquisition, careful preprocessing, and validated statistical approaches, though several methodological clarifications would further strengthen confidence in the inferences. Overall, the findings offer important insights with clear theoretical implications for understanding early mechanisms of speech perception and statistical learning, supported by convincing evidence.

eLife Assessment

This important study combines optogenetic manipulations with wide-field cortical imaging to investigate the neural basis of context-dependent sensory processing. It provides compelling evidence that the retrosplenial cortex modulates behavioral responses to whisker deflection depending on the behavioral context. The paper will be of strong interest to neuroscientists studying cortical mechanisms of sensorimotor processing.

eLife Assessment

This is an important study showing that movement vigor is not solely an individual property but emerges through interaction when two people are physically linked. The evidence is convincing, supported by a well-controlled experimental design and modeling that closely match the observed behavior. While the authors provided a helpful comparison of several candidate models of human-human interaction dynamics, the statistical power remains limited.