Evaluated articles

Evaluation Summary:

This paper will be of interest to microbiologists, clinicians, and public health workers with an interest in the possible impact of antibiotic use and regulations. The scope of the study is unusually high, integrating economic and geographical factors as well as genomic data among others. However, reasonable alternative explanations can be identified such that the data do not strongly favor the preferred hypothesis put forward by the authors.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This study finds that the levels of many immune markers are higher in vaginal samples in women taken after initiation of vaginal sex than before initiation of vaginal sex. This result may indicate that initiation of vaginal sex potentially influences vaginal immune responses, but it is possible that unmeasured confounding and selection bias might contribute to some of the difference across samples. This study will be of highest interest to those interested in how immune markers can change within individuals over time.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

The manuscript presents a high-quality quantitative analysis of plant embryo cell division in 3D. Authors combine computer modeling with detailed microscopy imaging to reveal underlying patterns and biases in cell divisions. The manuscript will likely be of interest to cell and developmental biologists. The conclusion can be straightened following additional analysis and data interpretation.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This paper analyses the synaptic connections of two subsets of clock neurons in the Drosophila brain, the small ventral lateral neurons and the dorsal lateral neurons that control the sleep-wake behavior. The study reveals interesting features of the clock network, including the high heterogeneity of the LNd subset and the existence of non-clock cells that are predicted to act as "inter-clock neurons". The manuscript will be of interest to chronobiologists and neuroscientists working on neuronal networks, and it provides new insights into circadian clock network organization that may be of general value. The data analysis is rigorous, and the conclusions are justified by the data.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This study provides a comprehensive analysis of the effects of polymorphism in an immune gene (the immunoglobulin E receptor Fcer1a) on immune responses, resistance to infection, and reproductive fitness in a wild rodent population. The authors claim to have found evidence for sex-specific effects of Fcer1a polymorphism, a result that would have broad implications for our understanding of the maintenance of genetic variation. The support for this claim is currently rather weak.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

The authors collected human samples from a rare cancer type in which evolutionary features have not been well-defined. They describe the clonal evolution through sampling at precancerous, primary tumour, and metastatic stages. Whole exome sequencing was performed and one of the mutation types was confirmed with other techniques.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This work will be of interest for researchers studying the functions of microbial communities, microbial ecology and interactions. Using the Kombucha tea (KT) microbiome as a case study, Huang et al. provide a framework for simplifying complex communities into core communities that capture aspects of complex communities. Authors demonstrated that core communities can facilitate a mechanistic understanding of how microbes interact, especially when member species are individually culturable. The work presents a fresh, novel approach for the coarse-grained analysis of complex microbiomes.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This manuscript analyses the inhibitory role of IL-10 producing regulatory T-cells in a mouse cytomegalovirus infection model. The authors report that IL-10 producing CD4+T-cells express genes of chronically activated Th1-cells, are clonally expanded and inhibit anti-viral T-cell responses via arginase, an enzyme that breaks down an essential amino acid for T-cell activation. The manuscript presents some novel and potentially important data; however, it requires the provision of additional experimental data and clarifications.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This manuscript will be of interest to a broad audience of cancer biologists, especially those interested in esophageal cancer or treatment strategies involving ATR inhibition. It provides novel information about how FDA-approved antiretroviral compound Arbidol is a potential ATR inhibitor, which is of interest in the treatment of multiple tumor types. The key claims of the manuscript are supported by in silico, in vitro, and in vivo data.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #2 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This manuscript will be of interest to stem cell and developmental biologists who aim to use newly emerging brain organoid models to understand the structure and function of the developing human brain. It presents a technological advance in imaging and describes an innovative method for labeling and tracking of cells within organoids to enable the assessment of dynamic processes within the intact organoid. The method is validated in a disease model and addresses a challenge in the field of human stem cell modeling of assessing cells within the 3D structure.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 and Reviewer #2 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This manuscript is of interest to several fields, in particular to microbiologists and structural biologists interested in pore-forming proteins and peptides. The data presented reveal insights into the mode of action of a newly identified peptide toxin secreted by Candida albicans (candidalysin). Using different techniques the authors propose and test a model for membrane perforation by candidalysin and identify an intriguing inactive mutant. While the presented data supports the main conclusions of the paper some of the initial assumptions need further assessment while the described mutants could benefit from more extensive characterization.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #2 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This study provides computational predictions on optimal combinations of broadly neutralizing antibodies for treating HIV-1, based on the finding that population diversity alone permits the prediction of the timing of viral escape from broadly neutralizing antibodies. The idea behind the approach used is good, although the analyses and computational data/results highlight important limitations of the modeling approach. Nonetheless, the study should be of broad interest to those studying viral responses to therapeutic interventions as well as to both evolutionary and computational biologists.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This paper is of potential interest to a broad audience in the fields of germ cell biology and cytoskeleton, as it implies a microtubule-based motor function in intra-manchette cargo transport in developing sperm tail. However, some conclusions of this paper require stronger experimental support.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #2 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This study combines behavioral data from guinea pigs and data from a classifier model to ask what auditory features are important for classifying vocalisations. This study is likely to be of interest to both computational and experimental neuroscientists, in particular auditory neurophysiologists and cognitive and comparative neuroscientists. A strength of this work is that a model trained on natural calls was able to predict some aspects of responses to temporally and spectrally altered cues. However, additional data, analysis, or modelling would be required to support some of the stronger claims.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 and Reviewer #3 agreed to share their names with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

In this manuscript, effective force-distance curves between cells are inferred for various tissues. This study is potentially interesting for researchers interested in tissue dynamics, because computer models of growing cellular tissues are becoming an increasingly important tool to understand experimental data and eventually predict medical interventions.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This manuscript described a role of Vitamin C in promoting plasma cell differentiation by remodeling the epigenome via TET (Ten Eleven Translation) family proteins. Overall, most of experiments are properly executed, controlled and presented. This paper will be of interest to scientists in molecular immunologists, particularly those involved in of epigenetic mechanisms of B cell differentiation to plasma cells.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #2 and Reviewer #3 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

The manuscript shows that OTOP proton channels are proton-gated with distinct pH sensitivities, and identifies regions on the proteins that alter pH-dependent gating. The main claims are well supported by the data. These findings are likely to be of interest to researchers studying acid/base physiology, sensory physiology, or ion channel biophysics.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 and Reviewer #3 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This manuscript puts forward a new toolkit of viruses for manipulation and visualization of zebrafish neural circuits. The authors overcome several challenges in the field and present a set of resources likely to be of high value to the zebrafish community.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #3 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This manuscript explores the establishment and spread of antimalarial drug-resistant P. falciparum parasites using a combination of transmission modeling and model emulation. The authors add an important component to the broader understanding by jointly considering multiple factors driving drug resistance.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

Hososhima et al. characterize a marine virus Heliorhodopsin as the first of its class to show ion transport activity. These bacteriorhodopsin homologs have been recently described and the present careful characterization of V2HeR3 represents an important step in the understanding of these interesting membrane proteins. Though the experiments are carried out carefully and the results, in general, support the conclusions, some experiments are needed and the interpretation of results needs to be clarified.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 agreed to share their name with the authors.)