Evaluated articles

eLife Assessment

This important study provides evidence for asymptomatic Bordetella pertussis carriage among mothers in a longitudinal cohort in Zambia, significantly advancing understanding of transmission dynamics. The evidence presented is convincing, with strengths including routine sampling irrespective of symptoms and rigorous qPCR methodology, although confirmatory diagnostics would further strengthen the claims. Overall, the study represents an influential contribution to the field of infectious disease epidemiology.

eLife Assessment

The manuscript provides important findings on how striatal projection neurons regulate spontaneous locomotion speed in the context of implicit motivation and distinct contextual valence. The manuscript presented convincing supporting evidence for the findings. This work will be of broad interest to neuroscientists in the fields of basal ganglia, movement control, and cognition.

eLife Assessment

This fundamental manuscript presents a practical modification of the orthogonal hybridization chain reaction (HCR) technique, a promising yet underutilized method with broad potential for future applications across various fields. The authors advance this technique by integrating peptide ligation technology and nanobody-based antibody mimetics-cost-effective and scalable alternatives to conventional antibodies-into a DNA-immunoassay framework that merges oligonucleotide-based detection with immunoassay methodologies. Notably, they demonstrate with compelling evidence that this approach facilitates a modified ELISA platform capable of simultaneously quantifying multiple target protein expression levels within a single protein mixture sample.

eLife Assessment

This useful study develops an individual-based model to investigate the evolution of division of labor in vertebrates, comparing the contributions of group augmentation and kin selection. The model incorporates several biologically relevant features, including age-dependent task switching and separate manipulation of relatedness and group-size benefits. However, the evidence remains incomplete to support the authors' central claim that group augmentation is the primary driver of vertebrate division of labor. Key modelling assumptions, such as limited opportunities for task synergy, the structure of helper and floater dynamics, and the relatively narrow parameter space explored, continue to restrict the potential for kin selection to produce division of labor, thereby limiting the generality of the conclusions.

eLife Assessment

This study presents a valuable meta-analysis that highlights low and highly variable breast cancer survival rates across Africa, emphasizing the pressing need for public health in Africa. The evidence supporting the claims of the authors is solid, although a clarification of the crude 5-year survival rates would have strengthened the study. The work will be of interest to scientists working in the field of public health and breast cancer.

eLife Assessment

This study presents a meta-analysis of two independent genome-wide association studies (GWAS) that investigate the role of plasma proteins as potential biomarkers for enhancing the early detection of prostate cancer (PCa). The results provide useful confirmatory data that support existing evidence currently published. The evidence is incomplete: the study does not provide a comprehensive synthesis of all currently published work, does not explore other clinical outcomes related to prostatic disease, and its findings have not been validated through an external cohort study. These shortcomings notwithstanding, the work may be of interest to researchers studying correlates and predictors of prostate cancer risk.

eLife Assessment

This important work presents technical and conceptual advances with the release of MorphoNet 2.0, a versatile and accessible platform for 3D+T segmentation and analysis. The authors provide compelling evidence across diverse datasets, and the clarity of the manuscript together with the software's usability broadens its impact. Although the strength of some improvements is hard to fully gauge given sample complexity, the tool is a significant step forward that will likely impact many biological imaging fields.

eLife Assessment

This important study provides a conceptual advance in our understanding of how membrane geometry modulates the balance between specific and non-specific molecular interactions, reversing multiphase morphologies in postsynaptic protein assemblies. Using a mesoscale simulation framework grounded in experimental binding affinities, the authors successfully recapitulate key experimental observations in both solution and membrane-associated systems, providing novel mechanistic insight into how spatial constraints regulate postsynaptic condensate organization. The conclusions are supported by solid strength of evidence and the findings are of broad significance for both computational and experimental biologists

eLife Assessment

This fundamental study explores a novel cellular mechanism underlying the degeneration of locus coeruleus neurons during chronic restraint stress. The evidence supporting the overexcitation of LC neurons after chronic stress is compelling. The topic is timely, the proposed mechanistic pathway is innovative, and the findings have translational relevance, particularly regarding therapeutic strategies targeting α2A-AR internalization in neurodegenerative diseases.

eLife Assessment

Thick multicellular plant samples provide unique challenges when it comes to cryo-preservation, which has resulted in limited successful examples for structural studies using in situ cryo-electron tomography. To address this deficiency, this important study describes procedures for high-pressure-freezing, focused ion-beam milling, and cryo-electron tomography imaging of certain plant types. The results described in the paper provide solid evidence for the usefulness of the methods described, although some reservations remain about the applicability of the methods to a wider range of plant cell types.

eLife Assessment

This important study evaluates a model for multisensory correlation detection, focusing on the detection of correlated transients in visual and auditory stimuli. Overall, the experimental design is sound and the evidence is compelling. The synergy between the experimental and theoretical aspects of the article is strong, and the work will be of interest to both neuroscientists and psychologists working in the domain of sensory processing and perception

eLife Assessment

This important study of the inhibitory complex amacrines (CAM) in the vertical lobe of Octopus vulgaris delivers a solid standard for the structural characterization of an anatomical region likely to be key for memory processing in this unconventional but complex organism, as well as a helpful classification of CAM subtypes. This work will be of broad relevance to the fields of memory and evolutionary neuroscience.

eLife Assessment

Jung et al. present valuable work on the relationship between gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) levels within the anterior temporal lobes (ATL) to semantic memory while accounting for inter-individual differences. They provide solid evidence suggesting that inhibitory continuous theta burst transcranial magnetic stimulation (cTBS TMS) increased GABA concentration and decreased the blood-oxygen dependent signal (BOLD) during a semantic task. The results will be of interest to researchers studying the neurobiology of semantic cognition.

eLife Assessment

This important paper reports the discovery of calcarins, a protein family that seems to be involved in calcification in the calcareous sponge Sycon ciliatum, significantly enhancing our understanding of the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying spicule formation in sponges and the evolution of carbonate biomineralization. The conclusions are supported by compelling evidence based on an integrated analysis that combines transcriptomics, genomics, proteomics, and precise in situ hybridization. These findings will be of broad interest to cell biologists, biochemists, and evolutionary biologists.

eLife Assessment

The authors present an important set of data implicating ETFDH as an epigenetically suppressed gene in cancer with tumor suppressive functions. The evidence is solid, with the authors demonstrating that ETFDH suppression results in accumulation of amino acids that impact metabolism via hyperactive mTORC1.

eLife Assessment

This study offers valuable insights into the role of post-translational modifiers, specifically SUMO2ylation at K81 in p66Shc, and its impact on endothelial function through reactive oxygen species. A series of compelling experiments demonstrated that lysine 81 of p66Shc is the site of SUMO2 conjugation, which is crucial for mitochondrial localization and essential for S36 phosphorylation, leading to specific pathological effects. The combination of cell overexpression and animal studies provides solid data supporting this mechanistic link.

eLife Assessment

This study provides important insights into the regulation of neuroblast lifespan and proliferation in the Drosophila mushroom body, identifying Krüppel (Kr) as a key transcription factor promoting timely termination of these neuroblasts by repressing Imp expression, and proposes an antagonistic role of Krüppel homolog 1 (Kr-h1), whose overexpression leads to prolonged mushroom body neuroblast proliferation and tumor-like expansion. The findings are impactful for researchers interested in temporal patterning and neural development, and the methods and data analysis are solid, however, the precise regulatory interactions between Kr and Kr-h1 and their modes of action remain incompletely tested. Further experiments would be required to fully elucidate the mechanistic interplay between the factors involved.

eLife Assessment

The findings in this manuscript are important because they demonstrate the key role of metabolism in insect development. The data were collected and analyzed using solid and validated methodologies, but the evidence is incomplete, as the extent of the involvement of AOX activity in vivo and in physiological conditions is not addressed. This manuscript will be of interest for the fields of mitochondrial bioenergetics, metabolism and development.