Evaluated articles

eLife Assessment

This important study provides a detailed analysis of the transcriptional landscape of the mouse hippocampus in the context of various physiological states. The main conclusions have solid support: that most transcriptional targets are generally stable, with notable exceptions in the dentate gyrus and with regard to circadian changes. There are some weaknesses and it would improve the manuscript to address them.

eLife Assessment

This study presents a valuable and practical approach for one-photon imaging through GRIN lenses. By scanning a low numerical aperture (NA) beam and collecting fluorescence with a high NA, the method expands the usable field of view and yields clearer cellular signals. The evidence is solid overall, with strong qualitative demonstrations, but some claims would benefit from additional quantitative tests. The work will interest researchers who need simple, scalable tools for large‑area cellular imaging in the brain.

eLife Assessment

This paper presents an important advance in genetically encoded voltage imaging of the developing zebrafish spinal cord in vivo, capturing voltage dynamics in neuronal populations, single cells, and subcellular compartments inaccessible to patch clamp, and diverse spike waveforms and subthreshold voltage dynamics inaccessible to calcium imaging. The work identifies a developmental progression from irregular voltage fluctuations to coordinated contralateral and ipsilateral activity, providing insight into how electrical dynamics and cellular morphology evolve during circuit formation. The strength of evidence is solid, with imaging data supporting the main conclusions, although the manuscript would be strengthened by more complete methodological documentation and clearer context relative to earlier calcium imaging studies. Overall, this study provides a resource that is of importance for researchers investigating neural development and circuit assembly, illustrating the value of voltage imaging as a general tool for probing bioelectric mechanisms in morphogenesis and circuit development.

eLife Assessment

This study provides important evidence that myristate, a fatty acid commonly present in soil environments, is taken up by arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi during symbiosis with a plant host. The evidence presented is solid, with multiple experimental approaches including stable isotope tracing, transcriptional analysis, and physiological measurements across different plant species and phosphorus conditions. However, the main claims are only partially supported.

eLife Assessment

Ge et al here report a structural study of the native tripartite multidrug efflux pump complexes from Escherichia coli that identifies a novel accessory subunit, YbjP, the structure of the native TolC-YbjP-AcrABZ complex, as well as structures of the AcrB protein in L, T, and O conformations. The strength of the structural data is compelling, and the importance of the findings is potentially fundamental. In the revised manuscript, the authors have included additional analysis and made comparisons with pre-existing data which has helped place the data and its impact in the proper context.

eLife Assessment

This important study fills a major geographic and temporal gap in understanding Paleocene mammal evolution in Asia and proposes an intriguing "brawn before bite" hypothesis grounded in diverse analytical approaches. The work rests on a solid methodological base. Some limitations remain, including uncertainty introduced by pooling different tooth positions, limited dietary interpretation, and the predominantly herbivorous taxonomic focus, which narrows the ecological scope of the conclusions. However, the manuscript provides a substantially strengthened and well-supported contribution, while appropriately inviting further work to clarify dietary trends, broader ecological context, and links between dental trait evolution and environmental change.

eLife Assessment

This fundamental study provides compelling evidence for the functional segregation of the sensorimotor cortex into precisely delineated areas, and highlights a rapid transition in functional properties at the boundaries between these areas. This result further confirms and extends recent work on the diversity of neural response specificities across cortical areas in the context of complex behavioral tasks. This work will be of interest to neuroscientists studying sensory-motor functions.

eLife Assessment

This study presents a valuable advance in reconstructing naturalistic speech from intracranial ECoG data using a dual-pathway model. The evidence supporting the claims of the authors is solid. This work will be of interest to cognitive neuroscientists and computer scientists/engineers working on speech reconstruction from neural data.

eLife Assessment

This study addresses a fundamental question in glycobiology by elucidating how a single-site processive enzyme orchestrates the alternating addition of sugars to synthesize complex polysaccharides such as hyaluronan. The findings are compelling, providing a clear mechanistic framework supported by strong experimental validation. Major strengths include the integration of high-resolution structural data with rigorous biochemical analyses, resulting in a well-supported model of hyaluronan assembly.

eLife Assessment

The authors present important evidence for a WIPI2-Retriever complex (termed CROP2) that couples cargo selection to carrier fission at endosomes. CROP2 appears to function analogously to the previously described CROP1 complex, formed by WIPI1 and Retromer, with which it shares structural similarities. They provide compelling evidence that CROP1 and CROP2 regulate the trafficking of distinct subsets of cargoes; however, the cellular evidence for the existence of these distinct complexes is mostly inferred from immunoprecipitation analysis and would benefit from further validation.

eLife Assessment

This study presents a valuable framework for the rational design of bacterial probiotics to protect against respiratory infections. The evidence supporting the central claim - that metabolic niche overlap predicts probiotic efficacy - is solid, combining innovative in vitro modeling with in vivo validation, though the model appears less effective for probiotics that rely on antimicrobial metabolite production.

eLife Assessment

The authors provide a useful resource and approach to identify early-stage biomarkers of MASLD progression, notably when no other apparent symptoms have arisen. The strength of evidence to support new MASLD signatures is solid as the work combines metabolomic and transcriptomic measures in blood and liver biopsies.

[Editors' note: this paper was reviewed by Review Commons.]

eLife Assessment

The study presents convincing quantitative evidence, supported by appropriate negative controls, for the presence of low-abundance glycine receptors (GlyRs) within inhibitory synapses in telencephalic regions of the mouse brain. Using sensitive single-molecule localization microscopy of endogenously tagged GlyRs, the authors reveal previously undetected populations of these receptors. Although the functional significance of these low-abundance GlyRs remains to be established, the findings offer valuable insights and methodologies that will be of interest to neuroscientists studying inhibitory synapse biology.

[Editors' note: this paper was reviewed by Review Commons.]

eLife Assessment

This study investigates how the HIV inhibitor lenacapavir influences capsid mechanics and interactions with the nuclear pore complex. It provides important insights into how drug-induced hyperstabilization of the viral shell can compromise its structural integrity during nuclear entry. The modeling is technically sophisticated, and the analyses provide convincing support for the mechanistic conclusions.

eLife Assessment

This important work advances our understanding of the single neuron coding types in the mouse gustatory cortex and the functional roles of these neurons for perceptual decision-making. The conclusions are based on compelling evidence from rigorous behavioral experiments, high-density electrophysiology, sophisticated data analysis, and neural network modeling with in silico perturbations of functionally-identified units. This work will be of broad interest to systems neuroscientists.

eLife Assessment

This valuable study shows that combining reactivation-based training with anodal tDCS yields an unusually broad generalization of visual perceptual learning, while preserving robust learning gains and markedly reducing total training time. Although the empirical evidence is solid, the proposed mechanistic account, i.e., the GABA modulation, disrupted offline consolidation and reduced perceptual overfitting, remains insufficiently substantiated, as these assumptions lack direct neurochemical support, and several alternative behavioral explanations and necessary control comparisons have not been fully addressed. The work will be of broad interest to researchers investigating brain plasticity, perceptual learning, and rehabilitation training.

eLife Assessment

This valuable study leverages a large global dataset of tens of thousands of tuberculosis samples to place recurrent protein-coding mutations into their three-dimensional structural context, offering an expanded view of how antibiotic resistance emerges compared to traditional genetic analyses alone. The strength of evidence is convincing, supported by the scale and breadth of the dataset and the systematic structural analysis, although some of the assumptions made in the the modeling approach are only partially supported. Overall, the work will be of broad interest to researchers studying microbial evolution, antibiotic resistance, and structure-function relationships in pathogens.

eLife Assessment

This fundamental study reports convincing evidence for early verbal episodic memory formation. The findings demonstrate that speaker identity is a crucial feature, enabling episodic-like memories from birth, and will be of interest to cognitive neuroscientists working on brain development, memory, language learning and social cognition.