Evaluated articles

eLife Assessment

During the development of the unicellular eukaryote Dictyostelium discoideum, cells aggregate into mounds, forming protrusions or tips, which then become the front of migrating slugs and the top of fruiting bodies. This valuable study identifies adenosine deaminase-related growth factor (ADGF) as a key regulator of tip formation and convincingly shows that ADGF catalyses the conversion of adenosine to ammonia, allowing ammonia to initiate tip formation, and then elucidates pathways upstream and downstream of ADGF. The authors discuss the intriguing possibility that mammalian ADGF may also similarly regulate development.

eLife Assessment

This useful study presents a comparative investigation of category selectivity in dogs and humans. The study compares brain representations of animate and inanimate objects, replicating and extending previous reports in this nascent field of dog FMRI. The methods and results seem to lack sufficient detail, appropriate controls, or statistical evidence, so at this stage of the review process, the strength of evidence is deemed incomplete.

eLife Assessment

This important study provides new insights into the synchronization of ripple oscillations in the hippocampus, both within and across hemispheres. Using carefully designed statistical methods, it presents compelling evidence that synchrony is significantly higher within a hemisphere than across. This study will be of interest to neuroscientists studying the hippocampus and memory.

eLife Assessment

The authors provide compelling evidence that a chloride ion stabilizes the protonated Schiff base chromophore linkage in the animal rhodopsin Antho2a. This important finding is novel and of major interest to a broad audience, including optogenetics researchers, protein engineers, spectroscopists, and environmental biologists. The study combines state-of-the-art research methods, such as spectroscopic and mutational analyses, which are complemented by QM/MM calculations, and was further improved based on the comments from the reviewers.

eLife Assessment

The authors attempt to identify which patients with benign lesions will progress to cancer using a liquid biomarker. Although the study is valuable, the evidence provided for the liquid biopsy EV miRNA signature developed based on radiomics features remains incomplete. There remain key details missing and validation experiments that would better support the conclusions of the study.

eLife Assessment

In this important study, the authors employed state-of-the-art biochemistry, cryo-EM, and HDX mass spec approaches to study the formation of the binary Uba7-UBE2L6 and ternary UBA7-UBE2L6-ISG15 complexes. The results established mechanisms by which UBA7 and UBE2L6 form disulfide bonds, disrupting the ISG15 transfer cascade. While the biochemical and structural experiments are largely convincing, the mechanism under in vivo conditions remains unclear, due to the limited use of a single E2 enzyme. The authors need to repeat their experiments with a representative panel of human E2 enzymes.

eLife Assessment

In this important quantitative study of HIV-1 evolution in humans and rhesus macaques, selection coefficients are inferred at scale over the HIV genome. Selection coefficients are similar in humans and macaques, providing compelling evidence that these coefficients are representative of the fitness landscapes of these viruses within hosts. This work will be of interest to the community working on quantitative evolution and fitness landscape inference, and the finding that rapid fitness gains in the HIV population predict bNAb emergence has significant implications for HIV vaccine design.

eLife Assessment

This study provides an important perspective on the influence of parental care in the establishment of the amphibian microbiome. Through a combination of cross-fostering experimental work, comparative analysis, and developmental time series, the authors provide compelling evidence that vertical transmission through care is possible, and solid but somewhat preliminary evidence that it plays a significant role in shaping frog skin microbiomes in nature or across time. This work will be of interest to researchers studying the evolution of parental care and microbiomes in vertebrates.

eLife Assessment

This research is valuable as it investigates metabolic shuttling between photoreceptors and retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) using in vivo infusion techniques and mouse models. The authors find that the retina significantly relies on circulating glucose, with photoreceptors being the primary consumers of glucose, which is convincing. However, the study has incomplete evidence to support the claims that photoreceptors can use lactate as a fuel source, that lactate exported from photoreceptors is utilized by the RPE, and that lactate contributes to the TCA cycle in the RPE. These claims need substantial revision to include potential alternative explanations or perform key experiments.

eLife Assessment

In this valuable study, the authors show the physiological response and molecular pathway mediating the effect of quinofumelin, a developed fungicide with an unknown mechanism. The authors present convincing data suggesting the involvement of the uridine/uracil biosynthesis pathway, by combining in vivo microbiology characterization as well as in vitro biochemical binding results.

eLife Assessment

This study reports valuable findings on the role of Layilin in the motility and suppressive capacity of clonal expanded regulatory T cells (Tregs) in the skin. Although the strength of the study is utilizing conditional knock-out mice and human skin samples, the analysis of the molecular mechanism by which Layilin affects Treg function is incomplete. The study will be of interest to medical scientists working on skin immunology.

eLife Assessment

This valuable manuscript by Jia et al. investigates the role of cartilage intermediate layer protein (CILP) and moderate exercise in maintaining hyaline cartilage integrity following anterior cruciate ligament transection (ACLt) in rats. Solid data support the downregulation of CILP in human OA cartilage and its potential role in regulating Keap1/Nrf2 interaction and chondrocyte ferroptosis. However, the data supporting a role for CILP in exercise-mediated inhibition of hyaline cartilage fibrosis in early OA are incomplete.

eLife Assessment

This useful work identifies new monoclonal antibodies produced by cystic fibrosis patients against Pseudomonas aeruginosa type three secretion system. The evidence supporting authors' claim is solid. Nonetheless, the manuscript may benefit from a more in depth description of what the authors learned from their structure-based analyses of antibodies targeting PcrV.

eLife Assessment

This valuable manuscript provides solid evidence regarding the role of alpha oscillations in sensory gain control. The authors use an attention-cuing task in an initial EEG study followed by a separate MEG replication study to demonstrate that whilst (occipital) alpha oscillations are increased when anticipating an auditory target, so is visual responsiveness as assessed with frequency tagging. The authors propose that their results demonstrate a general vigilance effect on sensory processing and offer a re-interpretation of the inhibitory role of the alpha rhythm.

eLife Assessment

This important study examines the neuronal mechanisms underlying visual perception of integrated face and body cues. The innovative paradigm, which employs monkey avatars in combination with electrophysiological recordings from fMRI-defined brain areas, provides compelling evidence on face and body integration. These results should be of wide interest to system and cognitive neuroscientists, psychologists, and behavioural biologists working on visual and social cognition.

eLife Assessment

This study presents SegPore, a valuable new method for processing direct RNA nanopore sequencing data, which improves the segmentation of raw signals into individual bases and boosts the accuracy of modified base detection. The evidence presented to benchmark SegPore is solid, and the authors provide a fully documented implementation of the method. SegPore will be of particular interest to researchers studying RNA modifications.

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 study makes the valuable claim that people track, specifically, the elasticity of control (that is, the degree to which outcome depends on how many resources - such as money - are invested), and that control elasticity is impaired in certain types of psychopathologies. A novel task is introduced that provides solid evidence that this learning process occurs and that human behavior is sensitive to changes in the elasticity of control. Evidence that elasticity inference is distinct from more general learning mechanisms and is related to psychopathology remains incomplete.

eLife Assessment

This valuable retrospective analysis identified three independent components of glucose dynamics - "value," "variability," and "autocorrelation" - which may be used in predicting coronary plaque vulnerability. The study is solid and of interest to a wide range of investigators in the medical field who are interested in the role of glycemia on cardiometabolic health. The manuscript has been substantially strengthened by clarifying methods, improving transparency, and validating key findings, resulting in a coherent and persuasive case for autocorrelation as a meaningful third dimension of glucose dynamics despite remaining design-related limitations.