Evaluated articles

Esr1-dependent signaling and transcriptional maturation in the medial preoptic area of the hypothalamus shape the development of mating behavior during adolescence

1. Koichi Hashikawa
2. Yoshiko Hashikawa
3. Brandy Briones
4. Kentaro K Ishii
5. Yuejia Liu
6. Mark Rossi
7. Marcus L Basiri
8. Jane Y Chen
9. Omar Ahmad
10. Rishi Mukundan
11. Nathan Johnston
12. Rhiana Simon
13. James Soetedjo
14. Jason Siputro
15. Jenna McHenry
16. Richard D Palmiter
17. David Rubinow
18. Larry S Zweifel
19. Garret D Stuber

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  The authors test the hypothesis that gonadal steroid signaling influences the transcriptional development of specific neurons in the mPOA during adolescence, and that such adolescent development of the mPOA is necessary for mating behaviors. The valuable findings are supported by convincing evidence. This work contributes new insight into hormone-sensitive transcriptional profiles within genetically defined neuron clusters in the mPOA during adolescence and will be of interest to systems and molecular neuroscientists and those interested in development, sex differences, and/or hormonal regulation.

Reviewed by eLife

Defined cellular reprogramming of androgen receptor-active prostate cancer to neuroendocrine prostate cancer

1. Shan Li
2. Kai Song
3. Huiyun Sun
4. Yong Tao
5. Arthur Huang
6. Vipul Bhatia
7. Brian Hanratty
8. Radhika A Patel
9. Henry W Long
10. Colm Morrissey
11. Michael C Haffner
12. Peter S Nelson
13. Thomas G Graeber
14. John K Lee

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  The study by Li et al. provides fundamental findings supported by convincing evidence that they defined cellular reprogramming of androgen receptor in neuroendocrine prostate cancer (NEPC). The findings enhance the understanding of the treatment of androgen receptor functions in NEPC.

Reviewed by eLife

Multiplexed CRISPRi Reveals a Transcriptional Switch Between KLF Activators and Repressors in the Maturing Neocortex

1. Ryan W Kirk
2. Liwei Sun
3. Ruixuan Xiao
4. Erin A Clark
5. Sacha Nelson

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This is an important study utilizing innovative CRISPR based approaches demonstrating the role of the KLF family of transcription factors in the post natal maturation of cortical projection neurons. The strength of evidence overall is compelling, and the study is well executed. The screen data presented provides a number of interesting candidates for future analyses into the mechanism of action of KLF family members in neuronal maturation.

Reviewed by eLife

cxcl18b-defined transitional state-specific nitric oxide drives injury-induced Müller glia cell-cycle re-entry in the zebrafish retina

1. Aojun Ye
2. Shuguang Yu
3. Meng Du
4. Dongming Zhou
5. Jie He
6. Chang Chen

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  Following retinal injury, zebrafish Müller glia reenter the cell cycle and generate replacement cells; this potentially valuable study proposes that injury induces a cxcl18b+ transitional state in Müller cells, which then express nitric oxide, inhibiting Notch signaling and allowing Müller glial cells to reenter the cell cycle. However, the evidence supporting the claims is incomplete, and the authors have made interpretations and conclusions that are not supported by the data. Questions of the temporal expression and function of cxcl18b, as well as the source of potential inflammatory cues before cxcl18b expression, remain unanswered and technical limitations and data inconsistencies raise concerns. Using larval animals complicates the analysis since the retina is still forming, and distinguishing between injury-induced regeneration and ongoing development is complex. With more rigorous testing of the signaling pathways proposed and a clear demonstration of their interdependence, the link between nitric oxide signaling and Notch activity, particularly, would interest those investigating retinal regeneration.

Reviewed by eLife

Affinity-guided labeling reveals P2X7 nanoscale membrane redistribution during BV2 microglial activation

1. Benoit Arnould
2. Adeline Martz
3. Pauline Belzanne
4. Francisco Andrés Peralta
5. Federico Cevoli
6. Volodya Hovhannisyan
7. Yannick Goumon
8. Eric Hosy
9. Alexandre Specht
10. Thomas Grutter

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  The authors employ an unbiased, affinity-guided reagent to label P2X7 receptor and use super-resolution imaging to monitor P2X7 redistribution in response to inflammatory signaling. The evidence is convincing and the study will be valuable to those studying the dynamics of receptor distribution and clustering.

Reviewed by eLife

Tumor Cell Spatial Organization Directs EGFR/RAS/RAF Pathway Primary Therapy Resistance through YAP Signaling

1. Rachel Nakagawa
2. Andrew Beardsley
3. Sophia Durney
4. Mary-Kate Hayward
5. Vishvak Subramanyam
6. Nathaniel P Meyer
7. Harrison Wismer
8. Hani Goodarzi
9. Valerie M Weaver
10. Daniel Van de Mark
11. Andrei Goga

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study identifies a role for YAP in regulating tumor cell growth and drug response with differential effects noted based upon growth conditions in monolayer vs spheroid culture. This work has the potential to define more biologically relevant cell culture model systems for drug resistance and define targetable pathways to overcome drug resistance. The findings described are important to the cancer biology field and the evidence supporting the key findings is convincing.

Reviewed by eLife

Imaging of brain electric field networks with spatially resolved EEG

1. Lawrence R Frank
2. Vitaly L Galinsky
3. Olave Krigolson
4. Susan Tapert
5. Stephan Bickel
6. Antigona Martinez

Reviewed by eLife

Unsupervised Representation Learning of C. elegans Poses and Behavior Sequences From Microscope Video Recordings

1. Maurice Deserno
2. Katarzyna Bozek

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This valuable study introduces a self-supervised machine learning method to classify C. elegans postures and behaviors directly from video data, offering an alternative to the skeleton-based approaches that rely on often error-prone tracking. This novel approach holds promise for advancing ethology research. That said, the strength of evidence is currently incomplete, as key aspects - including measuring head-tail orientation, increased behavioral interpretability, and quantitative comparisons to established methods - are underdeveloped and would benefit from further validation.

Reviewed by Arcadia Science, eLife

Rhythmic sampling and competition of target and distractor in a motion detection task

1. Changhao Xiong
2. Nathan M Petro
3. Ke Bo
4. Lihan Cui
5. Andreas Keil
6. Mingzhou Ding

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This work presents important information on rhythmicity of overlapping target and distractor processing and how this affects behaviour. The methods are, in general, clearly laid out and defensible, with several supplementary analyses leading to a solid base of evidence for their claims.

Reviewed by eLife

Premature vision drives aberrant development of response properties in primary visual cortex

1. Sophie V Griswold
2. Stephen D Van Hooser

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This carefully conducted study aims to understand how the early visual experience of premature infants induces lasting deficits, including compromised motion processing. The authors address this important question in a ferret animal model, exposing the developing visual system prematurely to patterned visual input by opening one or both eyes at a time when both retinal waves and light traveling through closed lids can drive sensory responses. Convincing evidence is presented, suggesting that eye opening at this time impacts temporal frequency tuning and elevates spontaneous firing rates. These findings will have great relevance for neuroscientists studying visual system development, particularly in the context of premature birth.

Reviewed by eLife

Detecting behavioural oscillations with increased sensitivity: A modification of Brookshire’s (2022) AR-surrogate method

1. Anthony M Harris
2. Henry A Beale

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study proposes an updated analysis technique that allows researchers to identify rhythms in behavior. If the proposed analyses control the rate of false positives, this will be an important contribution for all neuroscientists interested in rhythmic cognition. At present, the strength of evidence is incomplete, as the simulations ignore one crucial aspect of temporal structure in behavior.

Reviewed by eLife

Overt visual attention modulates decision-related signals in ventral and dorsal medial prefrontal cortex

1. Blair RK Shevlin
2. Rachael Gwinn
3. Aidan Makwana
4. Ian Krajbich

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important work examines the effects of gaze on valuation signals in the human brain as participants choose between bundles of sequentially presented items food items. The paper provides convincing analyses of how gaze affects participants choice behaviour and how this varies across time. The work will be of interest to neuroscientists working on attention and decision-making.

Reviewed by eLife

CO2-dependent opening of connexin 43 hemichannels

1. Valentin Mihai Dospinescu
2. Alexander Mascarenhas
3. Jack Butler
4. Sarbjit Nijjar
5. Kyara de Oliveira Taborda
6. Sean Connors
7. Lumei Huang
8. Nicholas Dale

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study reveals that connexin43 (Cx43) hemichannels are directly activated by CO₂ through a conserved carbamylation motif, extending a mechanism previously described for β-connexins to α-connexins. The evidence is convincing, supported by complementary biochemical and electrophysiological analyses showing CO₂-induced hemichannel opening and ATP release in cultured cells and hippocampal slices. These findings advance our understanding of connexin regulation by metabolic gases and will be of broad interest to researchers studying cell communication, neural signaling, and gasotransmitter biology.

Reviewed by eLife

Microenvironmental arginine restriction sensitizes pancreatic cancers to polyunsaturated fatty acids by suppression of lipid synthesis

1. Patrick B Jonker
2. Mumina Sadullozoda
3. Guillaume Cognet
4. Juan J Apiz Saab
5. Kelly H Sokol
6. Violet X Wu
7. Deepa Kumari
8. Colin Sheehan
9. Mete E Ozgurses
10. Darby Agovino
11. Grace Croley
12. Lindsey N Dzierozynski
13. Chufan Cai
14. Leah M Ziolkowski
15. Smit A Patel
16. Althea Bock-Hughes
17. Kay F Macleod
18. Hardik Shah
19. Jonathan L Coloff
20. Evan C Lien
21. Alexander Muir

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study demonstrates that nutrient stress engenders metabolic vulnerabilities in pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). By combining cell line and mouse models, the authors provide compelling evidence showing that arginine depletion from the microenvironment disrupts lipid homeostasis in PDAC resulting in ferroptosis upon exposure of tumors to polyunsaturated fatty acids. This report is likely to be of broad interest to researchers interested in studying cancer biology, metabolic adaptations and stress responses.

Reviewed by eLife

KDM5 demethylases suppress R-loop-mediated ‘viral mimicry’ and DNA damage in breast cancer cells

1. Lena Lau
2. Kurt Henderson
3. Ahu Turkoz
4. Sara Linker
5. Dorte Schlessinger
6. Brad Townsley
7. Brian Egan
8. Shoba Ragunathan
9. Robert Rollins
10. Xianju Bi
11. Zhijian J Chen
12. Oleg Brodsky
13. Clifford Restaino
14. Murali Gururajan
15. Kristen Jensen-Pergakes
16. Anders Mälarstig
17. Chames Kermi
18. Paul Moore
19. Marie Classon

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study presents a valuable finding that KDM5 inhibitors may enable a wide therapeutic window as compared to STING agonists or Type I Interferons. The evidence supporting the claims of the authors is convincing. The work will be of broad interest to scientists working in the field of breast cancer research.

Reviewed by eLife

Task and Behavior-Related Variables Are Encoded by the Postrhinal and Medial Entorhinal Cortex During Non-Spatial Associative Learning

1. Ingeborg Nymoen Nystuen
2. Frederik Sebastian Rogge
3. Anna Hjertvik Aasen
4. Sverre Grødem
5. Anders Malthe-Sørenssen
6. Mikkel Elle Lepperød
7. Torkel Hafting
8. Marianne Fyhn
9. Kristian Kinden Lensjø

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This important study investigates how neural representations in the postrhinal and medial entorhinal cortices evolve with the learning of a visual associative memory task in mice. The findings provide new insights into how non-spatial information is differentially encoded across interconnected brain areas, with strong evidence that stimulus encoding is robust in the postrhinal cortex and emerges more weakly in the medial entorhinal cortex with learning. The evidence is solid overall, particularly in the use of sophisticated population-level analyses and two-photon imaging across learning phases, although the interpretation of regression models and clustering would benefit from additional clarity and control. The work will be of broad interest to systems neuroscientists studying learning, memory, and cortical circuit function.

Reviewed by eLife

DuoHexaBody-CD37 induces direct cytotoxic signaling in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma

1. Simar Pal Singh
2. Kumar Mangalam
3. Michelle D van den Beukel
4. Sjoerd van Deventer
5. Marije B Overdijk
6. M Guy Roukens
7. Kim CM Santegoets
8. Esther CW Breij
9. Martin ter Beest
10. Willem PJ Cox
11. Annemiek B van Spriel

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This study presents a valuable finding on the direct cytotoxic effects of DuoHexaBody-CD37 in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma through antibody clustering, independent of complement. The central findings are supported by solid evidence, although some mechanistic details, including the specific Fc receptor requirements for crosslinking-mediated cytotoxicity, remain unresolved. As the findings are based primarily on in vitro models, further validation would be required to support broader translational conclusions. The previous review comments were addressed by the authors and have improved the work.

Reviewed by eLife

Mouse sensorimotor cortex reflects complex kinematic details during reaching and grasping

1. Harrison A Grier
2. Sohrab Salimian
3. Matthew T Kaufman

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  The granularity with which neural activity in the sensorimotor cortex of mice corresponds to voluntary forelimb motion is a key open question. This paper provides compelling evidence for the encoding of low-level features like joint angles and represents an important step forward toward understanding cortical limb control signals.

Reviewed by eLife

IL-27 limits HSPC differentiation during infection and protects from stem cell exhaustion

1. Daniel L Aldridge
2. Zachary Lanzar
3. Anthony T Phan
4. David A Christian
5. Ryan D Pardy
6. Booki Min
7. Ross Kedl
8. Christopher A Hunter

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  The article presents important findings describing the role of IL27 in maintaining HSCs at steady state, and in emergency haematopoiesis in response to T. goodii by limiting the inflammatory monocyte outcomes. The evidence provided are solid and support that IL27 acts at the level of HSCs and not downstream. This study will be of interest to immunologists and hematologists, as well as infectious disease researchers.

Reviewed by eLife

Atomistic simulation of voltage activation of a truncated BK channel

1. Zhiguang Jia
2. Jianhan Chen

• Curated by eLife

  eLife Assessment

  This valuable study addresses the structural basis of voltage-activation of BK channels using atomistic simulations of several microseconds, to assess conformational changes that underlie both voltage-sensing and gating of the pore. The findings, including movement of specific charged residues, combined with the degree to which these movements are coupled to pore movements, provide a solid basis for understanding voltage-gating mechanisms in this class of channels. This paper will likely be of interest to ion channel biologists and biophysicists focused on voltage-dependent channel gating mechanisms.

Reviewed by eLife