Evaluated articles

eLife Assessment

This is an important study that provides CCR7-APEX2 proximity labelling mass spectrometry data that is expected to provide new insights into CCR7 signaling partners and pathways. The study is technically easy to follow and the data is convincing. It will be interesting in the future to have complementary studies in lymphocytes/dendritic cells that endogenously express CCR7. This is of value to the community, and there are likely multiple opportunities to use the APEX2 data set to extend these findings, strengthen some claims, and even explore a new pathway identified in the APEX2 data set.

eLife Assessment

This important study reports findings on the GnRH pulse generator's role in androgen-exposed mouse models, providing further insights into PCOS pathophysiology and advancing the field of reproductive endocrinology. The experimental data were collected using cutting-edge methodologies and are solid. The findings, while interesting, are primarily applicable to mouse models, and their translation to human physiology requires cautious interpretation and further validation. This work will be of interest to endocrinologists and reproductive biologists.

eLife assessment

This important study provides novel evidence that navigational experiences can shape perceptual scene representations. The evidence presented is incomplete and would benefit from clearer explanations of the experiment design and careful discussion of alternative interpretations such as contextual associations or familiarity. The work will be of interest to cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists working on perception and navigation.

[Editors’ note: A revised version of this work has been published in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1162/JOCN.a.2409).]

eLife Assessment

These studies make a fundamental contribution to our understanding of axon-guidance mechanisms, focusing on the role of UNC-6/Netrin in the long-range growth and targeting of axons. Using state-of-the-art genetics and in vivo imaging, the authors provide compelling support for the finding that UNC-6/Netrin can act via both chemotaxis and haptotaxis. This work will be of interest to a wide variety of cell and developmental biologists and neuroscientists.

eLife Assessment

Kreeger et al. convincingly demonstrate that octopus cells in the mouse cochlear nucleus, previously thought to rely primarily on excitatory inputs for coincidence detection, also receive glycinergic inhibitory synaptic inputs that influence their synaptic integration. Using advanced techniques, including genetic mouse models, optogenetics, microscopy, slice physiology, and computational modeling, this important study reveals that inhibition can shunt synaptic currents and alter the timing of dendritic EPSPs, both of which are significant for auditory processing. This research broadens the understanding of octopus cells' roles in sensory processing, highlighting the importance of inhibitory inputs in shaping fast, high-frequency neural response capabilities.

eLife Assessment

This study provides an important understanding of the contribution of different striatal subregions, the anterior Dorsal Lateral Striatum (aDLS) and the posterior Ventrolateral Striatum (pVLS), to auditory discrimination learning. The authors have included robust behavior combined with multiple observational and perturbation techniques. The data provided are convincing of the relevance of task-related activity in these two subregions during learning.

eLife Assessment

This manuscript reports a detailed model of juvenile rat somatosensory cortex, consisting of 4.2 million morphologically and biophysically detailed neuron models, arranged in space and connected according to diverse experimental data - a valuable tool for the field. The construction of the model is based on a methodology with solid supporting evidence. It should be noted that, by necessity, such a large-scale model development involves many assumptions, interpolations, and decisions that could have compounding downstream effects on further analyses that may be difficult to disambiguate.

eLife assessment

This important study compared the brain development trajectories of humans and macaque monkeys to quantify different evolutionary effects of convergent and divergent neural pathways between the two species. The cross-species evidence is solid, based on brain age prediction models that were carefully developed by using public MRI datasets of both humans and macaque monkeys. The findings will be of interest to neuroscientists, developmental biologists, and evolutionary biologists.

eLife assessment

This important study explores and delineates multivariate mappings between brain structure and functional measures with latent dimensions of psychopathology. This work provides solid evidence for the existence of such mappings and charts the relationship between different neurobiological measures and distinct dimensions of psychopathology. This work will be of broad interest within the neuroscience field.

eLife assessment

This potentially important work presents a tool for performing phylogenetic taxonomic classification of DNA sequences. In terms of methodology, the work is compelling. The authors perform a benchmark experiment against current state-of-the-art tools using real and simulated datasets to demonstrate where the novel tool stands in the context of existing methods. However, the experimentation is still incomplete. It would benefit from a more thorough exploration of existing methods as well as data sets that better represent real-world use cases.

eLife assessment

This important work offers an experimental structural characterization of the Tramtrack-like BTB/POZ domains in insects, revealing that these domains form stable hexameric assemblies. The structural evidence is convincing, and validated by fold prediction and evolutionary pathway analyses. This paper would be of interest to structural and evolutionary biologists.

eLife assessment

In this study, Perez-Lopez and colleagues examine an important function of the chemokine CCL28 in mucosal host defenses against the gut bacterial pathogen Salmonella Typhimurium and lung pathogen Acinetobacter baumanii. They find that CCL28-CCR3 axis regulates neutrophil recruitment and function, and promotes bacterial clearance in one infectious context but exacerbates disease against the other pathogen. Therefore, CCL28 plays a critical role in mucosal immunity and neutrophil biology that differentially affects host defenses against pathogens.

eLife Assessment

The study explored the influence of magnesium on phenotypic antibiotic resistance in two strains of Vibrios: V. alginolyticus ATCC33787 and V. parahaemolyticus VP01. This research is fundamental for revealing the phenotypic antibiotic resistance mechanism utilized by the specified model bacteria in elevated levels of magnesium. The study produced convincing evidence indicating that in high concentrations of magnesium, the efficacy of selected antibiotics was diminished due to decreased biosynthesis of unsaturated fatty acids and PE, along with an increase in the biosynthesis of PG.

eLife Assessment

The study highlights adhesion G-protein-coupled receptor A3 (ADGRA3) as a potential target for activating adaptive thermogenesis in both white and brown adipose tissue. This finding offers valuable insights for researchers in the field of adipose tissue biology and metabolism. The authors have presented additional evidence to address the reviewers' comments, including experiments conducted on primary stromal vascular fractions from adipose tissues. However, the revised manuscript fails to address several reviewer concerns, such as the measurement of whole-body energy expenditure through indirect calorimetry and the assessment of food intake. Furthermore, the nanoparticle-mediated knockdown of Adgra3 did not adequately address the tissue selectivity of ADGRA in mice. As a result, the primary claims of the study are only partially supported by the available data, leading to the conclusion that the research is deemed incomplete.

eLife Assessment

In this potentially important study, the authors conducted atomistic simulations to probe the salt-dependent phase separation of the low-complexity domain of hnRN-PA1 (A1-LCD). The authors have identified both direct and indirect mechanisms of salt modulation, provided explanations for four distinct classes of salt dependence, and proposed a model for predicting protein properties from amino acid composition. There is a range of opinions regarding the strength of evidence, with some considering the evidence as incomplete due to the limitations in the length and statistical errors of the computationally intense atomistic MD simulations.

eLife Assessment

This study provides useful in vitro evidence to support a mechanism whereby dyslipidemia could accelerate renal functional decline through the activation of the AT1R/LOX1 complex by oxLDL and AngII. As such, it improves the knowledge regarding the complex interplay between dyslipidemia and renal disease and provides a solid basis for the discovery of novel therapeutic strategies for patients with lipid disorders. The methods, data, and analyses partly support the presented findings, although the observed variability and need for further in vivo validation require additional research in this key area.

eLife Assessment

The authors demonstrate the valuable discovery that human CD29+/CD56+ myogenic progenitors can differentiate into tendon through the TGFβ pathway, addressing mouse and human interspecies differences in regard to the potential of muscle stem cells. The in vivo transplantation experiments provide convincing evidence for the conclusion, as human CD29+/CD56+ myogenic progenitors contribute to tendon regeneration, resulting in functional recovery in mouse model. The authors' approach can be used for the development of cell therapy for tendon-injured patients.

eLife Assessment

This manuscript reports important findings on the impact of maternal obesity on offspring metabolism. It presents solid evidence that maternal obesity induces genomic methylation alterations in oocytes, which can be partly transmitted to F2 in females, and that melatonin is involved in regulating the hyper-methylation of high fat diet oocytes by increasing the expression of DNMTs via the cAMP/PKA/CREB pathway. This study would be of interest to biologists in the fields of epigenetics and metabolism.

eLife Assessment

In an important fMRI study with an elegant experimental design and rigorous cross-decoding analyses, this work shows a convincing dissociation between two parietal regions in visually processing actions. Specifically, aIPL is found to be sensitive to the causal effects of observed actions, while SPL is sensitive to the patterns of body motion involved in those actions. The work will be of broad interest to cognitive neuroscientists, particularly vision and action researchers.

eLife Assessment

The authors have reported an important study in which they use a double-blind design to explore pharmacological manipulations in the context of a behavioral task. While the sample size is small, the use of varied methodology, including electrophysiology, behavior, and pharmacology, makes this manuscript particularly notable. Overall, the findings are solid and motivate future explanations into the relationships between acetylcholine and motivation.