Evaluation Summary:

Trichomonas vaginalis is a sexually transmitted protist that colonizes its host by transitioning from flagellar locomotion to an adherent ameboid movement. In this manuscript, Wang and coauthors use a wide range of experimental approaches to investigate the function of a novel actin capping protein in T. vaginalis cytoadherence and cell motility. The work provides an intriguing example of how an unusual capping protein may impact cytoskeletal organization and cell behavior.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #2 and Reviewer #3 agreed to share their names with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This simulation study is of interest to geneticists, especially those carrying out Genome-wide Association Studies (GWAS). It compares two major approaches for dealing with "population structure"in GWAS: Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Linear Mixed-effects Models (LMMs). This is a subject of considerable practical importance and the study nicely reviews the theoretical underpinnings and concludes - based on the review and the extensive simulations - that there is every reason to believe LMMs to be superior (although PCA is more widely used). Although this point has been made before, it is worth making again given the ubiquity of these analyses. There are some concerns about the general validity of the claim given that the simulations fail to address several real-world problems.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This manuscript presents evidence that the adipocyte-derived protein Ism1, which signals through a typical receptor tyrosine kinase, induces unique phosphoproteome signatures when compared to insulin, and regulates skeletal muscle force production. The manuscript should be of interest to those who study integrated physiology and skeletal muscle physiology. While the data suggest there may be some effects on myofiber size, further study is needed before any conclusions can be made as to what, if any, effects Ism1 has on myofiber size.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 and Reviewer #2 agreed to share their names with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

Herneisen et al provide a comprehensive and thorough exploration of Ca2+ responsive changes in the Toxoplasma proteome and the resulting phosphorylation events during the transition from intracellular residing parasites to egress from the host cell. Furthermore, a novel temperature stability profiling method of all proteins responding to Ca2+ concentration with a change in stability is a novel applicable tool that here is used to map Ca2+-responsive proteins in the parasites. They provide a compelling analysis of the complex data and carefully validate their findings using genetics and cell biology. This work is of the highest quality in the field.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

The present manuscript provides a valuable single-cell transcriptomic resource to understand normal hematopoiesis in humans and the age-dependent cellular and molecular alterations. It addresses very important questions in hematopoietic stem cell biology, such as the molecular changes underlying their aging and their perturbation in the context of myelodysplastic syndrome, and will be of interest to readers in the field of hematopoiesis and associated diseases, aging, and single-cell RNA sequencing.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #2 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This study uses a mouse model of hyperacusis to further explore the hypothesis that this condition may be mediated by cortical hyperactivity. The authors here provide interesting optogenetic and calcium imaging experiments that reinforce this hypothesis and refine our understanding of the related plastic changes that are involved.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1, Reviewer #2 and Reviewer #3 agreed to share their names with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This is a carefully designed and analysed fMRI study investigating how neural representations in the hippocampus, entorhinal cortex, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex change as a function of local and global spatial learning. It will be of much interest to researchers studying the differentiation and integration of memories and the formation of cognitive maps. The results provide new insight into how local and global knowledge about our environment is represented, but some of the conclusions and interpretations could be strengthened with additional analyses.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 and Reviewer #3 agreed to share their names with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

The work details a new acquisition method of defocus corrected large area cryo-EM (DeCo-LACE). The data-acquisition approach is highly complementary to the research group's previous work of using high-resolution 2D template-matching (2DTM) to identify macromolecular complexes in dense and heterogeneous cellular specimens. Notably and importantly, the data-acquisition approach minimizes sampling bias. Overall, DeCo-LACE is a very interesting approach to locating large ribosomal subunits in FIB-lamella at scale.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #2 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

In this study, Trolle et al aimed to introduce methionine, threonine, isoleucine, and valine biosynthetic pathways into Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cells. While this was unsuccessful for methionine, threonine, and isoleucine, introduction of valine synthesis rendered CHO cells partially independent on exogenous valine. Although introduction of essential amino acid biosynthetic pathways into mammalian cells is of potentially broad interest to the fields of synthetic biology, biotechnology and metabolism, there were concerns regarding incomplete demonstration that the introduction of valine pathway into CHO cells is sufficient to sustain homeostasis in the absence of exogenous valine. Further metabolic/biochemical characterization of valine-producing CHO cells is warranted.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 and Reviewer #3 agreed to share their names with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

Remarkably, Katydids, insects related to grasshoppers and crickets, have ears in their left and right forelegs. Pulver and colleagues show convincingly how two specialized chambers lining the hearing organs function as sound resonators that effectively boost the perception of high ultrasonic frequencies. This enables Katydids to detect the echolocating pulses of their bat predators before they home in on them for a meal. This study uses an impressive combination of approaches, but the manuscript would be improved by greater clarity.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

The idea of individual aging trajectories of single cells is important and the authors provide sufficient evidence that there is some stochasticity that directs individual cells towards certain routes of aging - at least in budding yeast. Investigating the link between rDNA silencing and protein homeostasis, this study thus addresses an interesting and exciting question. The authors show how age-dependent loss of rDNA silencing might contribute to protein aggregation. Importantly, the paper furthers the understanding of distinct aging trajectories and raises important questions about how these processes might be relevant in multicellular organisms.

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Evaluation Summary:

The increased use of gene and exome sequencing of individuals for diagnostic purposes has led to the identification of numerous single nucleotide variants (SNVs). However, annotating the probable clinical significance of every newly identified variant relies on multiple criteria, and in silico predictions can be used by curation experts to classify variants in databases. Since the reliability of such predictions is of paramount importance, this study compares the performance of 31 computational tools in classifying the pathogenicity of SNVs in the human adult globin genes and proposes an improved approach to achieve balanced predictions. The paper will be of interest to scientists and clinicians in the field of hemoglobinopathies.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #2 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

By integrating in silico predictions and mass-spectrometry, this manuscript tackles the problem of annotating the currently nameless stretches of genomic sequence that actually code for proteins. The hundreds of protein coding fruit fly genes described here offer new inroads for studying some of the very youngest functional elements in genomes, particularly those that have recently emerged from non-coding DNA sequences. To clarify the biological significance of the present study, the authors should both highlight the genes mostly like to encode functional products and conduct a comparison to published datasets that used different methods to identify such genes in fruit flies.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This article constructs a four-step assessment of the informativeness of a clinical trial that measures its feasibility, reporting, importance, and risk of bias. This is a potentially highly relevant methodology for the class of trials for which it is defined, namely 'clinically directed randomized controlled trials'. It could also be translated and validated in other areas, using data from a wider set of sources beyond the trial registry clinicaltrials.gov. However, the extended longitudinal nature of the assessment and its potential subjectivity limit this tool's utility to being a retrospective diagnostic rather than as a prospective diagnostic and/or fix for at-risk designs.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. All three Reviewers agreed to share their names with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

Goering and colleagues investigate subcellular RNA localization across different cell types and species. The major insight is that there may be general mechanisms and specifically conserved proteins that regulate RNA localization in diverse cell types and morphologies. This manuscript will be of interest to those studying gene expression and how its regulation occurs within the cell.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This work explores a topic of high interest to cell and cancer biologists - the role of actin polymerization, and here specifically the role of fascin, in the nucleus. The authors show that fascin regulates nuclear actin, chromatin organization, response to DNA damage, and demonstrate the need for control of steady-state nuclear levels to avoid cell death. Studying nuclear actin is technically challenging, and the authors deploy some novel technologies towards this goal. There are some very elegant experiments in this paper that suggest fascin has an important role in regulating nuclear actin and other important aspects of cancer cell behaviour. The work could be enhanced by the authors considering adding some additional experiments and providing clarifications and some further details or discussion.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the joint public review from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. All three Reviewers agreed to share their names with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This is an excellent manuscript that addresses the role of the molecule (RETICULON 1A / RTN1A) in the biology of human Langerhans cells (the epidermal resident dendritic cell). The study shows that RTN1A critically regulates the retention within the epidermis versus the emigration from the epidermis of these cells. Since Langerhans cells are central in the induction of immune responses (e.g. in vaccinations, allergic hypersensitivities) as well as in the maintenance of immunological tolerance (e.g. in autoimmune diseases of the skin) this manuscript will be of wide interest to the scientific community working in the fields of immunology/vaccinology, dermatology, cell biology and beyond.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #2 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This study extends previous work from the same group on the mechanism of 5' splice site recognition using co-localization single-molecule spectroscopy. There are three important conclusions: 1) the association of the U1 snRNP with the 5' splice site is largely determined by the snRNP itself and does not require other splicing factors; 2) sequence features of the 5' splice site determine whether a short-lived complex with U1 dissociates or transitions into a longer-lived, "productive" complex, potentially mediated by stabilized contacts with U1 associated proteins; and 3) the ability to form the longer-lived complex cannot be accurately predicted by base-pairing potential alone, as presumed by many predictive algorithms. Currently, a test for the role of specific protein-RNA contacts is lacking; additionally, a comparison with other nucleic acid recognition events is missing, particularly those also showing a two-step binding mechanism. This work will be of interest to colleagues in the splicing field as well as to others in fields where nucleic acid recognition by snRNPs plays a major role.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 and Reviewer #2 agreed to share their names with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This work will be of interest to biological and clinical specialists interested in the fields of behavioural neuroscience, biological psychiatry, neuroendocrinology, and developmental psychology for its focus on the origins of adult aggressive behavior in early life stress. The authors used an unbiased transcriptomic analysis and identified the thyroid hormone system as a potential mediator of the enduring impact of early stress and aberrant aggressive behavior in adulthood.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #2 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This paper provides evidence on public opinion from six European countries on key attributes according to which they believe COVID-19 vaccines should be prioritized. The paper presents significant and valuable findings supported by solid evidence.

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Evaluation Summary:

This article is of potential interest to researchers working on primate social behaviour, as it presents a novel mechanism for how an association with non-relatives can be favoured under kin selection. In a wild mandrill population, mothers are observed to preferentially lead offspring to associate with paternal half-sibs, a potential mechanism for encouraging nepotistic interactions between their offspring and other members of their group. The authors' explanation for their results was considered to be only partially supported by the data and a more measured and nuanced presentation would be appropriate.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #3 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

In this manuscript, Li et al directly compare different editing strategies for human pluripotent stem cells. They demonstrate that prime editing is more efficient and precise, compared with double-strand break-based methods. They also confirm the suitability of prime editing for the introduction of different mutations related to Parkinson's disease as a model.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the joint public review from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This manuscript will be of interest to researchers working in chronobiology and metabolism. The authors have found evidence that starvation decreases the abundance of the fungal circadian clock protein white collar complex (WCC), even though WC-1 is required for responses to starvation. This observation is interesting, but the authors should consider that WCC has several other functions (as a light receptor, in transcriptional regulation) that are not necessarily clock connected. As such the most interesting result from this paper is that the standard model for the molecular mechanism of the fungal circadian clock does not explain the persistence of normal rhythms under extreme starvation conditions, where the levels of clock proteins are drastically altered.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This paper challenges a fundamental view concerning why males of most animals have a higher germline mutation rate than females. Evidence is provided to show that it is not simply the fact that males have more cell divisions in the germline, but instead, most of the mutations arise from a different balance of DNA damage vs. DNA repair. The case is supported by data from multiple species, from de novo mutation rate estimates from pedigrees, and from fits to a simple heuristic model. This work will be of interest to the broad field of DNA mutations and DNA repair, as well as evolutionary and phylogenomics researchers.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 and Reviewer #2 agreed to share their names with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

Interactions between transposons and the Drosophila host genome are governed by dedicated H3K9me3-enriched loci that are selected for producing anti-transposon piRNAs through binding by the HP1 variant Rhino in Drosophila. The authors identify Kipferl, a ZAD zinc-finger protein, as helping to guide Rhino to G-rich motifs found at piRNA-producing loci in the female germline. The work thus reveals the involvement of a factor binding specific DNA sequences in piRNA biogenesis. The findings are of broad interest to the fields of heterochromatin and transposon biology.

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Evaluation Summary:

This manuscript reports the cryo-EM structure of HOPS, a heterohexameric tether that participates in the fusion of late endosomes, autophagosomes, and AP-3 vesicles with lysosomes. The structure will be of interest to a wide range of cell biologists and structural biologists who study membrane traffic. However, while the structural data are elegant, the functional interpretations need further support.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

Xing and colleagues present a cryoEM structure of the protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A)-B56 holoenzyme in complex with protein phosphatase methyltransferase-1 (PME-1). The structure reveals that PME-1 blocks the substrate binding site of PP2A by inserting an unstructured loop. This unexpected inhibitory mechanism is also coupled to a large conformation change in the PP2A-B56 holoenzyme and PME-1. Combined with biochemical and cellular assays, the authors suggest how PME-1 can regulate p53-mediated DNA damage responses via inhibiting PP2A. This manuscript will be of importance for structural biologists as well as colleagues in the p53 field.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #2 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This manuscript will be of interest to researchers in the phage-microbial host interaction field. Notably, the interplay between bacteria and their viral predators has regained broad interest in recent years given the discovery of numerous innate immunity-like phage defense systems. The identification of phage-mediated counter-defense strategies is therefore not only of prime importance for our basic understanding of predator-prey arms races but also for medical applications such as phage therapy.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This paper is of interest for a wide range of readers who study the biology of lipid modifying enzymes, especially as it relates to interfacial reaction kinetics in biological membranes. This study aimed to obtain detailed biochemical insights into the mutual relationship between PI(4,5)P2 lipids and their kinase PIP5K, which engage in an exciting pattern-forming reaction on membranes. The authors find cooperative recruitment of PIP5K to the membrane, oligomerization-enhanced catalytic efficiency and indications of allosteric regulation. Although of very high interest and featuring mostly convincing data, there are concerns about the interpretation of whether the observed phenomenon is dimer specific or related to higher-order oligomerization. In addition, there are inconsistencies in the data presentation.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This reported crystal structure of nearly-full-length cGMP-dependent protein kinase β (PGK1β) provides new insights into how the activity of the PKG catalytic domain is held in check by intramolecular interactions between both the upstream regulatory cGMP-binding domains and the autoinhibitory segment and the catalytic domain, and how cGMP binding to the cGMP-binding domains can relieve these inhibitory constraints leading to an increase in catalytic activity. The structure of the activating PKGIα R177Q CNB-A domain mutant, which resembles a cGMP-bound wild type CNB-A domain, provides a nice explanation for how this point mutation activates PKG Iα and leads to the development of the TAAD (Thoracic Aortic Aneurysms and Dissections) syndrome. The work will be of specific interest to the cyclic nucleotide community, and to the broader signaling community in general.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 and Reviewer #2 agreed to share their names with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This article applies a systems biology approach to understand the mechanism of action of 3-chloropiperidines (a class of anticancer drugs) in cancer cells and evaluate their sensitivity to drugs. It integrates transcriptomic and open-chromatin data and utilizes sound statistical frameworks for building a sensitivity model. The author's methodology can be applied to early-stage drug discovery. This paper will be of interest to the large class of people who tried to understand how omics data will help drug discovery. It sets a new framework to integrate transcriptome and chromatin accessibility data to identify the key mechanisms of action and provide potential disease targets, which will help speed up the early phases of drug discovery.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. All three reviewers agreed to share their names with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This study is of interest to the readership interested in the different cell types present in the mouse adult ovary and shows how cellular states change during the four phases of the estrous cycle. This is a valuable resource for the community.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

The authors first develop a new flexible and robust method to detect deviations from Mendelian inheritance in genomic data from gametes. The authors then apply this method to study deviations from Mendelian inheritance in human sperm data, but find no evidence for it. Even though this is a negative result, and overall the results are expected based on previous studies. the reviewers agreed that the research is rigorous and valuable.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

Bae et al. examine the regulatory role of the PH domain of the AKT Ser/ Thr kinase, finding a key set of interactions that mediate autoinhibitory interactions between PH and kinase domains. The work provides additional mechanistic understanding of the E17K mutation, a common variant in human cancers. This manuscript will be of great interest to scientists focused on protein kinase regulation and molecular mechanisms that control signal transduction.

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Evaluation Summary:

Using data from a tetraplegic individual, the authors show that the neural representations for attempted single finger movements after multiple years after the injury is still organized in a way that is typical for healthy participants. They also show that the representational structure does not change during task training on a simple finger classification task, and that the representational structure - even without active motor outflow or sensory inflow - switches from a motor representation to a sensory representation during the trial. The results have important implications for the use and training of BCI devices in humans.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

The manuscript shows that bisphosphonate-related osteonecrosis of the jaw, a rare complication of osteoporosis treatment, was prevented in mice using a novel treatment which works by reversing the associated oral inflammation. The work in this manuscript has the potential to be impactful if limitations are addressed. It will be of interest to investigators in the bone and dental fields who conduct pre-clinical research.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

Chaudhary and colleagues follow up their preliminary study on mitochondrial genome copy number in AML with this current study by looking if the expression of specific genes encoding mitochondrial components could provide further insight into AML prognosis. Multivariate analysis was used to identify those genes whose expression was prognostic of patient outcome, which led to the identification of three mitochondrial genes whose expression was used to build a multivariate risk model for childhood AML patients. Altogether, the work by Chaudhary and colleagues interestingly builds on their previous work and suggests that mitochondria may influence AML outcomes, and measuring mitochondrial parameters may help assess patient risk. However, the authors will need to identify the novelty of their findings over the previous reports from their own group.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This manuscript models the evolution of simple multicellular life cycles using evolutionary game theory. The authors discuss natural selection between different life cycles by modeling growth, fragmentation, and interactions between propagules, discovering conditions for selection of a single life cycle or coexistence of multiple ones. Overall, the model is biologically intuitive, the results are rigorous, and the implications for the evolution of multicellularity are interesting.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #3 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This manuscript is of broad interest to readers in the fields of vitamin D and obesity. It utilises a Mendelian randomization framework to separate the genetically predicted effects of adiposity at two timepoints in the lifecourse, childhood and adulthood. The key claims of the manuscript are well supported by the data. Higher childhood body size had a direct effect on lower vitamin D levels in early life, while in midlife, childhood body size impacted on adult obesity to result in lower vitamin D levels.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This manuscript focuses on identifying how metabolism can influence the response of cartilage cells to inflammation. This has relevance to the painful disease known as osteoarthritis. Modulation of cell metabolism in the right direction can serve to protect joint cartilage from the negative effects of inflammation which causes onset and disease progression.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

Bouvette et al. describe a new software for fully automated cryo-EM sample screening and data acquisition, making use of deep-learning-based algorithms for the detection of regions and objects of interest. This is the first example of software for fully automated grid screening, which is of great interest to the cryo-EM community, to free skilled researchers and engineers from a serious of tedious tasks, so that they can devote more time to method development or finding answers to interesting biological and medical questions.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 and Reviewer #3 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

We all have had days where there were multiple distinct memorable experiences that we successfully remember as distinct. This paper for the first time focuses on the important question of whether the resting/sleeping hippocampus maintains a clear distinction between replays of different environments and finds that in fact, replays of different tracks are distinct in the sense that both the right sets of neurons are coactive AND their firing rates in replay reflect their firing rates during experiences.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

The manuscript by Yue et al describes studies investigating the role of sensory neuron versus arteriole expression of Trpv1 in body temperature control. This is a detail about the contribution of different cells which has significance because of the reported on-target side-effect of hyperthermia by Trpv1-antagonists. The study shows that the effects on body temperature are predominantly produced through sensory neurons. From these studies it is speculated that the actions of Trpv1 might be pharmacologically modified to permit dissociation of the effects on neurogenic inflammation and the undesirable effects on body temperature.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. All reviewers agreed to share their names with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This experiment investigated the link between the role of B lymphocytes to neutrophils for the achievement of LPS tolerance. The authors found that B cells can modulate the tissue-damaging properties of neutrophil leukocytes by influencing neutrophil Cxcr4 signaling in a mouse model of bacterial sepsis.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This study shows a direct link between inflammation and cholesterol metabolism in endothelial cells. Specifically, the authors show a pathway by which the major inflammatory factor, NF kappa B, activates a gene called STARD10, which, in turn, leads to the activation of the cholesterol biosynthetic pathway. The study, therefore, provides important insights into the inter-relationship between cholesterol metabolism and inflammation at the molecular level.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This manuscript identifies pH as a common factor that underlies eco-evolutionary dynamics related to priority effects, which play an important role in community assembly. Using multiple lines of evidence, the data support the overall conclusions of the manuscript that pH-mediated priority effects in the nectar microbiome are the drivers of alternative community states. This manuscript will be of broad interest to readers in ecology and evolutionary biology.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #2 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

The authors present an analysis of SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern movements into and within the Netherlands. The primary finding is that flight bans (in conjunction with other NPIs) were grossly insufficient at stopping the invasion of new variants into The Netherlands over a one-year period. Although consistent with similar analyses of other regions early in the pandemic, this manuscript provides additional evidence of the inadequacy of flight bans at stopping the spread of variants that are already widespread globally, especially (but not only) when importations continue via ground travel. The reviewers have questioned the rigor of the statistical models and the presentation of the main result, including analyses that were included but do not appear to contribute to the main argument.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This paper will be of interest to scientists working to understand Chlamydia trachomatis persistence, and host pathogen interaction in general. The authors report the surprising observation that the mechanism of restriction of bacterial growth is through the inhibition of c-Myc signaling by IFNg as opposed to IDO-dependent depletion of tryptophan levels, as had been previously suggested.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

Although immunotherapy has revolutionized the cancer field, most tumors do not respond, and in those that do respond, acquired resistance is often inevitable. Several mechanisms have been proposed to be involved in acquired resistance to immunotherapy. In the present study, the authors show that tumor cells from multi-cellular structures protect the inner core of tumor cells via the prevention of penetration by lytic molecules. The formation of these structures is mediated by anti-tumor T cells even with tumors that have retained their immunogenic neoantigens. This work identifies a novel possible resistance mechanism to immune-mediated tumor killing.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This work sets out to develop a better machine learning-based predictor of survival/prognosis for patients diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, by developing a large combinatorial family of machine learning methods based on a high-dimensional set of -omics and other patient data features; using ten publicly available data sets. A reduced set of features (giving rise to a signature called AIDPS that involves 9 genes) was identified. Unfortunately, the authors used all ten data sets both in the discover stage and in the validation stage of their study. There was also a large mismatch between the initial number of covariates (15,288 genes) and the number of samples (n=1280). The combinatorial ensemble of ML models makes for an unwieldy methodology that is difficult to interpret or duplicate.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #2 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This study by Zander et al provides a valuable transcriptomic resource of murine CD4 T cell subsets in chronic viral infection. This study will be of broad interest to a wide range of researchers focused on studying CD4 T cell biology.

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Evaluation Summary:

Women are a mosaic of two population of cells, one with the paternal X-chromosome and the other with the maternal one in the active state due to random X-chromosome inactivation (XCI) that occurs during embryogenesis. During aging, one of the two populations dominates the other in a significant proportion of women. This skewing of XCI is of unknown etiology and its impact on health remains enigmatic. In this study, Amy L. Robert et al, demonstrate that skewing may not be benign and it is associated with a modest but significant increased risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer.

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Evaluation Summary

This study aims to characterise the brain dynamics of different disorders of consciousness by studying patients in a minimally conscious state and those with unresponsive wakefulness syndrome, along with healthy controls. The authors apply elegant analyses to the dynamics of brain functional connectivity to successfully discriminate between healthy controls and patients, revealing reduced metastability and a contracted network repertoire in disorders of consciousness. Overall, the study provides important new information on the mechanisms of disorders of consciousness and the functional brain networks involved.

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Evaluation Summary:

This manuscript is of interest within the fields of DNA replication, developmental biology and oncology. Focusing on the YAP protein, a major regulator of tissue growth and repair, it identifies an interesting new role in DNA replication dynamics, beyond its known role in gene transcription regulation. A series of experimental manipulations support the key claims of the paper. Additional control experiments, as well as mechanistic insight into how RIF1 and YAP interact, and insight into how that interaction influences replication timing would make the paper stronger.

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Evaluation Summary:

The authors present a manuscript addressing an important unmet need, specifically focused on understanding the effects of high protein on hematopoiesis. This information can be of interest to basic biologists and clinicians who specialize in the areas of various diseases associated with elevated protein concentration (e.g. infections, inflammation, multiple myeloma, renal failure, etc). This is in part what makes for the complexity in studying this entity as the consequences of such disparate diseases are difficult to parcel out as causes of which specific disease manifestations. Furthermore, the presented work is done in an invertebrate model without additional confirmation in other model systems. Taken together, the work, which is plentiful in experiments, provides an incomplete understanding of cause and effect, leading to overinterpretation of results and overstating of derived conclusions.

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Evaluation Summary:

The authors make an important contribution to our understanding of the universal mechanism of unloading of sugars from the phloem (the vascular tissue dedicated to long-distance sugar transport in plants) into root tip cells. Specifically, the authors investigate the pores (called plasmodesmata) present in the cell wall separating phloem cells from those cells into which sugars get unloaded in roots, which they found to have the same characteristic structure in all plant species investigated. The physical properties of these particular plasmodesmata suggest that they are especially suited for efficient and selective phloem unloading. The paper is relevant for audiences studying plant physiology and development. There are a few criticisms of the modelling work.

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Evaluation Summary:

Zaforas et al. conducted a high-quality study on a very complex topic, using advanced layer-specific neuronal recording techniques. Their findings might be especially interesting for pre-clinical and clinical researchers as well as clinicians in the field of SCI-related sensory pathologies such as neuropathic pain. However, methodological limitations prevent clear mechanistic insight into the underlying causes of their effects.

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Evaluation Summary:

The study claims to demonstrate an interplay between awareness and bottom-up attention and explains their joint effects within an established normalization framework. How awareness fits into current computational theory is an important and timely undertaking that has a far-reaching impact on our understanding of visual and cognitive function. Although the study uses control experiments and analyses to reinforce their claims, shortcomings in their experimental approach require further clarification and data to adequately support the study's conclusions.

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Evaluation Summary:

This work investigates how prestimulus alpha neural oscillations differentially modulate sensory signal and noise during visual detection and demonstrates that alpha power correlates with the subject's perceptual discriminability but not with decision criterion, supporting that alpha power modulates sensory signals more strongly than noise. The key conceptual claim is directly related to existing claims in the literature, although this is an unusually elegant experimental demonstration of the phenomenon.

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Evaluation Summary:

In this study, the authors investigated how predictions modulate performance using a combination of pharmacological experiments, high-density EEG, Bayesian modeling, and machine learning. This is an interesting study with a complex set of analyses. The detailed assessment and interpretation of all the findings could be strengthened by providing a more unified and hypotheses-driven approach.

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Evaluation Summary:

This study identifies a novel Shank3 mutation from individuals with ADHD-like syndrome and tests the impacts of this mutation together with other known Shank3 mutations on inter- and intramolecular protein-protein interactions of Shank3 involving the N-terminal SPN and Ank repeats. The results indicate that Shank3 mutations have diverse impacts on the intramolecular SPN-Ank domains and the interaction of Shank3 with other proteins including delta-catenin, fodrin, and CaMKIIa. Overall, the results of the study are novel and of high quality. Considering the lack of detailed biochemical understanding on various Shank3 mutations associated with PMS, ASD, and schizophrenia, this study is a meaningful step forward in the basic understanding of Shank3 functions and related pathophysiology.

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Evaluation Summary:

Park and colleagues examined the activity and function of different projection neuron types, pyramidal tract (PT) and intratelencephalic (IT) neurons, in the primary motor cortex using a joystick manipulation task in mice. During forelimb movements, the activity of IT neurons was more correlated with movement kinematics than that of PT neurons was, and inactivation of IT neurons caused larger effects on movement kinematics (amplitude and velocity). The results highlight different activity patterns and functions between PT and IT neurons. Discussion among reviewers focused on two main issues. One centered on the interpretation of the PT neural activity; the second on the evidence underlying the claim of a dissociation between the PT and IT neurons.

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Evaluation Summary:

This article will be of interest to evolutionary biologists and behavioural ecologists. It aims to quantify the fitness benefits of helping with the breeding attempts of others vs. seeking own breeding attempts via dispersal. It is generally considered that helping is less profitable than breeding, but occurs when superior reproductive options are constrained. Using a long-term dataset of birds, the authors call into question this assumption, and propose that both reproductive tactics can in fact have similar fitness returns, resulting in mixed-kin societies.

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Evaluation Summary:

All reviewers think the study will be really valuable for the field, especially after re-writing to include a detailed comparison with results that were previously published. We all appreciate the clear identification of a gamete sub-population, and also thought that the discovery of low activation of all VSG expression sites was intriguing and will be of considerable interest to those in the field.

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Evaluation Summary:

This work builds on previous work by the same team, demonstrating that the bacterial protein CspA, which inactivates host complement by binding to the host complement inhibitor FH, is a determinant of host range for the Lyme disease bacterium. Additionally, the authors present phylogenetic analysis of CspA and related protein sequences, which supports the hypothesis that inactivation of host complement has evolved independently in three bacterial genospecies.

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Evaluation Summary

This paper describes the development and validation of an automatic approach that leverages machine vision and learning techniques to quantify dynamic facial expressions of emotion. The potential clinical and translational significance of this automated approach is then examined in a "proof-of-concept" follow-on study, which leveraged video recordings of depressed individuals watching humorous and sad video clips.

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Evaluation Summary:

This study provides a compelling and significant advance on the understanding of how gene regulation by the histone methyltransferase MES-4 underlies germ cell survival in C. elegans, with the major claims being nicely substantiated. The critical and surprising finding is that the degeneration of mes-4 mutant primordial germ cells is due to inappropriate upregulation of genes on the silenced X chromosome, and not failure to activate germline-expressed genes, though reduced levels of germline gene expression were observed. An X-linked target of mes-4, lin-15b, is necessary for the degeneration phenotype. The work could be improved by clarification of the relationship between X and autosomal gene expression, especially in consideration with the action of the other histone methyltransferase MET-1, but otherwise it is excellent.

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Evaluation Summary:

Dongre et al. build on previous social learning research on wild vervet monkeys to investigate the role of a particular social behaviour, muzzle-muzzle contact, in aiding the acceptance of a novel food and provide interesting observations on the potential for male monkeys immigrating from one social group to another in spreading this novel behaviour. With a more robust and transparent analysis, this manuscript has the potential to provide significant insights into innovation and social learning in animals.

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Evaluation Summary:

This study will be of interest to scientists studying neuroinflammation and searching for potential therapeutic targets. The findings here have revealed the effects of an anti-inflammatory cytokine, human IL-37 (hIL-37), in the central nervous system of mice. The data support the conclusions within the current mouse models. Since hIL-37 is not naturally expressed in mice, more evidence related to human cells or tissues would strengthen the physiological significance.

This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.

Evaluation Summary:

Rabies-mediated monosynaptic retrograde tracing is a powerful method to characterize the connectivity of neural circuits. The CVS-N2c strain of rabies virus shows significantly higher efficiency of transsynaptic spread and less toxicity than the more commonly used SAD B19 strain but has been limited in use by an arduous and lengthy packaging process and low resultant titers. Here, Sumser et al. present a method that significantly speeds up the production process while reducing off-target expression. They also introduce a suite of novel reagents (34 novel plasmids) for monosynaptic tracing with the CVS-N2c strain that they commendably, have already deposited with Addgene. The work is an important advance that will reinvigorate rabies-mediated circuit tracing.

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Evaluation Summary:

Cohesin is an evolutionarily conserved protein complex that plays essential roles in mitotic chromosome structure and function. Previous studies suggest that multiple activities of cohesin are required only prior to the onset of chromosome segregation. Using a Mcd1-AID and a Mcd1-TEV to either degrade or cleave cohesin's kleisin subunit Mcd1 of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, this study shows that cohesion plays also a role in anaphase organizing the centromeric regions, providing new evidence that cohesin function is critical for chromosome structure and segregation during and after the onset of chromosome segregation. The work is of relevance for students of chromosome biology and cell division.

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Evaluation Summary:

Results from observational studies examining an association between the antihypertensive drugs and the risk of breast cancer reported inconsistent findings. This study uses a two-sample Mendelian randomization approach (MR), which overcomes the limitation of observational studies by using genetic variants as a proxy for modifiable exposures, to investigate the relationship between the use of antihypertensive medication and breast cancer risk. Using publicly available data and including a comprehensive assessment of antihypertensive drugs, the authors identified two SNPs that were associated with breast cancer risk. While the findings suggest that antihypertensive medication use may be associated with breast cancer risk, there are some methodological issues that need to be addressed.

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Evaluation Summary:

FLT3 (Fms Related Receptor Tyrosine Kinase 3) activation occurs in a subset of acute myeloid leukemia (AML) cases and is associated with poor prognosis. This work is focused on the mechanisms of resistance to FLT3 inhibitors in AML. The authors show that the combination of the FLT3 inhibitor and an mTORC1 inhibitor reduces tumor burden and prevents relapse in FLT3 mutant AML. This paper is of interest in scientists and physicians investigating AML as well as scientists studying signaling pathways.

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Evaluation Summary:

Overall, this study will make significant contributions to developmental neuroscience and vision science as they attempt to study how prenatal and postnatal maturation influence structural-functional measurements in the early and high-level visual cortex. These results will be of broad interest as it is a novel attempt to study processes that might be innate or genetically wired and those that emerge due to worldly experiences within the sensory systems. The authors are addressing an important and timely question based on a large and impressive infant database.

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Evaluation Summary:

This paper demonstrates that artificial neural networks can be used to accurately predict the responses of biologically-detailed neuron models to synaptic inputs, and hence to approximate the behaviour of networks of such neurons. This study potentially opens the door to massively reduced simulation times for biologically-detailed neuronal network simulations without recourse to supercomputers and hence will be of broad interest to computational neuroscientists.

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Evaluation Summary:

This paper describes novel insights into the potential function of innexin proteins, which are electrical synapse-forming proteins with often quite enigmatic in vivo functions. The authors describe here potential functions in synapse tiling. The paper should be of interest to researchers with interests in molecular mechanisms governing nervous system development.

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Evaluation Summary:

In this paper the authors report an updated theoretical model describing in mathematical terms how the Hsf1 transcription factor is activated in yeast in response to heat shock, and demonstrate that rather than denatured mature proteins, Hsf1 activation involves newly synthesized proteins that sequester the Hsp70 chaperone away from the inactive Hsp70/Hsf1 complex, releasing active Hsf1. They also describe a general role for the Sis1 co-chaperone in maintaining the fitness of yeast cells under stress conditions, such as heat shock, that is independent of regulation of Hsf1.

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Evaluation Summary:

The authors bioinformatically analyze previous scRNA-seq datasets of the developing mouse soft palate to identify differential signaling pathway activities in the heterogeneous palatal mesenchyme. Identifying TGF-beta signaling pathway activity with the perimysial cells, they hypothesize and test whether TGF-beta signaling in the perimysial cells might regulate palatal muscle formation. This paper will be of high interest to developmental biologists interested in the molecular regulation of tissue interactions that occur during mammalian palate morphogenesis.

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Evaluation Summary:

This paper will be of interest to readers curious about collective behavior, biological rhythms, and models of synchronized oscillations. The authors study a remarkable species of fireflies in which individual males flash non-rhythmically and erratically, but sufficiently large groups flash rhythmically and synchronously. Unlike nearly all previous models of biological oscillations, the authors' model accounts for their data quantitatively and with no adjustable parameters, at least in the experimental set-up considered.

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Evaluation Summary:

This study provides insight into the identity of the sodium channel controlling excitability in proprioceptors. Using pharmacology, gene KO, behavior, and histology, the authors show quite convincingly that NaV1.1 in sensory neurons is essential for normal motor behavior and contributes to proprioceptor excitability. The work has interesting implications for human subjects with inherited variants of Nav1.1.

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Evaluation Summary:

Some children conceived by assisted reproductive technologies (ART) exhibit metabolic differences compared to those conceived naturally, and the causes are unknown. This work reveals possible explanations for the metabolic differences and provides opportunities to improve ART and prevent the differences. This is a valuable contribution and will be of special interest to practitioners of ART, as well as to developmental and reproductive biologists.

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Evaluation Summary:

Boddé et al propose a new approach for species identification in the genus Anopheles. The approach uses an amplicon panel, a kmer-based similarity metric, and a variant auto-encoder to minimize issues of sequence alignment between divergent lineages. The authors provide strong evidence that their approach works well for most samples. The work will be of potential interest to practitioners in the field of parasite carrying mosquitoes.

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Evaluation Summary:

Nutrition profoundly affects neural development. The Uemura lab previously reported that C4da neurons elaborate complex dendrites when larvae grow on low-yeast diets, a phenomenon called neural sparing. In this current study, they define the molecular mechanism underlying the nutrition-mediated phenomenon and identify that the inter-organ Wingless/Ror/Akt pathway between the neuron and its adjacent muscles is necessary and sufficient to mediate dendrite overbranching in the low-yeast condition.

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Evaluation Summary:

In this paper, the authors generate and analyze new genome and gene expression data to understand better the evolution of the white-throated sparrow supergene region, which contains 1000 genes and determines whether a bird has a tan or a white stripe. The study nicely illustrates how the cessation of recombination that results from a chromosomal inversion can become a source of evolutionary novelty. The lack of recombination can result in the accumulation of deleterious variation leading to degeneration, but it can also (as here) facilitate genomic diversification and adaptation. The results will be of interest to a broad array of researchers studying genome architecture and phenotypic diversity and evolution.

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Evaluation Summary:

This study will be of interest to the large class of researchers who perform brain-behavior correlation analysis in the neuroimaging field, especially those related to neurodevelopment. The authors found that controlling for socioeconomic and maternal behavioral confounders, in addition to the usual demographic variables, generally attenuated such associations in ADHD using two independent large cohorts. The findings highlighted the importance of careful confounder selection and control for robust brain-behavior associations.

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Evaluation Summary:

This extensive study dissects the different gene expression patterns in a large set of different human lower limb muscles. It is an extensive transcriptome study. Its potential importance is that it points out insights into their differing changes in particular muscle diseases associated with specific gene defects.

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Evaluation Summary:

The helical shape of the bacterial pathogen Helicobacter pylori is important for its ability to colonize the human gut. Building on previous work identifying a complex of proteins required for generating helicity, this study focuses on the molecular mechanisms by which this complex modulates cell shape. Based on results from genetic, cytological, and pull-down experiments, the authors propose that one member of the complex, the bactofilin CcmA, interacts with two other complex members to generate helicity through a combination of cell wall synthesis and degradation. While data is supportive of this idea, the conclusions of the study require additional experimental support to rule out competing models.

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Evaluation Summary:

In this manuscript, the authors focus on the fungus B. bassiana, which is resistant to the toxin cyclosporine A. Through a mutant screen, the authors identify the key gene that mediates the sequestration of the toxin in vacuoles. They further show that this gene can be transferred to a distinct fungus and also to plants to protect against a toxin-producing fungal pathogen. Therefore, this work may lead to novel disease control strategies against fungal pathogens.

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Evaluation Summary:

This paper is interesting, timely and important because it presents a way to understand the transmission potential of a virus even when there are very few local cases. This has a high public health communication and preparedness value. The paper is clearly written, and the results fit with the known epidemiology of the various outbreaks that occurred in Australia in 2020. The paper is likely to be of broad interest within and outside the field of epidemiological modelling.

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Evaluation Summary:

The manuscript by Routledge et al. describes the role of Reggie-1/Flottilin2 in the formation of filopodia-like membrane protrusions called cytonemes and which were shown to be conserved between gastric cancer cells and Zebrafish. Authors demonstrate that Flot2 is present on the cytoneme along with Wnt3 in gastric cancer and with Wnt8a in Zebrafish. Furthermore, Flot2 is also present with Ror2 on the cytoneme and together they are believed to modulate cytoneme formation. This study extended the previous studies and provides new details about regulatory events controlling a cell biological process that will be of interest to those in the Wnt and cytoneme fields.

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Evaluation Summary:

The neural correlates of voluntary action is one of the most intriguing questions in neuroscience, but studying it at laboratory settings is incredibly difficult. Here, the authors have used an impressive range of methods and analyses approaches in mice to investigate the neural activity preceding voluntary action in mice. Using widefield calcium imaging in mice to study volition is novel and welcome but the great strength of this paper is its wide range of analyses approaches. There remains a question to what extent the findings reveal specific properties of 'voluntary action,'.

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Evaluation Summary:

This work investigated the mechanism of the cadherin-catenin F-actin catch bond interaction, a fundamental cell-cell adhesive structure that can be both dynamic and force-activated. Force measurements with purified protein components demonstrate that the catch bond results from a force-dependent switch of the actin-binding domain of αE-catenin between a five-helix bundle and a four-helix bundle bound on F-actin. The findings are interesting and well supported by experimental data, and will be interesting to the broader field of cytoskeleton function and functional structural biology.

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Evaluation Summary:

This work by Cheng et al evaluates the contribution of regulation of gene expression at the RNA and protein level by leveraging copy number variations in a large cohort of cancer samples. Importantly they find that there is rarely compensatory regulation at the RNA and protein level together, but depending on the gene, expression is either compensated at one or the other. The paper is very intriguing and the findings are of interest to a broad readership.

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Evaluation Summary:

This paper describes a biochemical analysis of the roles of Ub chain length on Ub-dependent segregase activity of yeast and human p97 and the role of UBX proteins on the disassembly of the CMG replicative helicase complex. The human p97 complex does not segregate substrates with shorter ubiquitin chains as efficiently as does the yeast complex but the human complex can be enhanced in vitro by 3 UBX proteins - FAF1, FAF2, and UBXN7. Cellular studies indicate a partial role for FAF1 and UBXN7 in cells. The paper would be strengthened by additional mechanistic understanding of how the UBX domain functions in activation of segregase activity and the contribution of this pathway in cells.

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Evaluation Summary:

This paper can provide novel basic science insights into how brain responses at different frequencies signal sensory information. An analysis of intracranial recordings in 121 human participants shows that low-frequency local field potentials and high-frequency (>30 Hz) broadband activity in response to face stimuli have largely similar spatial, functional, and timing properties. However, it is essential to show that the two response types can be reliably disambiguated and to critically discuss the generalizability of the findings.

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Evaluation Summary:

This paper studies how pheromone-sensing neurons of the vomeronasal organ establish and maintain cell identity. A role for a particular transcription factor, AP-2e, is investigated using targeted gene knockout and rescue, and observations reveal an unexpected plasticity in the cell identity of mature sensory neurons. This paper should be of broad interest to neuroscientists and cell biologists studying mechanisms of cell development and differentiation.

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Evaluation Summary:

This work is potentially very important to dissect the immune repertoire of T/B cells, which is one of the most critical/difficult parts for the adaptive immune system to achieve antigen specificity. These conclusions and proposed methods will require additional experimental support and further validation in different disease conditions.

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Evaluation Summary:

In this manuscript Nunes Santos et al. use a combination of computation and experimental methods to identify and characterize a cis-regulatory element that mediates expression of the quail Slow Myosin Heavy Chain III (SMyHC III) gene in the heart. The study contributes to our understanding of how genes can be expressed differentially in the atrial and ventricular chambers of the heart. The evidence for the newly-identified gene regulatory sequence, and its origin, in exclusively directing these gene expression differences could be stronger. This study is of potential interest to readers in the fields of developmental biology, evolution, gene regulation, and biology of repeats.

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Evaluation Summary:

Wei- Jai et al., demonstrate the protein Human liver DnaJ-like protein (HLJ1) converts misfolded IL-12p35 homodimers to monomers in sepsis. This contributes to increased IL-12 activity, in macrophages which in turn leads to an increased production of IFN-gamma production and lethality in mice. This study suggests that HLJ1 plays an role in regulating IFN dependent mortality and future studies may determine a therapeutic role in blocking this protein.

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Evaluation Summary:

This paper would be of interest to all researchers who work in understanding the mechanisms involved in podocyte slit diaphragm homeostasis and maintenance of the glomerular filtration barrier. The work provides substantial new insights into nephrin dynamics and the mechanisms of slit diaphragm maintenance. A series of compelling experiments depicted that dynamin-mediated endocytosis was involved in ectopic nephrin turnover and that flotillin-mediated turnover of nephrin occurred within the slit diaphragm was needed to maintain filter permeability in-vivo.

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Evaluation Summary:

This paper presents a novel and potentially highly useful approach to monitor circadian rhythms in specific tissues. The elegant reporter that the authors have built has the potential to become an important tool for understanding how different body clocks respond to various inputs and genetic manipulations. The authors already apply it to show that different clocks appear to be responding differently to loss of signaling from a key circadian neuropeptide in Drosophila melanogaster. However, it is difficult to determine whether these results, as currently presented and analyzed, provide new insight into the relationship between brain and peripheral clocks. The work is of interest to the community of biologists studying biological rhythms.

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Evaluation Summary:

This manuscript addresses a potential role for the box C/D Small Nucleolar Ribonucleoprotein complex at the intersection of mitochondrial homeostasis and cellular responses to infection and environmental stress in the context of the C. elegans system. The presented data can be explained in multiple ways and can serve as starting point for further research in this interesting and important area.

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Evaluation Summary:

In this study, the authors present a numerical model of ant raft shape dynamics. It is an interesting topic, the experimental movies are exciting, and the idea that ant rafts make protrusions is new. The goal seems to be to explain how local interactions can lead to the perpetual protrusions of the raft. Since the biological significance of the results has not been clarified, the paper is likely to be primarily interesting to engineers and experts on robotics.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This very clear paper, which will be of interest to scientists in the field of evolutionary biology, investigates the effect of population structure on the efficacy of selection on a single locus. The results are based on analytical computations and numerical simulations, conducted in a scientifically rigorous manner. Although the conclusions are currently limited, the paper could serve as a solid basis for a more ambitious investigation.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 and Reviewer #2 agreed to share their names with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This paper is of interest to biochemists studying DNA replication and genome maintenance in eukaryotic cells. The work details a structure-function analysis of an interaction between two proteins that are critical for genome stability. A mutation that disrupts this interaction may have no adverse effects under unperturbed conditions but causes telomeric DNA damage when cells experience replication stress. However, the structural nature of the damage and cellular consequences are not sufficiently explored.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This study reports a novel function of non-coding RNA miR-22 in the regulation of tumor-associated angiogenesis. The presented data suggest a possible link between microRNA and endothelial cell function. If the underlying mechanisms were further explored, this work would be interesting for people working on microRNA function in endothelial cells. Furthermore, considering the increasing interest of combination of anti-angiogenesis agents with anti-PD1 immunotherapy, this work may attract readers interested in immunology.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

High-throughput approaches that accurately assess drug target vulberbility in Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative agent of tuberculosis, are urgently needed to develop new treatment options for this dreaded disease. This paper applies a CRISPRi based approach to investigate gene essentiality and vulnerability on a diverse set of 96 genes. While the key observations of the study support previous findings, the approach reported here is useful for identification and characterization of novel drug targets. The study will be of interest to microbiologists and those interested in diverse aspects of bacterial metabolism.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This paper provides an attempt to understand the crosstalk between to islet cell types during beta cell regeneration following partial pancreatectomy. It combines lineage tracing, single cell sequencing and light microscopy to describe islet cell heterogeneity and interactions in the regenerating mouse pancreas. The concept of protective signaling resulting from the direct interactions between beta and delta cells is compelling and would be of interest to scientists in the field of endocrine pancreas development and regeneration. However, the conclusions derived from the sequencing data require additional experimental support.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This study investigates how deficiency in the RNA splicing factor SON impairs centriole assembly, which may underlie ciliopathy-like phenotypes in humans with SON mutations and is thus of interest to both cell biologists and clinicians. Using RNA-sequencing analysis and advanced imaging techniques the authors discover a large number of known and new SON splicing targets and attempt to identify those crucial for SON knockdown defects. However, knockdown of a subset of targets did not fully recapitulate SON depletion phenotypes and only led to the relatively vague conclusion that the observed centriole assembly defects were caused by impaired protein trafficking around the centrosome.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This paper will be of interest to the chromosome biology field and SMC researchers in particular. The study provides cell biological, biochemical, and structural modeling evidence that a new Nse5-like protein named SIMC1 is a paralog of SLF1, and that the two compete for SLF2-Smc5/6 binding. The authors also show that SIMC1 targets SMC5/6 to polyomavirus replication centers through its SUMO binding motifs (SIMs), supporting a role for SIMC1 in Smc5/6 recruitment for viral restriction.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. The reviewers remained anonymous to the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

Burl and Rondini et al. elucidate the transcriptional profile of the stromal vascular fraction of murine brown adipose tissue in the context of thermogenic stimulation. The authors combined systems and reductionist approaches to show the reliance of mature brown adipocytes on adrenergic activation to indirectly stimulate progenitor proliferation and differentiation and the involvement of dendritic cells in this process. Overall, this is a timely and well-rounded work that will provide beneficial data for public use and further resolve the complexities underlying brown adipose physiology.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 and Reviewer #3 agreed to share their name with the authors.)

Evaluation Summary:

This paper is one of the first demonstrations that expression quantitative trait loci (eQTL) affecting human microRNAs are linked to brain development affecting brain structure and function. These findings will have a broad impact on the genomics, neural development, and microRNA fields. The datasets produced here (developmental changes in miRNAs, new human miRNAs) will likely be used for further discoveries. However, some claims need to be tempered.

(This preprint has been reviewed by eLife. We include the public reviews from the reviewers here; the authors also receive private feedback with suggested changes to the manuscript. Reviewer #1 agreed to share their name with the authors.)