Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

This study investigates the role of BICC1 in the regulation of PKD1 and PKD2 and its impact on cytogenesis in ADPKD. By utilizing co-IP and functional assays, the authors demonstrate physical, functional, and regulatory interactions between these three proteins.

Strengths:

(1) The scientific principles and methodology adopted in this study are excellent, logical, and reveal important insights into the molecular basis of cystogenesis.

(2) The functional studies in animal models provide tantalizing data that may lead to a further understanding and may consequently lead to the ultimate goal of finding a molecular therapy for this incurable condition.

(3) In describing the patients from the Arab cohort, the authors have provided excellent human data for further investigation in large ADPKD cohorts. Even though there was no patient material available, such as HUREC, the authors have studied the effects of BICC1 mutations and demonstrated its functional importance in a Xenopus model.

Weaknesses:

This is a well-conducted study and could have been even more impactful if primary patient material was available to the authors. A further study in HUREC cells investigating the critical regulatory role of BICC1 and potential interaction with mir-17 may yet lead to a modifiable therapeutic target.

Conclusion:<br /> The authors achieve their aims. The results reliably demonstrate the physical and functional interaction between BICC1 and PKD1/PKD2 genes and their products.

The impact is hopefully going to be manifold:

(1) Progressing the understanding of the regulation of the expression of PKD1/PKD2 genes.

Comments on revision:

My comments have been addressed and sorted.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

Bogdan et al. present an intriguing investigation into the spontaneous dynamics of prediction error (PE)-related brain states. Using two independent fMRI tasks designed to elicit prediction and prediction error in separate participant samples, alongside both fMRI and EEG data, the authors identify convergent brain network patterns associated with high versus low PE. Notably, they further show that similar patterns can be detected during resting-state fMRI, suggesting that PE-related neural states may recur outside of explicit task demands.

Strengths:

The authors use a well-integrated analytic framework that combines multiple prediction tasks and brain imaging modalities. The inclusion of several datasets probing PE under different contexts strengthens the claim of generalizability across tasks and samples. The open sharing of code and data is commendable and will be valuable for future work seeking to build on this framework.

Weaknesses:

A central challenge of the manuscript lies in interpreting the functional significance of PE-related brain network states during rest. Demonstrating that a task-defined cognitive state recurs spontaneously is intriguing, but without clear links to behavior, individual traits, or experiential content during rest, it remains difficult to interpret what such spontaneous brain states tell us about the mind and brain. For example, it is unclear whether these states support future inference or learning, reflect offline predictive processing, or instead suggest state reinstatement due to a more general form of neural plasticity and circuit dynamics in the brain. Demonstrating any one of these downstream relationships would be valuable since it has the potential to inform our understanding of cognitive function or more general principles of neural organization.

I appreciate the authors' position that establishing the existence of such states is a necessary first step, and that future work may clarify their behavioral relevance. However, the current form makes it challenging to assess the conceptual advance of the present work in isolation.

Relatedly, in my previous review I raised questions about both across- and within-individual variability-for example, whether individuals who exhibit stronger or more distinct PE-related fluctuations at rest also show superior performance on prediction-related tasks (across-individual), or whether momentary increases in PE-network expression during tasks relate to faster or more accurate prediction (within-individual). The authors thoughtfully addressed this suggestion by conducting an individual-differences analysis correlating each participant's fluctuation amplitude with approximately 200 behavioral and trait measures from the HCP dataset.

The reported findings-a negative association with age and card-sorting performance, alongside a positive association with age-adjusted picture sequence memory-are interesting but difficult to interpret within a coherent functional framework. As presented, these results do not clearly support the idea that spontaneous PE-state fluctuations are related to enhancement in prediction, inference, or broader cognitive function. Instead, they raise the possibility that fluctuation amplitude may reflect more general factors (e.g., age) rather than a functionally meaningful PE-related process.

Overall, while the methodological contribution is strong, the manuscript would benefit from a clearer articulation of what functional conclusions can or cannot be drawn from the presence of spontaneous PE-related states, as well as a more cautious framing of their potential cognitive significance.

Further comments:

I appreciate that the authors took my earlier suggestions seriously and incorporated additional analyses examining behavioral relevance and permutation tests in the revision.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

The authors used genetic models and immunohistochemistry to identify how training in a spatial discrimination working memory task influences activity in the dentate gyrus subregion of the hippocampus. Finding that more cognitively challenging variants of the task evoked more and distinct patterns of activity, they then investigated whether newborn neurons in particular were important for learning this task and regulating the spatial activity patterns.

Strengths:

The focus on precise anatomical locations of activity is relatively novel and potentially important, given that little is known about how DG subregions contribute to behavior. The authors also use a task that is known to depend on this memory-related part of the brain.

Weaknesses:

Statistical rigor is insufficient. Many statistical results are not stated, inappropriate tests are used, and sample sizes differ across experiments (which appear to potentially underlie null results). The chemogenetic approach to inhibit adult-born neurons also does not appear to be targeting these neurons, as judged by their location in the DG.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

S. Keeley & collaborators propose a computational approach to infer time-varying latent variables directly from calcium traces (for instance, obtained with 2p imaging) without the need for deconvolving the traces into spike trains in a preliminary, independent step. Their approach rests on 1 of 3 families of latent models: GPFA, HMM and dynamical systems - which they augment with an observation model that maps latent variables to fluorescence traces. They validate their approach on simulated and real data, showing that the approach improves latent variable inference and model fitting, compared to more traditional approaches (although not directly compared with the 2-step one; see below). They provide a GitHub repository with code to fit their models (which I have not tested).

Strengths:

The approach is sound and well-motivated. The authors are specialists in latent variable models. The manuscript is succinct, well-written, and the figures are clear. I particularly liked the diversity of latent models considered, in particular latent models with continuous (GPFA) vs. discrete (HMM) dynamics, which are useful for characterizing different types of neural computations. The validation on both simulated and real data is convincing.

Weaknesses:

The main weakness that I see is that the approach is tested only on a single real dataset (odor response dataset). The other model fits are obtained from simulated data. While the results are convincing, it would be useful to see the approach tested on other datasets, for instance, datasets with different brain areas, different behavioral conditions, or different calcium indicators. This would help assess the generality of the approach and its robustness to different experimental conditions.

The other points below mostly pertain to clarifications and possible extensions of the approach, and to simple model recovery experiments that would help quantify the advantage of the proposed approach over more traditional ones.

I have a question related to interpretability and diagnosis of model fits. One advantage of the two-step approach: (1) deconvolution => (2) latent variance inference, is that one can inspect the quality of the deconvolution step independently from the latent variable inference step. In the proposed approach, it seems more difficult to diagnose potential problems with model fitting. For instance, if the inferred latent variables are not interpretable, how can one determine whether this is due to a poor choice of latent model (e.g., HMM with too few states), or a poor fit of the observation model (e.g., wrong parameters for the calcium dynamics)? Are there any diagnostic tools that could help identify potential problems with model fitting?

Could the authors comment on whether their approach allows for instance to compare different forms of latent models (e.g., HMM vs. GPFA) in terms of model evidence, cross-validated log-likelihood or other model comparison metrics? This would be useful to quantitatively determine which type of latent dynamics is more appropriate for a given dataset.

The HMM part reveals a pretty large number of states, with one state being interpretable (evoked response). Shouldn't we expect a simpler scenario, with 2 states? I know this is a difficult question that is more general and common with HMM approaches, but it would be useful to discuss this point. For instance, would a hierarchical HMM (with a smaller number of "super-states") be more appropriate here?

While it certainly makes sense that models accounting for the full transformation of latent => spikes => fluorescence data should outperform the two-step (1) deconvolution => (2) latent variance inference approach, the amount of improvement is not clear. A direct comparison (e.g., w/ parameter & model recovery metrics) between the two approaches on simulated data would be useful to quantify the advantage of the proposed approach over more traditional ones.

It would be useful to discuss the possible extension of the approach to other types of data that are related to neural activity but have different observation models, e.g., voltage imaging, or neuromodulator sensors (e.g., GRAB-NE, dLight, etc). Do the authors see any specific challenges that would arise in these cases and that would need to be addressed in the future (other than changing the Poisson spiking part)?

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Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

In this work, the authors present a chromatin polymer model with some specific pattern of transcription units (TUs) and diffusing TFs; they simulate the model and study TFclustering, mixing, gene expression activity, and their correlations. First, the authors designed a toy polymer with colored beads of a random type, placed periodically (every 30 beads, or 90kb). These colored beads are considered a transcription unit (TU). Same-colored TUs attract with each other mediated by similarly colored diffusing beads considered as TFs. This led to clustering (condensation of beads) and correlated (or anti-correlation) "gene expression" patterns. Beyond the toy model, when authors introduce TUs in a specific pattern, it leads to emergence of specialized and mixed cluster of different TFs. Human chromatin models with realistic distribution of TUs also lead to the mixing of TFs when cluster size is large.

Strengths:

This is a valuable polymer model for chromatin with a specific pattern of TUs and diffusing TF-like beads. Simulation of the model tests many interesting ideas. The simulation study is convincing and the results provide solid evidence showing the emergence of mixed and demixed TF clusters within the assumptions of the model.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

Aghabi et al set out to characterize a T. gondii transmembrane protein with a ZIP domain, termed ZFT. The authors investigate the consequences of ZFT downregulation and overexpression for parasite fitness. Downregulation of ZFT causes defects in the parasite's endosymbiotic organelles, the apicoplast and the mitochondrion. Specifically, lack of ZFT causes a decrease in mitochondrial respiration, consistent with its role as an iron transporter. This impact on the mitochondria appears to trigger partial differentiation to bradyzoites. The authors furthermore demonstrate that expression of TgZFT can rescue a yeast mutant lacking its zinc transporter and perform an array of direct metal ion measurements including X-ray fluorescence microscopy and inductively coupled mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). These reveal reduced metal ions in parasites depleted in ZFT. In the manuscript's revision, the authors performed additional transport assays in Xenopus oocysts, providing further evidence for the transporter trafficking iron. Overall, the data by Aghabi et al. convincingly support that ZFT is a major metal ion transporter in T. gondii, importing iron and zinc for diverse essential processes.

Strengths:

This study's strength lies in the thorough characterization of the transporter. The authors combine a number of techniques to measure the impact of ZFT depletion, ranging form the direct measurement of metal ions to determining the consequences for the parasite's metabolism (mitochondrial respiration) as well as performing a yeast mutant complementation and transport assays in Xenopus oocysts expressing the T. gondii protein. This work is very thorough and clearly presented, leaving little doubt about this protein's function.

Weaknesses:

None. The authors have addressed all my previous queries/ concerns.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

The paper from Hall et al. reports the effects of an altered function spx allele on the physiology of S. aureus. Since Spx is essential in this organism, the authors compare WT with a spx C10A allele that retains Spx functions that are independent of the formation of a C10-C13 disulfide. However, the major role of Spx in maintaining disulfide homeostasis in this organism appears to be reduced by this mutation, including a reduction (relative to WT) in the DIA-induction of thioredoxin, thioredoxin reductase, and BSH biosynthesis and reduction enzymes.

Strengths:

Based on a wide range of studies, the authors develop a model in which Spx is required for adaptation to disulfide stress, and this adaptation involves (in part) induction of both cystine/Cys uptake and the Fur regulon. Overall, the results are compelling, but further efforts to clarify the presentation will aid readers in being able to follow this very complicated story.

Weaknesses:

(1) More details are needed on how relative growth is defined and calculated (e.g., line 145 and Figure 1C). The raw data (growth curves) should be included when reporting relative growth so that readers can see what changed (lag, growth rate, final OD?). Later in the paper, the authors refer to "the diamide-induced growth delay of the spxC10A mutant" (line 379), but this is not apparent from the presented data.

(2) Are the spx C10A, spx C13A, and spx C10A,C13A all really equivalent? In all cases, the Spx protein is presumably made (as confirmed for C10A in panel 1D). However, the only evidence to suggest that they are equivalent is the similar growth effects in panel 1C, and (as noted above), this data presentation can mask differences in how the mutations affect protein activity.

(3) Figure 1D and Figure 1 Supplement 2 report results related to the effect of diamide treatment on protein half-life (t1/2). Only single results are shown for both panels, and the conclusions do not seem to be statistically robust. For example, in Figure 1, Supplement 2 concludes that Spx C10A has a t1/2 is 3.38 min (this should be labeled correctly in the Figure legend as the red line). and WT Spx is 8.69 min. However, Figure 1D suggests that the protein levels at time 0 may not be equivalent, and this is lost in the data processing. Indeed, there are significant differences in Spx levels between time 0 - and + DIA, which is curious. Further, the authors' conclusion relies very heavily on line-fitting that includes a final point that has very low signal intensity (as judged from Figure 1D) and therefore is likely the least reliable of all the data. It might be worth showing curve fitting for multiple gels. Regardless of the overfitting of the data, the general conclusion that Spx is partially stabilized against proteolysis by ClpXP, and that the C10A mutant is reduced in stabilization, is probably correct.

(4) Figure 2 concludes that despite differences in the mRNA profiles between WT and spx C10A after 15 min. of DIA treatment, the overall level of responsiveness of the bacillithiol pool is unchanged. The authors find it "surprising" that the BSH pool responds normally despite some differences in gene expression. This is not surprising. The major events visualized in panel 2D are the chemical oxidation of BSH to BSSB and, presumably, the re-reduction by Bdr(YpdA). While it is seen that BSH synthesis (bshC) and ypdA expression may be less induced by DIA in the C10A mutant (2C), there is no evidence that the basal levels are different prior to stress. Therefore, the chemical oxidation and enzymatic re-reduction might be expected to occur at similar rates, as observed.

(5) Line 215. For the reason stated above, there is no reason to invoke Cys uptake as needed for the reduction of BSSB. Further, since CySS (presumably an abbreviation for cystine) is imported, this itself can contribute to disulfide stress.

(6) Line 235. Following on the above point, "diamide-induced disulfide stress increased L-CySS uptake in the spxC10A mutant to re-establish the BSH redox equilibrium." This is counterintuitive since LCySS is itself a disulfide and is thought to be reduced to 2 L-Cys in cells by BSH (leading to an increase in BSSB, not a reduction). Is there a known cystine reductase? Could cystine or L-cys be affecting gene regulation? (e.g., through CymR or Spx or ?). Cystine can also lead to mixed disulfide formation (e.g., could it modify Spx on C13?).

(7) l. 247 "a functional Spx redox switch allows S. aureus to avoid this trade-off and maintain thiol homeostasis without excessive L-CySS uptake." Can the authors expand on how this is thought to work? Does Spx normally affect cystine uptake? I thought this was CymR? I am not following the logic here.

(8) Line 258. "The fur mutant, which is known to accumulate iron...". My understanding is that fur mutant strains typically have higher bioavailable (free) Fe pools. This is seen in E. coli, for example, using EPR methods. However, they also often have lower total Fe due to the iron-sparing response, which represses the expression of abundant, Fe-rich proteins. Please provide a reference that supports this statement that in S. aureus fur mutants have higher total iron per cell.

(9) Figure 4. For the reasons stated above (point 1), it is hard to interpret data presented only as "Rel. Growth". Perhaps growth curve data could be included in a supplement.

(10) The interpretation of Figure 4 is complicated. It is not clear that there is necessarily a change in bioavailable Fe pools, although it does seem clear that Fe homeostasis is perturbed. It has been shown that one strong effect of DIA on B. subtilis physiology is to oxidize the BSH pool to BSSB (as shown also here), and this leads to a mobilization of Zn (buffered by BSH). Elevated Zn pools can inactivate some Fe(II)-dependent enzymes, which could account for the rescue by Fe(II) supplementation. Zn(II) can also dysregulate PerR and likely Fur regulons.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

In this manuscript, Blanco-Ameijeiras and collaborators describe the 3D differentiation of human pluripotent stem cells into the posterior spinal cord. The authors first test the exposure of different combinations of extrinsic signals to generate human neural organoids with distinct antero-posterior identities, as shown by bulk transcriptome analysis. They show that neural organoids, whether anterior or posterior, display tissue architecture, organisation and dynamics resembling the in vivo situation. Increasing the size of initial cell aggregates leads to the formation of a single lumen through a multi-lumen stage and a process of cell intercalation, mimicking the situation that they recently described for chick secondary neurulation (Gonzalez-Gobartt et al. Dev Cell. 2021 PMID: 33878300). The authors go on to show that, as in chick, YAP is involved in the resolution of multiple lumens into a single lumen. They conclude that their human organoid approach faithfully models human secondary neurulation, which may be instrumental in unravelling the mechanisms of human neural tube defects.

Strengths:

Overall, this is an important study demonstrating that lumen formation in human spinal organoids recapitulates key aspects of secondary neurulation observed in animal models. This organoid approach may be instrumental in unravelling the mechanisms of human neural tube defects.

Weaknesses:

The significance of the findings is tempered by several limitations. While the authors show convincing evidence that organoids undergo lumen formation with similar morphological, cellular and molecular features as seen in chick in their previous work (Gonzalez-Gobartt et al. Dev Cell. 2021 PMID: 33878300), whether this is linked to their caudal spinal cord identity is unclear.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

In this study, Liu and colleagues utilize TRAP-seq to profile the repertoire of actively translated mRNAs in different intestinal cell types (anterior INT1 vs. posterior INT2-9 cells) in C. elegans. A key goal of this study was to identify transcripts differentially expressed/translated between these intestinal cell subtypes in the context of animals being well fed or subjected to acute (30 minutes) or chronic (3 hours) starvation, followed by refeeding.

The authors identify a number of differentially expressed genes across all of the conditions tested. They then provide an initial survey of the landscape of translatome changes through Weighted Gene Network Correlation Analysis (WGNA), and some high-level functional surveys via Gene Ontology (GO) term analysis and protein domain analysis. The authors validate the enriched expression patterns of some of their identified candidate genes using fluorescent promoter fusion reporters, confirming INT1-specific expression. The authors further implicate the role of several other candidate genes in pathogen avoidance and in response to nutritional cues by knocking them down specifically in INT1 cells by RNAi. Finally, the authors identify pyruvate as a major nutrient signal coming from the bacterial diet that suppresses the release of a key insulin peptide (INS-7), and identify some of the genes expressed in INT1 that are required for this response.

Strengths:

(1) Good use of and justification for TRAP-seq, because scRNA-seq would be difficult under the varied conditions used (starvation, refeeding).

(2) The manuscript is generally clear to read, and the data are generally well-presented with good supporting data that includes replicates, sample sizes, error measurements, and associated statistics.

(3) The dataset will be an interesting resource to mine for future studies focusing on mechanisms of how particular intestinal cell types respond to different environmental signals.

Weaknesses:

(1) A limitation of TRAP-seq, although powerful, is that only relative comparisons can be made between genotypes/conditions to identify differentially-expressed genes, rather than assessing whether a given gene is expressed at a certain level in a cell type under a certain condition. This limitation is due to the non-specific association of sticky RNA species with the beads during the immunoprecipitation step. This is a minor point, however, and the authors do a nice job of focusing their analysis on differentially expressed transcripts in the current study.

(2) Another limitation of the current study is that the experiments testing the role of candidate genes identified by their profiling experiments do not delve a bit deeper into providing a mechanistic understanding of the phenotypes being studied. At present, the results are thus viewed more as a genomics-based screen with some limited follow-up on interesting hits. However, this reviewer appreciates that when placed in the context of the work presented, a presentation of the profiling data along with some validation is an excellent starting point for future mechanistic studies elaborating on these interesting candidates.

Appraisal of whether the authors achieved their aims, and whether the results support their conclusions:

The main goal of the study was to survey the dynamic responses at the level of actively translated mRNAs of the INT1 vs INT2-9 cells in response to metabolic challenge.

Overall, the authors use established methods to perform their genome-wide analysis, and the set of differentially regulated genes is enriched for expected molecular functions and forms coherent networks in anticipated pathways.

The validation experiments (promoter::GFP fusion reporters, INT1-specific knockdowns of highly regulated genes) further corroborate the quality of the TRAP-seq datasets generated.

I have a few points for the authors that would further strengthen this work:

(1) The authors rightfully focus on the top differentially-regulated candidates, but it's unclear at present how far down their fold change list would lead to expression pattern validations. It would be useful to test a few more promoter::GFP fusion reporters at different enrichment/fold-change/statistical cutoffs.

(2) Although the INT1-specific RNAi provides a convenient strategy for rapidly perturbing and testing genes of interest for phenotypes, independently validating the knockdowns with genetic mutants, or alternatively (if genes are essential), degron alleles.

Impact:

The TRAP-seq data and list of differentially-expressed candidate genes will form an interesting set of high-priority candidates to study for their role in the reception and transduction of nutritional cues in response to food status and pathogens. This data will thus benefit the C. elegans community of researchers studying the mechanisms governing these phenomena.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

The presented study describes the long journey towards the expression of members' SVMP toxins from snake venom, which are toxins of major importance in a snakebite scenario. As in the past, their functional analysis relied on challenging isolation; the toxins' heterologous expression offers a potential solution to some major obstacles hindering a better understanding of toxin pathophysiology. Through a series of laborious and elegantly crafted experiments, including the reporting of various failed attempts, the authors establish the expression of all three SVMP subtypes and prove their activity in bioassays. The expression is carried out as naturally occurring zymogens that autocleave upon exposure to zinc, which is a novel modus operandi for yielding fusion proteins and sheds also some new light on the potential mechanism that snakes use to activate enzymatic toxins from zymogenic preforms.

Strengths:

The manuscript draws from an extensive portfolio of well-reasoned and hypothesis-driven experiments that lead to a stepwise solution. The wetlands data generated is outstanding, although not all experiments along this rocky road to victory were successful. A major strength of the paper is that, translationally speaking, it opens up novel routes for biodiscovery since a first reliable platform for expression of an understudied, yet potent toxin class is established. The discovered strategy to pursue expression as zymogens could see broad application in venom biotechnology, where several toxin types are pending successful expression. The work further provides better insights into how snake toxins are processed.

Weaknesses:

The manuscript contains several chapters reporting failed experiments, which makes it difficult to follow in places. The reporting of experimental details, especially sample sizes and replicates, could be optimised. At the time of writing, it remains unclear whether the glycosilations detected at a pIII SVMP could have an impact on the bioactivities measured, which is a major aspect, and future follow-ups should clarify this. Finally, the work, albeit of critical importance, would benefit from a more down-to-earth evaluation of its findings, as still various persistent obstacles that need to be overcome.

Major comments to the manuscript:

(1) Lines 148-149: "indicating that expressing inactivated SVMPs could be a viable, although inefficient, approach". I think this text serves a good purpose to express some thoughts on the nature of how the current draft is set up. It is quite established that various proteases cause extreme viability losses to their expression host (whether due to toxicity, but surely also because of metabolic burden), which is why their expression as inactive fusion proteins is the default strategy in all cases I have thus far seen. I believe that, especially in venom studies, this is of importance given the increased toxicity often targeting cellular integrity, and especially here, because Echis are known to feed on arthropods at younger life history stages, making it very likely that some venom components are especially active against insects and other invertebrates. With that in mind, I would argue that exploring their production in inactive form is the obvious strategy one would come up with and not really the conclusion of a series of (well-conducted and scientifically sound!) experiments. For me, the insight of inactive expression is largely confirmatory of what is established, unless I miss something in the authors' rationale. If yes, it would be important to clarify that in the online version.

(2) Line 173: Here, Alphafold 3 was used, whereas in previous sections (e.g., line 153, line 210), it was Alphafold 2. I suggest using one release across the manuscript.

(3) Line 252-254: I fully agree, the PIII SVMP is glycosylated. Glycosylation is an important mediator of snake venom activity, and several works have described their importance in the field. This raises the question, which glycosylations have been introduced here in the SVMP, and to verify that these are glycosylations that belong to those found in snakes. This is important as insects facilitate thousands of N- and O- O-glycosylations to modulate the activity of their proteome, of which many are specific to insects. If some of these were integrated into the SVMP, this could have an impact on downstream produced bioassays and also antigenicity (the surface would be somewhat different from natural toxins, causing different selection).

(4) General comment for the bioassays: It would be good to specify the replicates again and report the data, including standard deviations.

Discussion:

I think the data generated in the study is very valuable and will be instrumental for pushing the frontiers in SVMP research, but still I would like to see a bit of modesty in their discussion. As I have pointed out above, it is unclear which effect the glycosilations may have (i.e., are the glycosilations found reminiscent of natural ones?), despite their being functionally important. Also, yes, isolation of SVMPs is challenging, but the reality is that their expression is equally challenging, as evidenced by the heaps of presented negative data (with which I have no problems, I think reporting such is actually important). So far, the "generic" protocol has been used to express one member per structural class of Echis SVMP, but no evidence is provided that it would work equally well on other members from taxonomically more distant snakes (e.g., the pIII known from Naja oxiana). It is very likely, but at the time of writing, purely speculative. Lastly, the reality is also that the expression in insect cells can only be carried out by highly specialized labs (even in the expression world, as most laboratories work with bacterial or fungal hosts), whereas the isolation can be attempted in most venom labs. That said, production in insect cells also has economic repercussions as it will be very challenging to generate yields that are economically viable versus other systems, which is pivotal because the authors talk about bioprospecting and the toxins used in snakebite agent research. Again, I believe the paper is highly important and excellently crafted, but I think especially the discussion should see some refinement to address the drawbacks and to evaluate the paper's findings with more modesty.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

This manuscript by Ampartzidis et al., significantly extends the human induced pluripotent stem cell system originally characterized by the same group as a tool for examining cellular remodeling during differentiation stages consistent with those of human neural tube closure (Ampartzidis et al., 2023). Given that there are no direct ways to analyze cellular activity in human neural tube closure in vivo, this model represents an important platform for investigating neural tube defects which are a common and deleterious human developmental disease. Here, the authors carefully test whether this system is robust and reproducible when using hiPSC cells from different donors and pluripotency induction methods and find that despite all these variables the cellular remodeling programs that occur during early neural differentiation are statistically equivalent, suggesting that this system is a useful experimental substrate. Additionally, the carefully selected donor populations suggest these aspects of human neural tube closure are likely to be robust to sexual dimorphism and to reasonable levels of human genetic background variation, though more fully testing that proposition would require significant effort and be beyond the scope of the current work. Subsequent to this careful characterization, the authors next tested whether this system could be used to derive specific insights into cell remodeling during early neural differentiation. First, they used a reverse genetics approach to knock in a human point mutation in the critical regulator of planar cell polarity and apical constriction, Vangl2. Despite being identified in a patient, this R353C variant has not been directly functionally tested in a human system. The authors find that this variant, despite showing normal expression and phospho-regulation, leads to defects consistent with a failure in apical constriction, a key cell behavior required to drive curvature change during cranial closure. Finally, the authors test the utility of their hiPSC platform to understand human patient-specific defects by differentiating cells derived from two clinical spina bifida patients. The authors identify that one of these patients is likely to have a significant defect in fully establishing early proneural identity as well as defects in apicobasal thickening. While early remodeling occurs normally in the other patient, the authors observe significant defects in later neuronal induction and maturation. In addition, using whole exome sequencing the authors identify candidate variant loci that could underly these defects.

Major comments:

(1) One of my few concerns with this work is that the relative constriction of the apical surface with respect to the basal surface is not directly quantified for any of the experiments. This worry is slightly compounded by the 3D reconstructions Figure 1h, and the observation that overall cell volume is reduced and cell height increased simultaneously to area loss. Additionally, the net impact of apical constriction in tissues in vivo is to create local or global curvature change, but all the images in the paper suggest that the differentiated neural tissues are an uncurved monolayer even missing local buckles. I understand that these cells are grown on flat adherent surfaces limiting global curvature change, but is there evidence of localized buckling in the monolayer? While I believe-along with the authors-that their phenotypes are likely failures in apical constriction, I think they should work to strengthen this conclusion. I think the easiest way (and hopefully using data they already have) would be to directly compare apical area to basal area on a cell wise basis for some number of cells. Given the heterogeneity of cells, perhaps 30-50 cells per condition/line/mutant would be good? I am open to other approaches; this just seems like it may not require additional experiments.

(2) Another slight experimental concern I have regards the difference in laser ablation experiments detailed in Figure 3h-i from those of Figure 2d-e. It seems like WT recoil values in 3h-I are more variable and of a lower average than the earlier experiments and given that it appears significance is reached mainly by impact of the lower values, can the authors explain if this variability is expected to be due to heterogeneity in the tissue, i.e. some areas have higher local tension? If so, would that correspond with more local apical constriction?

Significance:

Overall, I am enthusiastic about this work and believe it represents a significant step forward in the effort to establish precision medicine approaches for diagnoses of the patient-specific causative cellular defects underlying human neural tube closure defects. This work systematizes an important and novel tool to examine the cellular basis of neural tube defects. While other hiPSC models of neural tube closure capture some tissue level dynamics, which this model does not, they require complex microfluidic approaches and have limited accessibility to direct imaging of cell remodeling. Comparatively, the relative simplicity of the reported model and the work demonstrating its tractability as a patient-specific and reverse genetic platform make it unique and attractive. This work will be of interest to a broad cross section of basic scientists interested in the cellular basis of tissue remodeling and/or the early events of nervous system development as well as clinical scientists interested in modeling the consequences of patient specific human genetic deficits identified in neural tube defect pregnancies.

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Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

CTF18-RFC is an alternative eukaryotic PCNA sliding clamp loader which is thought to specialize in loading PCNA on the leading strand. Eukaryotic clamp loaders (RFC complexes) have an interchangeable large subunit which is responsible for their specialized functions. The authors show that the CTF18 large subunit has several features responsible for its weaker PCNA loading activity, and that the resulting weakened stability of the complex is compensated by a novel beta hairpin backside hook. The authors show this hook is required for the optimal stability and activity of the complex.

Relevance:

The structural findings are important for understanding RFC enzymology and novel ways that the widespread class of AAA ATPases can be adapted to specialized functions. A better understanding of CTF18-RFC function will also provide clarity into aspects of DNA replication, cohesion establishment and the DNA damage response.

Strengths:

The cryo-EM structures are of high quality enabling accurate modelling of the complex and providing a strong basis for analyzing differences and similarities with other RFC complexes. They use complementary pre-steady state FRET and polymerase primer extension assays to investigate the role of a unique structural element in CTF18.

Weaknesses:

The manuscript would have benefited from a more detailed biochemical analysis using mutagenesis and assays to tease apart the functional relevance of the many differences with the canonical RFC complex.

Overall appraisal:

Overall, the work presented here is solid and important. The data is sufficient to support the stated conclusions.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

The present paper by Shinoda et al. from the Miura group builds upon findings reported in an earlier study by the same team (Shinoda et al., PNAS, 2019), which identified a non-apoptotic role for the Drosophila executioner caspase Dcp-1 in promoting wing tissue growth. That earlier work attributed this function primarily to Dcp-1 and to Decay, a caspase structurally related to executioner caspases, but not to DrICE, the principal apoptotic executioner caspase. The authors further proposed that this non-apoptotic caspase activity operates independently of the initiator caspase Dronc.

In the current study, the authors both corroborate aspects of their previous findings and extend the investigation to mechanisms regulating Dcp-1 in this context. They identify roles for the giant IAP Bruce, two BCL-2 family members, and autophagy-related components in modulating non-apoptotic Dcp-1 activity. Moreover, they show that Bruce binds to a BIR-like peptide exposed upon Dcp-1 cleavage, but not to DrICE. The study further suggests that low levels of Dcp-1 activity promote wing tissue growth, whereas excessive activity induces cell death, as evidenced by impaired wing development following Dcp-1 overexpression. Overall, the manuscript provides several intriguing insights into the non-apoptotic regulation of the comparatively weak apoptotic executioner caspase Dcp-1 and complements the group's earlier work. However, several concerns remain regarding certain interpretations of the data and the experimental rigour of some of the results.

Strengths:

A major strength of the work is its systematic genetic and biochemical approaches, which combine tissue-specific manipulation with protein interaction mapping to explore how Dcp-1 is regulated. The identification of several regulatory factors, including an inhibitor of cell death protein and components linked to autophagy, provides a coherent framework for understanding how Dcp-1 activity might be tuned.

Weaknesses:

The evidence supporting some key claims remains incomplete. In particular, the type of cell death form induced when Dcp-1 is overexpressed is not clearly established, and additional tests would be needed to distinguish between the different cell death types.

Likely impact:

The study contributes to a growing body of work showing that proteins traditionally associated with cell death can have broader roles in tissue development. This conceptual advance is likely to be of interest to researchers studying growth control and tissue maintenance.

Specific points:

(1) Nature of the wing ablation phenotype

A central concern is whether the wing ablation phenotype observed upon Dcp-1 overexpression truly reflects apoptotic cell death. The authors show in Figure 1c that nuclei in cells overexpressing Dcp-1, but not DrICE, zymogens are highly condensed, which is suggestive of apoptosis. However, it is equally plausible that this phenotype reflects a form of non-apoptotic, Dcp-1-dependent cell death (e.g. autophagy-dependent cell death). This distinction could be readily addressed using TUNEL labelling and direct caspase activity assays. The latter would be particularly informative, as it remains unclear whether zymogen Dcp-1 is capable of cleaving standard effector caspase reporters in vivo. Does the anti-cleaved Dcp-1 antibody detect Dcp-1 activation following overexpression of the Dcp-1 zymogen?

(2) Role of Decay

In their earlier study, the authors identified Decay as another caspase influencing wing growth, albeit more modestly than Dcp-1. It is therefore unclear why this line of investigation was not pursued further in the current work. This omission is notable, as Decay is not implicated in apoptosis and, to date, no substantial physiological function has been assigned to this caspase in any system. At a minimum, this point should be discussed explicitly.

(3) Figure 2: Proximity labelling analysis

The authors use TurboID-mediated proximity labelling to reveal distinct Dcp-1- and DrICE-associated proteomes across tissues, with a particular focus on the wing disc. They further demonstrate that RNAi-mediated knockdown of the Dcp-1-associated proteins Sirt1 and Fkbp59 suppresses the wing ablation phenotype induced by Dcp-1 overexpression, suggesting that these factors are required for Dcp-1 activity. However, it should be clarified whether Bruce was identified as a Dcp-1 interactor in the proximity labelling dataset, given its proposed central regulatory role. In addition, further discussion of Fkbp59, its known functions and how it might mechanistically influence Dcp-1 activity would be valuable.

(4) Figure 3: Autophagy-related factors

Given that Sirt1 is known to promote autophagy, the authors next examine autophagy-related proteins and identify roles for Atg2, Atg8a, Debcl, and Buffy in Dcp-1 activation. Notably, these proteins do not promote cell death in the Hid-induced canonical apoptotic pathway. However, it is important to determine whether knockdown of Debcl, Buffy, Atg2, or Atg8a alone affects wing development in the absence of Dcp-1 overexpression, to exclude the possibility that these perturbations independently impair wing formation.

(5) Evidence for canonical autophagy

The involvement of autophagy would be more convincingly demonstrated by testing additional core autophagy genes, such as Atg7, Atg5, and Atg12, as well as performing a combined knockdown of Atg8a and Atg8b. Moreover, direct assessment of autophagy at the cellular level using established genetic reporters would substantially strengthen the conclusions.

(6) Figures 4-5: Functional consequences

It would be informative to determine whether Synr, Debcl, or Buffy influence wing size on their own and whether their overexpression enhances wing growth.

(7) Terminology and interpretation of cell death

Taken together, the results suggest that Dcp-1 zymogen overexpression induces a form of non-apoptotic cell death, potentially autophagy-dependent or related. The reviewer does not understand the authors' insistence on referring to this process as apoptosis. The authors should be more cautious in their terminology: there is no canonical versus non-canonical apoptosis; there is simply apoptosis. Without stronger evidence, these effects should not be described as apoptotic cell death.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

Lazimi and coworkers present an updated experimental protocol by which viral vectors can be used with live pancreas slices in order to efficiently transduce fluorescent protein biosensors. This is of high importance, given that live human pancreas slices provide a means to study islet function while maintaining the architecture of the local environment. Thus, efficiently delivering a wide range of fluorescent protein biosensors provides expanded capabilities to study the human islet and its dysfunction in type 1 and type 2 diabetes. The authors demonstrate the improved transduction provided by their revised protocol, which includes orbital culture, while retaining or, in some cases, improving cell viability, hormone release, and Ca2+ responses. Further, the authors demonstrate how a 'Ca2+ integrator', CAMPARI2, can be used to profile the Ca2+ response of large numbers of cells and islets, to capture the variability in islet responses in healthy and diabetic cases.

Strengths:

The data presented are generally robust, and the methods are well described, such that this protocol could be repeated by other investigators. All findings are representative of multiple donors. Importantly, the data is highly novel.

Weaknesses:

Weaknesses in the manuscript mainly include a lack of technical details by which data is presented or analyzed, as well as caveats by which certain data related to islet size are interpreted.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

In their manuscript, Koch et al. describe a novel strategy to synchronize cells of the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae in metaphase I and metaphase II, thereby facilitating comparative analyses between these meiotic stages. This approach, termed SynSAC, adapts a method previously developed in fission yeast and human cells that enables the ectopic induction of a synthetic spindle assembly checkpoint (SAC) arrest by conditionally forcing the heterodimerization of two SAC components upon addition of the plant hormone abscisic acid (ABA). This is a valuable tool, which has the advantage that induces SAC-dependent inhibition of the anaphase promoting complex without perturbing kinetochores. Furthermore, since the same strategy and yeast strain can be also used to induce a metaphase arrest during mitosis, the methodology developed by Koch et al. enables comparative analyses between mitotic and meiotic cell divisions. To validate their strategy, the authors purified kinetochores from meiotic metaphase I and metaphase II, as well as from mitotic metaphase, and compared their protein composition and phosphorylation profiles. The results are presented clearly and in an organized manner. Despite the relevance of both the methodology and the comparative analyses, several main issues should be addressed:

(1) In contrast to the strong metaphase arrest induced by ABA addition in mitosis (Supp. Fig. 2), the SynSAC strategy only promotes a delay in metaphase I and metaphase II as cells progress through meiosis. This delay extends the duration of both meiotic stages, but does not markedly increase the percentage of metaphase I or II cells in the population at a given timepoint of the meiotic time course (Fig. 1C). Therefore, although SynSAC broadens the time window for sample collection, it does not substantially improve differential analyses between stages compared with a standard NDT80 prophase block synchronization experiment. Could a higher ABA concentration or repeated hormone addition improve the tightness of the meiotic metaphase arrest?

(2) Unlike the standard SynSAC strategy, introducing mutations that prevent PP1 binding to the SynSAC construct considerably extended the duration of the meiotic metaphase arrests. In particular, mutating PP1 binding sites in both the RVxF (RASA) and the SILK (4A) motifs of the Spc105(1-455)-PYL construct caused a strong metaphase I arrest that persisted until the end of the meiotic time course (Fig. 3A). This stronger and more prolonged 4A-RASA SynSAC arrest would directly address the issue raised above. It is unclear why the authors did not emphasize more this improved system. Indeed, the 4A-RASA SynSAC approach could be presented as the optimal strategy to induce a conditional metaphase arrest in budding yeast meiosis, since it not only adapts but also improves the original methods designed for fission yeast and human cells. Along the same lines, it is surprising that the authors did not exploit the stronger arrest achieved with the 4A-RASA mutant to compare kinetochore composition at meiotic metaphase I and II.

(3) The results shown in Supp. Fig. 4C are intriguing and merit further discussion. Mitotic growth in ABA suggest that the RASA mutation silences the SynSAC effect, yet this was not observed for the 4A or the double 4A-RASA mutants. Notably, in contrast to mitosis, the SynSAC 4A-RASA mutation leads to a more pronounced metaphase I meiotic delay (Fig. 3A). It is also noteworthy that the RVAF mutation partially restores mitotic growth in ABA. This observation supports, as previously demonstrated in human cells, that Aurora B-mediated phosphorylation of S77 within the RVSF motif is important to prevent PP1 binding to Spc105 in budding yeast as well.

(4) To demonstrate the applicability of the SynSAC approach, the authors immunoprecipitated the kinetochore protein Dsn1 from cells arrested at different meiotic or mitotic stages, and compared kinetochore composition using data independent acquisition (DIA) mass spectrometry. Quantification and comparative analyses of total and kinetochore protein levels were conducted in parallel for cells expressing either FLAG-tagged or untagged Dsn1 (Supp. Fig. 7A-B). To better detect potential changes, protein abundances were next scaled to Dsn1 levels in each sample (Supp. Fig. 7C-D). However, it is not clear why the authors did not normalize protein abundance in the immunoprecipitations from tagged samples at each stage to the corresponding untagged control, instead of performing a separate analysis. This would be particularly relevant given the high sensitivity of DIA mass spectrometry, which enabled quantification of thousands of proteins. Furthermore, the authors compared protein abundances in tagged-samples from mitotic metaphase and meiotic prophase, metaphase I and metaphase II (Supp. Fig. 7E-F). If protein amounts in each case were not normalized to the untagged controls, as inferred from the text (lines 333 to 338), the observed differences could simply reflect global changes in protein expression at different stages rather than specific differences in protein association to kinetochores.

(5) Despite the large amount of potentially valuable data generated, the manuscript focuses mainly on results that reinforce previously established observations (e.g., premature SAC silencing in meiosis I by PP1, changes in kinetochore composition, etc.). The discussion would benefit from a deeper analysis of novel findings that underscore the broader significance of this study.

Significance:

Koch et al. describe a novel methodology, SynSAC, to synchronize budding yeast cells in metaphase I or metaphase II during meiosis, as well and in mitotic metaphase, thereby enabling differential analyses among these cell division stages. Their approach builds on prior strategies originally developed in fission yeast and human cells models to induce a synthetic spindle assembly checkpoint (SAC) arrest by conditionally forcing the heterodimerization of two SAC proteins upon addition of abscisic acid (ABA). The results from this manuscript are of special relevance for researchers studying meiosis and using Saccharomyces cerevisiae as a model. Moreover, the differential analysis of the composition and phosphorylation of kinetochores from meiotic metaphase I and metaphase II adds interest for the broader meiosis research community. Finally, regarding my expertise, I am a researcher specialized in the regulation of cell division.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

In this manuscript an inducible degron approach is taken to investigate the function of the CHD4 chromatin remodelling complex. The cell lines and approaches used are well thought out and the data appear to be of high quality. They show that loss of CHD4 results in rapid changes to chromatin accessibility at thousands of sites. At the majority of locations where changes are detected, chromatin accessibility is decreased and these sites are strongly bound by CHD4 prior to activation of the degron and so likely represent primary sites of action. Somewhat surprisingly while chromatin accessibility is reduced at these sites transcription factor occupancy is little changed. Following CHD4 degradation occupancy of the key pluripotency transcription factors NANOG and SOX2 increases at many locations genome wide and at many of these sites chromatin accessibility increases. These represent important new insights into the function of CHD4 complexes.

Strengths:

The experimental approach is well suited to providing insight into a complex regulator such as CHD4. The data generated to characterise how cells respond to loss of CHD4 is of high quality. The study reveals major changes in transcription factor occupancy following CHD4 depletion.

Weaknesses:

The main weakness can be summarised as relating to the fact authors favour the interpretation that all rapid changes following CHD4 degradation occur as a direct effect of the loss of CHD4 activity. The possibility that rapid indirect effects arise does not appear to have been given sufficient consideration. This is especially pertinent where effects are reported at sites where CHD4 occupancy is initially very low (e.g sites where accessibility is gained, in comparison to that at sites where chromatin acdessibility is lost). The revised discussion acknowledges rapid indirect effects cannot be excluded.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

This manuscript introduces a high-resolution, open-source light-sheet fluorescence microscope optimized for sub-cellular imaging.

The system is designed for ease of assembly and use, incorporating a custom-machined baseplate and in silico optimized optical paths to ensure robust alignment and performance.

The important feature of the microscope is the clever and elegant adaptation of simple gaussian beams, smart beam shaping, galvo pivoting and high NA objectives to ensure a uniform thin light-sheet of around 400 nm in thickness, over a 266 micron wide Field of view, pushing the axial resolution of the system beyond the regular diffraction limited-based tradeoffs of light-sheet fluorescence microscopy.

Compelling validation using fluorescent beads multicolor cellular imaging and dual-color live-cell imaging highlights the system's performance. Moreover, a very extensive and comprehensive manual of operation is provided in the form of supplementary materials. This provides a DIY blueprint for researchers that want to implement such a system, providing also estimate costs and a detailed description of needed expertises.

Strengths:

- Strong and accessible technical innovation.

With an elegant combination of beam shaping and optical modelling, the authors provide a high resolution light-sheet system that overcomes the classical light-sheet tradeoff limit of thin light-sheet and small field of view. In addition, the integration of in silico modelling with a custom-machined baseplate is very practical and allows for ease of alignment procedures. Combining these features with the solid and super-extensive guide provided in the supplementary information, this provides a protocol for replicating the microscope in any other lab.

- Impeccable optical performances and ease of mounting of samples

The system takes advantage of the same sample-holding method seen already in other implementations, but reduces the optical complexity. At the same time, the authors claim to achieve similar lateral and axial resolution to Lattice-light-sheet microscopy (although without a direct comparison (see below in the "weaknesses" section). The optical characterization of the system is comprehensive and well-detailed. Additionally, the authors validate the system imaging sub-cellular structures in mammalian cells.

-Transparency and comprehensiveness of documentation and resources.

A very detailed protocol provides detailed documentation about the setup, the optical modeling and the total cost.

Conclusion:

Altair-LSFM represents a well-engineered and accessible light-sheet system that addresses a longstanding need for high-resolution, reproducible, and affordable sub-cellular light-sheet imaging. At this stage, I believe the manuscript makes a compelling case for Altair-LSFM as a valuable contribution to the open microscopy scientific community.

Comments on revisions:

I appreciate the details and the care expressed by the authors in answering all my concerns, both the bigger ones (lack of live cell imaging demonstration) and to the smaller ones (about data storage, costs, expertise needed, and so on). The manuscript has been greatly improved, and I have no other comments to make.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

In this ambitious study, the authors set out to analyse the validity of a number of claims, both minor and major, from 400 published articles within the field of Drosophila immunity that were published before 2011. The authors were able to determine initially if claims were supported by comparing them to other published literature in the field and, if required, by experimentally testing 'unchallenged' claims that had not been followed up in subsequent published literature. Using this approach, the authors identified a number of claims that had contradictory evidence using new methods or taking into account developments within the field post-initial publication. They put their findings on a publicly available website designed to enable the research community to assess published work within the field with greater clarity.

Strengths:

The work presented is rigorous and methodical, the data presentation is high quality, and importantly, the data presented support the conclusions. The discussion is balanced, and the study is written considerately and respectfully, highlighting that the aim of the study is not to assign merit to individual scientists or publications but rather to improve clarity for scientists across the field. The approach carried out by the researchers focuses on testing the validity of the claims made in the original papers rather than testing whether the original experimental methods produced reproducible results. This is an important point since there are many reasons why the original interpretation of data may have understandably led to the claims made. These potential explanations for irreproducible data or conclusions are discussed in detail by the authors for each claim investigated.

The authors have generated an accompanying website, which provides a valuable tool for the Drosophila Immunity research community that can be used to fact-check key claims and encourages community engagement. This will achieve one important goal of this study - to prevent time loss for scientists who base their research on claims that are irreproducible. The authors rightly point out that it is impossible (and indeed undesirable) to avoid publication of irreproducible results within a field since science is 'an exploratory process where progress is made by constant course correction'. This study is, however, an important piece of work that will make that course correction more efficient.

Weaknesses:

I have little to recommend for the improvement of this manuscript. As outlined in my comments above, I am very supportive of this manuscript and think it is a bold and ambitious body of work that is important for the Drosophila immunity field and beyond.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

Due to the low SNR of cryo-EM micrographs necessitated by radiation damage, determining the structure of proteins smaller than 50 kDa is exceedingly challenging, such that only a handful have been solved to date. This work aims to improve the reconstruction of small proteins in single-particle cryo-EM by using high-resolution 2D template matching, an algorithm previously used to locate and align macromolecules in situ, to align and reconstruct small proteins. This approach uses an existing macromolecular structure, either experimentally determined or predicted by AlphaFold, to simulate a noise-free 3D reference and generates whitened projections, crucially including high-spatial-frequency information, to align particles by the orientation with maximal cross-correlation. They demonstrate the success of this approach by generating a 3D reconstruction from an existing dataset of a 41.3 kDa protein kinase that had previously evaded attempts at high-resolution structure determination. To alleviate concerns that this is purely from template bias, they demonstrate clear density at two regions that were not present in the template: 6 residues in an alpha helix and an ATP in the ligand binding pocket. The latter is particularly important for its implications in determining structures of ligand-bound proteins for drug discovery. Additionally, the authors provide an update to the classic calculation in Henderson 1995 to predict the minimum molecular mass of a protein that can be solved by single-particle cryo-EM.

Strengths:

I am in no doubt that this technique can be used to gain valuable insights into the structures of small proteins, and this is an important advancement for the field. The ability to determine the structure of ligands in a binding site is particularly important, and this paper provides a method of doing that which outperforms traditional single-particle cryo-EM processing workflows.

The claim that using high-spatial frequency information is essential for aligning small proteins is a valuable insight. A recent pre-print published at a similar time to this manuscript used high-resolution information in standard ab-initio reconstruction to generate a high-resolution reconstruction from the same dataset, supporting the claims made in the manuscript.

The theoretical section outlined in the appendix is also theoretically sound. It uses the same logic as Henderson, but applies more up-to-date knowledge, such as incorporating dose-weighting and altering the cross-correlation-based noise estimation. This update is valuable for understanding factors preventing us from reaching the theoretical limit.

Weaknesses:

Given that this technique creates template bias, only parts of the reconstruction not in the template can be trusted, unlike standard single-particle processing, where the independent half-maps from separate, ab initio templates are used to generate a 3D reconstruction. Although, in principle, one could perform the search many times such that every residue has been omitted in at least one search, this will be extremely computationally intensive and was not demonstrated in this manuscript. It is therefore currently only realistically applicable when only a small portion of the sub-50 kDa protein is of interest.

The applicability of this technique to more than a single target was also not demonstrated, and there are concerns that it may not work effectively in many cases. The authors note in the results that "the ATP density was consistently recovered more robustly than nearby residues" and speculate that this may be because misalignments disproportionately blur peripheral residues. Since the region of interest in a structure is not necessarily in the center, this may need further investigation. The implications of this statement may also be unclear to the reader. For example, can this issue be minimized by having the region of interest centered in the simulated volume?

In Figure 3, the authors demonstrate that it is not solely improved particle filtering and a noise-free reference that improves alignment, but that the high spatial frequency information is important. This information is very valuable since it can be applied to other, more standard methods. However, this key figure is not as clear or convincing as it could be. The FSC curves are possibly misleading, since the reduced resolution could be explained by reduced template bias when auto-refining with a map initially low-pass filtered to 10 Å. Moreover, although the helix reconstruction does look slightly better using the 2DTM angles, the improvement in density for ATP in the binding pocket is not clear. A qualitative argument only clear in one out of two cases is not as convincing as a quantitative metric across more examples.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

This study investigates the connection between glycolysis and the biosynthesis of sulfur-containing amino acids in controlling fungal morphogenesis, using Saccharomyces cerevisiae and C. albicans as model organisms. The authors identify a conserved metabolic axis that integrates glycolysis with cysteine/methionine biosynthetic pathways to influence morphological transitions. This work broadens the current understanding of fungal morphogenesis, which has largely focused on gene regulatory networks and cAMP-dependent signaling pathways, by emphasizing the contribution of metabolic control mechanisms.

Strengths:

The delineation of how glycolytic flux regulates fungal morphogenesis through a cAMP-independent mechanism is an advancement. The coupling of glycolysis with the de novo biosynthesis of sulfur-containing amino acids, a requirement for morphogenesis, introduces a novel and unexpected layer of regulation.

Demonstrating this mechanism in both S. cerevisiae and C. albicans strengthens the argument for its evolutionary conservation and biological importance.

The ability to rescue the morphogenesis defect through supplementation of sulfur-containing amino acids provides a functional validation.

Weaknesses:

cAMP addition rescued the pseudohyphal differentiation defect exhibited by the ΔΔgpa2 strain. More clarity is needed on how this mechanism is mechanistically distinct from the metabolic control - whether cAMP acts in parallel or downstream to sulfur-containing amino acids biosynthesis has to be characterized. Supplementation of cysteine and methionine bypasses glycolytic regulation; the link between these amino acids and their role in fungal morphogenesis is not completely characterized.

The demonstrated link between glycolysis and sulfur amino acid biosynthesis, along with its implications for virulence in C. albicans, is important for understanding fungal adaptation, as mentioned in the article; however, the downstream effects of Met4 activation were not fully characterized. How does Cysteine/Methionine rescue morphogenesis? The author's response figure 1 shows that there are no significant transcriptional changes in the expression of cAMP-PKA pathway-associated genes, which alone could not completely explain the role of gpa2 in morphogenesis, because exogenous cAMP can restore pseudohyphal differentiation in the ΔΔgpa2 background (Revised Fig. 1L). This implies that gpa2's function in morphogenesis is an additional, or possibly a metabolic or post-transcriptional, layer of regulation, and its connection to sulfur-containing amino acids remains to be elucidated.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

The goal of the work by Graff, et al. is to model CSVD in the zebrafish using foxf2a mutants. The mutants show loss of cerebral pericyte coverage that persists through adulthood, but it seems foxf2a does not regulate the regenerative capacity of these cells. The findings are interesting and build on previous work from the group. Limitations of the work include little mechanistic insight into how foxf2a alters pericyte recruitment/differentiation/survival/proliferation in this context, and the overlap of these studies with previous work in fox2a/b double mutants. However, the data analysis is clean and compelling and the findings will contribute to the field.

Comments on revisions:

The authors have addressed all of my original concerns.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

The authors use calcium recordings from STN to measure STN activity during spontaneous movement and in a multi-stage avoidance paradigm. They also use optogenetic inhibition and lesion approaches to test the role of STN during the avoidance paradigm. The paper reports a large amount of data and makes many claims, some seem well supported to this Reviewer, others not so much.

Strengths:

Well-supported claims include data showing that during spontaneous movements, especially contraversive ones, STN calcium activity is increased using bulk photometry measurements. Single-cell measures back this claim but also show that it is only a minority of STN cells that respond strongly, with most showing no response during movement, and a similar number showing smaller inhibitions during movement.

Photometry data during cued active avoidance procedures show that STN calcium activity sharply increases in response to auditory cues, and during cued movements to avoid a footshock. Optogenetic and lesion experiments are consistent with an important role for STN in generating cue-evoked avoidance. And a strength of these results is that multiple approaches were used.

[Editors' note: The authors provided a good explanation regarding the difference between interpreting 'caution' in the healthy vs impaired situation, and this addressed one of the remaining major concerns from the last round of review.]

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

This paper explored the role of beta rhythms in the context of spatial learning and mPFC-hippocampal dynamics. The authors characterized mPFC and hippocampal beta oscillations, examining how their coordination and their spectral profiles related to learning and prefrontal neuronal firing. Rats performed two tasks, a Y-maze and an F-maze, with the F-maze task being more cognitively demanding. Across learning, prefrontal beta oscillation power increased while beta frequency decreased. In contrast, hippocampal beta power and beta frequency decreased. This was particularly the case for the well-performed and well-learned Y-maze paradigm. The authors identified the timing of beta oscillations, revealing an interesting shift in beta burst timing relative to reward entry as learning progressed. They also discovered an interesting population of prefrontal neurons that were tuned to both prefrontal beta and hippocampal sharp-wave ripple events, revealing a spectrum of SWR-excited and SWR-inhibited neurons that were differentially phase locked to prefrontal beta rhythms.

In sum, the authors set out to examine how beta rhythms and their coordination were related to learning and goal occupancy. The authors identified a set of learning and goal-related correlates at the level of LFP and spike-LFP interactions, but did not report on spike-behavioral correlates.

Strengths:

Pairing dual recordings of medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) and CA1 with learning of spatial memory tasks is a strength of this paper. The authors also discovered an interesting population of prefrontal neurons modulated by both beta and CA1 sharp-wave ripple (SWR) events, showing a relationship between SWR-excited and SWR-inhibited neurons and beta oscillation phase.

Weaknesses:

The authors report on a task where rats were performing sub-optimally (F-maze), weakening claims. Likewise, it is questionable as to whether mPFC and hippocampus are dually required to perform a no-delay Y-maze task at day 5, where rats are performing near 100%. There would be little reason to suspect strong oscillatory coupling when task performance is poor and/or independent of mPFC-HPC communication (Jones and Wilson, 2005), potentially weakening conclusions about independent beta rhythms. Moreover, there is little detail provided about sample sizes and how data sampling is being performed (e.g., rats, sessions, or trials), raising generalizability concerns.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Ji et al. report a novel and interesting light-induced transcriptional response pathway in the eyeless roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans that involves a cytochrome P450 family protein (CYP-14A5) and functions independently from previously established photosensory mechanisms. The authors also demonstrate the potential for this pathway to enable robust light-induced control of gene expression and behavior, albeit with some restrictions. Despite the limitations of this tool, including those presented by the authors, it could prove useful for the community. Overall, the evidence supporting the claims of the authors is convincing, and the authors' work suggests numerous interesting lines of future inquiry.

(1) Although the exact mechanisms underlying photoactivation of this pathway remain unclear, light-dependent induction of CYP-14A5 requires bZIP transcription factors ZIP-2 and CEBP-2 that have been previously implicated in worm responses to pathogens. Notably, this light response requires live food bacteria, suggesting a microbial contribution to this phenomenon. The nature of the microbial contribution to the light response is unknown but very interesting.

(2) The authors suggest that light-induced CYP-14A5 activity in the C. elegans hypoderm can unexpectedly and cell-non-autonomously contribute to retention of an olfactory memory. How retention of the olfactory memory is enhanced by light generally remains unclear. Additional experiments, including verification of light-dependent changes in CYP-14A5 levels in the olfactory memory behavioral setup, appropriate would help further interpret these otherwise interesting results.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

In this study, the authors investigate how the structural state of the microtubule lattice influences the accessibility of the α-tubulin C-terminal tail (CTT). By developing and applying new biosensors, they reveal that the tyrosinated CTT is largely inaccessible under normal conditions but becomes more accessible upon changes to the tubulin conformational state induced by taxol treatment, MAP expression, or GTP-hydrolysis-deficient tubulin. The combination of live imaging, biochemical assays, and simulations suggests that the lattice conformation regulates the exposure of the CTT, providing a potential mechanism for modulating interactions with microtubule-associated proteins. The work addresses a highly topical question in the microtubule field and proposes a new conceptual link between lattice spacing and tail accessibility for tubulin post-translational modification. Future work is required to distinguish CTT exposure in the microtubule lattice is sensitive to additional factors present in vivo but not in vitro.

Strengths:

(1) The study targets a highly relevant and emerging topic-the structural plasticity of the microtubule lattice and its regulatory implications.

(2) The biosensor design represents a methodological advance, enabling direct visualization of CTT accessibility in living cells.

(3) Integration of imaging, biochemical assays, and simulations provides a multi-scale perspective on lattice regulation.

(4) The conceptual framework proposed lattice conformation as a determinant of post-translational modification accessibility is novel and potentially impactful for understanding microtubule regulation.

[Editors' note: the authors have responded to the reviewers and this version was assessed by the editors.]

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

Cruz and colleagues report a single cell RNA sequencing analysis of irradiated Drosophila larval wing discs. This is a pioneering study because prior analyses used bulk RNAseq analysis so differences at single cell resolution were not discernable. To quantify heterogeneity in gene expression, the authors make clever use of a metric used to study market concentration, the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index. They make several important observations including region-specific gene expression coupled with heterogeneity within each region and the identification of a cell population (high Trbl) that seems disproportionately responsible for radiation-induced gene expression.

Strengths:

Overall, the manuscript makes a compelling case for heterogeneity in gene expression changes that occurs in response to uniform induction of damage by X-rays in a single layer epithelium. This is an important finding that would be of interest to researchers in the field of DNA damage responses, regeneration and development.

Weaknesses:

The authors have addressed my concerns adequately with changes made in the revised version.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

In this manuscript, Negreira et al. propose a new scDNAseq method, using semi-permeable capsules (SPCs) and primary template-directed amplification (PTA). The authors optimize several metrics to improve their predictions, such as determining GC bias, Intra-Chromosomal fluctuation (ICF -metric to differentiate replicative and non-replicative cells) and Intra-chromosomal coefficient of variation (ICCV - chromosome read distribution). The coverage evenness was evaluated using the fini index and the median absolute pairwise difference between the counts of two consecutive bins. They validate the proposed method using two Leishmania donovani strains isolated from different countries, BPK081 (low genomic variability) and HU3 (high genomic variability). Then, they showed that the method outperforms WGA and has similar accuracy to the discontinued 10X-scDNA (10X Genomics), further improving on short CNV identification. The authors also show that the method can identify somy variations, insertions/deletions and SNP variations across cells. This is a timely and very relevant work that has a wide applicability in copy number variation assessment using single-cell data.

I really appreciate this work. My congratulations to the authors. All my comments below only aim to improve an already solid manuscript.

(1) Data availability: Although the authors provide a Zenodo link, the data is restricted. I also could not access the GitHub link in the Zenodo website: https://github.com/gabrielnegreira/2025_scDNA_paper. The authors should make these files available.

(2) 2-SPC-PTA and SPC-STD cell count comparison: The authors have consistently proven that the SPC-PTA method was superior to SPC-STD. However, there are a few points that should be clarified regarding the SPC-PTA results. Is there an explanation for the lower proportion of SPC to true cells success in SPC-STD, which reflects the bimodal distribution for the reads per cell in SPC-PTA2 and a three-to-multimodal distribution in SPC-PTA1 in Figure 1B? Also, in Table 1, does the number of reads reflect the number of reads in all sequenced SPCs or only in the true cells? If it is in the SPCs, I suggest that the authors add a new column in the table with the "Number of reads in true cells" to account for this discrepancy.

(3) The authors should evaluate the results with a higher coverage for SCP-PTA. I understand that the authors subsampled the total read to 100,000 to allow cross-sample comparisons, especially between SPC-STD and SPC-PTA. However, as they concluded that the SPC-PTA was far superior, and the samples SPC-PTA1 and SPC-PTA2 had an "elbow" of 650,493 and 448,041, respectively, it might be interesting to revisit some of the estimations using only SPC-PTA samples and a higher coverage cutoff, as 400,000.

(4) Doublet detection: I suggest that the authors be a little more careful with their definition of doublets. The doublet detection was based on diagnostic SNPs from the two strains, BPK081 and HU3, which identify doublets between two very different and well-characterised strains. However, this method will probably not identify strain-specific doublets. This is of minor importance for cloned and stable strains with few passages, as BPK081, but might be more relevant in more heterogeneous strains, as HU3. Strain-specific doublets might also be relevant in other scenarios, as multiclonal infections with different populations from the same strain in the same geographic area. One positive point is that the "between strain doublet count" was low, so probably the within-strain doublet count should be low too. The manuscript would benefit from a discussion on this regard.

(5) Nucleotide sequence variants and phylogeny: I believe that a more careful description of the phylogenetic analysis and some limitations of the sequence variant identification would benefit the manuscript.

(5.1) As described in the methods, the authors intentionally selected two fairly different Leishmania donovani strains, HU3 and BPK081, and confirmed that the sequent variant methodology can separate cells from each strain. It is a solid proof of concept. However, most of the multiclonal infections in natural scenarios would be caused by parasite populations that diverge by fewer SNPs, and will be significantly harder to detect. Hence, I suggest that a short discussion about this is important.

(5.2) The authors should expand on the description of the phylogenetic tree. In the HU3 on Figure 5F left panel, most of the variation is observed in ~8 cells, which goes from position 0 to position ~28.000.

Most of the other cells are in very short branches, from ~29.000 to 30.4000 (5F right panel). Assuming that this representation is a phylogram, as the branches are short, these cells diverge by approximately 100-2000 SNPs. It is unexpected (but not impossible) that such ~8 divergent cells be maintained uniquely (or in very low counts) in the culture, unless this is a multiclonal infection. I would carefully investigate these cells. They might be doublets or have more missing data than other cells. I would also suggest that a quick discussion about this should be added to the manuscript.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

The authors have identified novel dRTA causing SLC4A1 mutations and studied the resulting kAE1 proteins to determine how they cause dRTA. Based on a previous study on mice expressing the dRTA kAE1 R607H variant, the authors hypothesize that kAE1 variants cause an increase in intracellular pH which disrupts autophagic and degradative flux pathways. The authors clone these new kAE1 variants and study their transport function and subcellular localization in mIMCD cells. The authors show increased abundance of LC3B II in mIMCD cells expressing some of the kAE1 variants, as well as reduced autophagic flux using eGFP-RFP-LC3. These data, as well as the abundance of autophagosomes, serve as the key evidence that these kAE1 mutants disrupt autophagy. Furthermore, the authors demonstrate that decreasing the intracellular pH abrogates the expression of LC3B II in mIMCD cells expressing mutant SLC4A1. Lastly, the authors argue that mitochondrial function, and specifically ATP synthesis, is suppressed in mIMCD cells expressing dRTA variants and that mitochondria are less abundant in AICs from the kidney of R607H kAE1 mice. Overall, the authors provide evidence about how new kAE1 mutants may cause dRTA.

Strengths:

The authors cloned novel dRTA causing kAE1 mutants into expression vectors to study the subcellular localization and transport properties of the variants. The immunofluorescence images are generally of high quality and the authors do well to include multiple samples for all of their western blots.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Joshi et al. present an elegant and technically rigorous study examining how the temporal structure of hippocampal spiking during locomotion contributes to spatial learning. Using a closed-loop, theta phase-specific optogenetic manipulation of medial septal parvalbumin-expressing neurons in rats, the authors demonstrate that disrupting theta-timescale coordination impairs performance on the cognitively demanding component outbound trajectory of a spatial alternation task, while sparing hippocampal replay, place coding, and the simpler inbound learning. The work aims to dissociate the role of theta-associated temporal organization during navigation from sharp-wave ripple-associated replay during subsequent rest periods, providing a mechanistic link between theta sequences and learning. The findings have important implications for models of septo-hippocampal coordination and the functional segregation between online (theta) and offline (SWR) network states. That said, there are a few conceptual and methodological issues that need to be addressed.

One concern is the overall novelty of this work; the dissociation between online temporal sequence and offline replay events following memory deficits has previously been shown by Wang et al., 2016 elife. While the authors discuss Lui et al., 2023, which demonstrates MEC activation of inhibitory neurons at gamma frequencies during locomotion disrupts theta sequences, subsequent replay and learning (line 65-66), they do not reference Wang et al., 2016 who performed a very similar study with MS pharmacological inactivation, and report large decreases in theta power, attenuated theta frequencies together with behavioural deficits but SWR replay persisted. Given strong similarities in the manipulation and findings, this study should be discussed.

Along the same lines, it should be noted that Brandon et al. (2014, Neuron) demonstrated that hippocampal place codes can still form in novel environments despite MS inactivation and loss of theta, indicating that spatial representations can emerge without intact septal drive. Referencing this study would strengthen the discussion of how temporal coordination, rather than spatial coding per se, underlies the learning deficits observed here.

The conclusion that disrupting "theta microstructure" impairs learning relies on the assumption that the observed behavioral deficits arise from altered temporal coding from within hippocampal CA1 only. However, optogenetic modulation of medial septal PV neurons influences multiple downstream regions (entorhinal cortex, retrosplenial cortex) via widespread GABAergic projections. While the authors do touch on this, their discussion should expand to include the network-level consequences of entorhinal grid-cell disruption and how this could affect temporal coding both online and offline.

The finding that replay content, rate, and duration are unchanged is critical to the paper's claim of dissociation. However, the analysis is restricted to immobility on the track. Given evidence for distinct awake vs. sleep replay, confirming that off-track rest and post-session sleep replays are similarly unaffected would confirm the conclusions of the paper. If these data are unavailable, the limitation should be acknowledged explicitly. Moreover, statistical power for detecting subtle differences in replay organization or spatial bias should be added to the supplement (n of events per animal, variability across sessions).

The exact protocol for optogenetic stimulation is a bit confusing. For the task, the first and final third (66%) of trials were disrupted and were only stimulated when away from the reward well and only when the animal was moving. What proportion of time within "stimulated" trials remained unstimulated? Why were only 66% of trials stimulated?

How can educators create a classroom environment that helps children feel a sense of belonging and agency?

This explains that children may temporarily struggle or regress before mastering new skills, which is a normal part of development.

This sentence emphasizes that play is a powerful way children learn important skills, not just something for fun.

How can educators identify which children may be more sensitive to environmental influences without labeling them?

This sentence explains why early childhood is such an important time for learning and brain development.

This shows that children’s development is shaped by both their biology and their surroundings, not just one or the other.

This explains how inconsistent or missing care can interrupt healthy brain development during early childhood.

This sentence stood out because it shows that a lack of responsive caregiving can have serious long term effects on a child’s growth and health.

This sentence explains how everyday interactions between a child and a caregiver directly support the brain development and showing that learning starts through simple responsive communication.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

The study demonstrates the effectiveness of a cost-effective closed-loop feedback system for modulating brain activity and behavior in head-fixed mice. Authors have tested real-time closed-loop feedback system in head-fixed mice two types of graded feedback: 1) Closed-loop neurofeedback (CLNF), where feedback is derived from neuronal activity (calcium imaging), and 2) Closed-loop movement feedback (CLMF), where feedback is based on observed body movement. It is a python based opensource system, and the authors call it CLoPy. Authors also claim to provide all software, hardware schematics, and protocols to adapt it to various experimental scenarios. This system is capable and can be adapted for a wide use case scenarios.

Authors have shown that their system can control both positive (water drop) and negative reinforcement (buzzer-vibrator). This study also shows that using the closed-loop system, mice have shown to better performance, learnt arbitrary tasks and can adapt to changes in the rules as well. By integrating real-time feedback based on cortical GCaMP imaging and behavior tracking authors have provided strong evidence that such closed-loop systems can be instrumental in exploring the dynamic interplay between brain activity and behavior.

Strengths:

Simplicity of feedback systems design. Simplicity of implementation and potential adoption.

Weaknesses:

Long latencies, due to slow Ca2+ dynamics and slow imaging (15 FPS), may limit the application of the system.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

This manuscript investigates the regulation of host-seeking behavior in Anopheles stephensi females across different life stages and mating states. Through transcriptomic profiling, the authors identify differential gene expression between "blood-hungry" and "blood-sated" states. Two neuropeptides, sNPF and RYamide, are highlighted as potential mediators of host-seeking behavior. RNAi knockdown of these peptides alters host-seeking activity, and their expression is anatomically mapped in the mosquito brain (sNPF and RYamide) and midgut (sNPF only).

Strengths:

(1) The study addresses an important question in mosquito biology, with relevance to vector control and disease transmission.

(2) Transcriptomic profiling is used to uncover gene expression changes linked to behavioral states.

(3) The identification of sNPF and RYamide as candidate regulators provides a clear focus for downstream mechanistic work.

(3) RNAi experiments demonstrate that these neuropeptides are necessary for normal host-seeking behavior.

(4) Anatomical localization of neuropeptide expression adds depth to the functional findings.

Weaknesses:

(1) The title implies that the neuropeptides promote host-seeking, but sufficiency is not demonstrated and some conclusions appear premature based on the current data. The support for this conclusion would be strengthened with functional validation using peptide injection or genetic manipulation.

(2) The identification of candidate receptors is promising, but the manuscript would be significantly strengthened by testing whether receptor knockdowns phenocopy peptide knockdowns. Without this, it is difficult to conclude that the identified receptors mediate the behavioral effects.

(3) Some important caveats, such as variation in knockdown efficiency and the possibility of off-target effects, are not adequately discussed.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary

The paper presents a imaging and analysis pipeline for whole-mount gastruloid imaging with two-photon microscopy. The presented pipeline includes spectral unmixing, registration, segmentation, and a wavelength-depended intensity normalization step, followed by quantitative analysis of spatial gene expression patterns and nuclear morphometry on a tissue level. The utility of the approach is demonstrated by several experimental findings such as establishing spatial correlations between local nuclear deformation and tissue density changes, as well as radial distribution pattern of mesoderm markers. The pipeline is distributed as a Python package, notebooks and multiple napari plugins.

Strengths

The paper is well-written with detailed methodological descriptions, which I think would make it a valuable reference for researchers performing similar volumetric tissue imaging experiments (gastruloids/organoids). The pipeline itself addresses many practical challenges including resolution loss within tissue, registration of large volumes, nuclear segmentation, and intensity normalization. Especially the intensity decay measurements and wavelength-dependent intensity normalization approach using nuclear (Hoechst) signal as reference is very interesting and should be applicable to other imaging contexts. The morphometric analysis is equally well done with the correlation between nuclear shape deformation and tissue density changes being a interesting finding. The paper is quite thorough in its technical description of the methods (which are a lot) and their experimental validation is appropriate. Finally, the provided code and napari plugins seem to be well done (I installed a selected list of the plugins and they ran without issues) and should be very helpful for the community.

Comments on revisions:

The minor issues that I originally raised in my first review have been fully resolved in the revised version.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

In this study, the authors were looking at neurocorrelates of behavioural differences within the genus Macaca. To do so, they engaged in real-world dissection of dead animals (unconnected to the present study) coming from a range of different institutions. They subsequently compare different brain areas, here the amygdala and the hippocampus, across species. Crucially, these species have been sorted according to different levels of social tolerance grades (from 1 to 4). 12 species are represented across 42 individuals. The sampling process has weaknesses ("only half" of the species contained by the genus, and Macaca mulatta, the rhesus macaque, representing 13 of the total number of individuals), but also strengths (the species are decently well represented across the 4 grades) for the given purpose and for the amount of work required here. I will not judge the dissection process as I am not a neuroanatomist, and I will assume that the different interventions do not alter volume in any significant ways / or that the different conditions in which the bodies were kept led to the documented differences across species.

There are two main results of the study. First, in line with their predictions, the authors find that more tolerant macaque species have larger amygdala, compared to the hippocampus that remains undifferentiated across species. Second, they also identify developmental effects, although with different trends: in tolerant species, the amygdala relative volume decreases across the lifespan, while in intolerant species, the contrary occurs. The modifications brought up between the two versions of the article have answered my remarks regarding age/grade/brain area differences.

As such, I think the results are holding strong, but maybe more work is needed with respect to interpretation.<br /> Classification of the social grade, as well as the issue of nature vs nurture have been addressed by the authors, I thank them for this.<br /> I still feel the integration of the amygdala as a common cognitive & emotional center could be possibly more pushed in the discussion, although I acknowledge that it would be complicated to do without knowing how the emotional and social lives of these animals impacted the growth of their amygdala...

Strengths:

Methods & breadth of species tested

Weaknesses:

Interpretations, which, although softened, could still be more integrated with the literature on emotion

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Hensley et al. present an important study into the force-detachment behaviour of kinesin-1, using a newly adapted methodological approach. This new method of DNA-tethered motor trapping is effective in reducing vertical forces and can be easily optimised for other motors and protein characterisation. The major strength of the paper is characterising kinesin-1 under low z-forces, which is likely to reflect the physiological scenario. They find kinesin-1 is more robust and less prone to premature detachment. The motors exhibit higher stall rates and times. Under hindering and assisting loads, kinesin-1 detachment is more asymmetric and sensitive, and with low z-force shows that slip-behaviour kinetics prevail. Another achievement of this paper is the demonstration of the multi-motor kinesin-1 assay using their low-z force method, showing that multiple kinesin-1 motors are capable of generating higher forces (up to 15 pN, and nearly proportional to motor number), thus opening an avenue to study multiple motor coordination. Overall, the data have been collected in a rigorous manner, the new technique is sound and effective, and results presented are compelling.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

The authors describe an interesting study of arm movements carried out in weightlessness after a prolonged exposure to the so-called microgravity conditions of orbital spaceflight. Subjects performed radial point-to-point motions of the fingertip on a touch pad. The authors note a reduction in movement speed in weightlessness, which they hypothesize could be due to either an overall strategy of lowering movement speed to better accommodate the instability of the body in weightlessness or an underestimation of body mass. They conclude for the latter, mainly based on two effects. One, slowing in weightlessness is greater for movement directions with higher effective mass at the end effector of the arm. Two, they present evidence for increased number of corrective submovements in weightlessness. They contend that this provides conclusive evidence to accept the hypothesis of an underestimation of body mass.

Strengths:

In my opinion, the study provides a valuable contribution, the theoretical aspects are well presented through simulations, the statistical analyses are meticulous, the applicable literature is comprehensively considered and cited and the manuscript is well written.

Weaknesses:

I nevertheless am of the opinion that the interpretation of the observations leaves room for other possible explanations of the observed phenomenon, thus weakening the strength of the arguments.

To strengthen the conclusions, I feel that the following points would need to be addressed:

(1) The authors model the movement control through equations that derive the input control variable in terms of the force acting on the hand and treating the arm as a second-order low pass filter (Eq. 13). Underestimation of the mass in the computation of a feedforward command would lead to a lower-than-expected displacement to that command. But it is not clear if and how the authors account for a potential modification of the time constants of the 2nd order system. The CNS does not effectuate movements with pure torque generators. Muscles have elastic properties that depend on their tonic excitation level, reflex feedback and other parameters. Indeed, Fisk et al.* showed variations of movement characteristics consistent with lower muscle tone, lower bandwidth and lower damping ratio in 0g compared to 1g. Could the variations in the response to the initial feedforward command be explained by a misrepresentation of the limbs damping and natural frequency, leading to greater uncertainty to the consequences of the initial command. This would still be an argument for un-adapted feedforward control of the movement, leading to the need for more corrective movements. But it would not necessarily reflect an underestimation of body mass.

*Fisk, J. O. H. N., Lackner, J. R., & DiZio, P. A. U. L. (1993). Gravitoinertial force level influences arm movement control. Journal of neurophysiology, 69(2), 504-511.

While the authors attempt to differentiate their study from previous studies where limb neuromechanical impedance was shown to be modified in weightlessness by emphasizing that in the current study the movements were rapid and the initial movement is "feedforward". But this incorrectly implies that the limb's mechanical response to the motor command is determined only by active feedback mechanisms. In fact:

(a) All commands to the muscle pass through the motor neurons. These neurons receive descending activations related not only to the volitional movement, but also to the dynamic state of the body and the influence of other sensory inputs, including the vestibular system. A decrease in descending influences from the vestibular organs will lower the background sensitivity to all other neural influences on the motor neuron. Thus, the motor neuron may be less sensitive to the other volitional and reflexive synaptic inputs that it may receive.

(b) Muscle tone plays a significant role in determining the force and the time course of the muscle contraction. In a weightless environment, where tonic muscle activity is likely to be reduced, there is the distinct possibility that muscles will react more slowly and with lower amplitude to an otherwise equivalent descending motor command, particularly in the initial moments before spinal reflexes come into play. These, and other neuronal mechanisms could lead to the "under-actuation" effect observed in the current study, without necessarily being reflective of an underestimation of mass per se.

(2) The subject's body in weightless is much more sensitive to reaction forces in interactions with the environment in the absence of the anchoring effect of gravity pushing the body into the floor and in the absence of anticipatory postural adjustments that typically accompany upper-limb motions in Earth gravity in order to maintain an upright posture. The authors dismiss this possibility because the taikonauts were asked to stabilize their bodies with the contralateral hand. But the authors present no evidence that this was sufficient to maintain the shoulder and trunk at a strictly constant position, as is supposed by the simplified biomechanical model used in their optimal control framework. Indeed, a small backward motion of the shoulder would result in a smaller acceleration of the fingertip and a smaller extent of the initial ballistic motion of the hand with respect to the measurement device (the tablet), consistent with the observations reported in the study. Note that stability of the base might explain why 45º movements were apparently less affected in weightlessness, according to many of the reported analyses, including those related to corrective movements (Fig. 5 B, C, F; Fig. 6D), than the other two directions. If the trunk is being stabilized by the left arm, the same reaction forces on the trunk due to the acceleration of the hand will result in less effective torque on the trunk, given that the reaction forces act with a much smaller moment arm with respect to the left shoulder (the hand movement axis passes approximately through the left shoulder for the 45º target) compared to either the forward or rightward motions of the hand.

(3) The above is exacerbated by potential changes in the frictional forces between the fingertip and the tablet. The movements were measured by having the subjects slide their finger on the surface of a touch screen. In weightlessness, the implications of this contact can be expected to be quite different than on the ground. While these forces may be low on Earth, the fact is that we do not know what forces the taikonauts used on orbit. In weightlessness, the taikonauts would need to actively press downward to maintain contact with the screen, while on Earth gravity will do the work. The tangential forces that resist movement due to friction might therefore be different in 0g. . Indeed, given the increased instability of the body and the increased uncertainty of movement direction of the hand, taikonauts may have been induced to apply greater forces against the tablet in order to maintain contact in weightlessness, which would in turn slow the motion of the finger on the table and increase the reaction forces acting on the trunk. This could be particularly relevant given that the effect of friction would interact with the limb in a direction-dependent fashion, given the anisotropy of the equivalent mass at the fingertip evoked by the authors

I feel that the authors have done an admirable job of exploring the how to explain the modifications to movement kinematics that they observed on orbit within the constraints of the optimal control theory applied to a simplified model of the human motor system. While I fully appreciate the value of such models to provide insights into question of human sensorimotor behaviour, to draw firm conclusions on what humans are actually experiencing based only on manipulations of the computational model, without testing the model's implicit assumptions and without considering the actual neurophysiological and biomechanical mechanisms, can be misleading. One way to do this could be to examine these questions through extensions to the model used in the simulations (changing activation dynamics of the torque generators, allowing for potential motion backward motion of the shoulder and trunk, etc.). A better solution would be to emulate the physiological and biomechanical conditions on Earth (supporting the arm against gravity to reduce muscle tone, placing the subject on a moveable base that requires that the body be stabilized with the other hand) in order to distinguish the hypothesis of an underestimation of mass vs. other potential sources of under-actuation and other potential effects of weightlessness on the body.

In sum, my opinion is that the authors are relying too much on a theoretical model as a ground truth and thus overstate their conclusions. But to provide a convincing argument that humans truly underestimate mass in weightlessness, they should consider more judiciously the neurophysiology and biomechanics that fall outside the purview of the simplified model that they have chosen. If a more thorough assessment of this nature is not possible, then I would argue that a more measured conclusion of the paper should be 1) that the authors observed modifications to movement kinematics in weightlessness consistent with an under-actuation for the intended motion, 2) that a simplified model of human physiology and biomechanics that incorporates principles of optimal control suggest that the source of this under-actuation might be an underestimation of mass in the computation of an appropriate feedforward motor command, and 3) that other potential neurophysiological or biomechanical effects cannot be excluded due to limitations of the computational model.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

This study uses large-scale all-atom molecular dynamics simulations to examine the conformational plasticity of the HIV-1 envelope glycoprotein (Env) in a membrane context, with particular emphasis on how the transmembrane domain (TMD), cytoplasmic tail (CT), and membrane environment influence ectodomain orientation and antibody epitope exposure. By comparing Env constructs with and without the CT, explicitly modeling glycosylation, and embedding Env in an asymmetric lipid bilayer, the authors aim to provide an integrated view of how membrane-proximal regions and lipid interactions shape Env antigenicity, including epitopes targeted by MPER-directed antibodies.

Strengths:

A key strength of this work is the scope and realism of the simulation systems. The authors construct a very large, nearly complete Env-scale model that includes a glycosylated Env trimer embedded in an asymmetric bilayer, enabling analysis of membrane-protein interactions that are difficult to capture experimentally. The inclusion of specific glycans at reported sites, and the focus on constructs with and without the CT, are well motivated by existing biological and structural data.

The simulations reveal substantial tilting motions of the ectodomain relative to the membrane, with angles spanning roughly 0-30{degree sign} (and up to ~50{degree sign} in some analyses), while the ectodomain itself remains relatively rigid. This framing, that much of Env's conformational variability arises from rigid-body tilting rather than large internal rearrangements, is an important conceptual contribution. The authors also provide interesting observations regarding asymmetric bilayer deformations, including localized thinning and altered lipid headgroup interactions near the TMD and CT, which suggest a reciprocal coupling between Env and the surrounding membrane.

The analysis of antibody-relevant epitopes across the prefusion state, including the V1/V2 and V3 loops, the CD4 binding site, and the MPER, is another strength. The study makes effective use of existing experimental knowledge in this context, for example, by focusing on specific glycans known to occlude antibody binding, to motivate and interpret the simulations.

Weaknesses:

While the simulations are technically impressive, the manuscript would benefit from more explicit cross-validation against prior experimental and computational work throughout the Results and Discussion, and better framing in the introduction. Many of the reported behaviors, such as ectodomain tilting, TMD kinking, lipid interactions at helix boundaries, and aspects of membrane deformation, have been described previously in a range of MD studies of HIV Env and related constructs (e.g., PMC2730987, PMC2980712, PMC4254001, PMC4040535, PMC6035291, PMC12665260, PMID: 33882664, PMC11975376). Clearly situating the present results relative to these studies would strengthen the paper by clarifying where the simulations reproduce established behavior and where they extend it to more complete or realistic systems.

A related limitation is that the work remains largely descriptive with respect to conformational coupling. Numerous experimental studies have demonstrated functional and conformational coupling between the TMD, CT, and the antigenic surface, with effects on Env stability, infectivity, and antibody binding (e.g., PMC4701381, PMC4304640, PMC5085267). In this context, the statement that ectodomain and TMD tilting motions are independent is a strong conclusion that is not fully supported by the analyses presented, particularly given the authors' acknowledgment that multiple independent simulations are required to adequately sample conformational space. More direct analyses of coupling, rather than correlations inferred from individual trajectories, would help align the simulations with the existing experimental literature. Given the scale of these simulations, a more thorough analysis of coupling could be this paper's most seminal contribution to the field.

The choice of membrane composition also warrants deeper discussion. The manuscript states that it relies on a plasma membrane model derived from a prior simulation-based study, which itself is based on host plasma membrane (PMID: 35167752), but experimental analyses have shown that HIV virions differ substantially from host plasma membranes (e.g., PMC46679, PMC1413831, PMC10663554, PMC5039752, PMC6881329). In particular, virions are depleted in PC, PE, and PI, and enriched in phosphatidylserine, sphingomyelins, and cholesterol. These differences are likely to influence bilayer thickness, rigidity, and lipid-protein interactions and, therefore, may affect the generality of the conclusions regarding Env dynamics and antigenicity. Notably, the citation provided for membrane composition is a laboratory self-citation, a secondary source, rather than a primary experimental study on plasma membrane composition.

Finally, there are pervasive issues with citation and methodological clarity. Several structural models are referred to only by PDB ID without citation, and in at least one case, a structure described as cryo-EM is in fact an NMR-derived model. Statements regarding residue flexibility, missing regions in structures, and comparisons to prior dynamics studies are often presented without appropriate references. The Methods section also lacks sufficient detail for a system of this size and complexity, limiting readers' ability to assess robustness or reproducibility.

With stronger integration of prior experimental and computational literature, this work has the potential to serve as a valuable reference for how Env behaves in a realistic, glycosylated, membrane-embedded context. The simulation framework itself is well-suited for future studies incorporating mutations, strain variation, antibodies, inhibitors, or receptor and co-receptor engagement. In its current form, the primary contribution of the study is to consolidate and extend existing observations within a single, large-scale model, providing a useful platform for future mechanistic investigations.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

This study investigates the characteristics of the autofluorescence signal excited by 740 nm 2-photon excitation, in the range of 420-500 nm, across the Drosophila brain. The fluorescence lifetime (FL) appears bi-exponential, with a short 0.4 ns time constant followed by a longer decay. The lifetime decay and the resulting parameter fits vary across the brain. The resulting maps reveal anatomical landmarks, which simultaneous imaging of genetically encoded fluorescent proteins help identify. Past work has shown that the autofluorescence decay time course reflects the balance of the redox enzyme NAD(P)H vs. its protein bound form. The ratio of free to bound NADPH is thought to indicate relative glycolysis vs. oxidative phosphorylation, and thus shifts in the free-to-bound ratio may indicate shifts in metabolic pathways. The basics of this measure have been demonstrated in other organisms, and this study is the first to use the FLIM module of the STELLARIS 8 FALCON microscope from Leica to measure autofluorescence lifetime in the brain of the fly. Methods include registering brains of different flies to a common template and masking out anatomical regions of interest using fluorescence proteins.

The analysis relies on fitting a FL decay model with two free parameters, f_free and T_bound. F_free is the fraction of the normalized curve contributed by a decaying exponential with a time constant 0.4 ns, thought to represent the FL of free NADPH or NADH, which apparently cannot be distinguished. T_bound is the time constant of the second exponential, with scalar amplitude = (1-f_free). The T_bound fit is thought to represent the decay time constant of protein bound NADPH, but can differ depending on the protein. The study shows that across the brain, T_bound can range from 0 to >5 ns, whereas f_free can range from 0.5 to 0.9 ns (Figure 1a). The paper beautifully lays out the analysis pipeline, providing a valuable resource. The full range of fits are reported, including maximum likelihood quality parameters, and can be benchmarks for future studies.

The authors measure properties of NADPH related autofluorescence of Kenyon Cells (KCs) of the fly mushroom body. The somata and calyx of mushroom bodies have a longer average tau_bound than other regions (Figure 1e); the f_free fit is higher for the calyx (input synapses) region than for KC somata; and the average across flies of average f_free fits in alpha/beta KC somata decreases slightly following paired presentation of odor and shock, compared to unpaired presentation of the same stimuli. Though the change is slight, no comparable change is detected in gamma KCs, suggesting that distributions of f_free derived from FL may be sensitive enough to measure changes in metabolic pathways following conditioning.

FLIM as a method is not yet widely prevalent in fly neuroscience, but recent demonstrations of its potential are likely to increase its use. Future efforts will benefit from the description of the properties of the autofluorescence signal to evaluate how autofluorescence may impact measures of FL of genetically engineered indicators.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

This paper applies a computational model to behavior in a probabilistic operant reward learning task (a 3-armed bandit) to uncover differences between individuals with temporomandibular disorder (TMD) compared with healthy controls. Integrating computational principles and models into pain research is an important direction, and the findings here suggest that TMD is associated with subtle changes in how uncertainty is represented over time as individuals learn to make choices that maximize reward. There are a number of strengths, including the comparison of a volatile Kalman filter (vKF) model to some standard base models (Rescorla Wagner with 1 or 2 learning rates) and parameter recovery analyses suggesting that the combination of task and vKF model may be able to capture some properties of learning and decision-making under uncertainty that may be altered in those suffering from chronic pain-related conditions.

I've focused my comments in four areas: (1) Questions about the patient population, (2) Questions about what the findings here mean in terms of underlying cognitive/motivational processes, (3) Questions about the broader implications for understanding individuals with TMD and other chronic pain-related disorders, and (4) Technical questions about the models and results.

(1) Patient population

This is a computational modelling study, so it is light on characterization of the population, but the patient characteristics could matter. The paper suggests they were hospitalized, but this is not a condition that requires hospitalization per se. It would be helpful to connect and compare the patient characteristics with large-scale studies of TMD, such as the OPPERA study led by Maixner, Fillingim, and Slade.

(2) What cognitive/motivational processes are altered in TMD

The study finds a pattern of alterations in TMD patients that seems clear in Figure 2. Healthy controls (HC) start the task with high estimates of volatility, uncertainty, and learning rate, which drop over the course of the task session. This is consistent with a learner that is initially uncertain about the structure of the environment (i.e., which options are rewarded and how the contingencies change over time) but learns that there is a fixed or slowly changing mean and stationary variance. The TMD patients start off with much lower volatility, uncertainty, and learning rate - which are actually all near 0 - and they remain stable over the course of learning. This is consistent with a learner who believes they know the structure of the environment and ignores new information.

What is surprising is that this pattern of changes over time was found in spite of null group differences in a number of aspects of performance: (1) stay rate, (2) switch rate, (3) win-stay/lose-switch behaviors, (4) overall performance (corrected for chance level), (5) response times, (6) autocorrelation, (7) correlations between participants' choice probability and each option's average reward rate, (7) choice consistency (though how operationalized is not described?), (8) win-stay-lose-shift patterns over time. I'm curious about how the patterns in Figure 2 would emerge if standard aspects of performance are essentially similar across groups (though the study cannot provide evidence in favor of the null). It will be important to replicate these patterns in larger, independent samples with preregistered analyses.

The authors believe that this pattern of findings reveals that TMD patients "maintain a chronically heightened sensitivity to environmental changes" and relate the findings to predictive processing, a hallmark of which (in its simplest form) is precision-weighted updating of priors. They also state that the findings are not related to reduced overall attentiveness or failure to understand the task, but describe them as deficits or impairments in calibrating uncertainty.

The pattern of differences could, in fact, result from differences in prior beliefs, conceptualization of the task, or learning. Unpacking these will be important steps for future work, along with direct measures of priors, cognitive processes during learning, and precision-weighted updating.

(3) Implications for understanding chronic pain

If the findings and conclusions of the paper are correct, individuals with TMD and perhaps other pain-related disorders may have fundamental alterations in the ways in which they make decisions about even simple monetary rewards. The broader questions for the field concern (1) how generalizable such alterations are across tasks, (2) how generalizable they are across patient groups and, conversely, how specific they are to TMD or chronic pain, (3) whether they are the result of neurological dysfunction, as opposed to (e.g.) adaptive strategies or assumptions about the environment/task structure.

It will be important to understand which features of patients' and/or controls' cognition are driving the changes. For example, could the performance differences observed here be attributable to a reduced or altered understanding of the task instructions, more uncertainty about the rules of the game, different assumptions about environments (i.e., that they are more volatile/uncertain or less so), or reduced attention or interest in optimizing performance? Are the controls OVERconfident in their understanding of the environment?

This set of questions will not be easy to answer and will be the work of many groups for many years to come. It is a judgment call how far any one paper must go to address them, but my view is that it is a collaborative effort. Start with a finding, replicate it across labs, take the replicable phenomena and work to unpack the underlying questions. The field must determine whether it is this particular task with this model that produces case-control differences (and why), or whether the findings generalize broadly. Would we see the same findings for monetary losses, sounds, and social rewards? Tasks with painful stimuli instead of rewards?

Another set of questions concerns the space of computational models tested, and whether their parameters are identifiable. An alteration in estimated volatility or learning rate, for example, can come from multiple sources. In one model, it might appear as a learning rate change and in another as a confirmation bias. It would be interesting in this regard to compare the "mechanisms" (parameters) of other models used in pain neuroscience, e.g., models by Seymour, Mancini, Jepma, Petzschner, Smith, Chen, and others (just to name a few).

One immediate next step here could be to formally compare the performance of both patients and controls to normatively optimal models of performance (e.g., Bayes optimal models under different assumptions). This could also help us understand whether the differences in patients reflect deficits and what further experiments we would need to pin that down.<br /> In addition, the volatility parameter in the computational model correlated with apathy. This is interesting. Is there a way to distinguish apathy as a particular clinical characteristic and feature of TMD from apathy in the sense of general disinterest in optimal performance that may characterize many groups?

If we know this, what actionable steps does it lead us to take? Could we take steps to reduce apathy and thus help TMD patients better calibrate to environmental uncertainty in their lives? Or take steps to recalibrate uncertainty (i.e., increase uncertainty adaptation), with benefits on apathy? A hallmark of a finding that the field can build off of is the questions it raises.

(4) Technical questions about the models and results

Clarification of some technical points would help interpret the paper and findings further:

(a) Was the reward probability truly random? Was the random walk different for each person, or constrained?

(b) When were self-report measures administered, and how?

(c) Pain assessments: What types of pain? Was a body map assessed? Widespreadness? Pain at the time of the test, or pain in general?

(d) Parameter recovery: As you point out, r = 0.47 seems very low for recovery of the true quantity, but this depends on noise levels and on how the parameter space is sampled. Is this noise-free recovery, and is it robust to noise? Are the examples of true parameters drawn from the space of participants, or do they otherwise systematically sample the space of true parameters?

(e) What are the covariances across parameter estimates and resultant confusability of parameter estimates (e.g., confusion matrix)?

(f) It would be helpful to have a direct statistical comparison of controls and TMD on model parameter estimates.

(g) Null statistical findings on differences in correlations should not be interpreted as a lack of a true effect. Bayes Factors could help, but an analysis of them will show that hundreds of people are needed before it is possible to say there are no differences with reasonable certainty. Some journals enforce rules around the kinds of language used to describe null statistical findings, and I think it would be helpful to adopt them more broadly.

(h) What is normatively optimal in this task? Are TMD patients less so, or not? The paper states "aberrant precision (uncertainty) weighting and misestimation of environmental volatility". But: are they misestimates?

(i) It's not clear how well the choice of prior variance for all parameters (6.25) is informed by previous research, as sensible values may be task- and context-dependent. Are the main findings robust to how priors are specified in the HBI model?

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

This study found a lobe-specific, lateralized control of hepatic glucose metabolism by the brain and provides anatomical evidence for sympathetic crossover at the porta hepatis. The findings are particularly insightful to the researchers in the field of liver metabolism, regeneration, and tumors.

Strengths:

Increasing evidence suggests spatial heterogeneity of the liver across many aspects of metabolism and regenerative capacity. The current study has provided interesting findings: neuronal innervation of the liver also shows anatomical differences across lobes. The findings could be particularly useful for understanding liver pathophysiology and treatment, such as metabolic interventions or transplantation.

Weaknesses:

Inclusion of detailed method and Discussion:

(1) The quantitative results of PRV-labeled neurons are presented, and please include the specific quantitative methods.

(2) The Discussion can be expanded to include potential biological advantages of this complex lateralized innervation pattern.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

This study addresses the role of MIRO1 in vascular smooth muscle cell proliferation, proposing a link between MIRO1 loss and altered growth due to disrupted mitochondrial dynamics and function. While the findings are useful for understanding the importance of mitochondrial positioning and function in this specific cell type, the main bioenergetic and mechanistic claims are not strongly supported.

Strengths:

This study focuses on an important regulatory protein, MIRO1, and its role in vascular smooth muscle cell (VSMC) proliferation, a relatively underexplored context.

This study explores the link between smooth muscle cell growth, mitochondrial dynamics, and bioenergetics, which is a significant area for both basic and translational biology.

The use of both in vivo and in vitro systems provides a useful experimental framework to interrogate MIRO1 function in this context.

Weaknesses:

The proposed link between MIRO1 and respiratory supercomplex biogenesis or function is not clearly defined.

Completeness and integration of mitochondrial assays is marginal, undermining the strength of the conclusions regarding oxidative phosphorylation.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

This narrative review provides a clear, well-structured, and comprehensive synthesis of intracerebral recording work on the neural correlates of consciousness. It is written in an accessible manner that will be useful to a broad community of researchers, from those new to iEEG to specialists in the field.

Strengths:

The manuscript successfully integrates methodological and theoretical perspectives and offers a balanced overview of current, sometimes contradicting evidence. As such, the manuscript is important as it calls for a concerted and better exploration of NCCs using iEEG in the future.

Weaknesses:

The manuscript extensively discusses the use of "report" as a criterion for identifying conscious perception and its limitations for separating between correlates of consciousness and post-consciousness processes, yet the term is not defined at the outset. The authors should specify what they mean by "report" (e.g., verbal report, nonverbal self-report, or any meta-cognitive indication of experience). Importantly, this definition should be explicitly linked to the theoretical landscape: whether the authors adopt an access-consciousness perspective in which (self) reportability is central, or whether the review also aims to address phenomenal consciousness. Making this conceptual grounding explicit at the beginning will help readers interpret the empirical work surveyed throughout the review.

In addition, the review would benefit from an earlier introduction of the distinction between states and contents of consciousness. This distinction becomes important in the later section on anaesthesia, sleep, and epileptic seizures, where the focus shifts from content-specific NCCs to alterations in global states. Presenting these definitions upfront and briefly explaining how states and contents interact would strengthen the coherence of the manuscript.

Overall, this is an excellent and timely review. With clearer initial theoretical definitions of consciousness, the manuscript will offer an even stronger conceptual framework for interpreting intracerebral studies of consciousness.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

This study aims to provide the first direct neuroimaging evidence relevant to the integration-segregation theory of exogenous attention - a framework that has shaped behavioral research for more than two decades but has lacked clear neural validation. By combining an inhibition-of-return (IOR) paradigm with a modified Stroop task in an optimized event-related fMRI design, the authors examine how attentional integration and segregation processes are implemented at the neural level and how these processes interact with semantic and response conflicts. The central goal is to map the distinct neural substrates associated with integration and segregation and to clarify how IOR influences conflict processing in the brain.

Strengths:

The study is well-motivated, addressing a theoretically important gap in the attention literature by directly testing a long-standing behavioral framework with neuroimaging methods. The experimental approach is creative: integrating IOR with a Stroop manipulation expands the theoretical relevance of the paradigm, and the use of a genetic-algorithm-optimized fMRI design ensures high efficiency. Methodologically, the study is sound, with rigorous preprocessing, appropriate modeling, and analyses that converge across multiple contrasts. The results are theoretically coherent, demonstrating plausible dissociations between integration-related activity in the fronto-parietal attention network (FEF, IPS, TPJ, dACC) and segregation-related activity in medial temporal regions (PHG, STG). The findings advance the field by supplying much-needed neural evidence for the integration-segregation framework and by clarifying how IOR modulates conflict processing.

Weaknesses:

Some interpretive aspects would benefit from clarification, particularly regarding the dual roles ascribed to dACC activation and the circumstances under which PHG and STG are treated as a single versus separate functional clusters. Reporting conventions are occasionally inconsistent (e.g., statistical formatting, abbreviation definitions), which may hinder readability. More detailed reporting of sample characteristics, exclusion criteria, and data-quality metrics-especially regarding the global-variance threshold-would improve transparency and reproducibility. Finally, some limitations of the study, including potential constraints on generalization, are not explicitly acknowledged and should be articulated to provide a more balanced interpretation.

https://makerworld.com/en/models/1470635-remington-typewriter-ribbon-spools

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

Using the approach of Myomatrix recording, the authors report that 1) motor units are recruited differently in the two types of muscles and 2) individual units are probabilistically recruited during the locomotion strides, whereas the population bulk EMG has a more reliable representation of the muscle. Third, the recruitment of units was proportional to walking speed.

Strengths:

The new technique provides a unique dataset, and the data analysis is convincing and well-executed.

Weaknesses:

After the revision, I no longer see any apparent weaknesses in the study.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

In this manuscript, the authors present data on the supposed composition of pulmonary surfactant obtained from bronchoalveolar lavages (BALs) of a small cohort of dolphins, a group of them suffering from pneumonia. The lipid compositional differences of the sample group are consistent with the different pathological situations of the specimens, suggesting that differences in surfactant composition are somehow associated (as a cause or as a consequence) with the particular pathophysiological contexts. It is particularly remarkable that an increase in cardiolipins and plasmalogens appears as an abnormal composition in pathological surfactants. The study is completed by analyzing the differences in membrane properties (order, packing, phase) of abnormal versus "control" membranes, concluding that pneumonia in dolphins is associated with a significant alteration of surfactant membranes that become more rigid, packed and thicker than those in surfactant from animals with no lung disease.

In general terms, the data provided are of interest as they somehow offer a framework of effects that may extend what is known about alterations of composition, biophysical properties and functional performance of pulmonary surfactant as a consequence of respiratory pathologies. A collection of pertinent biophysical methodologies (fluorescence, X-ray scattering, AFM) have been applied to complete a full characterization of membrane properties in the different samples.

However, they way the samples have been processed, i.e. by making organic extracts of hydrophobic (lipid and protein) components before surfactant membranes have been purified or at least, separated from bulk lavage, open the question of how much of the altered composition is actually occurring in surfactant or comes from other membranes (from cells, bacteria) that have been completely intermixed as a consequence of the organic extraction. Without an appropriate surfactant membrane obtention, the results of the study should be taken with caution and await confirmation. Specific questions that need to be considered include:

(1) As said, the direct organic extract of BAL samples ends in a full mix of lipid and protein components that in origin could be part of different membranes, either from different surfactant assemblies, or even from pulmonary cells or membrane debris, or microorganisms, collected within the lavage. Obtaining conclusions about the structure and properties of membranes artefactually reconstituted from such lipid and protein mixtures is far from correct.

It is mentioned that "subsequentially" to the organic extraction, the samples were subjected to ultracentrifugation to separate debris and membrane cells. I do not see what the ultracentrifugation is going to change if it is done after the organic extraction. It should have been done before the extraction, for the organic solvents to solubilize exclusively the large, and relatively light, surfactant membrane complexes.

On the other hand, the ulterior reconstitution of the obtained full lipid mixture surely ends in membrane assemblies whose compositional distribution and organization may differ significantly from those in the original membranes.

Taking all this into account, statements such as "These aggregate forms reproduce the expected membrane microstructures observed in native alveolar hypophase" or "pulmonary membranes can be successfully extracted and reconstituted from BALs of Navy dolphins" are simply not true and should be rephrased.

One can understand that the limitation of material may make it difficult to obtain first the purified surfactant membranes and then their organic extract. However, the limitation should be acknowledged to make the readers clear that the actual compositional effects caused in surfactant by pneumonia need confirmation.

(2) In some of the experiments, i.e. in the AFM characterization, supported membranes were prepared by the spray-dry method applied to organic solutions. Again, the spray-dry of organic lipid solutions ends in a lipid dispersion that may be very far from the real organization of the lipids in actual surfactant membranes.

(3) When stated that phospholipid concentrations are greater in BAL from pinnipeds than in humans, how has the actual concentration been determined? BAL volumes are typically subjected to large variations depending on the conditions used to obtain the lavage (including volume of saline instilled, level of atelectasia in the lung tissue, presence of inflammation and edema, etc). If total amounts of phospholipids in BAL are to be compared, certain normalization procedures should be applied, such as for instance, with respect to the urea concentration in serum.

(4) All the differences regarding membrane phase and lipid order/packing have been interpreted in terms of the potential coexistence of Lbeta (gel)/Lalpha (liquid crystalline) phases. However, it has been well established that in lipid systems containing cholesterol, such as pulmonary surfactant, phase coexistence can actually be of the type liquid-ordered (Lo)/liquid-disordered (Ld), very different in terms of mobility and true molecular order. Why do the authors consider that Lbeta is the phase observed in the surfactant membranes they have reconstituted? The presence of round-shaped domains seems to indicate that a liquid/liquid phase segregation is actually occurring.

(5) In the same line as the previous comment, the authors state that SAXS shows that bovine-extracted pulmonary membranes exhibit a coexistence of two lamellar phases, one rich in unsaturated lipids and one in saturated lipids. SAXS and WAXS cannot provide compositional information, but structural parameters such as membrane thickness, or molecular order. This should be clarified.

(6) It is mentioned that the surfactant monolayer at the air-liquid interface is interconnected to tubular membranous structures (tubular myelin, TM). It is true that TM, when present, appears interconnected with the interface. However, it is widely recognized that there are many other structures connected with the interfacial film, including multilamellar membrane arrays or reservoirs that have not been mentioned here. Furthermore, TM is not required for surfactant function, because it is absent, for instance, in mice lacking expression of surfactant protein SP-A, which can breathe perfectly.

(7) In the Discussion, the authors mention that "...after squeeze-out, the excluded multilayers remain closely associated with the interfacial monolayer rather than escaping into the subphase". The authors may like to complete this discussion by specifying that the stable association of excluded assemblies with the interfacial film is actually possible thanks to the surfactant proteins.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

The paper presents a synaptic mechanism for chunking in working memory, extending previous work of the last author by introducing specialized "chunking clusters", neural populations that can dynamically segment incoming items into chunks. The idea is that this enables hierarchical representations that increase the effective capacity of working memory. They also derive a theoretical bound for working memory capacity based on this idea, suggesting that hierarchical chunking expands the number of retrievable items beyond the basic WM capacity. Finally, they present neural and behavioral data related to their hypothesis.

Strengths

A major strength of the paper is its clear theoretical ambition of developing a mechanistic model of working memory chunking.

Weaknesses

Despite the inspiration in biophysical mechanisms (short-term synaptic plasticity with different time constants), the model is "cartoonish". It is unclear whether the proposed mechanism would work reliably in the presence of noise and non-zero background activity or in a more realistic implementation (e.g., a spiking network).

As far as I know, there is no evidence for cyclic neural activation patterns, which are supposed to limit WM capacity (such as in Figure 1d). In fact, I believe there is no evidence for population bursts in WM, which are a crucial ingredient of the model. For example, Panicello et al. 2024 have found evidence for periods during which working memory decoding accuracy decreases, but no population bursts were observed in their data. In brief, my critique is that including some biophysical mechanism in an abstract model does not make the model plausible per se.

It is claimed that "our proposed chunking mechanism applies to both the persistent-activity and periodic-activity regimes, with chunking clusters serving the same function in each", but this is not shown. If the results and model predictions are the same, irrespective of whether WM is activity-silent or persistent, I suggest highlighting this more and including the corresponding simulations.

The empirical validations of the model are weak. The single-unit analysis is purely descriptive, without any statistical quantification of the apparent dip-ramp pattern. I agree that the dip-ramp pattern may be consistent with the proposed model, but I don't believe that this pattern is a specific prediction of the proposed model. It seems just to be an interesting observation that may be compatible with several network mechanisms involving some inhibition and a rebound.

Moreover, the reanalyses of n-gram behavioral data do not constitute a mechanistic test of the model. The "new magic number" depends strongly on structural assumptions about how chunking operates, and it is unclear whether human working memory uses the specific hierarchical scheme required to achieve the predicted limit.

The presentation of the modeling results is highly compressed in two figures and is rather hard to follow. Plotting the activity of different neural clusters in separate subplots or as heatmaps (x-axis time, y-axis neural population, color = firing rate) would help to clarify (Figure 1d). Also, control signals that activate the chunking clusters should be shown.

Overall, the theoretical proposal is interesting, but its empirical grounding and biological plausibility need to be substantially reinforced.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

This study makes excellent use of a uniquely large dataset of reaching movements collected over several decades to evaluate the origins of systematic motor biases. The analyses convincingly demonstrate that these biases are not explained by errors in sensed hand position or by biomechanical constraints, but instead arise from a misalignment between eye-centric and body-centric representations of position. By testing multiple computational models across diverse contexts-including different effectors, visible versus occluded start positions-the authors provide strong evidence for their transformation model. My earlier concerns have been addressed, and I find the work to be a significant and timely contribution that will be of broad interest to researchers studying visuomotor control, perception, and sensorimotor integration.

Comments on revisions:

None

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

The article studies the origins of cell size random variability in budding yeast. Different strains with different average cell sizes have very similar noise measured using the coefficient of variability defined as the standard deviation over the mean. Manipulating the noise in key variables such as the duration of cell stages, the growth rate or the division strategy (adder, timer, sizer) was not enough to explain the observed noise in mutants. The proposed solution for the origin of most of the cell size noise is related to the asymmetry in the average cell size for cells with two different phenotypes: daughter cells (New cells that have not passed the first division) AND 'Mother cells' (the rest). The origin of the cell size noise is mainly related to the fact that the distributions of these phenotypes have different cell size distributions. The article includes simple statistical methods for hypothesis analysis and explanatory figures.

Strengths:

The article provides different approaches: experimental (mutants and different growth conditions) and computational (simulations) to explain and test the hypothesis. The methods are based on previous articles with simple conclusions and explanations easy to follow.

The rigor level in both mathematical and biological approaches looks fair to me. The terms are well defined and consistent throughout the article. Authors use well-established analysis techniques.

The proposed theoretical analysis is coarse-grained and therefore can explain different strains and mutations using mathematical tools (noise analysis), aiming to reach general (mathematically) claims. This approach strengthens the conclusions and provides a good language to set a bridge between the biological community and mathematicians (quantitative biologists).

The concept that the population heterogeneity (mothers vs daughters) is a fundamental reason behind the cell size variability is not new, but this article presents a clear experimental justification for the development of complete models of cell size regulation. I consider this contribution very relevant to the community modelling cell size.

Weaknesses:

The concept that population heterogeneity (mother and daughters) with different cell size distributions explains the observed size variability in a heterogeneous population. It is not clear how the population composition can affect this heterogeneity. Intuitively, I would expect that the fraction (number of daughters)/(number of mothers) changes in different stages of the population expansion due to the mean duration of both stages can change in different growth conditions. I would suggest studying how different (or not) these fractions are in different conditions. The authors should acknowledge this effect and discuss briefly using, for instance, simple models of random variables addition (adding different fractions of individuals with different cell size distributions) in which cases (different fractions or different means and noises in their respective distribution) their contribution is relevant. Finally. Do different simulations (gradient or sizer, timer) predict different moments (mean and CV) in distributions of both mother size and daughter size?

Related to the previous comment, I would also include the fraction (number of daughters)/(number of mothers) or the percentage in different growth conditions with their respective size moments (mean and CV) to test whether the resultant cell size moments are related to the addition of two variables with different fractions with their respective moments.

It is interesting how the G1 timer and G1 Sizer are located in different quadrants of Figure 4D, while the studied mutants belong to the other quadrant. I expected them to be closer to the G1 timer, similar to that observed in Figure 4G. I think the authors should discuss this dissimilarity.

Although the authors are working using a definite model, other models would predict different results, especially in synthetic data. For instance, the same models for obtaining sizers can predict different noise levels.

Nieto, C. et al., 2024. npj Systems Biology and Applications, 10(1), p.61.

Barber, Felix, et al., Frontiers in cell and developmental biology 5 (2017): 92.

Teimouri, H. et al,.2020. The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, 11(20), pp.8777-8782.

I would mention that the noise level also depends on whether the population has reached steady-state conditions. This would require multiple generations, and measure over at least a couple of thousand cells. Therefore, experiments with single-cell-derived colonies would present different levels of noise than the noise in steady conditions, especially if few cells were sampled. However, I acknowledge that the purpose of the article is not a detailed description of the system but rather the presentation of the concept and for that matter, this level of detail is not mandatory.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

The manuscript investigates the coupling of saccadic eye movements (S) with directed tail flips (T). The remarkable discovery is that tail flips that are preceded by a conjugate sacced (S-T) can be credibly classified as specific "volitional" turns that are distinguished from the standard tail movements that seem to be more of a spontaneous and "impulsive" nature.

They show that 'turning intent', as indicated by a small increase in S, is elevated by aversive odors, while 'gliding intent', as indicated by a decrease in S and an increase in undulation cycles, is elevated by appetitive odors.

This is a very important finding, which is backed up by a thorough behavioral analysis, and the identification of neural populations in the pallium and sub-pallium that clearly distinguish between these kinds of turns is very promising. Here they identify neuronal populations that are preferentially active during - and predictive of - coupled (S-T) versus isolated (T) tail flips.

Especially the fact that S-T turns (but not T turns) can be predicted already by pre-event, ramping, pallial activity is intriguing.

The authors then go on and demonstrate that the frequency of (S-T) turns is modulated in fish exposed to appetitive or aversive odors.<br /> Specifically, they quantify the aversiveness and appetitive-ness of several odors in a free swimming assay. They select a couple of these odors based on their valence, and they demonstrate that these odors induce moderate modulation in the frequency of eye saccades (S) and tail flips (T) and (S-T) turns.

The study is rigorous and thorough, and the findings are informative and novel.

In important controls, they confirm that brain-wide imaging can distinguish between appetitive and aversive contexts, and they show that pallial activation by aversive odors is consistent with neural activity in the rhombencephalon that correlates with turning activity, whereas sub-pallial activation by appetitive odors correlates with rhombencephalic activity related to gliding.

Overall, this manuscript is very good.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Wang et al. report multiple experiments using functional magnetic resonance spectroscopy (fMRS) in a multiple object tracking (MOT) task to investigate the effect of experimentally manipulating a) the number of targets, b) object size, and c) total number of objects in the display on GABA and glutamate (Glx) concentrations in parietal and visual cortex. Data is analyzed in two orthogonal ways throughout: via condition differences in behavorial performance (inverse efficiency), GABA, and Glx concentrations and through correlations between changes in inverse efficiency and GABA or Glx. All three experimental manipulations affected inverse efficiency, with worse performance with more targets, smaller objects, and a larger total number of objects. However, only the manipulation of the target number produced a condition difference in GABA and Glx, with higher concentrations of both in the parietal VOI and only of Glx in the visual VOI with more targets ('high load'). Correlational analyses revealed that participants with a larger change in GABA in the parietal VOI with a higher number of targets showed a smaller drop in behavioral performance with more targets. The opposite direction of correlation was observed for Glx in both the visual and parietal VOI.

In the two control experiments, correlations were only investigated in the parietal VOI. There was a negative correlation between change in Glx and change in inverse efficiency with manipulation of object size, i.e. participants exhibiting a positive change in Glx showed no or little difference in performance, but those with an increase in Glx with smaller targets showed a more pronounced drop in performance. There was no correlation with GABA for the manipulation of object size. For the manipulation of total object number, participants exhibiting an increasing GABA concentration with more objects showed a smaller drop in performance.

The authors' main claim is that GABAergic suppression of goal-irrelevant distractors in parietal cortex is key to goal-directed visual information processing.

The study is, to my knowledge, the first to employ fMRS in an MOT paradigm, and I read it with great interest. I am admittedly not an expert on the fMRS technique and have therefore refrained from commenting on the technical aspects of its use. Although the application of fMRS to MOT is novel and adds new knowledge to the field, I have some critiques and believe that a much more nuanced interpretation of the findings is warranted.

Major

(1) Especially the control experiments lean heavily on Bettencourt and Somers (2009) and adopt and to some extent exaggerate claims from that paper uncritically. This is obvious in referring to the manipulations of object size and object number as high/low enhancement and high/low suppression, as if the association of these physical manipulations of the stimulus display with attentional mechanisms were so obvious and beyond doubt that drawing any distinction between these manipulations and their supposed effects is entirely superfluous. This seems far beyond what is warranted to me. It may seem plausible that adding distractors engages distractor suppression more, but whether this is truly the case is an empirical question, and Bettencourt and Somers (2009) have no direct measure of distractor suppression to substantiate this claim. Their study is purely behavioral, and there is no attempt to assess distractor processing separately. The case for the 'target enhancement' manipulation is even weaker: objects are of a sufficient size and at maximum contrast (white on black screen, but exact details are omitted) to be clearly visible in either condition, so why would smaller objects require more enhancement? Although the present data shows a clear effect of manipulating object size, the corresponding size of the effect in Bettencourt and Somers (2009) is rather underwhelming and does not warrant such a strong conclusion. In summary, the link between the object number and object size manipulations with suppression and enhancement is very far from the 1:1 that the authors seem to assume. Accordingly, I believe that the manipulations should be labelled as object number and object size rather than their hypothesized effects, throughout and that there should be a much more critical discussion as to whether these manipulations are indeed related to these effects as expected.

(2) The author's interpretation of the results seems rather uncritical. What is observed (at least in the first experiment) is a change in GABA and Glx concentrations with changes in the number of tracked targets. Is the only conceivable way in which this could happen through target enhancement and distractor suppression? The processing of targets and distractors is not measured directly, so any claims are indirect, at best. The authors cite the recent 'Ten simple rules to study distractor suppression' paper (Wöstmann et al., 2022), which presents a consensus between leading researchers in the field. Neither Bettencourt & Somers (2009) nor the design of the current study live up to the rules established in that paper, so a much more nuanced interpretation and discussion of the current findings seems warranted. It is anything but obvious to me that the only activity in the parietal cortex that could possibly be suppressed by GABA is the representation of distractors. Indeed, cueing more targets (high load) decreases the number of distractors in the first experiment, so the need for distractor suppression in the high load condition is less than in the low load condition. So, shouldn't we observe lower GABA concentrations in the 'high load' condition?

(3) It seems that the authors included data from both correctly tracked and incorrectly tracked trials in their fMRS analysis. In MOT, attending target objects is the task per se, so task errors indicate that participants did not actually track the targets. So when comparing conditions with different error levels, it is ambiguous whether changes in brain activity reflect the experimental manipulation as such, or rather the different mix of correctly tracked and incorrectly tracked trials that result from this physical manipulation. Are the correlations perhaps driven by the inclusion of different proportions of correctly tracked trials across participants? It seems that the authors may have to separate correct and error trials in the analysis to check for the possibility that effects are due to the inclusion of data from trials in which participants may have stopped tracking at least some of the target objects. Of course, such an analysis is somewhat limited by the fact that only one target was probed, yielding a 50% guessing chance (i.e. even if the response is correct, we do not know whether the other, unprobed, objects were tracked correctly on that trial).

(4) The key findings from the control experiments are purely correlational. The supposed cause may be what the authors claim, but there is an infinity of alternative explanations. Correlational findings cannot simply be interpreted as if they resulted from an experimental manipulation (...although this is, unfortunately, by no means rare in the cognitive neuroscience literature). The authors should make a rigorous effort to consider the most plausible alternative explanations for these correlations and argue why or why not they believe that they can be discounted.

(5) Related to the previous point: the experimental manipulations did not produce mean differences in GABA/Glx in the control experiments. Doesn't this speak against the authors' interpretation? They briefly acknowledge this in the discussion, but I think there is a deeper problem. The absence of these effects casts doubt on what these manipulations actually do, and therefore also on the interpretation of the correlations in these experiments. For example, the authors might also have concluded from the same data that the absence of increased GABA in the 'high suppression' condition refutes the very idea that GABA concentrations are related to distractor suppression.

(6) 'Inverse Efficiency' is a highly unusual measure of MOT performance in the literature, and its use reduces the comparability of the findings with previous work. The standard is to assess the correctness ('accuracy') of responses with no focus on speed. This makes sense as responses are given after the object motion has stopped. At the same time, reaction time can be informative too (e.g., Störmer et al., 2013). I think the authors should justify their use of inverse efficiency as the dependent variable.

(7) The choice of variable names is problematic: it is sometimes misleading and makes understanding the findings harder (see also points 1 and 6): obvious, unambiguous, and importantly, interpretation free names for conditions such as target number (2/4), object size (small/large), and total object number (8/12) become load (high/low), target enhancement (high/low) and distractor suppression (low/high). This reduces clarity and, especially in the case of enhancement and suppression, conflates the actual manipulation with its interpretation.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

In this study, Miyatake et al. present the interesting finding that ectopic expression of miR-195 in EBF1-deficient hematopoietic progenitor cells can partially rescue their developmental block and allows B cells to progress to a B220+ CD19+ cells stage. Notably, this is accompanied by an upregulation of B cell specific genes and, correspondingly, a downregulation of T, myeloid and NK lineage-related genes, suggesting that miR-195 expression is at least in part equivalent to EBF1 activity in orchestrating the complex gene regulatory network underlying B cell development. Strengthening this point, ATAC sequencing of miR-195-expressing EBF1-deficient B220+CD19+ cells and a comparison of these data to public datasets of EBF1-deficient and -proficient cells suggest that miR-195 indirectly regulates gene expression and chromatin accessibility of some, but not all regions regulated by EBF1.

Mechanistically, the authors identify a subset of potential target genes of miR-195 involved in MAPK and PI3K signalling. Dampening of these pathways has previously been demonstrated to activate FOXO1, a key transcription factor for early B cells downstream of EBF1. Accordingly, the authors hypothesize that miR-195 exerts its function through FOXO1. Supporting this claim, also exogenous FOXO1 expression is able to promote the development of EBF1-deficient cells to the B220+CD19+ stage and thus recapitulates the miR-195 phenotype.

Strengths:

The strength of the presented study is the detailed assessment of the altered chromatin accessibility in response to ectopic miR-195 expression. This provides insight into how miR-195 impacts on the gene regulatory network that governs B cell development and allows the formation of mechanistic hypotheses.

Weaknesses:

The key weakness of this study is that its findings are based on the artificial and ectopic expression of a miRNA out of its normal context, which in my opinion strongly limits the biological relevance of the presented work.

While the authors performed qPCRs for miR-195 on different B cell populations and show that its relative expression peaks in early B cells, it remains unclear whether the absolute miR-195 expression is sufficiently high to have any meaningful biological activity. In fact, other miRNA expression data from immune cells (e.g. DOI 10.1182/blood-2010-10-316034 and DOI 10.1016/j.immuni.2010.05.009) suggest that miR-195 is only weakly, if at all, expressed in the hematopoietic system.<br /> Update to this part after revision: The authors now state in the discussion that their study does not aim to uncover and characterize a physiological role of miR-195 in lymphocytes development, but rather reveals "the potential of miR-195 to compensate for EBF1 deficiency". However, in my opinion, the absence of any physiological context still limits this study's relevance.

The authors support their finding by a CRISPR-derived miR-195 knockout mouse model which displays mild but significant differences in the hematopoietic stem cell compartment and in B cell development. However, they fail to acknowledge and discuss a lymphocyte-specific miR-195 knockout mouse that does not show any B cell defects in the bone marrow or spleen and thus contradicts the authors' findings (DOI 10.1111/febs.15493). Of note, B-1 B cells in particular have been shown to be elevated upon loss of miR-15-16-1 and/or miR-15b-16-2, which contradicts the data presented here for loss of the family member miR-195.

A second weakness is that some claims by the authors appear overstated or at least not fully backed up by the presented data. In particular, the findings that miR-195-expressing cells can undergo VDJ recombination, express the pre-BCR/BCR and can class switch need to be strengthened. It would be beneficial to include additional controls to these experiments, e.g. a RAG-deficient mouse as a reference/negative control for the ddPCR and the surface IgM staining, and cells deficient in class switching for the IgG1 flow cytometric staining.

Moreover, the manuscript would be strengthened by a more thorough investigation of the hypothesis that miR-195 promotes the stabilization and activity of FOXO1, e.g. by comparing the authors' ATACseq data to the FOXO1 signature.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

In this manuscript, authors used a learning paradigm in C. elegans; when worms were fed in a saltless plate, its chemotaxis to salt is greatly reduced. To identify learning-related proteins, authors employed nervous system-specific transcriptome analysis to compare whole proteins in neurons between high-salt-fed animals and saltless-fed animals. Authors identified "learning-specific proteins" which are observed only after saltless feeding. They categorized these proteins by GO analyses, pathway analyses and expression site analyses, and further stepped forward to test mutants in selected genes identified by the proteome analysis. They find several mutants that are defective or hyper-proficient for learning, including acc-1/3 and lgc-46 acetylcholine receptors, F46H5.3 putative arginine kinase, and kin-2, a cAMP pathway gene. These mutants were not previously reported to have abnormality in the learning paradigm.

Concerns:

Upon revision, authors addressed all concerns of this reviewer, and the results are now presented in a way that facilitates objective evaluation. Authors' conclusions are supported by the results presented, and the strength of the proteomics approach is persuasively demonstrated.

Significance:

(1) Total neural proteome analysis has not been conducted before for learning-induced changes, though transcriptome analysis has been performed for odor learning (Lakhina et al., http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2014.12.029). This warrants the novelty of this manuscript, because for some genes, protein levels may change even though mRNA levels remain the same. Although in a few reports TurboID has been used in C. elegans, this is the first report of a systematic analysis of tissue-specific differential proteomics.

(2) Authors found five mutants that have abnormality in the salt learning. These genes have not been described to have the abnormality, providing novel knowledge to the readers, especially those who work on C. elegans behavioural plasticity. Especially, involvement of acetylcholine neurotransmission has not been addressed before. Although transgenic rescue experiments have not been performed except kin-2, and the site of action (neurons involved) has not been tested in this manuscript, it will open the venue to further determine the way in which acetylcholine receptors, cAMP pathway etc. influences the learning process.

[Editors' note: this version has been assessed without input from the reviewers.]

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

In this manuscript titled "The PPE protein of Mycobacterium tuberculosis is responsible for the development of hyperglycemia and insulin resistance during tuberculosis", Bisht et al describe that PPE2 protein from Mtb is a key modulator of adipose tissue physiology that contributes to the development of insulin resistance. The authors have used 3T3-L1 preadipocyte cell lines, M. smegmatis overexpression strain, mice model, and genetically modified Mtb deletion strains to demonstrate that PPE promotes persistence in adipose tissue and regulates glucose homeostasis. Using qPCR and RNA-seq experiments, the authors demonstrate that PPE2 regulates the expression of key genes involved in adipogenesis.

Strengths:

Using purified protein, the authors show that PPE2 regulates adipose tissue physiology, and this effect was neutralised in the presence of anti-PPE2. The expression of several adipogenic markers was also reduced in 3TL-1 adipocytes treated with rPPE2 and in mice infected with M. smegmatis strains overexpressing PPE2. Using a mouse model of infection, the authors show that PPE2 contributes to enhanced mycobacterial survival within fat tissues. The authors also show infiltration of immune cells in the fat tissues of mice infected with wild-type and ppe2-complemented strains compared to the ppe2 KO strain. In order to gain a better mechanistic understanding of how PPE2 regulates adipogenesis, the authors employed an RNA-seq approach and identified 191 genes that were significantly differentially expressed in the fat tissues of mice infected with wild-type and ppe2 KO Mtb strains. The differentially expressed genes included transcripts encoding for proteins involved in chemokine/cytokine signalling, ER stress response. The expression of a few of these markers was also validated by qPCR and western blot analysis. Finally, the authors also show that PPE2 promotes lipolysis by reducing phosphodiesterase levels and activating PKA-HSL signalling. The experimental design is overall reasonable, and the methods used are reliable. Overall, the current study did provide some new information on the contribution of PPE2 in regulating adipose tissue physiology.

Weaknesses:

(1) The authors have used several methodologies to show that PPE2 regulates adipose tissue physiology and glucose homeostasis. But the exact mechanism is still not clear.

(2) Mtb encodes several PE/PPE proteins? The authors have used PPE2 for their study. Will secretory PPE2 homologs also regulate similar cellular processes?

(3) How do the authors rule out that the differences observed in the fat tissues of mice infected with wild-type and mutant strains are not associated with reduced bacterial burdens? Is it possible to include another Mtb attenuated strain as a control in mice experiments for few critical experiments?

DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2025.11.009

Resource: (ZFIN Cat# ZDB-ALT-080321-3,RRID:ZFIN_ZDB-ALT-080321-3)

Curator: @scibot

SciCrunch record: RRID:ZFIN_ZDB-ALT-080321-3

What is this?

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

The authors have developed and interactive knowledge-base that uses crowdsourcing information on antibodies and reagents for immunofluorescence imaging.

Strengths:

The authors provide an extremely relevant and needed interphase for collaboration through a well-built platform. All the links in their website work, the information provided, reagents, datasets, videos and protocols are very informative. The instructions for the community researchers to contribute is clear and they provide detailed instructions in how to technically proceed. Additionally, the interface has been refined to enable the contribution regardless of the computational expertise of the researcher.

Weaknesses:

The Knowledge-Base relies on community contributions without mandatory, standardized metadata and validation criteria. Whilst this enhances the contributions, it limits the reliability of the database.

Interesting example of a digital tool mimicking a well known analog tool for its user interface.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

This is a retrospective analysis of 53 individuals over 26 features (12 clinical phenotypes, 12 CGM features, and 2 autocorrelation features) to examine which features were most informative in predicting percent necrotic core (%NC) as parameter for coronary plaque vulnerability. Multiple regression analysis demonstrated a better ability to predict %NC from 3 selected CGM derived features than 3 selected clinical phenotypes. LASSO regularization and partial least squares (PLS) with VIP scores were used to identify 4 CGM features that most contribute to the precision of %NC. Using factor analysis they identify 3 components that have CGM related features: value (relating to the value of blood glucose), variability (relating to glucose variability), and autocorrelation (composed of the two autocorrelation features). These three groupings appeared in the 3 validation cohorts and when performing hierarchical clustering. To demonstrate how these three features change, a simulation was created to allow the user to examine these features under different conditions.

Summary of Revision 1. This is a Valuable study supported by Solid evidence. The revisions meaningfully strengthen the manuscript by clarifying methods, improving transparency, and refining presentation. The work provides useful conceptual and methodological advances for understanding CGM-derived glucose dynamics and their possible relationship to cardiovascular pathology.

Strengths:

The authors have provided a much clearer exposition of how each glycemic component was defined and validated across cohorts. The revised manuscript now includes explicit pairwise correlations, clarified p- and q-value reporting, and better visualization of key associations between CGM indices and %NC. The justification for LASSO and PLS use is now well explained, and additional details on cohort timing relative to PCI, validation dataset structure, and statistical robustness (e.g., VIP stability with covariates) address prior concerns. The inclusion of precise factor definitions and clearer graphics notably improves interpretability.

Limitations:

Some limitations remain inherent to the study design, including the modest primary sample size, reliance on retrospective data, and differences between validation datasets in outcome ascertainment. However, these are now acknowledged more openly.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

The researchers performed a genetic screen to identify a protein, ZNF-236, which belongs to the zinc finger family, and is required for repression of heat shock inducible genes. The researchers applied a new method to map the binding sites of ZNF-236, and based on the data, suggested that the protein does not repress genes by directly binding to their regulatory regions targeted by HSF1. Insertion of a reporter in multiple genomic regions indicates that repression is not needed in repetitive genomic contexts. Together, this work identifies ZNF-236, a protein that is important to repress heat-shock-responsive genes in the absence of heat shock.

Strengths:

A hit from a productive genetic screen was validated, and followed up by a series of well-designed experiments to characterize how the repression occurs. The evidence that the identified protein is required for the repression of heat shock response genes is strong.

Weaknesses:

The researchers propose and discuss one model of repression based on protein binding data, which depends on a new technique and data that are not fully characterized.

Major Comments:

(1) The phrase "results from a shift in genome organization" in the abstract lacks strong evidence. This interpretation heavily relies on the protein binding technique, using ELT-2 as a positive and an imperfect negative control. If we assume that the binding is a red herring, the interpretation would require some other indirect regulation mechanism. Is it possible that ZNF-236 binds to the RNA of a protein that is required to limit HSF-1 and potentially other transcription factors' activation function? In the extrachromosomal array/rDNA context, perhaps other repressive mechanisms are redundant, and thus active repression by ZNF-236 is not required. This possibility is mentioned in one sentence in the discussion, but most of the other interpretations rely on the ZNF-236 binding data to be correct. Given that there is other evidence for a transcriptional role for ZNF-236, and no negative control (e.g. deletion of the zinc fingers, or a control akin to those done for ChIP-seq (like a null mutant or knockdown), a stronger foundation is needed for the presented model for genome organization.

(2) Continuing along the same line, the study assumes that ZNF-236 function is transcriptional. Is it possible to tag a protein and look at localization? If it is in the nucleus, it could be additional evidence that this is true.

(3) I suggest that the authors analyze the genomic data further. A MEME analysis for ZNF-236 can be done to test if the motif occurrences are enriched at the binding sites. Binding site locations in the genome with respect to genes (exon, intron, promoter, enhancer?) can be analyzed and compared to existing data, such as ATAC-seq. The authors also propose that this protein could be similar to CTCF. There are numerous high-quality and high-resolution Hi-C data in C. elegans larvae, and so the authors can readily compare their binding peak locations to the insulation scores to test their hypothesis.

(4) The researchers suggest that ZNF-236 is important for some genomic context. Based on the transcriptomic data, can they find a clue for what that context may be? Are the ZNF-236 repressed genes enriched for not expressed genes in regions surrounded by highly expressed genes?

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

This paper reports new findings regarding neuronal circuitries responsible for female post-mating responses (PMRs) in Drosophila. The PMRs are induced by sex peptide (SP) transferred from males during mating. The authors sought to identify SP target neurons using a membrane-tethered SP (mSP) and a collection of GAL4 lines, each containing a fragment derived from the regulatory regions of the SPR, fru, and dsx genes involved in PMR. They identified several lines that induced PMR upon expression of mSP. Using split-GAL4 lines, they identified distinct SP-sensing neurons in the central brain and ventral nerve cord. Analyses of pre- and post-synaptic connection using retro- and trans-Tango placed SP target neurons at the interface of sensory processing interneurons that connect to two common post-synaptic processing neuronal populations in the brain. The authors proposed that SP interferes with the processing of sensory inputs from multiple modalities.

Strengths:

Besides the main results described in the summary above, the authors discovered the following:

(1) Reduction of receptivity and induction of egg-laying are separable by restricting the expression of membrane-tethered SP (mSP): head-specific expression of mSP induces reduction of receptivity only, whereas trunk-specific expression of mSP induces oviposition only. Also, they identified a GAL4 line (SPR12) that induced egg laying but did not reduce receptivity.

(2) Expression of mSP in the genital tract sensory neurons does not induce PMR. The authors identified three GAL4 drivers (SPR3, SPR 21, and fru9), which robustly expressed mSP in genital tract sensory neurons but did not induce PMRs. Also, SPR12 does not express in genital tract neurons but induces egg laying by expressing mSP.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

This paper investigates the role of Chi3l1 in regulating the fate of liver macrophages in the context of metabolic dysfunction leading to the development of MASLD. I do see value in this work, but some issues exist that should be addressed as well as possible.

Here are my comments:

(1) Chi3l1 has been linked to macrophage functions in MASLD/MASH, acute liver injury, and fibrosis models before (e.g., PMID: 37166517), which limits the novelty of the current work. It has even been linked to macrophage cell death/survival (PMID: 31250532) in the context of fibrosis, which is a main observation from the current study.

(2) The LysCre-experiments differ from experiments conducted by Ariel Feldstein's team (PMID: 37166517). What is the explanation for this difference? - The LysCre system is neither specific to macrophages (it also depletes in neutrophils, etc), nor is this system necessarily efficient in all myeloid cells (e.g., Kupffer cells vs other macrophages). The authors need to show the efficacy and specificity of the conditional KO regarding Chi3l1 in the different myeloid populations in the liver and the circulation.

(3) The conclusions are exclusively based on one MASLD model. I recommend confirming the key findings in a second, ideally a more fibrotic, MASH model.

(4) Very few human data are being provided (e.g., no work with own human liver samples, work with primary human cells). Thus, the translational relevance of the observations remains unclear.

Comments on revisions:

The authors have done a thorough job addressing my comments. However, I am not convinced about the MCD diet model, which is somewhat hidden in the Supplementary Files. Neither seems MASH different nor are any fibrosis data shown to support the conclusions. I am not satisfied with this part of the revised manuscript, and I do not agree that the second MASH model would support the conclusions.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

In the revised version of the manuscript authors addressed multiple comments, clarifying especially the methodological part of their work and PLC identification as a novel morphological feature of the adult liver portal veins. Tet is now also much clearer and has better flow.

The additional assessment of the smartSeq2 data from Pietilä et al., 2025 strengthens the transcriptomic profiling of the CD34+Sca1+ cells and the discussion of the possible implications for the liver homeostasis and injury response. Why it may suffer from similar bias as other scRNA seq datasets - multiple cell fate signatures arising from mRNA contamination from proximal cells during dissociation, it is less likely that this would happen to yield so similar results.

Nevertheless, a more thorough assessment by functional experimental approaches is needed to decipher the functional molecules and definite protein markers before establishing the PLC as the key hub governing the activity of biliary, arterial, and neuronal liver systems.

The work does bring a clear new insight into the liver structure and functional units and greatly improves the methodological toolbox to study it even further, and thus fully deserves the attention of the Elife readers.

Strengths:

The authors clearly demonstrate an improved technique tailored to the visualization of the liver vasulo-biliary architecture in unprecedented resolution.

This work proposes a new morphological feature of adult liver facilitating interaction between the portal vein, hepatic arteries, biliary tree, and intrahepatic innervation, centered at previously underappreciated protrusions of the portal veins - the Periportal Lamellar Complexes (PLCs).

Weaknesses:

The importance of CD34+Sca1+ endothelial cell subpopulation for PLC formation and function was not tested and warrants further validation.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

Li et al. investigated the prevalence of acetylated and phosphorylated histones (using H3K9ac, H4K12ac, H3S10ph & H4S1ph as representative examples) across the gene body of human HEK293T cells, as well as mapping elongating Pol II and mRNA. They found that histone acetylation and phosphorylation were dominant in gene bodies of actively transcribing genes. Genes with acetylation/phosphorylation restricted to the promoter region were also observed. Furthermore, they investigated and reported a correlation between histone modifications and Pol II activity, finding that inhibition of Pol II activity reduced acetylation/phosphorylation levels, while resuming Pol II activity restored them. The authors then proposed a model in which pan-acetylation or pan-phosphorylation of histones generates fragile nucleosomes; the first round of transcription is accompanied by pan-acetylation, while subsequent rounds are accompanied by pan-phosphorylation.

Strengths:

This study addresses a highly significant problem in gene regulation. The author provided riveting evidence that certain histone acetylation and/or phosphorylation within the gene body is correlated with Pol II transcription. The author furthermore made a compelling case that such transcriptionally correlated histone modification is dynamic and can be regulated by Pol II activity. This work has provided a clearer view of the connection between epigenetics and Pol II transcription.

Weaknesses:

The title of the manuscript, "Fragile nucleosomes are essential for RNA Polymerase II to transcribe in eukaryotes", suggests that fragile nucleosomes lead to transcription. While this study shows a correlation between histone modifications in gene bodies and transcription elongation, a causal relationship between the two has not been demonstrated.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

This work proposes DASM, a new transformer-based approach to learning the distribution of antibody sequences which outperforms current foundational models at the task of predicting mutation propensities under selected phenotypes, such as protein expression levels and target binding affinity. The key ingredient is the disentanglement, by construction, of selection-induced mutational effects and biases intrinsic to the somatic hypermutation process (which are embedded in a pre-trained model).

Strengths:

The approach is benchmarked on a variety of available datasets and for two different phenotypes (expression and binding affinity). The biologically informed logic for model construction implemented is compelling, and the advantage, in terms of mutational effects prediction, is clearly demonstrated via comparisons to state-of-the-art models.

Weaknesses:

The gain in interpretability is only mentioned but not really elaborated upon or leveraged for gaining insight. The following aspects could have been better documented: the hyperparametric search to establish the optimal model; the predictive performance of baseline approaches, to fully showcase the gain yielded by DASM.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

In this manuscript, Moss et al. demonstrate that Hsp70 phosphorylation at a conserved threonine residue integrates DNA damage responses with cell-cycle control. The authors present unbiased biochemical, cell-based, and yeast genetic analyses showing that phosphorylation of human Hsp70 at T495 (and the analogous Ssa1 T492 in yeast) is triggered by base-excision-repair intermediates and downstream DDR kinase activity, leading to delayed G1/S progression after DNA damage. They used orthogonal approaches such as ATPase assays, phospho-specific detection, kinase-inhibition studies, synchronization experiments, and phenotypic analyses of phosphomutants. They presented robust data that collectively supported the conclusion that dynamic Hsp70 phosphorylation functions as a conserved "molecular brake" to prevent inappropriate S-phase entry under genotoxic stress. However, there are a few minor questions and clarifications that the authors are well-positioned to address.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

This study evaluates the contributions of the mammalian PG-binding protein PGLYRP1 to Bordetella infection. The authors find potential roles for PGLYRP1 in both bacterial killing (canonical) and regulation of inflammation (non-canonical). While these are interesting findings and the idea that PG fragment release has differential impacts on infection depending on fragment structure, the study is limited by the lack of connection between the in vivo and in vitro experiments, and determining the precise mechanism of how PGLYRP1 regulates host responses and bacterial fitness during infection requires further study.

Strengths:

(1) The combination of scRNAseq with in vitro and in vivo assays provides complementary views of PGLYRP1 function during infection.

(2) The use of TCT-deficient B. pertussis provides a useful control and perturbation in the in vitro assays.

Weaknesses:

(1) The study does not ultimately resolve the initial early versus late phenotype divergence. While the in vitro assays suggest explanations for their in vivo observations, further mechanistic links are lacking and necessary for the author's conclusions throughout. To state one example, what is the early and late infection phenotype of TCT- Bp in mice lacking PGLYRP1? RNAseq data are reported from these mice, but there are no burden or pathology studies. Furthermore, what are the neutrophil phenotypes (NOD-1/TREM-1 activation) in vivo? And are they dependent on PGLYRP1 and/or TCT?

(2) It is unclear whether or how the NOD1 and TREM-1 pathways interact.

(3) Many of the study's conclusions rely on the use of HEK293 reporter lines in the absence of bacterial infection, which may not be physiologically representative.

(4) The methods lack detail overall, and the experimental procedures should be described more concretely, especially for the scRNAseq datasets.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

The paper is well written and well presented. The topic is important, and its significance is explained succinctly and accurately. I am only capable of reviewing the clinical aspects of this work, which is very largely technical in nature. Several clinical points are worth considering:

(1) Tendons typically display large magic angle effects as a result of their highly ordered collagen structure (cortical bone much less so), and so it would have been of interest to know what orientation the tendons had to B 0 (in vitro and in vivo). This could affect the signal level at the longer echo time and thus the signal on the subtracted images.

(2) The in vivo transverse image looks about mid-forearm, where tendons are not prominent. A transverse image of the lower forearm, where there is an abundance of tendons, might have been preferable.

(3) The in vivo images show the interosseous membrane as a high signal on both the shorter and longer TE images. The structure contains ordered collagen with fibres at different oblique angles to the radius and ulnar, and thus potentially to B 0. Collagen fibres may have been at an orientation towards the magic angle, and this may account for the high signal on the longer TE image and the low signal on the subtracted image.

(4) Some of the signals attributed to the muscle may be from an attachment of the muscle to the aponeurosis.

(5) There is significant collagen in subcutaneous tissues, so the designation "skin" may more correctly be "skin and subcutaneous tissue".

(6) Cortical bone is very heterogeneous, with boundaries between hard bone and soft tissue with significant susceptibility differences between the two across a small distance. This might be another mechanism for ultrashort T 2 * tissue values in addition to the presence of collagen. The two effects might be distinguished by also including a longer TE spin echo acquisition.

Solid cortical bone may also have an ultrashort T 2 * in its own right.

(7) It may be worth noting that in disease T 2 * may be increased. As a result, the subtraction image may make abnormal tissue less obvious than normal tissue. Magic angle effects may also produce this appearance.

(8) It may be worth distinguishing fibrous connective tissue (loose or dense), which may be normal or abnormal, from fibrosis, which is an abnormal accumulation of fibrous connective tissue in damaged tissue. Fibrosis typically has a longer T 2 initially and decreases its T 2 * over time. In places, the context suggests that fibrous connective tissue may be more appropriate than fibrosis.

Overall, the paper appears very well constructed and describes thoughtful and important work.

Post #200 – The Corona 3 tripod<br /> by [[Scott K]] in The Filthy Platen on 2014-12-21<br /> accessed on 2025-12-30T15:29:02

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

Clarke et al. investigate the role of subjective representations of task-based statistical structure on choice accuracy and reaction times during perceptual decision-making. Subjective representations of objective statistical structure are often overlooked in studies of predictive processing and, consequently, little is known about their role in predictive phenomena. By gauging the subjective experience of stimulus probability, expectedness, and surprise in tasks with fixed cue-stimulus contingencies, the authors aimed to separate subjective and objective (task-induced) contributions to predictive effects on behaviour.

Across three different experiments, subjective and objective contributions to predictions were found to explain unique portions of variance in reaction time data. In addition, choice accuracy was best predicted by subjective representations of statistical structure in isolation. These findings reveal that the subjective experience of statistical regularities may play a key role in the predictive processes that shape perception and cognition.

Strengths:

This study combines careful and thorough behavioral experimentation with an innovative focus on subjective experience in predictive processing. By collecting three independent datasets with different perceptual decision-making paradigms, the authors provide converging evidence that subjective representations of statistical structure explain unique variance in behavior beyond objective task structure. The analysis strategy, which directly contrasts the contributions of subjective and objective predictors, is conceptually rigorous and allows clear insight into how subjective and objective influences shape behavior. The methods are consistently applied across all three datasets and produce coherent results, lending strong support to the authors' conclusions. The study emphasizes the critical role of subjective experience in predictive processing, with implications for understanding learning, perception, and decision-making.

Weaknesses:

Despite these strengths, there are several conceptual and technical issues that should be addressed. In Experiments 2 and 3, the authors use a Rescorla-Wagner (RW) learning model to estimate trialwise expectedness (Experiment 2) and surprise (Experiment 3). While the RW model is a well-established model for explaining learning behaviour, it does not represent the objective 'ground truth' statistical structure of the environment, and treating RW trajectories as such imposes assumptions about learning that may not match participants' actual behavior. This assumption could strongly affect the comparison between subjective and 'objective' predictors. It would strengthen the primary conclusions of the manuscript if other implementations of the objective statistical structure, such as the true task-defined probabilities (i.e., 25% or 75%), were considered to provide a complementary 'ground truth' perspective.

Additionally, because objective statistical structure was predictive of subjective ratings in all three experiments, these predictors are likely collinear in the full model. Collinearity can lead to inflated standard errors and unstable coefficient estimates, even if the models converge. Currently, this potential critical problem of the applied statistical models is not assessed, reported on, or controlled for (e.g., by residualizing predictors). RW trajectories are also not reported in the manuscript, limiting the ability to assess how the model evolves over time and whether it maps onto the task-induced probabilities in a sensible way. This is particularly relevant because participants' subjective estimates of the task-induced probabilities seem to converge to the ground truth after just a few trials, especially for the 75% stimuli (Figure 3C).

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary

This study aims to overcome key limitations of single-cell RNA-seq in C. elegans neurons-especially the under-detection of lowly expressed and non-polyadenylated transcripts and residual contamination-by integrating bulk RNA-seq from FACS-isolated neuron types with an existing scRNA-seq atlas. The authors introduce LittleBites, an iterative, reference-guided decontamination algorithm that uses a single-cell reference together with ground-truth reporter datasets to optimize subtraction of contaminating signal from bulk profiles. They then generate an "Integrated" dataset that combines the sensitivity of bulk data with the specificity of scRNA-seq and use it to call neuron-specific expression for protein-coding genes, "rescued" genes not detected in scRNA-seq, and multiple classes of non-coding RNAs across 53 neuron classes. All data, code, and thresholded matrices are made publicly available to enable community reuse.

Strengths

(1) Conceptual advance and useful resource. The work demonstrates in a concrete way how bulk and single-cell datasets can be combined to overcome the weaknesses of each approach, and delivers a high-resolution transcriptomic resource for a substantial fraction of C. elegans neuron classes . The integrated matrices, thresholded expression calls, and non-coding RNA catalog will be useful both for basic neurobiology and for method developers.

(2) Careful benchmarking and transparency. The revised manuscript includes extensive benchmarking of LittleBites and the Integrated dataset against multiple independent "ground-truth" sets: neuron-specific reporter lines, curated non-neuronal markers, and ubiquitous genes. The authors evaluate AUROCs over a wide range of thresholds, explain ROC/AUROC metrics for non-specialists, and quantify how integration affects both sensitivity and specificity relative to scRNA-seq alone.

(3) Improved methodological clarity. In response to review, the authors now provide a much more intuitive description of the LittleBites algorithm, including a stepwise explanation of (1) contamination estimation via NNLS using single-cell references, (2) weighted subtraction tuned by a learning-rate parameter, and (3) performance optimization based on AUROC against ground-truth genes. this makes the approach accessible to readers who are not computational specialists and will facilitate re-implementation.

(4) Systematic analysis of reference dependence. The authors explicitly address the concern that LittleBites depends on the completeness and accuracy of the scRNA-seq reference. They examine how performance varies with cluster size and by simulated degradation of the reference (e.g., reducing the number of cells per cluster), and show that AUROCs remain robust, but that gene-level assignments are more variable for clusters represented by fewer cells. This is an important and honest characterization of when the method is reliable and when users should be cautious.

(5) Additional biological context. The manuscript now more clearly situates the dataset in the context of previous and ongoing work. In particular, the authors highlight that other groups have already used these bulk data to discover and validate cell-type-specific alternative splicing events, strengthening the case that the data are biologically meaningful beyond the immediate analyses presented here. The expanded analysis of non-coding RNAs and GPCR pseudogenes also adds biological interest.

(6) Improved handling and documentation of "unexpressed" genes. The authors have trimmed the original list of 4,440 genes called "unexpressed" in scRNA-seq to a higher-confidence subset and provide new supplementary tables that include gene identities and tissue annotations. They also use a curated set of non-neuronal markers to estimate residual contamination and show that most such markers are not detected in the integrated data, with only a small number of apparent false positives remaining.

Weaknesses

(1) Novel assignments remain predictive rather than experimentally validated. Although the authors have strengthened their benchmarking and refer to external work that validates some splicing patterns from these data, the large sets of newly assigned lowly expressed genes and non-coding RNAs-particularly those rescued from the "unexpressed" gene pool-are still inferred from computational criteria (thresholding plus correlation-based decontamination) rather than direct orthogonal assays (e.g., smFISH, in situ hybridization, or reporter lines). This is understandable given scale and cost, but it means that many of these calls should be interpreted as well-supported predictions, not definitive expression maps. The revised manuscript acknowledges this, and a dedicated "Limitations of this study" subsection will further clarify this point for readers.

(2) Reduced stability for neuron types with sparse single-cell representation. The authors' new analyses show that while integration improves overall correlation and AUROC across a wide range of neuron types, gene-level assignments are less stable for neuron classes represented by relatively few cells in the scRNA-seq reference. For such neuron types, both false negatives and false positives are more likely, and users should be cautious when interpreting cell-type-specific expression differences based solely on these calls.

(3) Residual contamination and misclassification are not completely eliminated. Despite the careful design of LittleBites and the additional correlation-based decontamination of "unexpressed" genes, the authors' benchmarking against curated non-neuronal markers shows that a small fraction of putative non-neuronal genes remains detectable even at stricter thresholds, and some bona fide neuronal genes are removed as likely contaminants. The new supplementary tables documenting "unexpressed" genes and their tissue annotations, together with explicit statements about residual error rates and the predictive nature of these classifications, help users to judge the reliability of specific genes, but they also underscore that the dataset is not a perfect ground truth.

(4) Scope and coverage remain incomplete. As the authors note, the dataset covers 53 neuron classes and does not fully represent all 302 neurons or all known neuron subtypes. In addition, bulk samples represent pools of neurons, and so the approach cannot resolve within-class heterogeneity or subtype-specific expression within those pools. These are inherent limitations of the current experimental design rather than flaws in the analysis, but they are important for readers to keep in mind when using the resource.

Overall, the revised manuscript presents solid evidence for the main methodological and resource claims, with clearly articulated limitations. The work is likely to have valuable impact on the C. elegans community and provides a template for integrating bulk and single-cell data in other systems.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

The manuscript introduces a visual paradigm aimed at studying trans-saccadic memory.

The authors observe how memory of object location is selectively impaired across eye movements, whereas object colour memory is relatively immune to intervening eye movements.<br /> Results are reported for young and elderly healthy controls, as well as PD and AD participants.

A computational model is introduced to account for these results, indicating how early differences in memory encoding and decay (but not trans-saccadic updating per se) can account for the observed differences between healthy controls and clinical groups.

Strengths:

The data presented encompasses healthy and elderly controls, as well as clinical groups.

The authors introduce an interesting modelling strategy, aimed at isolating and identifying the main components behind the observed pattern of results.

Weaknesses:

The models tested differ in terms of the number of parameters. In general, a larger number of parameters leads to a better goodness of fit. It is not clear how the difference in the number of parameters between the models was taken into account.

It is not clear whether the modelling results could be influenced by overfitting (it is not clear how well the model can generalize to new observations).

Results specificity: it is not clear how specific the modelling results are with respect to constructional ability (measured via the Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure test). As with any cognitive test, performance can also be influenced by general, non-specific abilities that contribute broadly to test success.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

This study provides novel insights into how individuals regulate the speed of their movements both alone and in pairs, highlighting consistent differences in movement vigor across people and showing that these differences can adapt in dyadic contexts. The findings are significant because they reveal stable individual patterns of action that are flexible when interacting with others, and they suggest that multiple factors, beyond reward sensitivity, may contribute to these idiosyncrasies. The evidence is generally strong, supported by careful behavioral measurements and appropriate modeling, though clarifying some statistical choices and including additional measures of accuracy and smoothness would further strengthen the support for the conclusions.

Major Comments:

(1) Given the idiosyncrasies in individual vigor, would linear mixed models (LMMs) be more appropriate than ANOVAs in some analyses (e.g., in the section "Solo session"), as they can account for random intercepts and slopes on vigor measures? Some figures (e.g., Figure 2.B and 3.E) indeed seem to show that some aspects of behaviour may present variability in slopes and intercepts across participants. In fact, I now realize that LMMs are used in the "Emergence of dyadic vigor from the partners' individual vigor" section, so could the authors clarify why different statistical approaches were applied depending on the sections?

(2) If I understand correctly, the introduction suggests that idiosyncrasies in movement vigor may be driven by inter-individual differences in reward sensitivity. However, the current task does not involve any explicit rewards, yet the authors still observe idiosyncrasies in vigor, which is interesting. Could this indicate that other factors contribute to these consistent individual differences? For example, could sensitivity to temporal costs or physical effort explain the slow versus fast subgrouping? Specifically, might individuals more sensitive to temporal costs move faster to minimize opportunity costs, and might those less sensitive to effort costs also move faster? Along the same lines, could the two subgroups (slow vs. fast) be characterized in terms of underlying computational "phenotypes," such as their sensitivities to time and effort? If this is not feasible with the current dataset, it would still be valuable to discuss whether these factors could plausibly account for the observed patterns, based on existing literature.

(3) The observation that dyads did not lose accuracy or smoothness despite changes in vigor is interesting and suggests a shift in the speed-accuracy tradeoff. Could the authors include accuracy and smoothness measures in the main figures rather than only in supplementary materials? I think it would make the manuscript more complete.

(4) It is a bit unclear to me whether the variance assumptions for ANOVAs were checked, for instance, in Figure 3H.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary

Boccato et al. present an ambitious and thoughtfully developed framework, SynaptoGen, which proposes a differentiable model of synaptogenesis grounded in gene-expression vectors, protein interaction probabilities, and conductance rules. The authors aim to bridge the gap between computational connectomics and synthetic biological intelligence by enabling gradient-based optimization of genetically encoded circuit architectures. They support this goal with mathematical derivations, simulation experiments across several RL benchmarks, and a biologically grounded validation using C. elegans adhesion-molecule co-expression data. The paper is timely and conceptually compelling, offering a unified formulation of synaptic multiplicity and synaptic weight formation that can be integrated directly into learning systems.

Strengths

(1) Well-motivated framework with clear conceptual contributions.

(2) Rigorous mathematical development.

(3) Compelling empirical validation.

(4) Excellent framing and discussion of future impact.

Weaknesses

(1) Overstated claims in the abstract and discussion.

(2) Ambiguity in "first of its kind" assertions.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

Guy et al. explored the variation in the pathogenicity of carboxy-terminal frameshift deletions in the X-linked MECP2 gene. Loss-of-function variants in MECP2 are associated with Rett syndrome, a severe neurodevelopmental disorder. Although 100's of pathogenic MECP2 variants have been found in people with Rett syndrome, 8 recurrent point mutations are found in ~65% of disease cases, and frameshift insertions/deletions (indels) variants resulting in production of carboxy-terminal truncated (CTT) MeCP2 protein account for ~10% of cases. Many of these occur in a "deletion prone region" (DPR) between c.1110-1210, with common recurrent deletions c.1157-1197del (CTD1) and c.1164_1207del (CTD2). While two major protein functional domains have been defined in MeCP2, the methyl-binding domain (MBD) and the NCoR interacting domain (NID), the functional role of the carboxy-terminal domain (CTD, beyond the NID, predicted to have a disordered protein structure) has not been identified, and previous work by this group and others demonstrated that a Mecp2 "minigene" lacking the CTD retains MeCP2 function suggesting that the CTD is dispensable. This raises an important question: If the CTD is dispensable, what is the pathogenic basis of the various CTT frameshift variants? Prior work from this group demonstrated that genetically engineered mice expressing the CTD1 variant had decreased expression of Mecp2 RNA and MeCP2 protein and decreased survival, but those expressing the CTD2 variant had normal Mecp2 RNA and protein and survival. However, they noted that differences between the mouse and human coding sequences resulted in different terminal sequences between the two common CTD, with CTD1 ending in -PPX in both mouse and human, but CTD2 ending in -PPC in human but -SPX in mouse, and in the previous paper they demonstrated in humanized mouse ES cells (edited to have the same -PPX termination) containing the CTD2 deletion resulted in decreased Mecp2 RNA and protein levels. This previous work provides the underlying hypotheses that they sought to explore, which is that the pathological basis of disease causing CTD relates to the formation of truncated proteins that end with a specific amino acid sequence (-PPX), which leads to decreased mRNA and protein levels, whereas tolerated, non-pathogenic CTD do not lead to production of truncated proteins ending in this sequence and retain normal mRNA/protein expression.

In this manuscript, they evaluate missense variants, in-frame deletions, and frame shift deletions within the DPR from the aggregated Genome Aggregated Database (gnomAD) and find that the "apparently" normal individuals within gnomAD had numerous tolerated missense variants and in-frame deletions within this region, as well as frameshift deletions (in hemizygous males) in the defined region. All of the gnomAD deletions within this region resulted in terminal amino acid sequences -SPRTX (due to +1 frameshift), whereas nearly all deletion variants in this region from people with Rett syndrome (from the Clinvar copy of the former RettBase database) had a terminal -PPX sequence, due to a +2 frameshift. They hypothesized that terminal proline codons causing ribosomal stalling and "nonsense mediated decay like" degradation of mRNA (with subsequent decreased protein expression) was the basis of the specific pathogenicity of the +2 frameshift variants, and that utilizing adenine base editors (ABE) to convert the termination codon to a tryptophan could correct this issue. They demonstrate this by engineering the change into mouse embryonic stem cell lines and mouse lines containing the CTD1 deletion and show that this change normalized Mecp2 mRNA and protein levels and mouse phenotypes. Finally, they performed an initial proof-of-concept in an inducible HEK cell line and showed the ability of targeted ABE to edit the correct adenine and cause production of the expected larger truncated Mecp2 protein from CTD1 constructs.

The findings of this manuscript provide a level of support for their hypothesis about the pathogenicity versus non-pathogenicity of some MECP2 CTT intragenic deletions and provide preliminary evidence for a novel therapeutic approach for Rett syndrome; however, limitations in their analysis do not fully support the broader conclusions presented.

Strengths:

(1) Utilization of publicly available databases containing aggregated genetic sequencing data from adult cohorts (gnomAD) and people with Rett syndrome (Clinvar copy of RettBase) to compare differences in the composition of the resulting terminal amino acid sequences resulting from deletions presumed to be pathogenic (n+2) versus presumed to be tolerated (n+1).

(2) Evaluation of a unique human pedigree containing an n+1 deletion in this region that was reported as pathogenic, with demonstration of inheritance of this from the unaffected father and presence within other unaffected family members.

(3) Development of a novel engineered mouse model of a previously assumed n+1 pathogenic variant to demonstrate lack of detrimental effect, supporting that this is likely a benign variant and not causative of Rett syndrome.

(4) Creation and evaluation of novel cell lines and mouse models to test the hypothesis that the pathogenicity of the n+2 deletion variants could be altered by a single base change in the frameshifted stop codon.

(5) Initial proof-of-concept experiments demonstrating the potential of ABE to correct the pathogenicity of these n+2 deletion variants.

Weaknesses:

(1) While the use of the large aggregated gnomAD genetic data benefits from the overall size of the data, the presence of genetic variants within this collection does not inherently mean that they are "neutral" or benign. While gnomAD does not include children, it does include aggregated data from a variety of projects targeting neuropsychiatric (and other conditions), so there is information in gnomAD from people with various medical/neuropsychiatric conditions. The authors do make some acknowledgement of this and argue that the presence of intragenic deletion variants in their region of interest in hemizygous males indicates that it is highly likely that these are tolerated, non-pathogenic variants. Broadly, it is likely true that gnomAD MECP2 variants found in hemizygous males are unlikely to cause Rett syndrome in heterozygous females, it does not necessarily mean that these variants have no potential to cause other, milder, neuropsychiatric disorders. As a clear example, within gnomAD, there is a hemizygous male with the rs28934908 C>T variant that results in p.A140V (p.A152V in e1 transcript numbering convention). This pathogenic variant has been found in a number of pedigrees with an X-linked intellectual disability pattern, in which males have a clear neurodevelopmental disorder and heterozygous females have mild intellectual disability (see PMIDs 12325019, 24328834 as representative examples of a large number of publications describing this). Thus, while their claim that hemizygous deletion variants in gnomAD are unlikely to cause Rett syndrome, that cannot make the definitive statement that they are not pathogenic and completely benign, especially when only found in a very small number of individuals in gnomAD.

(2) The authors focus exclusively on deletions within the "DPR", they define as between c.1110-1210 and say that these deletions account for 10% of Rett syndrome cases. However, the published studies that are the basis for this 10% estimate include all genetic variants (frameshift deletions, insertions, complex insertion/deletions, nonsense variants) resulting in truncations beyond the NID. For example, Bebbington 2010 (PMID: 19914908), which includes frameshift indels as early as c.905 and beyond c.1210. Further specific examples from RettBase are described below, but the important point is that their evaluation of only frameshift variants within c.1110-1210 is not truly representative of the totality of genetic variants that collectively are considered CTT and account for 10% of Rett cases.

(3) The authors say that they evaluated the putative pathogenic variants contained within RettBase (which is no longer available, but the data were transferred to Clinvar) for all cases with Classic Rett syndrome and de novo deletion variants within their defined DPR domain. Looking at the data from the Clinvar copy of RettBase, there are a number (n=143) of c-terminal truncating variants (either frameshift or nonsense) present beyond the NID, but the authors only discuss 14 deletion frameshift variants in this manuscript. A number of these variants have molecular features that do not fall into the pathogenic classification proposed by the authors and are not addressed in the manuscript and do not support the generalization of the conclusions presented in this manuscript, especially the conclusion that the determination of pathogenicity of all c-terminal truncating variants can be determined according to their proposed n+2 rule, or that all of the 10% of people with Rett syndrome and c-terminal truncating variants could be treated by using a base editor to correct the -PPX termination codon.

(4) The HEK-based system utilized is convenient for doing the initial experiments testing ABE; however, it represents an artificial system expressing cDNA without splicing. Canonical NMD is dependent on splicing, and while non-canonical "NMD-like" processes are less well understood, a concern is whether the artificial system used can adequately predict efficacy in a native setting that includes introns and splicing.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

This paper reports on an association between body size and the occurrence of species in cities, which is quantified using an 'urban score' that can be visualized as a 'Species Urbanness Distribution' for particular taxa. The authors use species records from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) and link the occurrence data to nighttime lighting quantified using satellite data (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite-VIIRS). They link the urban score to body size data to find 'heterogeneous relationship between body size and urban tolerance across the tree'. The results are then discussed with reference to potential mechanisms that could possibly produce the observed effects (cf. Figure 1).

Strengths:

The novelty of this study lies in the huge number of species analyzed and the comparison of results among animal taxa, rather than in a thorough analysis of what traits allow species to persist under urban conditions. Such analyses have been done using a much more thorough approach that employs presence-absence data as well as a suite of traits by other studies, for example, in (Hahs et al. 2023, Neate-Clegg et al. 2023). The dataset that the authors produced would also be very valuable if these raw data were published, both the cleaned species records as well as the body sizes.

The paper could strongly add to our understanding of what species occur in cities when the open questions are addressed.

Weaknesses:

I value the approach of the authors, but I think the paper needs to be revised.

In my view, the authors could more carefully validate their approach. Currently, any weakness or biases in the approach are quickly explained away rather than carefully explored. This concerns particularly the use of presence-only data, but also the calculation of the urban score.

The vast majority of data in GBIF is presence-only data. This produces a strong bias in the analysis presented in the paper. For some taxa, it is likely that occurrences within the city are overrepresented, and for other taxa, the opposite is true (cf. Sweet et al. 2022). I think the authors should try to address this problem.

The authors should compare their results to studies focusing on particular taxa where extensive trait-based analyses have already been performed, i.e., plants and birds. In fact, I strongly suggest that the authors should compare their results to previous studies on the relationship between traits, including body size and occurrences along a gradient of urbanisation, to draw conclusions about the validity of the approach used in the current study, which has a number of weaknesses.

They should be be more careful in coming up with post-hoc explanations of why the pattern found in this study makes sense or suggests a particular mechanism. This reviewer considers that there is no way in which the current study can disentangle the different possible mechanisms without further analyses and data, so I would suggest pointing out carefully how the mechanisms could be studied

More details should be given about the methodology. The readers should be able to understand the methods without having to read a number of other papers.

References:

Hahs, A. K., B. Fournier, M. F. Aronson, C. H. Nilon, A. Herrera-Montes, A. B. Salisbury, C. G. Threlfall, C. C. Rega-Brodsky, C. A. Lepczyk, and F. A. La Sorte. 2023. Urbanisation generates multiple trait syndromes for terrestrial animal taxa worldwide. Nature Communications 14:4751.

Neate-Clegg, M. H. C., B. A. Tonelli, C. Youngflesh, J. X. Wu, G. A. Montgomery, Ç. H. Şekercioğlu, and M. W. Tingley. 2023. Traits shaping urban tolerance in birds differ around the world. Current Biology 33:1677-1688.

Sweet, F. S. T., B. Apfelbeck, M. Hanusch, C. Garland Monteagudo, and W. W. Weisser. 2022. Data from public and governmental databases show that a large proportion of the regional animal species pool occur in cities in Germany. Journal of Urban Ecology 8:juac002.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

The manuscript by Qui et al. explores the issue of spatial learning in both local (rooms) and global (connected rooms) environments. The authors perform a pointing task, which involves either pressing the right or left button in the scanner to indicate where an object is located relative to another object. Participants are repeatedly exposed to rooms over sessions of learning, with one "pre" and one "post" learning session. The authors report that the hippocampus shifted from lower to higher RSA for the global but not the local environment after learning. RSC and OFC showed higher RSA for global object pointing. Other brain regions also showed effects, including ACC, which seemed to show a similar pattern as the hippocampus, as well as other regions shown in Figure S5. The authors attempt to tie their results in with local vs. global spatial representations.

Strengths:

Extensive testing of subjects before and after learning a spatial environment, with data suggesting that there may be fMRI codes sensitive to both global and local codes. Behavioral data suggest that subjects are performing well at the task and learning both global and local object locations, although see further comments.

Weaknesses:

(1) The authors frame the entire introduction around confirming the presence of the cognitive map either locally or globally. There are some significant issues with this framing. For one, the introduction appears to be confirmatory and not testing specific hypotheses that can be falsified. What exactly are the hypotheses being tested? I believe that this relates to the testing whether neural representations are global and/or local. However, this is not clear. Given that a previous paper (Marchette et al. 2014 Nature Neuro, which bears many similarities) showed only local coding in RSC, this paper needs to be discussed in far more depth in terms of its similarities and differences. This paper looked at both position and direction, while the current paper looks at direction. Even here, direction in the current study is somewhat impoverished: it involves either pointing right or left to an object, and much of this could be categorical or even lucky guesses. From what I could tell, all behavioral inferences are based on reaction time and not accuracy, and therefore, it is difficult to determine if the subject's behavior actually reflects knowledge gained or simply faster reaction time, either due to motor learning or a speed-accuracy trade-off. The pointing task is largely egocentric: it can be solved by remembering a facing direction and an object relative to that. It is not the JRD task as has been used in other studies (e.g., Huffman et al. 2019 Neuron), which is continuous and has an allocentric component. This "version" of the task would be largely egocentric. In this way, the pointing task used does not test the core tenets of the cognitive map during navigation, which is defined as allocentric and Euclidean (please see O'Keefe and Nadel 1978, The Hippocampus as a Cognitive Map). Since neither of these assumptions appears valid, the paper should be reframed to reflect spatial representations more broadly or even egocentric spatial representations.

(2) The fMRI data workup is insufficient. What do the authors mean by "deactivations" in Figure 3b? Does this mean the object task showed more activation than the spatial task in HSC? Given that HSC is one of these regions, this would seem to suggest that the hippocampus is more involved in object than spatial processing, although it is difficult to tell from how things are written. The RSA is more helpful, but now a concern is that the analysis focuses on small clusters that are based on analyses determined previously. This appears to be the case for the correlations shown in Figure 3e as well. The issues here are several-fold. For one, it has been shown in previous work that basing secondary analyses on related first analyses can inflate the risk of false positives (i.e., Kriegeskorte et al. 2009 Nature Neuro). The authors should perform secondary analyses in ways that are unbiased by the first analyses, preferably, selecting cluster centers (if they choose to go this route) from previous papers rather than their own analyses. Another option would be to perform analyses at the level of the entire ROI, meaning that the results would generalize more readily. The authors should also perform permutation tests to ensure that the RSA results are reliable, as these can run the risk of false positives (e.g., Nolan et al. 2018 eNeuro). If these results hold, the authors should perform post-hoc (corrected) t-tests for global vs. local before and after learning to ensure these differences are robust and not simply rely on the interaction effect. The figures were difficult to follow in this regard, and an interaction effect does not necessarily mean the differences that are critical (global higher than local after) are necessarily significant. The end part of the results was hard to follow. If ACC showed a similar effect to HC and RSC, why is it not being considered? Many other areas that seemed to show local vs. global effects were dismissed, but these should instead be discussed in terms of whether they are consistent or inconsistent with the hypotheses.

(3) Concerns about the discussion: there are areas involving reverse inference about brain areas rather than connecting the findings with hypotheses (see Poldrack et al. 2006 Trends in Cognitive Science). The authors also argue for 'transfer" of information (for example, from ACC to OFC), but did not perform any connectivity analyses, so these conclusions are not based on any results. Instead, the authors should carefully compare what can be concluded from the reaction time findings and the fMRI data. What is consistent vs. inconsistent with the hypotheses? The authors should also provide a much more detailed comparison with past work. The Marchette et al. paper comes to different conclusions regarding RSC and involves more detailed analyses than those done here, including position. What is different in the current paper that might explain the differences in results? Another previous paper that came to a different conclusion (hippocampus local, retrosplenial global) and should be carefully considered and compared, as it also involved learning of environments and comparisons at different phases (e.g., Wolbers & Buchel 2005 J Neuro). Other papers that have used the JRD task have demonstrated similar, although not identical, networks (e.g., Huffman et al. 2019 Neuron) and the results here should be more carefully compared, as the current task is largely egocentric while the Huffman et al. paper involves a continuous and allocentric version of the JRD task.

(4) The authors cite rodent papers involving single neuron recordings. These are quite different experiments, however: they involve rodents, the rodents are freely moving, and single neurons are recorded. Here, the study involves humans who are supine and an indirect vascular measure of neural activity. Citations should be to studies of spatial memory and navigation in humans using fMRI: over-reliance on rodent studies should be avoided for the reasons mentioned above.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

The manuscript by Chaya and Syed focuses on understanding the link between cell cycle and temporal patterning in central brain type II neural stem cells (NSCs). To investigate this, the authors perturb the progression of the cell cycle by delaying the entry into M phase and preventing cytokinesis. Their results convincingly show that temporal factor expression requires progression of the cell cycle in both Type 1 and Type 2 NSCs in the Drosophila central brain. Overall, this study establishes an important link between the two timing mechanisms of neurogenesis.

Strengths:

The authors provide solid experimental evidence for the coupling of cell cycle and temporal factor progression in Type 2 NSCs. The quantified phenotype shows an all-or-none effect of cell cycle block on the emergence of subsequent temporal factors in the NSCs, strongly suggesting that both nuclear division and cytokinesis are required for temporal progression. The authors also extend this phenotype to Type 1 NSCs in the central brain, providing a generalizable characterization of the relationship between cell cycle and temporal patterning.

Weaknesses:

One major weakness of the study is that the authors do not explore the mechanistic relationship between cell cycle and temporal factor expression. Although their results are quite convincing, they do not provide an explanation as to why Cdk1 depletion affects Syp and EcR expression but not the onset of svp. This result suggests that at least a part of the temporal cascade in NSCs is cell-cycle independent which isn't addressed or sufficiently discussed.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

Overall, this is a well-done study, and the conclusions are largely supported by the data, which will be of interest to the field.

Strengths:

Strengths of this study include experiments with solution NMR that can resolve high-resolution interactions of the highly flexible C-terminal tail of arr2 with clathrin and AP2. Although mainly confirmatory in defining the arr2 CBL 376LIELD380 as the clathrin binding site, the use of the NMR is of high interest (Fig. 1). The 15N-labeled CLTC-NTD experiment with arr2 titrations reveals a span from 39-108 that mediates an arr2 interaction, which corroborates previous crystal data, but does not reveal a second area in CLTC-NTD that in previous crystal structures was observed to interact with arr2.

SEC and NMR data suggest that full-length arr2 (1-418) binding with 2-adaptin subunit of AP2 is enhanced in the presence of CCR5 phospho-peptides (Fig. 3). The pp6 peptide shows the highest degree of arr2 activation, and 2-adaptin binding, compared to less phosphorylated peptide or not phosphorylated at all. It is interesting that the arr2 interaction with CLTC NTD and pp6 cannot be detected using the SEC approach, further suggesting that clathrin binding is not dependent on arrestin activation. Overall, the data suggest that receptor activation promotes arrestin binding to AP2, not clathrin, suggesting the AP2 interaction is necessary for CCR5 endocytosis.

To validate the solid biophysical data, the authors pursue validation experiments in a HeLa cell model by confocal microscopy. This requires transient transfection of tagged receptor (CCR5-Flag) and arr2 (arr2-YFP). CCR5 displays a "class B"-like behavior in that arr2 is rapidly recruited to the receptor at the plasma membrane upon agonist activation, which forms a stable complex that internalizes onto endosomes (Fig. 4). The data suggest that complex internalization is dependent on AP2 binding not clathrin (Fig. 5).

The addition of the antagonist experiment/data adds rigor to the study.

Overall, this is a solid study that will be of interest to the field.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

After salamander limb amputation, the cross-section of the stump has two major axes: anterior-posterior and dorsal-ventral. Cells from all axial positions (anterior, posterior, dorsal, ventral) are necessary for regeneration, yet the molecular basis for this requirement has remained unknown. To address this gap, Yamamoto et al. took advantage of the ALM assay, in which defined positional identities can be combined on demand and their effects assessed through the outgrowth of an ectopic limb. They propose a compelling model in which dorsal and ventral cells communicate by secreting Wnt10b and Fgf2 ligands respectively, with this interaction inducing Shh expression in posterior cells. Shh was previously shown to induce limb outgrowth in collaboration with anterior Fgf8 (PMID: 27120163). Thus, this study completes a concept in which four secreted signals from four axial positions interact for limb patterning. Notably, this work firmly places dorsal-ventral interactions upstream of anterior-posterior, which is striking for a field that has been focussed on anterior-posterior communication. The ligands identified (Wnt10b, Fgf2) are different to those implicated in dorsal-ventral patterning in the non-regenerative mouse and chick models. The strength of this study is in the context of ALM/ectopic limb engineering. Although the authors attempt to assay the expression of Wnt10b and Fgf2 during limb regeneration after amputation, they were unable to pinpoint the precise expression domains of these genes beyond 'dorsal' and 'ventral' blastema. Given that experimental perturbations were not performed in regenerating limbs - almost exclusively under ALM conditions - this author finds the title "Dorsoventral-mediated Shh induction is required for axolotl limb regeneration" a little misleading.

Strengths:

(1) The ALM and use of GFP grafts for lineage tracing (Figures 1-3) take full advantage of the salamander model's unique ability to outgrow patterned limbs under defined conditions. As far as I am aware, the ALM has not been combined with precise grafts that assay 2 axial positions at once, as performed in Figure 3. The number of ALMs performed in this study deserves special mention, considering the challenging surgery involved.

(2) The authors identify that posterior Shh is not expressed unless both dorsal and ventral cells are present. This echoes previous work in mouse limb development models (AER/ectoderm-mesoderm interaction) but this link between axes was not known in salamanders. The authors elegantly reconstitute dorsal-ventral communication by grafting, finding that this is sufficient to trigger Shh expression (Figure 3 - although see also section on Weaknesses).

(3) Impressively, the authors discovered two molecules sufficient to substitute dorsal or ventral cells through electroporation into dorsal- or ventral- depleted ALMs (Figure 5). These molecules did not change the positional identity of target cells. The same group previously identified the ventral factor (Fgf2) to be a nerve-derived factor essential for regeneration. In Figure 6, the authors demonstrate that nerve-derived factors, including Fgf2, are alone sufficient to grow out ectopic limbs from a dorsal wound. Limb induction with a 3-factor cocktail without supplementing with other cells is conceptually important for regenerative engineering.

(4) The writing style and presentation of results is very clear.

Overall appraisal:

This is a logical and well-executed study that creatively uses the axolotl model to advance an important framework for understanding limb patterning. The relevance of the mechanisms to normal limb regeneration are not yet substantiated, in the opinion of this reviewer. Additionally, Wnt10b and Fgf2 should be considered molecules sufficient to substitute dorsal and ventral identity (solely in terms of inducing Shh expression). It is not yet clear whether these molecules are truly necessary (loss of function would address this).

Comments on revisions:

Congratulations - I still find this an elegant and easy-to-read study with significant implications for the field! Linking your mechanisms to normal limb regeneration (i.e. regenerating blastema, not ALM), as well as characterising the cell populations involved, will be interesting directions for the future.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

This work presents a novel neural network-based framework for parameterizing individual differences in human behavior. Using two distinct decision-making experiments, the author demonstrates the approach's potential and claims it can predict individual behavior (1) within the same task, (2) across different tasks, and (3) across individuals. While the goal of capturing individual variability is compelling and the potential applications are promising, the claims are weakly supported, and I find that the underlying problem is conceptually ill-defined.

Strengths:

The idea of using neural networks for parameterizing individual differences in human behavior is novel, and the potential applications can be impactful.

Weaknesses:

(1) To demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach, the authors compare a Q-learning cognitive model (for the MDP task) and RTNet (for the MNIST task) against the proposed framework. However, as I understand it, neither the cognitive model nor RTNet is designed to fit or account for individual variability. If that is the case, it is unclear why these models serve as appropriate baselines. Isn't it expected that a model explicitly fitted to individual data would outperform models that do not? If so, does the observed superiority of the proposed framework simply reflect the unsurprising benefit of fitting individual variability? I think the authors should either clarify why these models constitute fair control or validate the proposed approach against stronger and more appropriate baselines.

(2) It's not very clear in the results section what it means by having a shorter within-individual distance than between-individual distances. Related to the comment above, is there any control analysis performed for this? Also, this analysis appears to have nothing to do with predicting individual behavior. Is this evidence toward successfully parameterizing individual differences? Could this be task-dependent, especially since the transfer is evaluated on exceedingly similar tasks in both experiments? I think a bit more discussion of the motivation and implications of these results will help the reader in making sense of this analysis.

(3) The authors have to better define what exactly he meant by transferring across different "tasks" and testing the framework in "more distinctive tasks". All presented evidence, taken at face value, demonstrated transferring across different "conditions" of the same task within the same experiment. It is unclear to me how generalizable the framework will be when applied to different tasks.

(4) Conceptually, it is also unclear to me how plausible it is that the framework could generalize across tasks spanning multiple cognitive domains (if that's what is meant by more distinctive). For instance, how can an individual's task performance on a Posner task predict task performance on the Cambridge face memory test? Which part of the framework could have enabled such a cross-domain prediction of task performance? I think these have to be at least discussed to some extent, since without it the future direction is meaningless.

(5) How is the negative log-likelihood, which seems to be the main metric for comparison, computed? Is this based on trial-by-trial response prediction or probability of responses, as what usually performed in cognitive modelling?

(6) None of the presented evidence is cross-validated. The authors should consider performing K-fold cross-validation on the train, test, and evaluation split of subjects to ensure robustness of the findings.

(7) The authors excluded 25 subjects (20% of the data) for different reasons. This is a substantial proportion, especially by the standards of what is typically observed in behavioral experiments. The authors should provide a clear justification for these exclusion criteria and, if possible, cite relevant studies that support the use of such stringent thresholds.

(8) The authors should do a better job of creating the figures and writing the figure captions. It is unclear which specific claim the authors are addressing with the figure. For example, what is the key message of Figure 2C regarding transfer within and across participants? Why are the stats presentation different between the Cognitive model and the EIDT framework plots? In Figure 3, it's unclear what these dots and clusters represent and how they support the authors' claim that the same individual forms clusters. And isn't this experiment have 98 subjects after exclusion, this plot has way less than 98 dots as far as I can tell. Furthermore, I find Figure 5 particularly confusing, as the underlying claim it is meant to illustrate is unclear. Clearer figures and more informative captions are needed to guide the reader effectively.

(9) I also find the writing somewhat difficult to follow. The subheadings are confusing, and it's often unclear which specific claim the authors are addressing. The presentation of results feels disorganized, making it hard to trace the evidence supporting each claim. Also, the excessive use of acronyms (e.g., SX, SY, CG, EA, ES, DA, DS) makes the text harder to parse. I recommend restructuring the results section to be clearer and significantly reducing the use of unnecessary acronyms.

Comments on revisions:

The authors have addressed my previous comments with great care and detail. I appreciate the additional analyses and edits. I have no further comments.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

The authors use calcium recordings from STN to measure STN activity during spontaneous movement and in a multi-stage avoidance paradigm. They also use optogenetic inhibition and lesion approaches to test the role of STN during the avoidance paradigm. The paper reports a large amount of data and makes many claims, some seem well supported to this Reviewer, others not so much.

Strengths:

Well-supported claims include data showing that during spontaneous movements, especially contraversive ones, STN calcium activity is increased using bulk photometry measurements. Single-cell measures back this claim but also show that it is only a minority of STN cells that respond strongly, with most showing no response during movement, and a similar number showing smaller inhibitions during movement.

Photometry data during cued active avoidance procedures show that STN calcium activity sharply increases in response to auditory cues, and during cued movements to avoid a footshock. Optogenetic and lesion experiments are consistent with an important role for STN in generating cue-evoked avoidance. And a strength of these results is that multiple approaches were used.

Original Weaknesses:

I found the experimental design and presentation convoluted and some of the results over-interpreted.

As presented, I don't understand this idea that delayed movement is necessarily indicative of cautious movements. Is the distribution of responses multi-modal in a way that might support this idea; or do the authors simply take a normal distribution and assert that the slower responses represent 'caution'? Even if responses are multi-modal and clearly distinguished by 'type', why should readers think this that delayed responses imply cautious responding instead of say: habituation or sensitization to cue/shock, variability in attention, motivation, or stress; or merely uncertainty which seems plausible given what I understand of the task design where the same mice are repeatedly tested in changing conditions. This relates to a major claim (i.e., in the title).

Related to the last, I'm struggling to understand the rationale for dividing cells into 'types' based the their physiological responses in some experiments.

In several figures the number of subjects used was not described. This is necessary. Also necessary is some assessment of the variability across subjects. The only measure of error shown in many figures relates trial-to-trial or event variability, which is minimal because in many cases it appears that hundreds of trials may have been averaged per animal, but this doesn't provide a strong view of biological variability (i.e., are results consistent across animals?).

It is not clear if or how spread of expression outside of target STN was evaluated, and if or how or how many mice were excluded due to spread or fiber placements. Inadequate histological validation is presented and neighboring regions that would be difficult to completely avoid, such as paraSTN may be contributing to some of the effects.

Raw example traces are not provided.

The timeline of the spontaneous movement and avoidance sessions were not clear, nor the number of events or sessions per animal and how this was set. It is not clear if there was pre-training or habituation, if many or variable sessions were combined per animal, or what the time gaps between sessions was, or if or how any of these parameters might influence interpretation of the results.

Comments on revised version:

The authors removed the optogenetic stimulation experiments, but then also added a lot of new analyses. Overall the scope of their conclusions are essentially unchanged.

Part of the eLife model is to leave it to the authors discretion how they choose to present their work. But my overall view of it is unchanged. There are elements that I found clear, well executed, and compelling. But other elements that I found difficult to understand and where I could not follow or concur with their conclusions.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

This is an impressive paper that offers a much-needed 3D standardized brain atlas for the hackled-orb weaving spider Uloborus diversus, an emerging organism of study in neuroethology. The authors used a detailed immunohistological wholemount staining method that allowed them to localize a wide range of common neurotransmitters and neuropeptides and map them on a common brain atlas. Through this approach, they discovered groups of cells that may form parts of neuropils that had not previously been described, such as the 'tonsillar neuropil', which might be part of a larger insect-like central complex. Further, this work provides unique insights into previously underappreciated complexity of higher-order neuropils in spiders, particularly the arcuate body, and hints at a potentially important role for the mushroom bodies in vibratory processing for web-building spiders.

Strengths:

To understand brain function, data from many experiments on brain structure must be compiled to serve as a reference and foundation for future work. As demonstrated by the overwhelming success in genetically tractable laboratory animals, 3D standardized brain atlases are invaluable tools-especially as increasing amounts of data are obtained at the gross morphological, synaptic, and genetic levels, and as functional data from electrophysiology and imaging are integrated. Among 'non-model' organisms, such approaches have included global silver staining and confocal microscopy, MRI, and more recently, micro-computed tomography (X-ray) scans used to image multiple brains and average them into a composite reference. In this study, the authors used synapsin immunoreactivity to generate an averaged spider brain as a scaffold for mapping immunoreactivity to other neuromodulators. Using this framework, they describe many previously known spider brain structures and also identify some previously undescribed regions. They argue that the arcuate body-a midline neuropil thought to have diverged evolutionarily from the insect central complex-shows structural similarities that may support its role in path integration and navigation.

Having diverged from insects such as the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster over 400 million years ago, spiders are an important group for study-particularly due to their elegant web-building behavior, which is thought to have contributed to their remarkable evolutionary success. How such exquisitely complex behavior is supported by a relatively small brain remains unclear. A rich tradition of spider neuroanatomy emerged in the previous century through the work of comparative zoologists, who used reduced silver and Golgi stains to reveal remarkable detail about gross neuroanatomy. Yet, these techniques cannot uncover the brain's neurochemical landscape, highlighting the need for more modern approaches-such as those employed in the present study.

A key insight from this study involves two prominent higher-order neuropils of the protocerebrum: the arcuate body and the mushroom bodies. The authors show that the arcuate body has a more complex structure and lamination than previously recognized, suggesting it is insect central complex-like and may support functions such as path integration and navigation, which are critical during web building. They also report strong synapsin immunoreactivity in the mushroom bodies and speculate that these structures contribute to vibratory processing during sensory feedback, particularly in the context of web building and prey localization. These findings align with prior work that noted the complex architecture of both neuropils in spiders and their resemblance (and in some cases greater complexity) compared to their insect counterparts. Additionally, the authors describe previously unrecognized neuropils, such as the 'tonsillar neuropil,' whose function remains unknown but may belong to a larger central complex. The diverse patterns of neuromodulator immunoreactivity further suggest that plasticity plays a substantial role in central circuits.

Weaknesses:

My major concern, however, is some of the authors' neuroanatomical descriptions rely too heavily on inference rather than what is currently resolvable from their immunohistochemistry stains alone.

Comments on revisions:

I thought that the authors did an excellent job responding to the reviews, and I have no further comments.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

In this study, Ho et al. hypothesised that autoreactive T cells receiving enhanced TCR signals during positive selection in the thymus are primed for generating effector and memory T cells. They used CD5 as a marker for TCR signal strength during their selection at the double positive stage. Supporting their hypothesis, naïve T cells with high CD5 proliferated better and expressed markers of T cell activation compared to naïve T cells with lower levels of CD5. Furthermore, results showed that autoimmune diabetes can be efficiently induced after the transfer of naïve CD5 hi T cells compared to CD5 lo T cells. This provided solid evidence in support of their hypothesis that T cells receiving higher basal TCR signaling are primmed to develop into effector T cells. However, all functional characterisation was done on the cells in the periphery and CD5 hi cells in the peripheral lymphoid compartment can receive tonic TCR signaling. Hence, the function of CD5 hi T cells might not be related to development and programming in the thymus. This is a major hurdle in the interpretation of the results and justifying the title of the study. The evidence that transgenic PTPN22 expression could not regulate T cell activation in CD5 hi TCR transgenic autoreactive T cells was weak. Studying T cell development in TCR transgenic mice and looking at TCR downstream signaling could be misleading due to transgenic expression of TCR at all developmental stages.

Strengths:

(1) Demonstrating that CD5 hi cells in naïve CD8 T cell compartment express markers of T cell activation, proliferation and cytotoxicity at a higher level

(2) Using gene expression analysis, study showed CD5 hi cells among naïve CD8 T cells are transcriptionally poised to develop into effector or memory T cells.

(3) Study showed that CD5 hi cells have higher basal TCR signaling compared to CD5 lo T cells.

(4) Key evidence of pathogenicity of autoreactive CD5 hi T cells was provided by doing the adoptive transfer of CD5 hi and CD5 lo CD8 T cells into NOD Rag1-/- mice and comparing them.

Weaknesses:

(1) Although CD5 can be used as a marker for self-reactivity and T cell signal strength during thymic development, it can also be regulated in the periphery by tonic TCR signaling or when T cells are activated by its cognate antigen. Hence, TCR signals in the periphery could also prime the T cells towards effector/memory differentiation. That's why from the evidence presented here it cannot be concluded that this predisposition of T cells towards effector/memory differentiation is programmed due to higher reactivity towards self-MHC molecules in the thymus, as stated in the title.

(2) Flow cytometry data needs to be revisited for the gating strategy, biological controls and interpretation.

(3) Evidence linking CD5 hi cells to more effector phenotype using gene enrichment scores is very weak.

(4) Experiments done in this study did not address why CD5 hi T cells could be negatively regulated in NOD mice when PTPN22 is overexpressed resulting in protection from diabetes but the same cannot be achieved in NOD8.3 mice.

(5) Experimental evidence provided to show that PTPN22 overexpression does not regulate TCR signaling in NOD8.3 T cells is weak.

(6) TCR sequencing analysis does not conclusively show that CD5 hi population is linked with autoreactive T cells. Doing single-cell RNAseq and TCR seq analysis would have helped address this question.

(7) When analysing data from CD5 hi T cells from the pancreatic lymph node, it is difficult to discriminate if the phenotype is just because of T cells that would have just encountered the cognate antigen in the draining lymph node or if it is truly due to basal TCR signaling.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

Marcu et al. demonstrate a gut-neuron axis that is required for the lifespan-shortening effects mediated by gut bacteria. They show that the presence of commensal bacteria-particularly Acetobacter pomorum-promotes Tk expression in the gut, which then binds to neuronal tachykinin receptors to shorten lifespan. Tk has also recently been reported to extend lifespan via adipokinetic hormone (Akh) signaling (Ahrentløv et al., Nat Metab 7, 2025), but the mechanism here appears distinct. The lifespan shortening by Ap via Tk seems to be partially dependent on foxo and independent of both insulin signaling and Akh-mediated lipid mobilization.

Although the detailed mechanistic link to lifespan is not fully resolved, the experiment and its results clearly show the involvement of the molecules tested. This work adds a valuable dimension to our growing understanding of how gut bacteria influence host longevity. However, there are some points that should be addressed.

(1) Tk+ EEC activity should be assessed directly, rather than relying solely on transcript levels. Approaches such as CaLexA or GCaMP could be used.

(2) In Line243, the manuscript states that the reporter activity was not increased in the posterior midgut. However, based on the presented results in Fig4E, there is seemingly not apparent regional specificity. A more detailed explanation is necessary.

(3) If feasible, assessing foxo activation would add mechanistic depth. This could be done by monitoring foxo nuclear localization or measuring the expression levels of downstream target genes.

(4) Fig1C uses Adh for normalization. Given the high variability of the result, the authors should (1) check whether Adh expression levels changed via bacterial association and/or (2) compare the results using different genes as internal standard.

(5) While the difficulty of maintaining lifelong axenic conditions is understandable, it may still be feasible to assess the induction of Tk (i.e.. Tk transcription or EE activity upregulation) by the microbiome on males.

(6) We also had some concerns regarding the wording of the title.<br /> Fig6B and C suggests that TkR86C, in addition to TkR99D, may be involved in the A. pomorum-lifespan interaction. Consider revising the title to refer more generally to the "tachykinin receptor" rather than only TkR99D.<br /> The difference between "aging" and "lifespan" should also be addressed. While the study shows a role for Tk in lifespan, assessment of aging phenotypes (e.g. Climbing assay, ISC proliferation) beyond the smurf assay is required to make conclusions about aging.

(7) The statement in Line 82 that EEs express 14 peptide hormones should be supported with an appropriate reference, if available.

Significance:

General assessment: The main strength of this study is the careful and extensive lifespan analyses, which convincingly demonstrate the role of gut microbiota in regulating longevity. The authors clarify an important aspect of how microbial factors contribute to lifespan control. The main limitation is that the study primarily confirms the involvement of previously reported signaling pathways, without identifying novel molecular players or previously unrecognized mechanisms of lifespan regulation.

Advance: The lifespan-shortening effect of Acetobacter pomorum (Ap) has been reported previously, as has the lifespan-shortening effect of Tachykinin (Tk). However, this study is the first to link these two factors mechanistically, which represents a significant and original contribution to the field. The advance is primarily mechanistic, providing new insight into how microbial cues converge on host signaling pathways to influence ageing.

Audience: This work will be of particular interest to a specialized audience of basic researchers in ageing biology. It will also attract interest from microbiome researchers who are investigating host-microbe interactions and their physiological consequences. The findings will be useful as a conceptual framework for future mechanistic studies in this area.

Field of expertise: Drosophila ageing, lifespan, microbiome, metabolism

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

The authors aimed to establish a long-term voltage imaging platform to investigate how coordinated neuronal activity emerges during spinal cord development in zebrafish embryos. Using the genetically encoded voltage indicator ArcLight, they tracked membrane potential dynamics in motor neurons at population, single-cell, and subcellular levels from 18 to 23 hours post-fertilization (hpf), revealing relationships between firing maturation, waveform characteristics, and axonal outgrowth.

Strengths:

(1) Technical advancement in developmental voltage imaging:

This study demonstrates voltage imaging of motor neurons in the developing vertebrate spinal cord. The approach successfully captures voltage dynamics at multiple spatial scales-neuronal population, single-cell, and subcellular compartments.

(2) Insights into the relationship between morphological and functional maturation:

The work reveals important relationships between voltage dynamics maturation and morphological changes.

(3) Kinetics analysis of membrane potential waveform enabled by voltage imaging:

The characterization of "immature" versus "mature" firing based on quantitative waveform parameters provides insights into functional maturation that are inaccessible by calcium imaging. This analysis reveals a maturation process in the biophysical properties of developing neurons.

(4) Matching of voltage indicator kinetics to biological signal:

The authors' choice of ArcLight, despite its slow kinetics compared to newer GEVIs, proved well-suited to the low-frequency activity patterns in developing spinal neurons (frequency ~0.3 Hz).

Weaknesses:

(1) Insufficient comparison with prior calcium imaging studies:

While the authors state that voltage imaging provides superior temporal resolution compared to calcium imaging (lines 192-196, 301), and this is generally true, the current manuscript does not adequately cite or discuss previous calcium imaging studies. Since neural activity occurs at low frequency in the developing spinal cord, calcium imaging is adequate for characterizing the emergence of coordinated activity patterns in the developing zebrafish spinal cord. Notably, Wan et al. (2019, Cell) performed a comprehensive single-cell reconstruction of emerging population activity in the entire developing zebrafish spinal cord using calcium imaging. This work should be properly acknowledged and compared. The specific advantages of voltage imaging over these prior studies need to be more clearly articulated, e.g. detection of subthreshold events and membrane potential waveform kinetics.

(2) Considerations for generalizability of the ArcLight-based voltage imaging approach:

While this study successfully demonstrates voltage imaging using ArcLight in the developing spinal cord, the generalizability of this approach to later developmental stages and other neural systems warrants discussion. ArcLight exhibits relatively slow kinetics (rise time ~100-200 ms, decay τ ~200-300 ms). In the current study, these kinetics are well-suited to the developmental activity patterns observed (firing frequency ~0.3 Hz), representing appropriate matching of indicator properties to biological timescales. However, the same approach may be less suitable for later developmental stages when neural activity occurs at higher frequencies.

(3) Incomplete methodological descriptions:

As a paper establishing a new imaging approach, several critical details are missing or unclear.

(a) Imaging system specifications: The imaging setup description lacks essential information, including light source specifications, excitation wavelength/filter sets, and light power at the sample. The authors should also clarify whether wide-field optics was used rather than confocal or selective plane imaging.

(b) Long-term imaging protocol: Whether neurons were imaged continuously or with breaks between imaging sessions is not explicitly stated. The current phrasing could be interpreted as a continuous 4.5-hour recording, which would be technically impressive but may not be what was actually done.

(c) Image processing procedures: Denoising and bleach correction procedures are mentioned but not described, which is critical for a methods-focused paper.

(d) The waveform classification (Supplementary Figure S6) shows overlapping kinetics between "immature" and "mature" firing, yet the classification method is not adequately justified.

(e) Given that photostability and toxicity are critical considerations for long-term voltage imaging, these aspects warrant further clarification. While the figures suggest stable ArcLight fluorescence during the experiments, the manuscript lacks quantification of photobleaching, a discussion of potential toxicity concerns associated with the indicator, and information regarding the maximum duration over which the ArcLight signal can faithfully report physiological voltage dynamics.

(4) Incomplete data representation and quantification:

(a) The claim of "reduced variability" in calcium imaging (line 194) is not clearly demonstrated in Supplementary Figure S1.

(b) Amplitude distributions for cell/subcellular compartments are not systematically quantified. Figure S3 shows ~5% changes in some axons versus ~2% in others, but it remains unclear whether these variabilities reflect differences between axonal compartments within the same cell, between individual cells, or between individual fish.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

The current paper addresses an important issue in evidence accumulation models: many modelers implement flat decision boundaries because the collapsing alternatives are hard to reliably estimate. Here, using simulations, the authors demonstrate that parameter recovery can be drastically improved by providing the model with additional data (specifically, an EEG-informed estimate of non-decision time). Moreover, in two empirical datasets, it is shown that those EEG-informed models provide a better fit to the data. The method seems sound and promising and might inform future work on the debate regarding flat vs collapsing choice boundaries. As an evidence-accumulation enthusiast, I am quite excited about this work, although for a broader audience, the immediate applicability of this approach seems limited because it does require EEG data (i.e. limiting widespread use of the method or e.g., answering questions about individual differences that require a very large N).

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

The authors have addressed a major question since the discovery of myristate uptake from AM fungi as a non-symbiotic C source. Myristate has been used to grow some AM fungi axenically, but the biological significance of this saprobic attitude in natural or agronomical environments remained unexplored. The results of this research soundly demonstrate that myristate-derived C is used by AM fungi, leading to improved development of both extraradical and intraradical mycelium (at least under low P conditions). However, this does not lead to obvious advantages for the plant, since symbiotic nutrient exchange (carbon and phosphorus) is reduced upon myristate application. Furthermore, myristate-treated plants quench their defence responses.

Strengths:

The study is extensive, based on a solid experimental setup and methodological approach, combining several state-of-the-art techniques. The conclusions are novel and of high relevance for the scientific community. The writing is fluent and clear.

Weaknesses:

Some of the figures should be improved for clarity. The conclusions do not express a conclusive remark that, in my opinion, emerges clearly from the results: myristate application in agriculture does not seem to be a very promising approach, since it unbalances the symbiosis nutritional equilibrium and may weaken plant immunity. This is a very important point (albeit rather unpleasant for applicative scientists) that should be stressed in the conclusions.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

This is an extremely important manuscript in the evolution of cerebral perfusion imaging using Arterial Spin Labelling (ASL). The number of subjects that were scanned has provided the authors with a unique opportunity to explore many potential associations between regional cerebral blood flow (CBF) and clinical and demographic variables.

Strengths:

The major strength of the manuscript is the access to an unprecedentedly large cohort of subjects. It demonstrates the sensitivity of regional tissue blood flow in the brain as an important marker of resting brain function. In addition, the authors have demonstrated a thorough analysis methodology and good statistical rigour.

Weaknesses:

This reviewer did not identify any major weaknesses in this work.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

The authors generated knockout mice for Atad2, a conserved bromodomain-containing factor expressed during spermatogenesis. In Atad2 KO mice, HIRA, a chaperone for histone variant H3.3, was upregulated in round spermatids, accompanied by an apparent increase in H3.3 levels. Furthermore, the sequential incorporation and removal of TH2B and PRM1 during spermiogenesis were partially disrupted in the absence of ATAD2, possibly due to delayed histone removal. Despite these abnormalities, Atad2 KO male mice were able to produce offspring normally.

Strengths:

The manuscript addresses the biological role of ATAD2 in spermatogenesis using a knockout mouse model, providing a valuable in vivo framework to study chromatin regulation during male germ cell development. The observed redistribution of H3.3 in round spermatids is clearly presented and suggests a previously unappreciated role of ATAD2 in histone variant dynamics. The authors also document defects in the sequential incorporation and removal of TH2B and PRM1 during spermiogenesis, providing phenotypic insight into chromatin transitions in late spermatogenic stages. Overall, the study presents a solid foundation for further mechanistic investigation into ATAD2 function.

Weaknesses:

While the manuscript reports the gross phenotype of Atad2 KO mice, the findings remain largely superficial and do not convincingly demonstrate how ATAD2 deficiency affects chromatin.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

The manuscript "Structural mechanisms of pump assembly and drug transport in the AcrAB-TolC efflux system" by Ge et al. describes the identification of a previously uncharacterized lipoprotein, YbjP, as a novel partner of the well-studied Enterobacterial tripartite efflux pump AcrAB-TolC. The authors present cryo-electron microscopy structures of the TolC-YbjP subcomplex and the complete AcrABZ-TolC-YbjP assembly. While the identification and structural characterization of YbjP are potentially novel, the stated focus of the manuscript-mechanisms of pump assembly and drug transport - is not sufficiently addressed. The manuscript requires reframing to emphasize the principal novelty associated with YbjP and significant development of the other aspects, especially the claimed novelty of the AcrB drug-efflux cycle.

Strengths:

The reported association of YbjP with AcrAB-TolC is novel; however, a recent deposition of a preceding and much more detailed manuscript to the BioRxiv server (Horne et al., https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.03.19.644130) removes much of the immediate novelty.

Weaknesses:

While the identification of YbjP is novel, the authors do not appear to acknowledge the precedence of another work (Horne et al., 2025), and it is not cited within the correct context in the manuscript.

Several results presented in the TolC-YbjP section do not represent new findings regarding TolC structure itself. The structure and gating behaviour of TolC should be more thoroughly introduced in the Introduction, including prior work describing channel opening and conformational transitions. The current manuscript does not discuss the mechanistic role of helices H3/H4 and H7/H8 in channel dilation, despite implying that YbjP binding may influence these features. Only the original closed TolC structure is cited, and the manuscript does not address prior mutational studies involving the D396 region, though this residue is specifically highlighted in the presented structures.

The manuscript provides only a general structural alignment between the closed TolC-YbjP subcomplex and the open TolC observed in the full pump assembly. However, multiple open, closed, and intermediate conformations of AcrAB-TolC have already been reported. Thus, YbjP alone cannot be assumed to account for TolC channel gating. A systematic comparison with existing structures is necessary to determine whether YbjP contributes any distinct allosteric modulation.

The analysis of AcrB peristaltic action is superficial, poorly substantiated and importantly, not novel. Several references to the ATP-synthase cycle have been provided, but this has been widely established already some 20 years ago - e.g. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1131542.

The most significant limitation of the study is the absence of functional characterization of YbjP in vivo or in vitro. While the structural association between YbjP and TolC is interesting, the biological role of YbjP remains unclear. Moreover, the manuscript does not examine structural differences between the presented complex and previously solved AcrAB-TolC or MexAB-OprM assemblies that might support a mechanistic model.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

This paper reveals that the neuronal protein PRRT2, previously known for its association with paroxysmal dyskinesia and infantile seizures, modulates the slow inactivation of voltage-gated sodium ion (Nav) channels, a gating process that limits excitability during prolonged activity. Using electrophysiology, molecular biology, and mouse models, the authors show that PRRT2 accelerates entry of Nav channels into the slow-inactivated state and slows their recovery, effectively dampening excessive excitability. The effect seems evolutionarily conserved, requires the C-terminal region of PRRT2, and is recapitulated in cortical neurons, where PRRT2 deficiency leads to hyper-responsiveness and reduced cortical resilience in vivo. These findings extend the functional repertoire of PRRT2, identifying it as a physiological brake on neuronal excitability. The work provides a mechanistic link between PRRT2 mutations and episodic neurological phenotypes.

Comments:

(1) The precise structural interface and the molecular basis of gating modulation remain inferred rather than demonstrated.

(2) The in vivo phenotype reflects a complex circuit outcome and does not isolate slow-inactivation defects per se.

(3) Expression of PRRT2 in muscle or heart is low, so the cross isoform claims are likely of limited physiological significance.

(4) The mechanistic separation between the trafficking of PRRT2 and its gating effects is not clearly resolved.

(5) Additional studies with Nav1.6 should be carried out.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

This perspective article by Reichmann et al. highlights the importance of moving beyond the search for a single, unified immune mechanism to explain host-Mtb interactions. Drawing from studies in immune profiling, host and bacterial genetics, the authors emphasize inconsistencies in the literature and argue for broader, more integrative models. Overall, the article is thought-provoking and well-articulated, raising a concept that is worth further exploration in the TB field.

Strengths:

Timely and relevant in the context of the rapidly expanding multi-omics datasets that provide unprecedented insights into host-Mtb interactions.

Weaknesses (Minor):

(1) Clarity on the notion of a "unified mechanism". It remains unclear whether prior studies explicitly proposed a single unifying immunological model. While inconsistencies in findings exist, they do not necessarily demonstrate that earlier work was uniformly "single-minded". Moreover, heterogeneity in TB has been recognized previously (PMIDs: 19855401, 28736436), which the authors could acknowledge.

(2) Evolutionary timeline and industrial-era framing. The evolutionary model is outdated. Ancient DNA studies place the Mtb's most recent common ancestor at ~6,000 years BP (PMIDs: 25141181; 25848958). The Industrial Revolution is cited as a driver of TB expansion, but this remains speculative without bacterial-genomics evidence and should be framed as a hypothesis. Additionally, the claim that Mtb genomes have been conserved only since the Industrial Revolution (lines 165-167) is inaccurate; conservation extends back to the MRCA (PMID: 31448322).

(3) Trained immunity and TB infection. The treatment of trained immunity is incomplete. While BCG vaccination is known to induce trained immunity (ref 59), revaccination does not provide sustained protection (ref 8), and importantly, Mtb infection itself can also impart trained immunity (PMID: 33125891). Including these nuances would strengthen the discussion.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

In this manuscript, the authors investigate how odor-evoked neural activity is modulated by experience within the olfactory-hippocampal network. The authors perform extracellular recordings in the anterior olfactory nucleus (AON), the anterior piriform (aPCx) and lateral entorhinal cortex (LEC), the hippocampus (CA1) and the subiculum (SUB), in naïve mice and in mice repeatedly exposed to the same odorants. They determine the response properties of individual neurons and use population decoding analyses to assess the effect of experience on odor information coding across these regions.

The authors' findings show that odor identity is represented in all recorded areas, but that the response magnitude and selectivity of neurons are differentially modulated by experience across the olfactory-hippocampal pathway.

Overall, this work represents a valuable multi-region data set of odor-evoked neural activity. However, a few limitations in experimental design and analysis restrict the conclusions that can be drawn from this study.

Main limitations:

The authors use a non-associative learning paradigm - repeated odor exposure - to test how experience modulates odor responses along the olfactory-hippocampal pathway. While repeated odor exposure clearly modulates sampling behavior and odor-evoked neural activity, the relevance of this modulation across different brain areas remains difficult to assess.

The authors discuss the olfactory-hippocampal pathway as a transition from primary sensory (AON, aPCx) to associative areas (LEC, CA1, SUB). While this is reasonable, given the known circuit connectivity, other interpretations are possible. For example, AON, aPCx, and LEC receive direct inputs from the olfactory bulb ('primary cortex'), while CA1 and SUB do not; AON receives direct top-down inputs from CA1 ('associative cortex'), while aPCx does not. In fact, the data presented in this manuscript do not appear to support a consistent transformation from sensory to associative, as implied by the authors.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

Thank you for inviting me to review this manuscript entitled "Pupil dilation offers a time-window on prediction error" by Colizoli and colleagues. The study examines prediction errors, information gain (Kullback-Leibler [KL] divergence), and uncertainty (entropy) from an information-theory perspective using two experimental tasks and pupillometry. The authors aim to test a theoretical proposal by Zénon (2019) that the pupil response reflects information gain (KL divergence). The conclusion of this work is that (post-feedback) pupil dilation in response to information gain is context dependent.

Strengths:

Use of an established Bayesian model to compute KL divergence and entropy.

Pupillometry data preprocessing and multiple robustness checks.

Weaknesses:

Operationalization of prediction errors based on frequency, accuracy, and their interaction:

The authors rely on a more model-agnostic definition of the prediction error in terms of stimulus frequency ("unsigned prediction error"), accuracy, and their interaction ("signed prediction error"). While I see the point, I would argue that this approach provides a simple approximation of the prediction error, but that a model-based approach would be more appropriate.

Model validation:

My impression is that the ideal learner model should work well in this case. However, the authors don't directly compare model behavior to participant behavior ("posterior predictive checks") to validate the model. Therefore, it is currently unclear if the model-derived terms like KL divergence and entropy provide reasonable estimates for the participant data.

Lack of a clear conclusion:

The authors conclude that this study shows for the first time that (post-feedback) pupil dilation in response to information gain is context dependent. However, the study does not offer a unifying explanation for such context dependence. The discussion is quite detailed with respect to task-specific effects, but fails to provide an overarching perspective on the context-dependent nature of pupil signatures of information gain. This seems to be partly due to the strong differences between the experimental tasks.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

The manuscript of Mayer and colleagues analyzes the function of WIPI proteins in mammalian cells. The authors previously identified CROP as a complex consisting of WIPI1 and the retromer complex, primarily in yeast cells. In mammalian cells, both WIPI1 and WIPI2 exist, whereas retromer has a homologous complex termed retriever. They now find that WIPI2 can form a complex with retriever subunits. They named this complex CROP2. Their data further indicate that CROP2 and CROP1 have distinct substrate specificities as knockdown of CROP2 subunits affects beta1 integrin sorting, whereas knockdown of CROP1 affects EGFR and GLUT1. They further identify a similar sequence (FSSS) in both WIPI1 and WIPI2, which is required for their specific binding to retromer and retriever.

Strengths:

CROP1 and CROP2 seem to use similar features for their formation, and have different substrates, which is convincingly shown.

Weaknesses:

The analysis lacks information that this is a complex as claimed. It can be deduced from the interaction analysis, but was not shown.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

Taking advantage of the existence in fish of two genes coding for estrogen synthase, the enzyme aromatase, one mostly expressed in the brain (Cyp19a1b) and the other mostly found in the gonads (Cyp19a1a), this study investigates the role of brain-derived estrogens in the control of sexual and aggressive behavior in male medaka. The constitutive deletion of Cyp19a1b, confirmed by the ablation of its transcript, markedly reduced brain estrogen content. This effect is accompanied by reduced sexual and aggressive behavior and reduced expression of the transcripts coding for androgen receptors (AR), ara and arb, in brain regions involved in social behavior regulation. Both AR expression and aspects of social behaviors were restored by adult treatment with estrogens, providing some support for a role of aromatization. Expression analysis of AR isoforms and behavior of mutants of estrogen receptors (ER) indicates that these effects are likely mediated by the activation of the esr1 and esr2a isoforms. Together, these results provide valuable insights into the role of brain-derived estrogens in social behavior in fish.

Strengths:

This study evaluates the role of brain "specific" Cyp19a1 in the social behavior in male teleost fish, which as a taxon are more abundant and yet proportionally less studied that the most common birds and rodents. Therefore, evaluating the generalizability of results from higher vertebrates is important. The study suggests that, as opposed to mammals, the facilitatory role of brain-derived estrogens on mating and aggression is limited to adulthood.

Results obtained from multiple mutant lines converge to show that estrogens most likely synthesized in the brain drives aspects of male sexual behavior.

The comparative discussion of the age-dependent abundance of brain aromatase in fish vs mammals and its role in organization vs activation is important beyond the study of the targeted species.

Weaknesses:

Most experiments are weakly powered (low sample size).

The variability of the mRNA content for a same target gene between experiments (genotype comparison vs E2 treatment comparison) raises questions about the reproducibility of the data (apparent disappearance of genotype effect).

Conclusions :

Overall, the present study provides convincing evidence for a facilitatory role of estrogens originating from the brain on sexual behavior and aggressive behavior in male medaka. The role of specific estrogen receptor isoforms underlying the expression of androgen receptors is supported by converging evidence from multiple mutant lines.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

Metabolic dysfunction associated liver disease (MASLD) describes a spectrum of progressive liver pathologies linked to life style-associated metabolic alterations (such as increased body weight and elevated blood sugar levels), reaching from steatosis over steatohepatitis to fibrosis and finally end stage complications, such as liver failure and hepatocellular carcinoma. Treatment options for MASLD include diet adjustments, weight loss, and the receptor-β (THR-β) agonist resmetirom, but remain limited at this stage, motivating further studies to elucidate molecular disease mechanisms to identify novel therapeutic targets.

In their present study, the authors aim to identify early molecular changes in MASLD linked to obesity. To this end, they study a cohort of 109 obese individuals with no or early-stage MASLD combining measurements from two anatomic sides: 1. bulk RNA-sequencing and metabolomics of liver biopsies, and 2. metabolomics from patient blood. Their major finding is that GTPase-related genes are transcriptionally altered in livers of individuals with steatosis with fibrosis compared to steatosis without fibrosis.

Comments from the first round of review:

(1) Confounders (such as (pre-)diabetes)

The patient table shows significant differences in non-MASLD vs. MASLD individuals, with the latter suffering more often from diabetes or hypertriglyceridemia. Rather than just stating corrections, subgroup analyses should be performed (accompanied with designated statistical power analyses) to infer the degree to which these conditions contribute to the observations. I.e., major findings stating MASLD-associated changes should hold true in the subgroup of MASLD patients without diabetes/of female sex and so forth (testing for each of the significant differences between groups).

Post-rebuttal update: The authors have performed the requested sub-group analysis and find the gene signatures hold for the non-diabetic sub-cohort, but not the diabetic subgroup. They denote a likely interaction between fibrosis and diabetes, that was not corrected for in the original analysis.

(2) External validation

Additionally, to back up the major GTPase signature findings, it would be desirable to analyze an external dataset of (pre)diabetes patients (other biased groups) for alternations in these genes. It would be important to know if this signature also shows in non-MASLD diabetic patients vs. healthy patients or is a feature specific to MASLD. Also, could the matched metabolic data be used to validate metabolite alterations that would be expected under GTPase-associated protein dysregulation?

Post-rebuttal update: The authors confirm that with the present data, insulin resistance cannot be fully ruled out as a confounder to the GTP-ase related gene signature. They however plan future mouse model experiments to study whether the GTPase-fibrosis signature differs in diabetic vs. non-diabetic conditions.

(3).3D liver spheroid MASH model, Fig. 6D/E

This 3D experiment is technically not an external validation of GTPase-related genes being involved in MASLD, since patient-derived cells may only retain changes that have happened in vivo. To demonstrate that the GTPase expression signature is specifically invoked by fibrosis the LX-2 set up is more convincing, however, the up-regulation of the GTPase-related genes upon fibrosis induction with TGF-beta, in concordance with the patient data, needs to be shown first (qPCR or RNA-seq). Additionally, the description of the 3D model is too uncritical. The maintenance of functional PHHs is a major challenge (PMID: 38750036, PMID: 21953633, PMID: 40240606, PMID: 31023926). It cannot be ruled out that their findings are largely attributable to either 1) the (other present) mesenchymal cells (i.e., mesenchyme-derived cells, such as for example hepatic stellate cells, not to be confused with mesenchymal stem cells, MSCs), or 2) related to potential changes in PHHs in culture, and these limitations need to be stated.

Post-rebuttal update: To address the concern of other cells than hepatocytes contributing to the observed effects in culture, the authors performed TGF-beta treatment in independent mono-cultures (Figure R4): LX-2 and hepatocytes, and the spheroid system. Surprisingly, important genes highlighted in Figure 6E for the spheroid system (RAB6A, ARL4A, RAB27B, DIRAS2) are all absent from this qPCR(?) validation experiment. The authors evaluate instead RAC1, RHOU, VAV1, DOCK2, RAB32. ­In spheroids, RHOU and RAB32 are down-regulated with TGF-B. In hepatocytes DOCK2 and RAC seemed up-regulated. They find no difference in these genes in LX-2 cells. Surprisingly, ACTA2 expression values are missing for LX-2 cells. Together, it is hard to judge which individual cell type recapitulates the changes observed in patients in this validation experiment, as the major genes called out in Figure 6E are not analyzed.

Unfortunately, the 3D liver spheroid model used (as presente­d in PMID39605182) lacks important functional validation tests of maintained hepatocyte identity in culture (at the very least Albumin expression and secretion plus CYP3A4 assay). This functional data (acquired at the time point in culture when the RNA expression analysis in 6E was performed) is indispensable prior to stating that mature hepatocytes cause the observed effects.

(4) Novelty / references

Similar studies that also combined liver and blood lipidomics/metabolomics in obese individuals with and without MASLD (e.g. PMID 39731853, 39653777) should be cited. Additionally, it would benefit the quality of the discussion to state how findings in this study add new insights over previous studies, if their findings/insights differ, and if so, why.

Post-rebuttal update: The authors have included the studies into their discussion.

Reviewer #3 (Public review):

Summary:

This study investigates the functional differences between barrel and septal columns in the mouse somatosensory cortex, focusing on how local inhibitory dynamics (particularly involving SST⁺ interneurons) may mediate temporal integration of multi-whisker (MW) stimuli in septa. Using a combination of in vivo multi-unit recordings, calcium imaging, and anatomical tracing, the authors propose a model in which Elfn1-dependent synaptic facilitation onto SST⁺ interneurons contributes to the distinct sensory responses to MW input in barrels and septa, enabling functional segregation between these domains.

Strengths:

The study presents a thought-provoking and useful conceptual model for understanding sensory processing in the somatosensory cortex. While barrel columns have been widely studied, septal regions remain relatively understudied in mice. If septa indeed act as selective integrators of distributed sensory input, this would suggest a novel computational role for cortical microcircuits beyond the classical view focused on barrels. Although still hypothetical, the proposed model in which SST⁺ interneurons contribute to domain-specific sensory responses between barrel and septal domains is intriguing and opens new avenues for investigating inhibitory circuit mechanisms.

Weaknesses:

The primary limitation of this study lies in the spatial and cellular specificity of the recording techniques. The physiological data rely predominantly on unsorted multi-unit activity (MUA) recorded with low-channel-count silicon probes. Because MUA aggregates signals from multiple neurons over a radius of approximately 50-100 µm (often wider than the typical septal width in mice), this approach makes it difficult to confidently isolate activity originating strictly from within septal domains. The manuscript would benefit from additional analyses to validate the spatial specificity of these recordings, such as systematically varying spike detection thresholds to test the robustness of domain attribution, as suggested by the reviewer. Furthermore, although the authors now appropriately frame their findings in the Elfn1 knockout mice as indirect evidence, it is worth emphasizing that the study lacks direct in vivo, cell-type-specific recordings and manipulations to more definitively test the proposed mechanism.