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    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      In this manuscript submitted by Qi et al., the authors study the RNA methylation mechanism by the METTL3-METTL14 complex. This complex catalyzes the major epitranscriptome methylation mark of nuclear RNA, including mRNA and lncRNAs. They catalyze the transfer of methyl group from SAM to convert the N6 of adenosine in RNA to m6A. Mutations in this complex have been associated with several diseases, such as type 2 diabetes and several types of cancer. The primary focus of this study was to understand the post-catalytic state of the METTL3-14 bound to a structural mimic of a reaction product known as N6-methyladenosine monophosphate (m6A) using X-ray crystallography. The authors show that the m6A occupies a novel pocket at the interface of the METTL3-14 complex and identified that residues interacting with m6A are mutated in several cancers. Furthermore, the authors demonstrate that the mutations lead to a significant loss in catalytic activity, alter RNA binding, and hinder the proper positioning of the substrate adenine in the active site. Lastly, the authors perform supervised molecular dynamics simulations to understand the effect of the mutations on the interaction network with m6A. The evidence for this study is good, with the combination of X-ray, functional assays, and molecular dynamics justifying their overall conclusions. This structure is significant as it provides new insights into the structural determinants of known cancer-associated mutations of this important class of enzymes. However, some issues need to be addressed.

      Strengths:

      (1) The X-ray structure is well determined, and the density map has the quality to observe all the interactions of the METTL3-14 complex with m6A.

      (2) The structure reveals a novel 'cryptic pocket' in the complex that is 16 Å away from the SAM binding site. It is a functional m6A-sensor, illustrating a mechanism where the complex switches its functionality from an m6A writer to a reader.

      (3) The structure illustrates that the residues forming cryptic pockets are found in multiple Cancer-associated mutations and are well conserved across several organisms.

      (4) The functional assays (methyl transferase, RNA binding, kinetic, and SPR assays) provide a complete picture of the effect of the mutations on the activity of the METTL3-14 complex.

      (5) Molecular dynamics simulations were done to understand the impact of the mutations on the pocket structure and its dynamics and support the X-ray structure findings.

      Weaknesses:

      (1) Although the X-ray structure is well determined, the statistics are a bit troubling, particularly the Ramachandran, Sidechain and RSRZ outliers. It is well above the average for structures at that resolution. Maybe the use of alternative software such as ISOLDE may be adequate to improve those parameters.

      (2) The authors should expand their discussion as to why the affinity for the product is higher than the substrate and the implications on the mechanism.

      (3) The SPR profiles of the association kinetics look to have several minor association-dissociation events occurring. Multiple binding sites? Authors should provide an explanation for such behavior. Also, what is the structural explanation of the difference in binding modes between the wt vs. mutant (one vs. two-state binding modes)?

      (4) In materials and methods, it shows the data in Figure 2a was fitted to a Michaelis-Menten equation, however, the Y axis shows Normalized methylation and not initial rates. The authors should elaborate on their approach. In addition, more than three initial velocity rate points per protein are needed to fit a Michaelis-Menten curve confidently. Additionally, where can the Michaelis-Menten parameters be found?

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      The manuscript by Li and colleagues describes the impact of deficiency on the DKGα and ζ on Treg cells and follicular responses. The experimental approach is based on the characterization of double KO mice that show the emergence of autoimmune manifestations that include the production of autoantibodies. Additionally, there is an increase in Tfh cells, but also Tfr cells in these mice deficient in both DKGα and ζ. Although the observations are interesting, the interpretation of the observations is difficult in the absence of data related to single mutations. While a supplementary figure shows that the autoimmune manifestations are more severe in the DKGα and ζ deficient mice, prior observations show that a single DKGα deficiency has an impact on Treg homeostasis. As such, the contribution of the two chains to the overall phenotype is hard to establish.

      Strengths:

      Well-conducted experiments with informative mouse models with defined genetic defects.

      Weaknesses:

      The major weakness is the lack of clarity concerning what can be attributed to simultaneous DKGα and ζ deficiency versus deficiency on DKGα or ζ alone.

      Some interpretations are also not conclusively supported by data.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      The authors present a new protocol to assess social dominance in pairs and triads of C57BL/6j mice, based on a competition to access a hidden food pellet. Using this new protocol, the authors have been able to identify stable ranking among male and female pairs, while reporting more fluctuant hierarchies among triads of males. Ranking readouts identified with this new apparatus were compared to the outcomes obtained with the same animals competing in the tube and in the warm spot tests, which have been both commonly used during the last decade to identify social ranks in rodents under laboratory conditions.

      Strengths:

      FPCT allows for easy and fast identification of a winner and a loser in the context of food competition. The apparatus and the protocol are relatively easy and quick to implement in the lab and free from any complex post-processing/analysis, which qualifies it for wide distribution, particularly within laboratories that do not have the resources to implement more sophisticated protocols. Hierarchical readouts identified through the FPCT correlate with social ranks identified with the tube and the warm spot tests, which have been widely adopted during the last decade and allow for study comparison.

      Weaknesses:

      While the FPCT is validated by the tube and the warm spot test, this paper would have gained strength by providing a more ethologically based validation. Tube and warm spot tests have been shown to provide conflicting results and might not been a sufficient measurement for social ranking (see Varholik et al, Scientific reports, 2019; Battivelli et al, Biological psychiatry, 2024). Instead, a general consensus pushing toward more ethological approaches for neuroscience studies is emerging.<br /> Other papers already successfully identified social ranks dyadic food competition, using relatively simple scoring protocol (see for example Merlot et al., 2006), within a more naturalistic set-up, allowing the 2 opponents to directly interact while competing for the food. A potential issue with the FPCT, is that the opponents being isolated from each other, the normal inhibition expected to appear in subordinates in the presence of a dominant to access food, could be diminished, and usually avoiding subordinates could be more motivated to push for the access to the food pellet.

      There are issues with use of the English language throughout the text. Some sentences are difficult to understand and should be clarified and/or synthesized.

      Open question:<br /> Is food restriction mandatory? Palatable food pellet is not sufficient to trigger competition? Food restriction has numerous behavioral and physiological consequences that would be better to prevent to be able to clearly interpret behavioral outcomes in FPCT (see for example Tucci et al., 2006).

      Conclusive remarks:<br /> Although this protocol attempts to provide a novel approach to evaluate social ranks in mice, it is not clear how it really brings a significant advance in neuroscience research. The FPCT dynamic is very similar to the one observed in the tube test, where mice compete to navigate forward in a narrow space, constraining the opponent to go backward. The main difference between the FPCT and the tube test is the presence of food between the opponents. In the tube test, a food reward was initially used to increase motivation to cross the tube and push the opponent upon the testing day. This component has been progressively abandoned, precisely because it was not necessary for the mice to compete in the tube.

      This paper would really bring a significant contribution to the field by providing a neuronal imaging or manipulation correlate to the behavioral outcome obtained by the application of the FPCT.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      The authors of the study are trying to show that RNAseq can be used for neoantigen prediction and the machine learning approach to the prediction can reveal very useful information for the selection of neoantigens for personalized antitumor vaccination.

      Strengths:

      The authors demonstrated that RNA expression of a neoantigen is very important factor in the selection of peptides for the creation of personalized vaccines. They proved in vivo that in silico-predicted neoantigens can trigger antitumor response in mice.

      Weaknesses:

      The authors replied to my previous comment about the selection of the peptides for vaccination in the responses to reviewers, but didn't include that in the revised manuscript. I think all that information should be in the manuscript.<br /> Here is the original comment: "The selection of the peptides for vaccination is not clear. Some peptides were selected before and some after processing. What processing is also not clear. The authors didn't provide the full list of peptides before and after processing, please add those. And it wasn't clear that these peptides were previously published. Looking at the previously published table with peptide from B16 F10 (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-89927-5/tables/3), there are other genes with high expression, e.g. Tab2, Tm9sf3 that have higher expression than Herc6, please clarify the choice."

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Hearing and balance rely on specialized ribbon synapses that transmit sensory stimuli between hair cells and afferent neurons. Synaptic adhesion molecules that form and regulate transsynaptic interactions between inner hair cells (IHCs) and spiral ganglion neurons (SGNs) are crucial for maintaining auditory synaptic integrity and, consequently, for auditory signaling. Synaptic adhesion molecules such as neurexin-3 and neuroligin-1 and -3 have recently been shown to play vital roles in establishing and maintaining these synaptic connections ( doi: 10.1242/dev.202723 and DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.104803). However, the full set of molecules required for synapse assembly remains unclear.

      Karagulan et al. highlight the critical role of the synaptic adhesion molecule RTN4RL2 in the development and function of auditory afferent synapses between IHCs and SGNs, particularly regarding how RTN4RL2 may influence synaptic integrity and receptor localization. Their study shows that deletion of RTN4RL2 in mice leads to enlarged presynaptic ribbons and smaller postsynaptic densities (PSDs) in SGNs, indicating that RTN4RL2 is vital for synaptic structure. Additionally, the presence of "orphan" PSDs-those not directly associated with IHCs-in RTN4RL2 knockout mice suggests a developmental defect in which some SGN neurites fail to form appropriate synaptic contacts, highlighting potential issues in synaptic pruning or guidance. The study also observed a depolarized shift in the activation of CaV1.3 calcium channels in IHCs, indicating altered presynaptic functionality that may lead to impaired neurotransmitter release. Furthermore, postsynaptic SGNs exhibited a deficiency in GluA2/3 AMPA receptor subunits, despite normal Gria2 mRNA levels, pointing to a disruption in receptor localization that could compromise synaptic transmission. Auditory brainstem responses showed increased sound thresholds in RTN4RL2 knockout mice, indicating impaired hearing related to these synaptic dysfunctions.

      The findings reported here significantly enhance our understanding of synaptic organization in the auditory system, particularly concerning the molecular mechanisms underlying IHC-SGN connectivity. The implications are far-reaching, as they not only inform auditory neuroscience but also provide insights into potential therapeutic targets for hearing loss related to synaptic dysfunction.

    1. Reviewer #2 (Public review):

      Summary:

      The authors present the results of molecular phylogenetic analysis with very comprehensive samplings including 471 specimens belonging to 250 species, trying to give a holistic reconstruction of the evolutionary history of freshwater fishes (Nemacheilidae) across Eurasia since the early Eocene.

      Strengths:

      They provide very vast data and conduct comprehensive analysis. They suggested that Nemacheilidae contain 6 major clades, and the earliest differentiation can be dated to early Eocene.

      Weaknesses:

      They did not discuss the systematic problems widely existing, did not use the conventional way to discuss the evolutionary process of branches or clades, but just chronically describe the overall history.

      Comments on revisions:

      As the authors are aware that there are some taxonomic problems, which can not be solved at present. And they have mentioned this in the revised manuscript. I can not provide other suggestions at the moment.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      The manuscript by Lucie Oriol et al. revisits the understanding of interneurons in the ventral tegmental area (VTA). The study challenges the traditional notion that VTA interneurons exclusively form local synapses within the VTA. Key findings of the study indicate that VTA GABA and glutamate projection neurons also make local synapses within the VTA. This evidence suggests that functions previously attributed to VTA interneurons could be mediated by these projection neurons.

      The study tested four genetic markers-Parvalbumin (PV), Somatostatin (SST), Mu-opioid receptor (MOR), and Neurotensin (NTS)-to determine if they selectively label VTA interneurons. The findings indicate that these markers label VTA projection neurons rather than selectively identifying interneurons. Using a combination of anatomical tracing and brain slice physiological recordings, the study demonstrates that VTA projection neurons make functional inhibitory or excitatory synapses locally within the VTA. These data challenge the conventional view that VTA GABA neurons are purely interneurons and suggests that inhibitory projection neurons can serve functions previously attributed to VTA interneurons. Thus, some functions traditionally ascribed to interneurons may be carried out by projection neurons with local synapses. This has significant implications for understanding the neural circuits underlying reward, motivation, and addiction.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      This study shows that the pro-inflammatory S1P signaling regulates the responses of muller glial cells to damage. The authors describe the expression of S1P signaling components. Using agonist and antagonist of the pathways they also investigate their effect on the de-differentiation and proliferation of Muller glial cells in damaged retina of postnatal chicks. They show that S1PR1 is highly expressed in resting MG and non-neurogenic MGPCs. This receptor suppresses the proliferation and neuronal activity promotes MGPC cell cycle re-entry and enhanced the number of regenerated amacrine-like cells after retinal damage. The formation of MGPCs in damaged retinas is impaired in the absence of microglial cells. This study further shows that ablation of microglial cells from the retina increases the expression of S1P-related genes in MG, whereas inhibition of S1PR1 and SPHK1 partially rescues the formation of MGPCs in damaged retinas depleted of microglia. The studies also show that expression of S1P-related genes is conserved in fish and human retinas.

      Strengths:

      This is well-conducted study, with convincing images and statistically relevant data

      Weaknesses:

      In a previous study, the authors have shown that S1P is upstream of NF-κB signaling (Palazzo et al. 2020; 2022, 2023). Although S1P and NF-κB signaling have overlapping effects, the authors here provide evidence for S1P specific effects, adding some new information to the field.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      The manuscript by Anbarcia et al. re-evaluates the function of the enigmatic Rete Ovarii (RO), a structure that forms in close association with the mammalian ovary. The RO has generally been considered a functionless structure in the adult ovary. This manuscript follows up on a previous study from the lab) that analyzed ovarian morphogenesis using high-resolution microscopy (McKey et al., 2022). The present study adds finer details to RO development and possible function by 1) identifying new markers for OR sub-regions (e.g. GFR1a labels the connecting rete) suggesting that the sub-regions are functionally distinct, 2) showing that the OR sub-regions are connected by a luminal system that allows transport of material from the extra-ovarian rete (EOR) to the inter-ovarian rete (IOG), 3) identifies proteins that are secreted into the OR lumen and that may regulate ovarian homeostasis, and finally, 4) better defines how the vasculature, nervous, and immune system integrates with the OR.

      Strengths:

      The data is beautifully present and convincing. They show that the RO is composed of three distinct domains that have unique gene expression signatures and thus likely are functionally distinct.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      This work by Al-Jezani et al. focused on characterizing clonally derived MSC populations from the synovium of normal and osteoarthritis (OA) patients. This included characterizing the cell surface marker expression in situ (at time of isolation), as well as after in vitro expansion. The group also tried to correlate marker expression with trilineage differential potential. They also tested the ability of the different sub-populations for their efficacy in repairing cartilage in a rat model of OA. The main finding of the study is that CD47hi MSCs may have a greater capacity to repair cartilage than CD47lo MSCs, suggesting that CD47 may be a novel marker of human MSCs that have enhanced chondrogenic potential.

      Strengths:

      Studies on cell characterization of the different clonal populations isolated indicate that the MSC are heterogenous and traditional cell surface markers for MSCs do not accurately predict the differentiation potential of MSCs. While this has been previously established in the field of MSC therapy, the authors did attempt to characterize clones derived from single cells, as well as evaluate the marker profile at the time of isolation. While the outcome of heterogeneity is not surprising, the methods used to isolate and characterize the cells were well developed. The interesting finding of the study is the identification of CD47 as a potential MSC marker that could be related to chondrogenic potential. The authors suggest that MSCs with high CD47 repaired cartilage more effectively than MSC with low CD47 in a rat OA model.

      Weaknesses:

      While the identification of CD47 as a novel MSC marker could be important to the field of cell therapy and cartilage regeneration, there was a lack of robust data to support the correlation of CD47 expression to chondrogenesis. The authors indicated that the proteomics suggested that the MSC subtype expressed significantly more CD47 than the non-MSC subtype. However, it was difficult to appreciate where this was shown. It would be helpful to clearly identify where in the figure this is shown, especially since it is the key result of the study. The authors were able to isolate CD47hi and CD47 low cells. While this is exciting, it was unclear how many cells could be isolated and whether they needed to be expanded before being used in vivo. Additional details for the CD47 studies would have strengthened the paper. Furthermore, the CD47hi cells were not thoroughly characterized in vitro, particularly for in vitro chondrogenesis. More importantly, the in vivo study where the CD47hi and CD47lo MSCs were injected into a rat model of OA lacked experimental details regarding how many cells were injected and how they were labeled. No representative histology was presented and there did not seem to be a statistically significant difference between the OARSI score of the saline injected and MSC injected groups. The repair tissue was stained for Sox9 expression, which is an important marker of chondrogenesis but does not show production of cartilage. Expression of Collagen Type II would be needed to more robustly claim that CD47 is a marker of MSCs with enhanced repair potential.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary

      The authors describe a method for gastruloid formation using mouse embryonic stem cells (mESCs) to study YS and AGM-like hematopoietic differentiation. They characterise the gastruloids during nine days of differentiation using a number of techniques including flow cytometry and single-cell RNA sequencing. They compare their findings to a published data set derived from E10-11.5 mouse AGM. At d9, gastruloids were transplanted under the adrenal gland capsule of immunocompromised mice to look for the development of cells capable of engrafting the mouse bone marrow. The authors then applied the gastruloid protocol to study overexpression of Mnx1 which causes infant AML in humans.

      In the introduction, the authors define their interpretation of the different waves of hematopoiesis that occur during development. 'The subsequent wave, known as definitive, produces: first, oligopotent erythro-myeloid progenitors (EMPs) in the YS (E8-E8.5); and later myelo-lymphoid progenitors (MLPs - E9.5-E10), multipotent progenitors (MPPs - E10-E11.5), and hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs - E10.5-E11.5), in the aorta-gonad-mesonephros (AGM) region of the embryo proper.' Herein they designate the yolk sac-derived wave of EMP hematopoiesis as definitive, according to convention, although paradoxically it does not develop from intra-embryonic mesoderm or give rise to HSCs.

      General comments

      The authors make the following claims in the paper:

      (1) The development of a protocol for hemogenic gastruloids (hGx) that recapitulates YS and AGM-like waves of blood from HE.

      (2) The protocol recapitulates both YS and EMP-MPP embryonic blood development 'with spatial and temporal accuracy'.

      (3) The protocol generates HSC precursors capable of short-term engraftment in an adrenal niche.

      (4) Overexpression of MNX1 in hGx transforms YS EMP to 'recapitulate patient transcriptional signatures'.

      (5) hGx is a model to study normal and leukaemic embryonic hematopoiesis.

      There are major concerns with the manuscript. The statements and claims made by the authors are not supported by the data presented, data is overinterpreted, and the conclusions cannot be justified. Furthermore, the data is presented in a way that makes it difficult for the reader to follow the narrative, causing confusion. The authors have not discussed how their hGx compares to the previously published mouse embryoid body protocols used to model early development and hematopoiesis.

      Specific points

      (1) It is claimed that HGxs capture cellularity and topography of developmental blood formation. The hGx protocol described in the manuscript is a modification of a previously published gastruloid protocol (Rossi et al 2022). The rationale for the protocol modifications is not fully explained or justified. There is a lack of novelty in the presented protocol as the only modifications appear to be the inclusion of Activin A and an extension of the differentiation period from 7 to 9 days of culture. No direct comparison has been made between the two versions of gastruloid differentiation to justify the changes.

      The inclusion of Activin A at high concentration at the beginning of differentiation would be expected to pattern endoderm rather than mesoderm. BMP signaling is required to induce Flk1+ mesoderm, even in the presence of Wnt. FACS analysis of the hGx during differentiation is needed to demonstrate the co-expression of Flk1-GFP and lineage markers such as CD34 to indicate patterning of endothelium from Flk1+ mesoderm. The FACS plots in Figure 1 show c-Kit expression but very little VE-cadherin which suggests that CD34 is not induced. Early endoderm expresses c-Kit, CXCR4, and Epcam but not CD34 which could account for the lack of vascular structures within the hGx as shown in Figure 1E.

      (2) The protocol has been incompletely characterised, and the authors have not shown how they can distinguish between either wave of Yolk Sac (YS) hematopoiesis (primitive erythroid/macrophage and erythro-myeloid EMP) or between YS and intraembryonic Aorta-Gonad-Mesonephros (AGM) hematopoiesis. No evidence of germ layer specification has been presented to confirm gastruloid formation, organisation, and functional ability to mimic early development. Furthermore, differentiation of YS primitive and YS EMP stages of development in vitro should result in the efficient generation of CD34+ endothelial and hematopoietic cells. There is no flow cytometry analysis showing the kinetics of CD34 cell generation during differentiation. Benchmarking the hGx against developing mouse YS and embryo data sets would be an important verification.

      Single-cell RNA sequencing was used to compare hGx with mouse AGM. The authors incorrectly conclude that ' ..specification of endothelial and HE cells in hGx follows with time-dependent developmental progression into putative AGM-like HE..' And, '...HE-projected hGx cells.......expressed Gata2 but not Runx1, Myb, or Gfi1b..' Hemogenic endothelium is defined by the expression of Runx1 and Gfli1b is downstream of Runx1.

      (3) The hGx protocol 'generates hematopoietic SC precursors capable of short-term engraftment' is not supported by the data presented. Short-term engraftment would be confirmed by flow cytometric detection of hematopoietic cells within the recipient bone marrow, spleen, thymus, and peripheral blood that expressed the BFP transgene. This analysis was not provided. PCR detection of transcripts, following an unspecified number of amplification cycles, as shown in Figure 3G (incorrectly referred to as Figure 3F in the legend) is not acceptable evidence for engraftment. Transplanted hGx formed teratoma-like structures, with hematopoietic cells present at the site of transplant only analysed histologically. Indeed, the quality of the images provided does not provide convincing validation that donor-derived hematopoietic cells were present in the grafts.

      There is no justification for the authors' conclusion that '... the data suggest that 216h hGx generate AGM-like pre-HSC capable of at least short-term multilineage engraftment upon maturation...'. Indeed, this statement is in conflict with previous studies demonstrating that pre-HSCs in the dorsal aorta of the mouse embryo are immature and actually incapable of engraftment.

      The statement '...low-level production of engrafting cells recapitulates their rarity in vivo, in agreement with the embryo-like qualities of the gastruloid system....' is incorrect. Firstly, no evidence has been provided to show the hGx has formed a dorsal aorta facsimile capable of generating cells with engrafting capacity. Secondly, although engrafting cells are rare in the AGM, approximately one per embryo, they are capable of robust and extensive engraftment upon transplantation.

      (4) Expression MNX1 transcript and protein in hematopoietic cells in MNX1 rearranged acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) is one cause of AML in infants. In the hGX model of this disease, Mnx1 is overexpressed in the mESCs that are used to form gastruloids. Mnx1 overexpression seems to confer an overall growth advantage on the hGx and increase the serial replating capacity of the small number of hematopoietic cells that are generated. The inefficiency with which the hGx model generates hematopoietic cells makes it difficult to model this disease. The poor quality of the cytospin images prevents accurate identification of cells. The statement that the kit-expressing cells represent leukemic blast cells is not sufficiently validated to support this conclusion. What other stem cell genes are expressed? Surface kit expression also marks mast cells, frequently seen in clonogenic assays of blood cells. Flow cytometric and gene expression analyses using known markers would be required.

      (5) In human infant MNX1 AML, the mutation is thought to arise at the fetal liver stage of development. There is no evidence that this developmental stage is mimicked in the hGx model.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      This study investigated the mechanism underlying Congenital NAD Deficiency Disorder (CNDD) using a mouse model with loss of function of the HAAO enzyme which mediates a key step in the NAD de novo synthesis pathway. This study builds on the observation that the kynurenine pathway is required in the conceptus, as HAAO null embryos are sensitive to maternal deficiency of NAD precursors (vitamin B3) and tryptophan, and narrows the window of sensitivity to a 3 day period.

      An important finding is that de novo NAD synthesis occurs in an extra-embryonic tissue, the visceral yolk sac, before the liver develops in the embryo. It is suggested that lack of this yolk sac activity leads to impaired NAD supply in the embryo leading to structural abnormalities found later in development.

      Strengths:

      Previous studies show a requirement for HAOO activity for normal development of the embryos develop abnormalities under conditions of maternal vitamin B3 deficiency, indicating a requirement for NAD synthesis in the conceptus. Analysis of scRNA-seq datasets combined with metabolite analysis of yolk sac tissue shows that the NAD synthesis pathway is expressed and functional in the yolk sac from E10.5 onwards (prior to liver development).

      HAOO enzyme assay enabled quantification of enzyme activity in relevant tissues including liver (from E12.5), embryo, placenta and yolk sac (from E11.5).<br /> Comprehensive metabolite analysis of the NAD synthesis pathway supports the predicted effects of HAOO knockout and provides analysis of yolk sac, placenta and embryo at a series of stages.

      The dietary study (with lower vitamin B3 in maternal diet from E7.5-10.5) is an incremental addition to previous studies which imposed similar restrictions from E7.5-12.5. Nevertheless, this emphasises the importance of the synthesis pathway on the conceptus at stages before liver activity is prominent.

      Weaknesses:

      The current dietary study narrows the period when deficiency can cause malformations (analysed at E18.5), and altered metabolite profiles (eg, increased 3HAA, lower NAD) are detected in yolk sac and embryo at E10.5.

      More importantly, there is still a question of whether in addition to the yolks sac, there is HAAO activity within the embryo itself has been assayed as early as E11.5, with minimal activity prior to E12.5 (when it is assayed in liver). These findings support the hypothesis that within the conceptus (embryo, chorioallantoic placenta and visceral yok sac) the embryo is unlikely to be the site of NAD synthesis prior to liver development.

      Evidence for lack of function of the NAD synthesis pathway in the embryos itself from kynurenine at E7.5-10.5 comes from reanalysis of scRNA-seq. This suggests low or absent expression of HAAO in the embryo prior to E10.5 (corresponding to the period when the authors have demonstrated that de novo NAD synthesis in the conceptus is needed). The caveat to this conclusion is that additional analysis of RNA and/or protein expression in the embryos at E7.5-10.5 has not been performed to validate the scRNA-seq data.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      While CRISPR/Cas technology has greatly facilitated the ability to perform precise genome edits in Leishmania spp., the lack of a non-homologous DNA end-joining (NHEJ) pathway in Leishmania has prevented researchers from performing large-scale Cas-based perturbation screens. With the introduction of base editing technology to the Leishmania field, the Beneke lab has begun to address this challenge (Engstler and Beneke, 2023). In this study, the authors build on their previously published protocols and develop a strategy that:

      a) allows for very high editing efficiency. The cell editing frequency of 1 edit per 70 cells reported in this study represents a 400-fold improvement over the previously published protocol,<br /> b) reduces the negative effects of high sgRNA levels on parasite growth by using a weaker T7 promoter to drive sgRNA transcription.

      The combination of these two improvements should open the door to exciting large-scale screens and thus be of great interest to researchers working with Leishmania and beyond.

      The authors did a great job responding to our concerns and we have no doubt that the technology established here, will be very useful for the Leishmania research community and beyond.

    1. Joint Public Reviews:

      Summary:

      This work used a comprehensive dataset to compare the effects of species diversity and genetic diversity on multiple ecosystem functions within each trophic level and across three trophic levels. The authors found that species diversity had negative effects on ecosystem functions, while genetic diversity had positive effects. These effects were only observed within each trophic level and not across the three trophic levels studied. Although the effects of biodiversity, especially genetic diversity across multi-trophic levels, have been shown to be important, there are still very few empirical studies on this topic due to the complex relationships and difficulties in obtaining data. This study collected an excellent dataset to address this question and improve our understanding of the effects of genetic diversity effects in aquatic ecosystems.

      Strengths:

      The study collected a large, good and rare observational dataset covering different facets of diversity (species vs. genetic, multi-trophic levels) and multiple ecosystem functions (biomass of focal species and overall communities, and decomposition rates). The authors used appropriate statistical analyses to provide a comprehensive analysis about how different facets of diversity affect different ecosystem functions.

      Weaknesses:

      The nature of this observational study makes it difficult to get compelling evidence of the causal relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem functions. As the ecosystem functions were measured at both species and community levels in natural ecosystems, particular care needs to be taken when interpreting comparisons between these ecosystem functions measured at different levels.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      The authors examined whether aberrantly-projecting retinal ganglion cell in albino mice innervate a separate population of thalamocortical neurons, as would be predicted for Hebbian learning rules. The authors find support for this hypothesis in CLEM reconstructions of retinal ganglion cell axons and thalamocortical neurons. In a second line of investigation, the authors ask the same question about retinal ganglion cell innervation of local inhibitory neurons of the mouse LGN. The authors conclude that these connections are less specific.

      Strengths:

      Good use of CLEM to test a circuit-level hypothesis

      Interesting difference between TC and LIN neurons found

      Weaknesses:

      The authors have addressed all concerns in the last round to my satisfaction.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      This paper is an incremental follow-up to the authors' recent paper which showed that Purkinje cells make inhibitory synapses onto brainstem neurons in the parabrachial nucleus which project directly to the forebrain. In that precedent paper, the authors used a mouse line which expresses the presynaptic marker synaptophysin in Purkinje cells to identify Purkinje cell terminals in the brainstem and they observed labeled puncta not only in the vestibular and parabrachial nuclei, as expected, but also in neighboring dorsal brainstem nuclei, prominently the central pontine grey. The present study, motivated by the lack of thorough characterization of PC projections to brainstem, uses the same mouse line to anatomically map the density and a PC-specific channelrhodopsin mouse line to electrophysiologically assess the strength of Purkinje cell synapses in dorsal brainstem nuclei. The main findings are (1) the density of Purkinje cell synapses is highest in vestibular and parabrachial nuclei and correlates with the magnitude of evoked inhibitory synaptic currents, and (2) Purkinje cells also synapse in the central pontine grey nucleus but not in the locus coeruleus or mesencephalic nucleus.

      Strengths:

      The complementary use of anatomical and electrophysiological methods to survey the distribution and efficacy of Purkinje cell synapses on brainstem neurons in mouse lines that express markers and light-sensitive opsins specifically in Purkinje cells is the major strength of this study. By systematically mapping presynaptic terminals and light-evoked inhibitory postsynaptic currents in dorsal brainstem, the authors provide convincing evidence that Purkinje cells do synapse directly onto pontine central grey and nearby neurons but do not synapse onto trigeminal motor or locus coeruleus neurons. Their results also confirm previously documented heterogeneity of Purkinje cell inputs to vestibular nucleus and parabrachial neurons.

      Weaknesses:

      Although the study provides strong evidence that Purkinje cells do not make extensive synapses onto LC neurons, which is a helpful caveat given previous reports to the contrary, it falls short of providing the comprehensive characterization of Purkinje cell brainstem synapses which seemed to be the primary motivation of the study. The main information provided is a regional assessment of PC density and efficacy, which seems of limited utility given that we are not informed about the different sources of PC inputs, variations in the sizes of PC terminals, the subcellular location of synaptic terminals, or the anatomical and physiological heterogeneity of postsynaptic cell types. The title of this paper would be more accurate if "characterization" were replaced by "survey".

      Several of the study's conclusions are quite general and have already been made for vestibular nuclei, including the suggestions in Abstract, Results, and Discussion that PCs selectively influence brainstem subregions and that PCs target cell types with specific behavioral roles.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      Insulin is crucial for maintaining metabolic homeostasis, and its release is regulated by various pathways, including blood glucose levels and neuromodulatory systems. The authors investigated the role of neuromodulators in regulating the dynamics of the adult Drosophila IPC population. They showed that IPCs express various receptors for monoaminergic and peptidergic neuromodulators, as well as synaptic neurotransmitters with highly heterogeneous profiles across the IPC population. Activating specific modulatory inputs, e.g. dopaminergic, octopaminergic or peptidergic (Leucokinin) using an optogenetic approach coupled with in vivo electrophysiology unveiled heterogeneous responses of individual IPCs resulting in excitatory, inhibitory or no responses. Interestingly, calcium imaging of the entire IPC population with or without simultaneous electrophysiological recording of individual cells showed highly specific and stable responses of individual IPCs suggesting their intrinsic properties are determined by the expressed receptor repertoire. Using the adult fly connectome they further corroborate the synaptic input of excitatory and inhibitory neuronal subsets of IPCs. The authors conclude that the heterogeneous modulation of individual IPC activity is more likely to allow for flexible control of insulin release to adapt to changes in metabolic demand and environmental cues.

      Strengths:

      This study provides a comprehensive, multi-level analysis of IPC properties utilizing single-nucleus RNA sequencing, anatomical receptor expression mapping, connectomics, electrophysiological recordings, calcium-imaging and an optogenetics-based 'intrinsic pharmacology' approach. It highlights the heterogeneous receptor profiles of IPCs, demonstrating complex and differential modulation within the IPC population. The authors convincingly showed that different neuromodulatory inputs exhibit varied effects on IPC activity and simultaneous occurrence of heterogeneous responses in IPCs with some populations exciting a subset of IPCs while inhibiting others, showcasing the intricate nature of IPC modulation and diverse roles of IPC subgroups. The temporal dynamic of IPC modulation showed that polysynaptic and neuromodulatory connections play a major role in IPC response. The authors demonstrated that certain neuromodulatory inputs, e.g. dopamine, can shift the overall IPC population activity towards either an excited or inhibited state. The study thus provides a fundamental entry point to understanding the complex influence of neuromodulatory inputs on the insulinergic system of Drosophila.

      Weakness:

      GPCRs are typically expressed at low levels and while the transcriptomic and reporter expression analysis by the authors was comprehensive, challenges remain to fully validate receptor expression and function. It will thus require future studies to elucidate how these modulatory inputs affect insulin release and transcriptional long-term changes using receptor-specific manipulation and readouts for insulin release. Similarly, optogenetically driven excitation of modulatory neuronal subsets limits the interpretation of the results due to the possibly confounding direct or indirect effect of fast synaptic transmission on IPC excitation/inhibition, and the broad expression of some neuromodulatory lines used in this analysis.

      Despite these limitations that are beyond the scope of this study, the conclusions made by the authors are balanced and well supported by the data provided. Moreover, their detailed and thorough analysis of IPC modulation will have a significant impact on the field of metabolic regulation to understand the complex regulatory mechanism of insulin release, which can now be studied further to provide insight about metabolic homeostasis and neural control of metabolic processes.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      The work by Fisher et al describes the role of novel RSPO mimetics in the activation of WNT signaling and hepatocyte regeneration. However, the results of the experiments and weaknesses of the methods used do not support the conclusions of the authors that the new therapy can promote liver regeneration in alcohol-induced liver cirrhosis.

      Strengths:

      Similarly to its precursor, aASGR1-RSPO2-RA-IgG, SZN-043 can upregulate Wnt target genes and promote hepatocyte proliferation in the liver.

      Weaknesses:

      (1) The authors rely on the expression of a single gene, CYP1A1, as a readout of Wnt/ß-catenin target gene expression. A more systemic evaluation of Wnt/ß-catenin activity should be performed.

      (2) The lack of the mRNA upregulation of cell cycle genes is not sufficient to draw a conclusion of the impaired regeneration in cirrhotic livers.

      (3) The authors present single-dose pharmacokinetic (PK) profile of SZN-04. It is not clear how that compares to its precursor, to justify better pharmacokinetic properties.

      (4) The specificity of Wnt/ß-catenin activation should be evaluated in ß-catenin KO mice to show no target gene induction in the absence of ß-catenin.

      (5) The authors demonstrated that the drug promoted hepatocyte proliferation. How it affects liver functional parameters in alcohol-fed mice, hepatocyte differentiation markers, albumin production, and coagulation factor synthesis is not clear.

      (6) Female mice only were used for alcohol studies; the effect on the male mice needs to be evaluated as well.

      (7) Alcohol feeding did not reduce Wnt/ß-catenin target gene expression in mice suggesting that it is a bad model to study the efficacy of the SZN-043 in alcohol-induced liver cirrhosis.

      (8) The authors used CCl4-induced fibrosis as a model of ALD fibrosis. However, this is not a suitable fibrosis model for ALD studies. Adding alcohol to CCl4 treatment could potentially address this issue. Alternatively, the authors should use an ALD model that produces significant fibrosis.

      (9) Sex for the CCl4-treated mice is not indicated.

      (10) Histology and fibrosis assessment data for alcohol-fed mice should be presented.

      (11) The rationale for using 13.5-month-old aging mice for alcohol studies and immunodeficient mice only for CCl4 studies is not clear.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      Participants in this study completed three visits. In the first, participants received experimental thermal stimulations which were calibrated to elicit three specific pain responses (30, 50, 70) on a 0-100 visual analogue scale (VAS). Experimental pressure stimulations were also calibrated at an intensity to the same three pain intensity responses. In the subsequent two visits, participants completed another pre-calibration check (Visit 2 of 3 only). Then, prior to the exercise NALOXONE or a SALINE placebo-control was administered intravenously. Participants then completed 1 of 4 blocks of HIGH (100%) or LOW (55%) intensity cycling which was tailored according to a functional threshold power (FTP) test completed in Visit 1. After each block of cycling lasting 10 minutes, participants entered an MRI scanner and were stimulated with the same thermal and pressure stimulations that corresponded to 30, 50, and 70 pain intensity ratings from the calibration stage. Therefore, this study ultimately sought to investigate whether aerobic exercise does indeed incur a hypoalgesia effect. More specifically, researchers tested the validity of the proposed endogenous pain modulation mechanism. Further investigation into whether the intensity of exercise had an effect on pain and the neurological activation of pain-related brain centres were also explored.

      Results show that in the experimental visits (Visit 2 and 3), when participants exercised at two distinct intensities as intended. Power output, heart rate, and perceived effort ratings were higher during the HIGH versus LOW-intensity cycling. In particular. HIGH intensity exercise was perceived as "hard" / ~15 on the Borg (1974, 1998) scale, whereas LOW intensity exercise was perceived as "very light" / ~9 on the same scale.

      The fMRI data from Figure 1 indicates that the anterior insula, dorsal posterior insula, and middle cingulate cortex show pronounced activation as stimulation intensity and subsequent pain responses increased, thus linking these brain regions with pain intensity and corroborating what many studies have shown before.

      Results also showed that participants rated a higher pain intensity in the NALOXONE condition at all three stimulation intensities compared to the SALINE condition. Therefore, the expected effect of NALOXONE in this study seemed to occur whereby opioid receptors were "blocked" and thus resulted in higher pain ratings compared to a SALINE condition where opioid receptors were "not blocked". When accounting for participant sex, NALOXONE had negligible effects at lower experimental nociceptive stimulations for females compared to males who showed a hyperalgesia effect to NALOXONE at all stimulation intensities (peak effect at 50 VAS). Females did show a hyperalgesia effect at stimulation intensities corresponding to 50 and 70 VAS pain ratings. The fMRI data showed that the periaqueductal gray (PAG) showed increased activation in the NALOXONE versus SALINE condition at higher thermal stimulation intensities. The PAG is well-linked to endogenous pain modulation.

      When assessing the effects of NALOXONE and SALINE after exercise, results showed no significant differences in subsequent pain intensity ratings.

      When assessing the effect of aerobic exercise intensity on subsequent pain intensity ratings, authors suggested that aerobic exercise in the form of a continuous cycling exercise tailored to an individual's FTP is not effective at eliciting an exercise-induced hypoalgesia response -irrespective of exercise intensity. This is because results showed that pain responses did not differ significantly between HIGH and LOW intensity exercise with (NALOXONE) and without (SALINE) an opioid antagonist. Therefore, authors have also questioned the mechanisms (endogenous opioids) behind this effect.

      Strengths:

      Altogether, the paper is a great piece of work that has provided some truly useful insight into the neurological and perceptual mechanisms associated with pain and exercise-induced hypoalgesia. The authors have gone to great lengths to delve into their research question(s) and their methodological approach is relatively sound. The study has incorporated effective pseudo-randomisation and conducted a rigorous set of statistical analyses to account for as many confounds as possible. I will particularly credit the authors on their analysis which explores the impact of sex and female participants' stage of menses on the study outcomes. It would be particularly interesting for future work to pursue some of these lines of research which investigate the differences in the endogenous opioid mechanism between sexes and the added interaction of stage of menses or training status.

      There are certainly many other areas that this article contributes to the literature due to the depth of methods the research team has used. For example, the authors provide much insight into: the impact of exercise intensity on the exercise-induced hypoalgesia effect; the impact of sex on the endogenous opioid modulation mechanism; and the impact of exercise intensity on the neurological indices associated with endogenous pain modulation and pain processing. All of which, the researchers should be credited for due to the time and effort they have spent completing this study. Indeed, their in-depth analysis of many of these areas provides ample support for the claims they make in relation to these specific questions. As such, I consider their evidence concerning the fMRI data to be very convincing (and interesting).

      Weaknesses:

      Although the authors have their own view of their results, I do however, have a slightly different take on what the post-exercise pain ratings seem to show and its implications for judging whether an exercise-induced hypoalgesia effect is present or not. From what I have read, I cannot seem to find whether the authors have compared the post-exercise pain ratings against any data that was collected pre-exercise/at rest or as part of the calibration. Instead, I believe the authors have only compared post-exercise pain ratings against one another (i.e., HIGH versus LOW, NALOXONE versus SALINE). In doing so, I think the authors cannot fully assume that there is no exercise-induced hypoalgesia effect as there is no true control comparison (a no-exercise condition).

      In more detail, Figure 6A appears to show an average of all pain ratings combined per participant (is this correct?). As participants were exposed to stimulations expected to elicit a 30, 50, or 70 VAS rating based on pre-calibration values, therefore the average rating would be expected to be around 50. What Figure 6A shows is that in the SALINE condition, average pain ratings are in fact ~10-15 units lower (~35) and then in the NALOXONE condition, average pain ratings are ~5 units lower (~45) for both exercise intensities. From this, I would surmise the following:

      It appears there is an exercise-induced hypoalgesia effect as average pain ratings are ~30% lower than pre-calibrated/resting pain ratings within the SALINE condition at the same temperature of stimulation (it would also be interesting to see if this effect occurred for the pressure pain).

      It appears there is evidence for the endogenous opioid mechanism as the NALOXONE condition demonstrates a minimal hypoalgesia effect after exercise. I.e., NALOXONE indeed blocked the opioid receptors, and such inhibition prevented the endogenous opioid system from taking effect.

      It appears there is no effect of exercise intensity on the exercise-induced hypoalgesia effect. That is, participants can cycle at a moderate intensity (55% FTP) and incur the same hypoalgesia benefits as cycling at an intensity that demarcates the boundary between heavy and severe intensity exercise (100%FTP). This is a great finding in my mind as anyone wishing to reduce pain can do so without having to engage in exercise that is too effortful/intense and therefore aversive - great news! This likely has many applications within the field of public health.

      I will very slightly caveat my summaries with the fact that a more ideal comparison here would be a control condition whereby participants did the same experimental visit but without any exercise prior to entering the MRI scanner. I consider the overall strength of the evidence to be solid, with the answer to the primary research question still a little ambiguous.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      Lloyd et al employ an evolutionary comparative approach to study how sleep deprivation affects DNA damage repair in Astyanax mexicanus, using the cave vs surface species evolution as a playground. The work shows, convincingly, that the cavefish population has evolved an impaired DNA damage response both following sleep deprivation or a classical paradigm of DNA damage (UV).

      Strengths:

      The study employs a thorough multidisciplinary approach. The experiments are well conducted and generally well presented.

      Weaknesses:

      Having a second experimental mean to induce DNA damage would strengthen and generalise the findings.

      Overall, the study represents a very important addition to the field. The model employed underlines once more the importance of using an evolutionary approach to study sleep and provides context and caveats to statements that perhaps were taken a bit too much for granted before. At the same time, the paper manages to have an extremely constructive approach, presenting the platform as a clear useful tool to explore the molecular aspects behind sleep and cellular damage in general. The discussion is fair, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of the work and its implications.

      Comments on revisions:

      I was pretty happy with the previous version of the manuscript already and the authors have made all the minor corrections I had suggested so I don't have much to add. The main "weakness", if at all, is that the story would benefit from a secondary stressor (other than UV) but I understand the authors see this more as a long term development than just an addition to this particular paper, which is fair enough.

      I don't have any further recommendations. I think this model system is really important for the sleep field and offers a completely new and important perspective to its evolution and function.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      For many years, there has been extensive electrophysiological research investigating the relationship between local field potential patterns and individual cell spike patterns in the hippocampus. In this study, using state-of-the-art imaging techniques, they examined spike synchrony of hippocampal cells during locomotion and immobility states. In contrast to conventional understanding of the hippocampus, the authors demonstrated that hippocampal place cells exhibit prominent synchronous spikes locked to theta oscillations.

      Strengths:

      The voltage imaging used in this study is a highly novel method that allows recording not only suprathreshold-level spikes but also subthreshold-level activity. With its high frame rate, it offers time resolution comparable to electrophysiological recordings.

    1. Reviewer #2 (Public review):

      Summary:

      This study reveals that short-term social isolation increases social behavior at a reunion, and a population of hypothalamic preoptic area neurons become active after social interaction following short-term isolation (POAsocial neurons). Effectively utilizing a TRAP activity-dependent labeling method, the authors inhibit or activate the POAsocial neurons and find that these neurons are involved in controlling various social behaviors, including ultrasonic vocalization, investigation, and mounting in both male and female mice. This work suggests a complex role for the POA in regulating multiple aspects of social behavior, beyond solely controlling male sexual behaviors.

      Strengths

      While a few studies have shown that optogenetic activation of the POA in females promotes vocalization and mounting behavior similar to the effects observed in males, these were results of artificially stimulating POA neurons, and whether POA neurons play a role in naturally occurring female social behaviors was unknown. This paper clearly demonstrates that a population of POA neurons is necessary for naturally evoked female social vocalizations and mounting behaviors.

      Weaknesses

      The authors used various gain-of-function and loss-of-function methods to identify the function of POAsocial neurons. However, there were inconsistent results among the different methodologies. As the authors describe in the manuscript, these inconsistencies are potentially due to limitations of the TRAP activity-dependent labeling method; however, different approaches will be necessary to clarify these issues.

      Overall, this paper is well-written and provides valuable new data on the neural circuit for female social behaviors and the potentially complex role of POA in social behavior control.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      The authors report on a thorough investigation of the interaction of megakaryocytes (MK) with their associated ECM during maturation. They report convincing evidence to support the existence of a dense cage-like pericellular structure containing laminin γ1 and α4 and collagen IV, which interacts with integrins β1 and β3 on MK and serves to fix the perisinusoidal localization of MK and prevent their premature intravasation. As with everything in nature, the authors support a Goldilocks range of MK-ECM interactions - inability to digest the ECM via inhibition of MMPs leads to insufficient MK maturation and development of smaller MK. This important work sheds light on the role of cell-matrix interactions in MK maturation, and suggests that higher-dimensional analyses are necessary to capture the full scope of cellular biology in the context of their microenvironment.

      There are several outstanding questions that this work does not address.

      Major:

      The authors postulate a synergistic role for Itgb1 and Itgb3 in the intravasation phenotype, because the single KOs did not replicate the phenotype of the DKO. However, this is not a correct interpretation in the opinion of this reviewer. The roles appear rather to be redundant. Synergistic roles would rather demonstrate a modest effect in the single KO with potentiation in the DKO.

      Furthermore, the experiment does not explain how these integrins influence the interaction of the MK with their microenvironment. It is not surprising that attachment will be impacted by the presence or absence of integrins. However, it is unclear how activation of integrins allows the MK to become "architects for their ECM microenvironment" as the authors posit. A transcriptomic analysis of control and DKO MKs may help elucidate these effects.

      Integrin DKO have a 50% reduction in platelets counts as reported previously, however laminin α4 deficiency only leads to 20% reduction in counts. This suggests a more nuanced and subtle role of the ECM in platelet growth. To this end, functional assays of the platelets in the KO and wildtype mice may provide more information.

      There is insufficient information in the Methods Section to understand the BM isolation approach. Did the authors flush the bone marrow and then image residual bone, or the extruded bone marrow itself as described in PMID: 29104956?

      The references in the Methods section were very frustrating. The authors reference Eckly et al 2020 (PMID: 32702204) which provides no more detail but references a previous publication (PMID: 24152908), which also offers no information and references a further paper (PMID: 22008103), which, as far as this reviewer can tell, did not describe the methodology of in situ bone marrow imaging.

      Therefore, this reviewer cannot tell how the preparation was performed and, importantly, how can we be sure that the microarchitecture of the tissue did not get distorted in the process?

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      This paper contains what could be described as a "classic" approach towards evaluating a novel taste stimuli in an animal model, including standard behavioral tests (some with nerve transections), taste nerve physiology, and immunocytochemistry of taste cells of the tongue. The stimulus being tested is ornithine, from a class of stimuli called "kokumi" (in terms of human taste); these kokumi stimuli appear to enhance other canonical tastes, increasing what are essentially hedonic attributes of other stimuli. The mechanism for ornithine detection is thought to be GPRC6A receptors expressed in taste cells. The authors showed evidence for this in an earlier paper with mice; this paper evaluates ornithine taste in a rat model, and comes to a similar conclusion, albeit with some small differences between the two rodent species.

      Strengths:

      The data show effects of ornithine on taste/intake in laboratory rats: In two-bottle and briefer intake tests, adding ornithine results in higher intake of most, but all not all stimuli tested. Bilateral chorda tympani (CT) nerve cuts or the addition of GPRC6A antagonists decreased or eliminated these effects. Ornithine also evoked responses by itself in the CT nerve, but mainly at higher concentrations; at lower concentrations it potentiated the response to monosodium glutamate. Finally, immunocytochemistry of taste cell expression indicated that GPRC6A was expressed predominantly in the anterior tongue, and co-localized (to a small extent) with only IP3R3, indicative of expression in a subset of type II taste receptor cells.

      Weaknesses:

      As the authors are aware, it is difficult to assess a complex human taste with complex attributes, such as kokumi, in an animal model. In these experiments they attempt to uncover mechanistic insights about how ornithine potentiates other stimuli by using a variety of established experimental approaches in rats. They partially succeed by finding evidence that GPRC6A may mediate effects of ornithine when it is used at lower concentrations. In the revision they have scaled back their interpretations accordingly. A supplementary experiment measuring certain aspects of the effects of ornithine added to Miso soup in human subjects is included for the express purpose of establishing that the kokumi sensation of a complex solution is enhanced by ornithine; however, they do not use any such complex solutions in the rat studies. Moreover, the sample size of the human experiment is (still) small - it really doesn't belong in the same manuscript with the rat studies.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      The Bagnat and Rawls groups' previous published work (Park et al., 2019) described the kinetics and genetic basis of protein absorption in a specialized cell population of young vertebrates termed lysosome-rich enterocytes (LREs). In this study they seek to understand how the presence and composition of the microbiota impacts the protein absorption function of these cells and reciprocally, how diet and intestinal protein absorption function impact the microbiome.

      Strengths of the study include the functional assays for protein absorption performed in live larval zebrafish, which provides detailed kinetics on protein uptake and degradation with anatomic precision, and the gnotobiotic manipulations. The authors clearly show that the presence of the microbiota or of certain individual bacterial members slows the uptake and degradation of multiple different tester fluorescent proteins.

      To understand the mechanistic basis for these differences, the authors also provide detailed single-cell transcriptomic analyses of cells isolated based on both an intestinal epithelial cell identity (based on a transgenic marker) and their protein uptake activity. The data generated from these analyses, presented in Figures 3-5, are valuable for expanding knowledge about zebrafish intestinal epithelial cell identities, but of more limited interest to a broader readership. Some of the descriptive analysis in this section is circular because the authors define subsets of LREs (termed anterior and posterior) based on their fabp2 expression levels, but then go on to note transcriptional differences between these cells (for example in fabp2) that are a consequence of this initial subsetting.

      Inspired by their single-cell profiling and by previous characterization of the genes required for protein uptake and degradation in the LREs, the authors use quantitative hybridization chain reaction RNA-fluorescent in situ hybridization to examine transcript levels of several of these genes along the length of the LRE intestinal region of germ-free versus mono-associated larvae. They provide good evidence for reduced transcript levels of these genes that correlate with the reduced protein uptake in the mono-associated larval groups.

      The final part of the study (shown in Figure 7) characterized the microbiomes of 30-day-old zebrafish reared from 6-30 days on defined diets of low and high protein and with or without homozygous loss of the cubn gene required for protein uptake. The analysis of these microbiomes notes some significant differences between fish genotypes by diet treatments, but the discussion of these data does not provide strong support for the hypothesis that "LRE activity has reciprocal effects on the gut microbiome". The most striking feature of the MDS plot of Bray Curtis distance between zebrafish samples shown in Figure 7B is the separation by diet independent of host genotype, which is not discussed in the associated text. Additionally, the high protein diet microbiomes have a greater spread than those of the low protein treatment groups, with the high protein diet cubn mutant samples being the most dispersed. This pattern is consistent with the intestinal microbiota under a high protein diet regimen and in the absence of protein absorption machinery being most perturbed in stochastic ways than in hosts competent for protein uptake, consistent with greater beta dispersal associated with more dysbiotic microbiomes (described as the Anna Karenina principle here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28836573/). It would be useful for the authors to provide statistics on the beta dispersal of each treatment group.

      Overall, this study provides strong evidence that specific members of the microbiota differentially impact gene expression and cellular activities of enterocyte protein uptake and degradation, findings that have a significant impact on the field of gastrointestinal physiology. The work refines our understanding of intestinal cell types that contribute to protein uptake and their respective transcriptomes. The work also provides some evidence that microbiomes are modulated by enterocyte protein uptake capacity in a diet-dependent manner. These latter findings provide valuable datasets for future related studies.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      IKK is the key signaling node for inflammatory signaling. Despite the availability of molecular structures, how the kinase achieves its specificity remains unclear. This paper describes a dynamic sequence of events in which autophosphorylation of a tyrosine near the activate site facilitates phosphorylation of the serine on the substrate via a phosphor-transfer reaction. The proposed mechanism is conceptually novel in several ways, suggesting that the kinase is dual specificity (tyrosine and serine) and that it mediates a phospho-transfer reaction. While bacteria contain phosphorylation-transfer enzymes, this is unheard of for mammalian kinases. However, what the functional significance of this enzymatic activity might remain unaddressed.

      The revised manuscript adequately addresses all the points I suggested in the review of the first submission.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      In this work, Harpring et al. investigated divisome assembly in Chlamydia trachomatis serovar L2 (Ct), an obligate intracellular bacterium that lacks FtsZ, the canonical master regulator of bacterial cell division. They find that divisome assembly is initiated by the protein FtsK in Ct by showing that it forms discrete foci at the septum and future division sites. Additionally, knocking down ftsK prevents divisome assembly and inhibits cell division, further supporting their hypothesis that FtsK regulates divisome assembly. Finally, they show that MreB is one of the last chlamydial divisome proteins to arrive at the site of division and is necessary for the formation of septal peptidoglycan rings but does not act as a scaffold for division assembly as previously proposed.

      Strengths:

      The authors use microscopy to clearly show that FtsK forms foci both at the septum as well as at the base of the progenitor cell where the next septum will form. They also show that the Ct proteins PBP2, PBP3, MreC, and MreB localize to these same sites suggesting they are involved in the divisome complex.

      Using CRISPRi the authors knockdown ftsK and find that most cells are no longer able to divide and that PBP2 and PBP3 no longer localized to sites of division suggesting that FtsK is responsible for initiating divisome assembly. They also performed a knockdown of pbp2 using the same approach and found that this also mostly inhibited cell division. Additionally, FtsK was still able to localize in this strain however PBP3 did not suggest that FtsK acts upstream of PBP2 in the divisome assembly process while PBP2 is responsible for the localization of PBP3.

      The authors also find that performing a knockdown of ftsK also prevents new PG synthesis further supporting the idea that FtsK regulates divisome assembly. They also find that inhibiting MreB filament formation using A22 results in diffuse PG, suggesting that MreB filament formation is necessary for proper PG synthesis to drive cell division.

      Overall the authors propose a new hypothesis for divisome assembly in an organism that lacks FtsZ and use a combination of microscopy and genetics to support their model that is rigorous and convincing. The finding that FtsK, rather than a cytoskeletal or "scaffolding" protein is the first division protein to localize to the incipient division site is unexpected and opens up a host of questions about its regulation. The findings will progress our understanding of how cell division is accomplished in bacteria with non-canonical cell wall structure and/or that lack FtsZ.

      Weaknesses:

      No major weaknesses were noted in the data supporting the main conclusions.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      The Bagnat and Rawls groups' previous published work (Park et al., 2019) described the kinetics and genetic basis of protein absorption in a specialized cell population of young vertebrates termed lysosome rich enterocytes (LREs). In this study they seek to understand how the presence and composition of the microbiota impacts the protein absorption function of these cells and reciprocally, how diet and intestinal protein absorption function impact the microbiome.

      Strengths of the study include the functional assays for protein absorption performed in live larval zebrafish, which provides detailed kinetics on protein uptake and degradation with anatomic precision, and the gnotobiotic manipulations. The authors clearly show that the presence of the microbiota or of certain individual bacterial members slows the uptake and degradation of multiple different tester fluorescent proteins.

      To understand the mechanistic basis for these differences, the authors also provide detailed single-cell transcriptomic analyses of cells isolated based on both an intestinal epithelial cell identity (based on a transgenic marker) and their protein uptake activity. The data generated from these analyses, presented in Figures 3-5, are valuable for expanding knowledge about zebrafish intestinal epithelial cell identities, but of more limited interest to a broader readership. Some of the descriptive analysis in this section is circular because the authors define subsets of LREs (termed anterior and posterior) based on their fabp6 expression levels, but then go on to note transcriptional differences between these cells (for example in fabp6) that are a consequence of this initial subsetting.

      Inspired by their single-cell profiling and by previous characterization of the genes required for protein uptake and degradation in the LREs, the authors use quantitative hybridization chain reaction RNA-fluorescent in situ hybridization to examine transcript levels of several of these genes along the length of the LRE intestinal region of germ-free versus mono-associated larvae. They provide good evidence for reduced transcript levels of these genes that correlate with the reduced protein uptake in the mono-associated larval groups.

      The final part of the study (shown in Figure 7) characterized the microbiomes of 30-day-old zebrafish reared from 6-30 days on defined diets of low and high protein and with or without homozygous loss of the cubn gene required for protein uptake. The analysis of these microbiomes notes some significant differences between fish genotypes by diet treatments, but the discussion of these data does not provide strong support for the hypothesis that "LRE activity has reciprocal effects on the gut microbiome". The most striking feature of the MDS plot of Bray Curtis distance between zebrafish samples shown in Figure 7B is the separation by diet independent of host genotype, which is not discussed in the associated text. Additionally, the high protein diet microbiomes have a greater spread than those of the low protein treatment groups, with the high protein diet cubn mutant samples being the most dispersed. This pattern is consistent with the intestinal microbiota under a high protein diet regimen and in the absence of protein absorption machinery being most perturbed in stochastic ways than in hosts competent for protein uptake, consistent with greater beta dispersal associated with more dysbiotic microbiomes (described as the Anna Karenina principle here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28836573/). It would be useful for the authors to provide statistics on the beta dispersal of each treatment group.

      Overall, this study provides strong evidence that specific members of the microbiota differentially impact gene expression and cellular activities of enterocyte protein uptake and degradation, findings that have a significant impact on the field of gastrointestinal physiology. The work refines our understanding of intestinal cell types that contribute to protein uptake and their respective transcriptomes. The work also provides some evidence that microbiomes are modulated by enterocyte protein uptake capacity in a diet-dependent manner. These latter findings provide valuable datasets for future related studies.

      Comments on revisions:

      I suggest that the authors clarify the level of protein in the standard fish food and how this relates to the protein levels in the high protein and low protein diets used in their microbiome study.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      In this study, Basha and colleagues aim to test whether the thalamic nucleus reuniens can facilitate the hippocampus/prefrontal cortex coupling during sleep. Considering the importance of sleep in memory consolidation, this study is important to understand the functional interaction between these three majorly involved regions. This work suggests that the thalamic nucleus reuniens has a functional role in synchronizing the hippocampus and prefrontal cortex. Therefore, it paves the way to new perspectives in order to decipher the neuronal and circuit mechanisms underlying such processes.

      Strengths:

      The authors have used an interdisciplinary approach to determine how the thalamic nucleus reuniens can impact on the cortico-hippocampal dialogue during sleep. They performed recording in naturally sleeping cats, and analysed the correlation between the main slow wave sleep oscillatory hallmarks: slow waves, spindles, and hippocampal ripples, and with reuniens' neurons firing. They also associated intracellular recordings to assess the reuniens-prefrontal connectivity, and computational models of large networks in which they determine that the coupling of oscillations is modulated by the strength of hippocampal-thalamic connections.<br /> Since the literature regarding fundamentals in nucleus reuniens anatomy in cats is much thinner as compared to what is available in rodents, the authors have performed complementary functional anatomy experiments in anesthetised cats in order to support the functional results (aka excitatory links between reuniens and its targets).

      Weaknesses:

      The authors have used cats as animal models to study the hippocampo-cortical dialogue. Whereas this is a very interesting and well-done study, it will address a more limited audience, as the majority of research is conducted on rodents, which have a different functional anatomy. Hence, the mechanisms of triggering of thalamic spindles would therefore be far less relevant in rodents, unless shown otherwise in the future.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      This manuscript presents a comprehensive exploration of the role of liver-specific Survival Motor Neuron (SMN) depletion in peripheral and central nervous system tissue pathology through a well-constructed mouse model. This study is pioneering in its approach, focusing on the broader physiological implications of SMN, which has traditionally been associated predominantly with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA).

      Strengths:

      (1) Novelty and Relevance: The study addresses a significant gap in understanding the role of liver-specific SMN depletion in the context of SMA. This is a novel approach that adds valuable insights into the multi-organ impact of SMN deficiency.

      (2) Comprehensive Methodology: The use of a well-characterized mouse model with liver-specific SMN depletion is a strength. The study employs a robust set of techniques, including genetic engineering, histological analysis, and various biochemical assays.

      (3) Detailed Analysis: The manuscript provides a thorough analysis of liver pathology and its potential systemic effects, particularly on the pancreas and glucose metabolism.

      (4) Clear Presentation: The manuscript is well written. The results are presented clearly with well-designed figures and detailed legends.

      Weaknesses:

      (1) Limited Time Points: The study primarily focuses on a single time point (P19). This limits the understanding of the temporal progression of liver and pancreatic pathology in the context of SMN depletion. Longitudinal studies would provide a better understanding of disease progression.

      (2) Incomplete Recombination: The mosaic pattern of Cre-mediated excision leads to variability in SMN depletion, which complicates the interpretation of some results. Ensuring more consistent recombination across samples would strengthen the conclusions.

      After the revision, the authors addressed the reviewers' questions by extending their analyses to include P60 mice, conducting both liver and pancreatic analyses, and adding a comprehensive panel of metabolic hormones related to glucose metabolism in animals at P19 and P60. They also corrected all errors identified during the initial review process and expanded the discussion to clarify raised issues. All my questions have now been addressed.

    1. Reviewer #3 (Public review):

      Summary:

      This paper uses 2D pose estimation and quantitative behavioral analyses to compare patterns of prey capture behavior used by six species of freshwater larval fish, including zebrafish, medaka, and four cichlids. The convincing comparison of tail and eye kinematics during hunts reveals that cichlids and zebrafish use binocular vision and similar hunting strategies, but that cichlids make use of an expanded set of action types. The authors also provide convincing evidence that medaka instead use monocular vision during hunts. This finding has important implications for the evolution of distinct distance estimation algorithms used by larval teleost fish species during prey capture.

      Strengths:

      The quality of the behavioral data is solid and the high frame rate allowed for careful quantification and comparison of eye and tail dynamics during hunts. The statistical approach to assess eye vergence states (Figure 2B) is elegant, the cross-species comparison of prey location throughout each hunt phase is well done (Figure 3B-D), and the demonstration that swim bout tail kinematics from diverse species can be embedded in a shared "canonical" principal component space to explain most of the variance in 2D postural dynamics for each species (Figure 4A-C) provides a simple and powerful framework for future studies of behavioral diversification across fish species.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      Dorrego-Rivas et al. investigated two different DA neurons and their neurotransmitter release properties in the main olfactory bulb. They found that the two different DA neurons in mostly glomerular layers have different morphologies as well as electrophysiological properties. The anaxonic DA neurons are able to self-inhibit but the axon-bearing ones are not. The findings are interesting and important to increase the understanding both of the synaptic transmissions in the main olfactory bulb and the DA neuron diversity. However, there are some major questions that the authors need to address to support their conclusions.

      (1) It is known that there are two types of DA neurons in the glomerular layer with different diameters and capacitances (Kosaka and Kosaka, 2008; Pignatelli et al., 2005; Angela Pignatelli and Ottorino Belluzzi, 2017). In this manuscript, the authors need to articulate better which layer the imaging and ephys recordings took place, all glomerular layers or with an exception. Meanwhile, they have to report the electrophysiological properties of their recordings, including capacitances, input resistance, etc.

      (2) It is understandable that recording the DA neurons in the glomerular layer is not easy. However, the authors still need to increase their n's and repeat the experiments at least three times to make their conclusion more solid. For example (but not limited to), Fig 3B, n=2 cells from 1 mouse. Fig.4G, the recording only has 3 cells.

      (3) The statistics also use pseudoreplicates. It might be better to present the biology replicates, too.

      (4) In Figure 4D, the authors report the values in the manuscript. It is recommended to make a bar graph to be more intuitive.

      (5) In Figure 4F and G, although the data with three cells suggest no phenotype, the kinetics looked different. So, the authors might need to explore that aside from increasing the n.

      (6) Similarly, for Figure 4I and J, L and M, it is better to present and analyze it like F and G, instead of showing only the after-antagonist effect.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      The present study by Mikati et al describes an improved method for in-vivo detection of enkephalin release and examines the impact of stress on activation of enkephalin neurons and enkephalin release in the nucleus accumbens (NAc). The authors refine their pipeline to measure met and leu enkephalin using liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry. The authors subsequently measure met and leu enkephalin in the NAc during stress induced by handling and fox urine, in addition to calcium activity of enkephalinergic cells using fiber photometry. The authors conclude that this improved tool for measuring enkephalin reveals experimenter handling stress-induced enkephalin release in the NAc that habituates and is dissociable from calcium activity of these cells, whose activity doesn't habituate. The authors subsequently show that NAc enkephalin neuron calcium activity does habituate to fox urine exposure, is activated by a novel weigh boat, and that fox urine acutely causes increases in met-enk levels, in some animals, as assessed by microdialysis. This study highlights a new approach to monitor two distinct enkephalins and more robust analytical approach for more sensitive detection of neuropeptides. The authors also provide a pipeline that potentially could aid in detection of other neuropeptides and increase our understanding of endogenous opioid neuropeptidergic control in health and disease.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      The propagation of electrical signals within neuronal circuits is tightly regulated by the physical and molecular properties of neurons. Since neurons vary in size across species, the question arises whether propagation speed also varies to compensate for it. The present article compares numerous speed-related properties in human and rat neurons. They found that the larger size of human neurons seems to be compensated by a faster propagation within dendrites but not axons of these neurons. The faster dendritic signal propagation was found to arise from wider dendritic diameters and greater conductance load in human neurons. In addition, the article provides a careful characterization of human dendrites and axons, as the field has only recently begun to characterize post-operative human cells. There are only a few studies reporting dendritic properties and these are not all consistent, hence there is added value of reporting these findings, particularly given that the characterization is condensed in a compartmental model.

      Strengths

      The study was performed with great care using standard techniques in slice electrophysiology (pharmacological manipulation with somatic patch-clamp) as well as some challenging ones (axonal and dendritic patch-clamp). Modeling was used to parse out the role of different features in regulating dendritic propagation speed. The finding that propagation speed varies across species is novel as previous studies did not find a large change in membrane time constant nor axonal diameters (a significant parameter affecting speed). A number of possible, yet less likely factors were carefully tested (Ih, membrane capacitance). The main features outlined here are well known to regulate speed in neuronal processes. The modeling was also carefully done to verify that the magnitude of the effects is consistent with the difference in biophysical properties. Hence, the findings appear very solid to me.

      Weaknesses

      The role of diameter in regulating propagation speed is well known in the axon literature.

      Comment on the revised version: the authors have now made clearer that the role of diameter was well known in the manuscript.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      The results of these experiments support a modest but important conclusion: If sub-optimal methods are used to collect retrospective reports, such as simple yes/no questions, inattentional blindness (IB) rates may be overestimated by up to ~8%.

      (1) In experiment 1, data from 374 subjects were included in the analysis. As shown in figure 2b, 267 subjects reported noticing the critical stimulus and 107 subjects reported not noticing it. This translates to a 29% IB rate if we were to only consider the "did you notice anything unusual Y/N" question. As reported in the results text (and figure 2c), when asked to report the location of the critical stimulus (left/right), 63.6% of the "non-noticer" group answered correctly. In other words, 68 subjects were correct about the location while 39 subjects were incorrect. Importantly, because the location judgment was a 2-alternative-forced-choice, the assumption was that if 50% (or at least not statistically different than 50%) of the subjects answered the location question correctly, everyone was purely guessing. Therefore, we can estimate that ~39 of the subjects who answered correctly were simply guessing (because 39 guessed incorrectly), leaving 29 subjects from the non-noticer group who were correct on the 2AFC above and beyond the pure guess rate. If these 29 subjects are moved from the non-noticer to the noticer group, the corrected rate of IB for Experiment 1 is 20.86% instead of the original 28.61% rate that would have been obtained if only the Y/N question was used. In other words, relying only on the "Y/N did you notice anything" question led to an overestimate of IB rates by 7.75% in Experiment 1.

      In the revised version of their manuscript, the authors provided the data that was missing from the original submission, which allows this same exercise to be carried out on the other 4 experiments. Using the same logic as above, i.e., calculating the pure-guess rate on the 2AFC, moving the number of subjects above this pure-guess rate to the non-noticer group, and then re-calculating a "corrected IB rate", the other experiments demonstrate the following:

      Experiment 2: IB rates were overestimated by 4.74% (original IB rate based only on Y/N question = 27.73%; corrected IB rate that includes the 2AFC = 22.99%)

      Experiment 3: IB rates were overestimated by 3.58% (original IB rate = 30.85%; corrected IB rate = 27.27%)

      Experiment 4: IB rates were overestimated by ~8.19% (original IB rate = 57.32%; corrected IB rate for color* = 39.71%, corrected IB rate for shape = 52.61%, corrected IB rate for location = 55.07%)

      Experiment 5: IB rates were overestimated by ~1.44% (original IB rate = 28.99%; corrected IB rate for color = 27.56%, corrected IB rate for shape = 26.43%, corrected IB rate for location = 28.65%)

      *note: the highest overestimate of IB rates was from Experiment 4, color condition, but the authors admitted that there was a problem with 2AFC color guessing bias in this version of the experiment which was a main motivation for running experiment 5 which corrected for this bias.

      Taken as a whole, this data clearly demonstrates that even with a conservative approach to analyzing the combination of Y/N and 2AFC data, inattentional blindness was evident in a sizeable portion of the subject populations. An important (albeit modest) overestimate of IB rates was demonstrated by incorporating these improved methods.

      (2) One of the strongest pieces of evidence presented in this paper was the single data point in Figure 3e showing that in Experiment 3, even the super subject group that rated their non-noticing as "highly confident" had a d' score significantly above zero. Asking for confidence ratings is certainly an improvement over simple Y/N questions about noticing, and if this result were to hold, it could provide a key challenge to IB. However, this result can most likely be explained by measurement error.

      In their revised paper, the authors reported data that was missing from their original submission: the confidence ratings on the 2AFC judgments that followed the initial Y/N question. The most striking indication that this data is likely due to measurement error comes from the number of subjects who indicated that they were highly confident that they didn't notice anything on the critical trial, but then when asked to guess the location of the stimulus, indicated that they were highly confident that the stimulus was on the left (or right). There were 18 subjects (8.82% of the high-confidence non-noticer group) who responded this way. To most readers, this combination of responses (high confidence in correctly judging a stimulus feature that one is highly confident in having not seen at all) indicates that a portion of subjects misunderstood the confidence scales (or just didn't read the questions carefully or made mistakes in their responses, which is common for experiments conducted online).

      In the authors' rebuttal to the first round of peer review, they wrote, "it is perfectly rationally coherent to be very confident that one didn't see anything but also very confident that if there was anything to be seen, it was on the left." I respectfully disagree that such a combination of responses is rationally coherent. The more parsimonious interpretation is that a measurement error occurred, and it's questionable whether we should trust any responses from these 18 subjects.

      In their rebuttal, the authors go on to note that 14 of the 18 subjects who rated their 2AFC with high confidence were correct in their location judgment. If these 14 subjects were removed from analysis (which seems like a reasonable analysis choice, given their contradictory responses), d' for the high-confidence non-noticer group would most likely fall to chance levels. In other words, we would see a data pattern similar to that plotted in Figure 3e, but with the first data point on the left moving down to zero d'. This corrected Figure 3e would then provide a very nice evidence-based justification for including confidence ratings along with Y/N questions in future inattentional blindness studies.

      (3) In most (if not all) IB experiments in the literature, a partial attention and/or full attention trial is administered after the critical trial. These control trials are very important for validating IB on the critical trial, as they must show that, when attended, the critical stimuli are very easy to see. If a subject cannot detect the critical stimulus on the control trial, one cannot conclude that they were inattentionally blind on the critical trial, e.g., perhaps the stimulus was just too difficult to see (e.g., too weak, too brief, too far in the periphery, too crowded by distractor stimuli, etc.), or perhaps they weren't paying enough attention overall or failed to follow instructions. In the aggregate data, rates of noticing the stimuli should increase substantially from the critical trial to the control trials. If noticing rates are equivalent on the critical and control trials, one cannot conclude that attention was manipulated in the first place.

      In their rebuttal to the first round of peer review, the authors provided weak justification for not including such a control condition. They cite one paper that argues such control conditions are often used to exclude subjects from analysis (those who fail to notice the stimulus on the control trial are either removed from analysis or replaced with new subjects) and such exclusions/replacements can lead to underestimations of inattentional blindness rates. However, the inclusion of a partial or full attention condition as a control does not necessitate the extra step of excluding or replacing subjects. In the broadest sense, such a control condition simply validates the attention manipulation, i.e., one can easily compare the percent of subjects who answered "yes" or who got the 2AFC judgment correct during the critical trial versus the control trial. The subsequent choice about exclusion/replacement is separate, and researchers can always report the data with and without such exclusions/replacements to remain more neutral on this practice.

      If anyone were to follow-up on this study, I highly recommend including a partial or full attention control condition, especially given the online nature of data collection. It's important to know the percent of online subjects who answer yes and who get the 2AFC question correct when the critical stimulus is attended, because that is the baseline (in this case, the "ceiling level" of performance) to which the IB rates on the critical trial can be compared.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      This manuscript seeks to estimate the causal effect of genes on disease. To do so, they introduce a novel algorithm, termed the Root Causal Strength using Perturbations (RCSP) algorithm. RCSP uses perturb-seq to first estimate the gene regulatory network structure among genes, and then uses bulk RNA-seq with phenotype data on the samples to estimate causal effects of genes on the phenotype conditional on the learned network structure. The authors assess the performance of RCSP in comparison to other methods via simulation. Next, they apply RCSP to two real human datasets: 513 individuals age-related macular degeneration and 137 individuals with multiple sclerosis.

      Strengths:

      The authors tackle an important and ambitious problem - the identification of causal contributors to disease in the context of a causal inference framework. As the authors point out, observational RNA-seq data is insufficient for this kind of causal discovery, since it is very challenging to recover the true underlying graph from observational data; interventional data are needed. However, little perturb-seq data has been generated with annotated phenotype data, and much bulk RNA-seq data has already been generated, so it is useful to propose an algorithm to integrate the two as the authors have done.

      The authors also offer substantial theoretical exposition for their work, bringing to bear both the literature on causal discovery as well as literature on the genetic architecture of complex traits. They also benchmark RCSP under multiple challenging simulation settings, including an analysis of RCSP when the underlying graph is not a DAG.

      Weaknesses:

      The notion of a "root" causal gene - which the authors define based on a graph theoretic notion of topologically sorting graphs - requires a graph that is directed and acyclic. It is the latter that constitutes an important weakness here - it simply is a large simplification of human biology to draw out a DAG including hundreds of genes and a phenotype Y and to claim that the true graph contains no cycles. For example - consider the authors' analysis of T cell infiltration in multiple sclerosis (MS). CD4+ effector T cells have the interesting property that they are stimulated by IL2 as a growth factor; yet IL2 also stimulates the activation of (suppressive) regulatory T cells. What does it mean to analyze CD4+ regulation in disease with a graph that does not consider IL2 (or other cytokine) mediated feedback loops/cycles? To the authors' credit, in the supplementary materials they do consider a simulated example with a cyclic underling causal graph, finding that RCSP performed well comparison to an implementation of the additive noise model (ANM), LiNGAM, CausalCell, and two simpler approaches based on linear regression.

      I also encourage the authors to consider more carefully when graph structure learned from perturb-seq can be ported over to bulk RNA-seq. Consider again the MS CD4+ example - the authors first start with a large perturb-seq experiment (Replogle et al., 2022) performed in K562 cells. To what extent are K562 cells, which are derived from a leukemia cell line, suitable for learning the regulatory structure of CD4+ cells from individuals with an MS diagnosis? Presumably this structure is not exactly correct - to what extent is the RCSP algorithm sensitive to false edges in this graph? The authors perform an analysis of this scenario in Supplementary Figure 4, which shows that RCSP is robust to some degree of departure from the underlying true structure. And although challenging - it would be ideal for the RCSP to model or reflect the challenges in correctly identifying the regulatory structure.

      It should also be noted that in most perturb-seq experiments, the entire genome is not perturbed, and frequently important TFs (that presumably are very far "upstream" and thus candidate "root" causal genes) are not expressed highly enough to be detected with scRNA-seq. In that context - perhaps slightly modifying the language regarding RCSP's capabilities might be helpful for the manuscript - perhaps it would be better to describe it has an algorithm for causal discovery among a set of genes that were perturbed and measured, rather than a truly complete search for causal factors. Perhaps more broadly - it would also benefit the manuscript to devote slightly more text to describing the kinds of scenarios where RCSP (and similar ideas) would be most appropriately applied - perhaps a well-powered, phenotype annotated perturb-seq dataset performed in a disease relevant primary cell.

    1. Joint public review:

      Summary

      In this manuscript, Dong et al. study the directed cell migration of tracheal stem cells in Drosophila pupae. The authors study how the directionality of these cells is regulated along the dorsal trunk. They show that inter-organ communication between the tracheal stem cells and the nearby fat body plays a role in posterior migration. They provide compelling evidence that Upd2 production in the fat body and JAK/STAT activation in the tracheal stem cells play a role. Moreover, they show that JAK/STAT signalling might induce the expression of apicobasal and planar cell polarity genes in the tracheal stem cells which appear to be needed to ensure unidirectional migration. Finally, the authors suggest that trafficking and vesicular transport of Upd2 from the fat body towards the tracheal cells might be important.

      Strengths

      The manuscript is well written and presents extensive and varied experimental data to show a link between Upd2-JAK/STAT signaling from the fat body and tracheal progenitor cell migration. The authors provide convincing evidence that the fat body, located near the trachea, secretes vesicles containing the Upd2 cytokine and that affecting JAK-STAT signaling results in aberrant migration of some of the tracheal stem cells towards the anterior. Using ChIP-seq as well as analysis of GFP-protein trap lines of planar cell polarity genes in combination with RNAi experiments, the authors show that STAT92E likely regulates the transcription of planar cell polarity genes and some apicobasal cell polarity genes in tracheal stem cells which appear to be needed for unidirectional migration. The work presented here provides some novel insights into the mechanism that ensures polarized migration of tracheal stem cells, preventing bidirectional migration. This might have important implications for other types of directed cell migration in invertebrates or vertebrates including cancer cell migration. Overall, the authors have substantially improved their manuscript since the first submission but there are still some weaknesses.

      Weaknesses

      Overall, the manuscript lacks insights into the potential significance of the observed phenotypes and of the proposed new signaling model. Most of our concerns could be dealt with by adjusting the text (explaining some parts better and toning down some statements).

      (1) Directional migration of tracheal progenitors is only partially compromised, with some cells migrating anteriorly and others maintaining their posterior migration, a quite discrete phenotype. The strongest migration defects quantified in graphs (e.g. 100 μm) are not shown in images, since they would be out of frame, it would be beneficial to see them. In addition, the consequence of defects in polarized migration on tracheal development is not clear and data showing phenotypes on the final trachea morphology in pupae are not explained nor linked to the previous phenotypes.

      (2) Some important information is lacking, such as the origin of mutant and UAS-RNAi lines, which are not reported in the material and methods. For instance, mutants for components of the JAK-STAT pathway are used but not described. Are they all viable at the pupal stage? Otherwise, pupae would not be homozygous mutants. From the figure legend, it seems that the Stat92EF allele has been used, which is a point mutation, thus not leading to an absence of protein. If the hopTUM allele has been used, as mentioned in the legend, it is a gain-of-function allele. Thus, the authors should not conclude that "The aberrant anterior migration of tracheal progenitors in the absence of JAK/STAT components led to impairment of tracheal integrity and caused melanization in the trachea (Figure 3-figure supplement 1E-I)".

      (3) The authors observe that tracheal progenitors display a polarized distribution of Fat that is controlled by JAK-STAT signaling. However, this conclusion is made from a single experiment using only 3 individuals with no statistics. This is insufficient to support the claim that "JAK/STAT signaling promotes the expression of genes involved in planar cell polarity leading to asymmetric localization of Fat in progenitor cells", as mentioned in the abstract, or that "the activated tracheal progenitors establish a disciplined migration through the asymmetrical distribution of polarity proteins which is directed by an Upd2-JAK/STAT signaling stemming from the remote organ of fat body."

      (4) The authors demonstrate that Upd2 is transported through vesicles from the fat body to the tracheal progenitors. It remains somewhat unclear in the proposed model how Upd2 activates JAK-STAT signaling. Are vesicles internalized, as it seems to be proposed, and thus how does Upd2 activate JAK-STAT signaling intracellularly? Or is Upd2 released from vesicles to bind Dome extracellularly to activate the JAK-STAT pathway? Moreover, it is not clear nor discussed what would be the advantage of transporting the ligand in vesicles compared to classical ligand diffusion.

    1. Joint Public Review:

      Summary:

      In this manuscript, the model's capacity to capture epistatic interactions through multi-point mutations and its success in finding the global optimum within the protein fitness landscape highlights the strength of deep learning methods over traditional approaches.

      Strengths:

      It is impressive that the authors used AI combined with limited experimental validation to achieve such significant enhancements in protein performance. Besides, the successful application of the designed antibody in industrial settings demonstrates the practical and economic relevance of the study. Overall, this work has broad implications for future AI-guided protein engineering efforts.

      Reviewing Editor's comments on revised version:

      The authors extensively addressed conceptual and methodological points raised by reviewers, as well as constructive comments to clarify the narrative. Consequently, the manuscript experienced a qualitative jump on clarity and appeal for the eLife readership.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      This study investigates the impact of Pink1 loss on glial function and neuronal health in a Drosophila model, highlighting the role of mitochondria-organelle contacts and key genes such as Ccz1, Vps13, Mon1, and Rab7. The work provides insights into cellular processes underlying neurodegenerative diseases, with a focus on glia-neuron interactions. While the findings are promising, the study lacks critical controls, detailed mechanistic evidence, and explanatory figures to strengthen its claims.

      Strengths:

      (1) The study addresses an important topic in neuroscience, exploring the mechanisms of Pink1 loss, which has implications for Parkinson's disease and neurodegeneration.

      (2) The focus on mitochondria-organelle contacts and their regulation by Rab7-mediated pathways is novel and provides a potential mechanism for neuronal dysfunction.

      (3) The identification of key genes (Ccz1, Vps13, Mon1, Rab7) and their potential roles in Pink1-related pathways adds valuable knowledge to the field.

      (4) The manuscript uses a combination of genetic tools, Drosophila models, and functional assays to approach the problem from multiple angles.

      Weaknesses:

      (1) Specificity of Mz-Gal4: The study lacks validation of Mz-Gal4 specificity, as it may also drive expression in a few neurons or other types of glia. Additional control experiments using nls-GFP with Elav, Repo, or Draper antibody staining or alternative glial drivers would be helpful.

      (2) DLG staining is central to the story but is not well-supported by high-resolution Z-stack imaging, which should be included in the supplementary figures.

      (3) The manuscript does not confirm whether the candidate RNAi (Ccz1, Vps13, Mon1, Rab7) directly influence Rab7-mediated membrane trafficking or mitochondria-lysosome contacts in Pink1 mutants.

      (4) Using ERG as a readout for EG effects in the antenna is not a direct or appropriate assay. Alternative functional assays relevant to antenna glia should be considered.

      (5) A graphical explanation of the interactions and functions of the candidate genes in Pink1 KO mutants is missing. This would greatly enhance the manuscript's clarity.

      (6) The study lacks details on sample sizes, effect sizes, and reproducibility, which are necessary for robust conclusions.

      (7) There are repeated words on page 3 ("olfactory Olfactory Receptor Neurons") and a lack of explanation in Figure 3C regarding the most up-regulated and down-regulated genes and the significance of large red dots.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      The authors assess the effectiveness of electroporating mRNA into male germ cells to rescue the expression of proteins required for spermatogenesis progression in individuals where these proteins are mutated or depleted. To set up the methodology, they first evaluated the expression of reporter proteins in wild-type mice, which showed expression in germ cells for over two weeks. Then, they attempted to recover fertility in a model of late spermatogenesis arrest that produces immotile sperm. By electroporating the mutated protein, the authors recovered the motility of ~5% of the sperm; although the sperm regenerated was not able to produce offspring using IVF, the embryos reached the 2-cell state (in contrast to controls that did not progress past the zygote state).

      This is a comprehensive evaluation of the mRNA methodology with multiple strengths. First, the authors show that naked synthetic RNA, purchased from a commercial source or generated in the laboratory with simple methods, is enough to express exogenous proteins in testicular germ cells. The authors compared RNA to DNA electroporation and found that germ cells are efficiently electroporated with RNA, but not DNA. The differences between these constructs were evaluated using in vivo imaging to track the reporter signal in individual animals through time. To understand how the reporter proteins affect the results of the experiments, the authors used different reporters: two fluorescent (eGFP and mCherry) and one bioluminescent (Luciferase). Although they observed differences among reporters, in every case expression lasted for at least two weeks.

      The authors used a relevant system to study the therapeutic potential of RNA electroporation. The ARMC2-deficient animals have impaired sperm motility phenotype that affects only the later stages of spermatogenesis. The authors showed that sperm motility was recovered to ~5%, which is remarkable due to the small fraction of germ cells electroporated with RNA with the current protocol. The sperm motility parameters were thoroughly assessed by CASA. The 3D reconstruction of an electroporated testis using state-of-the-art methods to show the electroporated regions is compelling.

      The main weakness of the manuscript is that although the authors manage to recover motility in a small fraction of the sperm population, it is unclear whether the increased sperm quality is substantial to improve assisted reproduction outcomes. The authors found that the rescued sperm could be used to obtain 2-cell embryos via IVF, but no evidence for more advanced stages of embryo differentiation was provided. The motile rescued sperm was also successfully used to generate blastocyst by ICSI, but the statistical significance of the rate of blastocyst production compared to non-rescued sperm remains unclear. The title is thus an overstatement since fertility was never restored for IVF, and the mutant sperm was already able to produce blastocysts without the electroporation intervention.

      Overall, the authors clearly show that electroporating mRNA can improve spermatogenesis as demonstrated by the generation of motile sperm in the ARMC2 KO mouse model.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      This work presents an Interpretable protein-DNA Energy Associative (IDEA) model for predicting binding sites and affinities of DNA-binding proteins. Experimental results demonstrate that such an energy model can predict DNA recognition sites and their binding strengths across various protein families and can capture the absolute protein-DNA binding free energies.

      Strengths:

      (1) The IDEA model integrates both structural and sequence information, although such an integration is not completely original.

      (2) The IDEA predictions seem to have agreement with experimental data such as ChIP-seq measurements.

      Weaknesses:

      (1) The authors claim that the binding free energy calculated by IDEA, trained using one MAX-DNA complex, correlates well with experimentally measured MAX-DNA binding free energy (Figure 2) based on the reported Pearson Correlation of 0.67. However, the scatter plot in Figure 2A exhibits distinct clustering of the points and thus the linear fit to the data (red line) may not be ideal. As such. the use of the Pearson correlation coefficient that measures linear correlation between two sets of data may not be appropriate and may provide misleading results for non-linear relationships.

      (2) In the same vein, the linear Pearson Correlation analysis performed in Figure 5A and the conclusion drawn may be misleading.

      (3) The authors included the sequences of the protein and DNA residues that form close contacts in the structure in the training dataset, whereas a series of synthetic decoy sequences were generated by randomizing the contacting residues in both the protein and DNA sequences. In particular, synthetic decoy binders were generated by randomizing either the DNA (1000 sequences) or protein sequences (10,000 sequences) from the strong binders. However, the justification for such randomization and how it might impact the model's generalizability and transferability remain unclear.

      (4) The authors performed Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) analysis and reported the Area Under the Curve (AUC) scores in order to quantitate the successful identification of the strong binders by IDEA. It would be beneficial to analyze the precision-recall (PR) curve and report the PRAUC metric which could be more robust.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      This study examined the functional organization of the mouse posterior parietal cortex (PPC) using meso-scale two-photon calcium imaging during visually-guided and history-guided tasks. The researchers found distinct functional modules within the medial PPC: area A, which integrates somatosensory and choice information, and area AM, which integrates visual and choice information. Area A also showed a robust representation of choice history and posture. The study further revealed distinct patterns of inter-area correlations for A and AM, suggesting different roles in cortical communication. These findings shed light on the functional architecture of the mouse PPC and its involvement in various sensorimotor and cognitive functions.

      Strengths:

      Overall, I find this manuscript excellent. It is very clearly written and built up logically. The subject is important, and the data supports the conclusions without overstating implications. Where the manuscript shines the most is the exceptionally thorough analysis of the data. The authors set a high bar for identifying the boundaries of the PPC subareas, where they combine both somatosensory and visual intrinsic imaging. There are many things to compliment the authors on, but one thing that should be applauded in particular is the analysis of the body movements of the mice in the tube. Anyone working with head-fixed mice knows that mice don't sit still but that almost invariable remains unanalyzed. Here the authors show that this indeed explained some of the variance in the data.

      Weaknesses:

      I see no major weaknesses and I only have minor comments.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      Kohno et al. examined whether the anti-inflammatory cytokine IL-4 attenuates neuropathic pain by promoting the emergence of antinociceptive microglia in the dorsal horn of the spinal cord. In two models of neuropathic pain following peripheral nerve injury, intrathecal administration of IL-4 once a day for 3 days from day 14 to day 17 after injury, attenuates hypersensitivity to mechanical stimuli in the hind paw ipsilateral to nerve injury. Such an antinociceptive effect correlates with a higher number of CD11c+microglia in the dorsal horn of the spinal cord which is the termination area for primary afferent fibres injured in the periphery. Interestingly, CD11c+ microglia emerge spontaneously in the dorsal horn in concomitance with the resolution of pain in the spinal nerve model of pain, but not in the spared nerve injury model where pain does not resolve, confirming that this cluster of microglia is involved in resolution pain.

      Based on existing evidence that the receptor for IL-4, namely IL-4R, is expressed by microglia, the authors suggest that IL-4R mediates IL-4 effect in microglia including up-regulation of Igf1 mRNA. They have previously reported that IGF-1 can attenuate pain neuron activity in the spinal cord.

      Strengths:

      This study includes cutting-edge techniques such as flow cytometry analysis of microglia and transgenic mouse models.

      Weaknesses:

      The conclusion of this paper is supported by data, but the interpretation of some data requires clarification.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      This manuscript by Tesmer and colleagues uses fiber photometry recordings, sophisticated analysis of movement, and deep learning algorithms to provide compelling evidence that activity in hypothalamic hypocretin/orexin neurons (HONs) correlates with net body movement over multiple behaviors. By examining projection targets, the authors show that hypocretin/orexin release differs in projection targets to the locus coeruleus and substantia nigra, pars compacta. Ablation of HONs does not cause differences in the power spectra of movements. The movement-tracking ability of HONs is independent of HON activity that correlates with blood glucose levels. Finally, the authors show that body movement is not encoded to the same extent in other neural populations.

      Strengths:

      The major strengths of the study are the combination of fiber photometry recordings, analysis of movement in head-fixed mice, and sophisticated classification of movement using deep learning algorithms. The experiments seem to be well performed, and the data are well presented, visually. The data support the main conclusions of the manuscript.

      Weaknesses:

      The weaknesses are minor, mostly consisting of writing and data visualization throughout the manuscript. To some degree, it is already known that hypocretin/orexin neurons correlate with movement and arousal, although this manuscript studies this correlation with unprecedented sophistication and scale. It is also unfortunate that most of the experiments throughout the study were only performed in male mice.

      Taken together, this study is likely to be impactful to the field and our understanding of HONs across behavioral states.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary, and Strengths:

      The authors and their team have investigated the role of Vimentin Cysteine 328 in epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) and tumorigenesis. Vimentin is a type III intermediate filament, and cysteine 328 is a crucial site for interactions between vimentin and actin. These interactions can significantly influence cell movement, proliferation, and invasion. The team has specifically examined how Vimentin Cysteine 328 affects cancer cell proliferation, the acquisition of stemness markers, and the upregulation of the non-coding RNA XIST. Additionally, functional assays were conducted using both wild-type (WT) and Vimentin Cysteine 328 mutant cells to demonstrate their effects on invasion, EMT, and cancer progression. Overall, the data supports the essential role of Vimentin Cysteine 328 in regulating EMT, cancer stemness, and tumor progression. Overall, the data and its interpretation are on point and support the hypothesis. I believe the manuscript has great potential.

      Weaknesses:

      Minor issues are related to the visibility and data representation in Figures 2E and 3 A-F.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      Hahn et al use bystander BRET, NanoBiT assays and APEX2 proteomics to investigate endosomal signaling of CCR7 by two agonists, CCL19 and CCL21. The authors suggest that CCR7 signals from early endosomes following internalisation. They use spatial proteomics to try to identify novel interacting partners that may facilitate this signaling and use this data to specifically enhance a Rac1 signaling pathway. The most novel findings are the APEX2 proteomics studies that provide new mechanisms.

      Strengths:

      (1) The APEX2 resource will be valuable to the GPCR and immunology community. It offers many opportunities to follow up on findings and discover new biology. The authors have used the resource to validate earlier findings in the current manuscript and in previous manuscripts.

      (2) The results section is well written and can be followed very easily by the reader.

      (3) Some findings verify previous studies (e.g. endomembrane signalling).

      Weaknesses:

      (1) The findings are interesting although the studies are almost all performed in HEK293 cells. I understand that these are commonly used in GPCR biology and current tools need to be improved in order to perform similar analyses in more relevant cell-lines. Future studies should focus on validating the findings of the current study in physiologically-relevant cell-lines.

    1. Reviewer #2 (Public review):

      The authors investigate the gene expression variation in a rice diversity panel under normal and saline growth conditions to gain insight into the underlying molecular adaptive response to salinity. They present a convincing case to demonstrate that environment stress can induce selective pressure on gene expression, which is in agreement with their earlier study (Groen et al, 2020). The data seems to be a good fit for their study and overall the analytic approach is robust.

      (1) The work started by investigating the effect of genotype and their interaction at each transcript level using 3'-end-biased mRNA sequencing, and detect a wide-spread GXE effect. Later, using the total filled grain number as a proxy of fitness, they estimated the strength of selection on each transcript and reported stronger selective pressure in saline environment. However, this current framework rely on precise estimation of fitness and, therefore can be sensitive to the choice of fitness proxy.

      (2) Furthermore, the authors decomposed the genetic architecture of expression variation into cis- and trans-eQTL in each environment separately and reported more unique environment specific trans-eQTLs than cis-. The relative contribution of cis- and trans-eQTL depends on both the abundance and effect size. I wonder why the latter was not reported while comparing these two different genetic architectures. If the authors were to compare the variation explained by these two categories of eQTL instead of their frequency, would the inference that trans-eQTLs are primarily associated with expression variation still hold?

      (3) Next, the authors investigated the relationship between cis- and trans-eQTLs at transcript level and revealed an excess of reinforcement over compensation pattern. Here, I struggle to understand the motivation for testing the relationship by comparing the effect of cis-QTL with the mean effect of all trans-eQTLs of a given transcript. My concern is that taking the mean can diminish the effect of small trans-eQTLs potentially biasing the relationship towards the large-effect eQTLs.

      Comments on latest version:

      After the revision, the article has improved substantially. The authors have addressed most of my concerns and suggestions, except for testing the eQTL reinforcement/compensation relationship in the context of genetic architecture. I understand the motivation for testing this relationship at the gene level to determine whether it arises from directional or stabilizing selection, rather than examining it in a cis-trans pairwise fashion. However, I find the definition of this relationship unclear. The authors state in line 824 that "Genes were defined as compensating and reinforcing if they had at least 60% of individuals with opposite and same cis-trans allelic configuration, respectively." In contrast, if I understood correctly, the response to reviewers describes the relationship as reinforcing if the cis-eQTL effect is in the same direction as the mean effect of all the detected trans-eQTLs. I would request that the authors clarify their method of defining this relationship. Also, one should be aware of the fact that this relationship can evolve neutrally. Since there was no formal test performed to say it is otherwise, the authors might need to interpret the relationship carefully.

      While the authors explain the possible factors that could lead to the trend of observing widespread genotype-dependent plastic responsse without significant genotype-dependent plasticity for fitness (L142), it is also important to consider the time axis. While filled grain serves as a proxy for fitness over time, gene expression profiles provide only a snapshot at a given time point. Therefore, temporal GxE dynamics may also play a role here.

      Also, I am a little surprised by not mentioning anything about the code availability in this manuscript. I would request the authors to incorporate that in the revised version.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      The conserved AAA-ATPase PCH-2 has been shown in several organisms including C. elegans to remodel classes of HORMAD proteins that act in meiotic pairing and recombination. In some organisms the impact of PCH-2 mutations is subtle but becomes more apparent when other aspects of recombination are perturbed. Patel et al. performed a set of elegant experiments in C. elegans aimed at identifying conserved functions of PCH-2. Their work provides such an opportunity because in C. elegans meiotically expressed HORMADs localize to meiotic chromosomes independently of PCH-2. Work in C. elegans also allows the authors to focus on nuclear PCH-2 functions as opposed to cytoplasmic functions also seen for PCH-2 in other organisms.

      The authors performed the following experiments:

      (1) They constructed C. elegans animals with SNPs that enabled them to measure crossing over in intervals that cover most of four of the six chromosomes. They then showed that double-crossovers, which were common on most of the four chromosomes in wild-type, were absent in pch-2. They also noted shifts in crossover distribution in the four chromosomes.

      (2) Based on the crossover analysis and previous studies they hypothesized that PCH-2 plays a role at an early stage in meiotic prophase to regulate how SPO-11 induced double-strand breaks are utilized to form crossovers. They tested their hypothesis by performing ionizing irradiation and depleting SPO-11 at different stages in meiotic prophase in wild-type and pch-2 mutant animals. The authors observed that irradiation of meiotic nuclei in zygotene resulted in pch-2 nuclei having a larger number of nuclei with 6 or greater crossovers (as measured by COSA-1 foci) compared to wildtype. Consistent with this observation, SPO11 depletion, starting roughly in zygotene, also resulted in pch-2 nuclei having an increase in 6 or more COSA-1 foci compared to wildtype. The increased number at this time point appeared beneficial because a significant decrease in univalents was observed.

      (3) They then asked if the above phenotypes correlated with the localization of MSH-5, a factor that stabilizes crossover-specific DNA recombination intermediates. They observed that pch-2 mutants displayed an increase in MSH-5 foci at early times in meiotic prophase and an unexpectedly higher number at later times. They conclude based on the differences in early MSH-5 localization and the SPO-11 and irradiation studies that PCH-2 prevents early DSBs from becoming crossovers and early loading of MSH-5. By analyzing different HORMAD proteins that are defective in forming the closed conformation acted upon by PCH-2, they present evidence that MSH-5 loading was regulated by the HIM-3 HORMAD.

      (4) They performed a crossover homeostasis experiment in which DSB levels were reduced. The goal of this experiment was to test if PCH-2 acts in crossover assurance. Interestingly, in this background PCH-2 negative nuclei displayed higher levels of COSA-1 foci compared to PCH-2 positive nuclei. This observation and a further test of the model suggested that "PCH-2's presence on the SC prevents crossover designation."

      (5) Based on their observations indicating that early DSBS are prevented from becoming crossovers by PCH-2, the authors hypothesized that the DNA damage kinase CHK-2 and PCH-2 act to control how DSBs enter the crossover pathway. This hypothesis was developed based on their finding that PCH-2 prevents early DSBs from becoming crossovers and previous work showing that CHK-2 activity is modulated during meiotic recombination progression. They tested their hypothesis using a mutant synaptonemal complex component that maintains high CHK-2 activity that cannot be turned off to enable crossover designation. Their finding that the pch-2 mutation suppressed the crossover defect (as measured by COSA-1 foci) supports their hypothesis.

      Based on these studies the authors provide convincing evidence that PCH-2 prevents early DSBs from becoming crossovers and controls the number and distribution of crossovers to promote a regulated mechanism that ensures the formation of obligate crossovers and crossover homeostasis. As the authors note, such a mechanism is consistent with earlier studies suggesting that early DSBs could serve as "scouts" to facilitate homolog pairing or to coordinate the DNA damage response with repair events that lead to crossing over. The detailed mechanistic insights provided in this work will certainly be used to better understand functions for PCH-2 in meiosis in other organisms.

      Comments on revisions:

      The authors responded very carefully to all of my concerns expressed in the first review, which were primarily aimed at improving the clarity of the manuscript.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      This interesting manuscript first shows that human, murine, and feline sperm penetrate the zona pellucida (ZP) of bovine oocytes recovered directly from the ovary, although first cleavage rates are reduced. Similarly, bovine sperm can penetrate superovulated murine oocytes recovered directly from the ovary. However, bovine oocytes incubated with oviduct fluid (30 min) are generally impenetrable by human sperm.

      Thereafter, the cytoplasm was aspirated from murine oocytes - obtained from the ovary or oviduct. Binding and penetration by bovine and human sperm was reduced in both groups relative to homologous (murine) sperm. However, heterologous (bovine and human) sperm penetration was further reduced in oviduct vs. ovary derived empty ZP. These data show that outer (ZP) not inner (cytoplasmic) oocyte alterations reduce heterologous sperm penetration as well as homologous sperm binding.

      This was repeated using empty bovine ZP incubated, or not, with bovine oviduct fluid. Prior oviduct fluid exposure reduced non-homologous (human and murine) empty ZP penetration, polyspermy, and sperm binding. This demonstrates that species-specific oviduct fluid factors regulate ZP penetrability.

      To test the hypothesis that OVGP1 is responsible, the authors obtained histidiine-tagged bovine and murine OVGP1 and DDK-tagged human OVGP1 proteins. Tagging was to enable purification following over-expression in BHK-21 or HEK293T cells. The authors confirm these recombinant OVGP1 proteins bound to both murine and bovine oocytes. Moreover, previous data using oviduct fluid was mirrored using bovine oocytes supplemented with homologous (bovine) recombinant OVGP1, or not. This confirms the hypothesis, at least in cattle.

      Next, the authors exposed bovine and murine empty ZP to bovine, murine, and human recombinant OVGP1, in addition to bovine, murine, or human sperm. Interestingly, both species-specific ZP and OVGP1 seem to be required for optimal sperm binding and penetration.

      Lastly, empty bovine and murine ZP were treated with neuraminidase, or not, with or without pre-treatment with homologous OVGP1. In each case, neuraminidase reduced sperm binding and penetration. This further demonstrates that both ZP and OVGP1 are required for optimal sperm binding and penetration.

      In summary, the authors demonstrate that two mechanisms seem to underpin mammalian sperm recognition and penetration, the first being specific (ZP-mediated) and the second non-specific (OVGP1 mediated).

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public Review):

      Summary:

      In this study, a chromosome-level genome of the rose-grain aphid M. dirhodum was assembled with high quality, and A-to-I RNA-editing sites were systematically identified. The authors then demonstrated that: 1) Wing dimorphism induced by crowding in M. dirhodum is regulated by 20E (ecdysone signaling pathway); 2) an A-to-I RNA editing prevents the binding of miR-3036-5p to CYP18A1 (the enzyme required for 20E degradation), thus elevating CYP18A1 expression, decreasing 20E titer, and finally regulating the wing dimorphism of offspring.

      Strengths:

      The authors present both genome and A-to-I RNA editing data. An interesting finding is that a A-to-I RNA editing site in CYP18A1 ruin the miRNA binding site of miR-3036-5p. And loss of miR-3036-5p regulation lead to less 20E and winged offspring.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      This paper focuses on secondary structure and homodimers in the HIV genome. The authors introduce a new method called HiCapR which reveals secondary structure, homodimer, and long-range interactions in the HIV genome. The experimental design and data analysis are well-documented and statistically sound.

      Comments on revisions:

      The authors have addressed key questions and highlighted the advantages of HiCapR.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public Review):

      Summary:

      The authors identified nanobodies that were specific for the trypanosomal enzyme pyruvate kinase in previous work seeking diagnostic tools. They have shown that a site involved in the allosteric regulation of the enzyme is targeted by the nanobody and using elegant structural approaches to pinpoint where binding occurs, opening the way to the design of small molecules that could also target this site.

      Strengths:

      The structural work shows the binding of a nanobody to a specific site on Trypanosoma congolense pyruvate kinase and provides a good explanation as to how binding inhibits enzyme activity. The authors go on to show that by expressing the nanobodies within the parasites they can get some inhibition of growth, which albeit rather weak, they provide a case on how this could point to targeting the same site with small molecules as potential trypanocidal drugs.

      Weaknesses:

      The impact on growth is rather marginal. Although explanations are offered on the reasons for that, including the high turnover rate of the expressed nanobody and the difficulty in achieving the high levels of inhibition of pyruvate kinase required to impact energy production sufficiently to kill parasites, this aspect of the work doesn't offer great support to developing small molecule inhibitors of the same site.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Although the use of antimony has been discontinued in India, the observation that there are Leishmania parasites that are resistant to antimony in circulation has been cited as evidence that these resistant parasites are now a distinct strain with properties that ensure their transmission and persistence. It is of interest to determine what are the properties that favor the retention of their drug resistance phenotype even in the absence of the selective pressure that would otherwise be conferred by the drug. The hypothesis that these authors set out to test is that these parasites have developed a new capacity to acquire and utilize lipids, especially cholesterol which affords them the capacity to grow robustly in infected hosts.

      Major issues:

      There are several experiments for which they do not provide sufficient details, but proceed to make significant conclusions.

      Experiments in section 5 are poorly described. They supposedly isolated PVs from infected cells. No details of their protocol for the isolation of PVs are provided. They reference a protocol for PV isolation that focused on the isolation of PVs after L. amazonensis infection. In the images of infection that they show, by 24 hrs, infected cells harbor a considerable number of parasites. Is it at the 24 hr time point that they recover PVs? What is the purity of PVs? The authors should provide evidence of the success of this protocol in their hands. Earlier, they mentioned that using imaging techniques, the PVs seem to have fused or interconnected somehow. Does this affect the capacity to recover PVs? If more membranes are recovered in the PV fraction, it may explain the higher cholesterol content.

      In section 6 they evaluate the mechanism of LDL uptake in macrophages. Several approaches and endocytic pathway inhibitors are employed. The authors must be aware that the role of cytochalasin D in the disruption of fluid phase endocytosis is controversial. Although they reference a study that suggests that cytochalasin D has no effect on fluid-phase endocytosis, other studies have found the opposite (doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0058054). It wasn't readily evident what concentrations were used in their study. They should consider testing more than 1 concentration of the drug before they make their conclusions on their findings on fluid phase endocytosis.

      In Figure 5 they present a blot that shows increased Lamp1 expression from as early as 4 hrs after infection with LD-R and by 12 hrs after infection of both LD-S and LD-R. Increased Lamp1 expression after Leishmania infection has not been reported by others. By what mechanism do they suggest is causing such a rapid increase (at 4hrs post-infection) in Lamp-1 protein? As they report, their RNA seq data did not show an increase in LAMP1 transcription (lines 432 - 434).

      In Figure 6, amongst several assays, they reported on studies where SPC-1 is knocked down in PECs. They failed to provide any evidence of the success of the knockdown, but nonetheless showed greater LD-R after NPC-1 was knocked down. They should provide more details of such experiments.

      Minor issues

      There is an implication that parasite replication occurs well before 24hrs post-infection? Studies on Leishmania parasite replication have reported on the commencement of replication after 24hrs post-infection of macrophages (PMCID: PMC9642900). Is this dramatic increase in parasite numbers that they observed due to early parasite replication?

      Several of the fluorescence images in the paper are difficult to see. It would be helpful if a blown-up (higher magnification image of images in Figure 1 (especially D) for example) is presented.

      The times at which they choose to evaluate their infections seem arbitrary. It is not clear why they stopped analysis of their KC infections at 24 hrs. As mentioned above, several studies have shown that this is when intracellular amastigotes start replicating. They should consider extending their analyses to 48 or 72 hrs post-infection. Also, they stop in vitro infection of Apoe-/- mice at 11 days. Why? No explanation is given for why only 1 point after infection.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      This study presents a refined approach to enhance the sensitivity of PCR for detecting Trypanosoma cruzi in blood by employing DNA fragmentation and deep sampling, involving multiple replicate PCR reactions. Combined with serial blood sampling, these methods enabled consistent detection of the parasite in infected humans, non-human primates, and dogs, including hosts with very low parasitemia levels.

      Inspired by earlier methods that cleaved kinetoplast DNA (kDNA) to improve target distribution, this study targets nuclear satellite DNA repeats, which are tandemly arranged in T. cruzi chromosomes. By fragmenting DNA prior to PCR, the authors reduced subsampling errors, breaking large fragments into smaller, evenly distributed units. This improved the frequency of positive reactions and reduced variability among replicate Cq values.

      Using contrived blood samples, the study demonstrated that this approach significantly enhances PCR positivity. Moreover, the findings suggest that cell pellets from blood yield higher concentrations of parasite DNA compared to whole blood, prompting a reevaluation of current diagnostic practices, which predominantly use whole blood lysates.

      The study also highlights the importance of deep sampling. Serial testing across multiple blood samples mitigated the variability in parasitemia, addressing challenges first noted in early xenodiagnosis studies (Cerisola et al., 1977).

      The proposed DNA extraction and amplification procedures effectively captured parasitemia dynamics, achieving detection sensitivities with quantification limits as low as ~0.00025 parasite equivalents/mL, approaching the detection of a single target copy per reaction.

      This work underscores the utility of deep-sampling PCR in monitoring parasitemia dynamics and guiding treatment strategies, especially in chronic infections. It also stresses the importance of treating individuals with low parasitic loads, as immune control may change over time.

      Strengths:

      The strategies used for increasing PCR sensitivity offer the potential for enhancing treatment monitoring and understanding the dynamics of parasite-host interactions in chronic Chagas disease.

      Weaknesses:

      While the study offers valuable insights for research in T.cruzi infection dynamics and monitoring of trypanocidal drugs efficacy, its broader adoption depends on the development of cost-effective and scalable alternatives to labor-intensive techniques such as sonication, currently required for DNA fragmentation. Additionally, the reliance on blood cell pellets and the DNA fragmentation protocol introduces extra processing steps, which may not be feasible for many clinical laboratories, particularly in resource-limited endemic areas that require simpler and more streamlined procedures.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      This work by Ding et al uses agent-based simulations to explore the role of the structure of molecular motor myosin filaments in force generation in cytoskeletal structures. The focus of the study is on disordered actin bundles which can occur in the cell cytoskeleton and have also been investigated with in vitro purified protein experiments.

      Strengths:

      The key finding is that cooperative effects between multiple myosin filaments can enhance both total force and the efficiency of force generation (force per myosin). These trends were possible to obtain only because the detailed structure of the motor filaments with multiple heads is represented in the model.

      Weaknesses:

      It is not clearly described what scientific/biological questions about cellular force production the work answers. There should be more discussion of how their simulation results compare with existing experiments or can be tested in future experiments.

      The model assumptions and scientific context need to be described better.

      The network contractility seems to be a mere appendix to the bundle contractility which is presented in much more detail.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      In this manuscript, Frangos et al. used a transcriptomic and proteomic approach to characterise changes in HER2-driven mammary tumours compared to healthy mammary tissue in mice. They observed that mitochondrial genes, including OXPHOS regulators, were among the most down-regulated genes and proteins in their datasets. Surprisingly, these were associated with higher mitochondrial respiration, in response to a variety of carbon sources. In addition, there seems to be a reduction in mitochondrial fusion and an increase in fission in tumours compared to healthy tissues.

      Strengths:

      The data are clearly presented and described.

      The author reported very similar trends in proteomic and transcriptomic data. Such approaches are essential to have a better understanding of the changes in cancer cell metabolism associated with tumourigenesis

      Weaknesses:

      This study, despite being a useful resource (assuming all the data will be publicly available and not only upon request) is mainly descriptive and correlative and lacks mechanistic links.

      It would be important to determine the cellular composition of the tumour and healthy tissue used. Do the changes described here apply to cancer cells only or do other cell types contribute to this?

      Are the changes in metabolic gene expression a consequence of HER2 signalling activation? Ex-vivo experiments could be performed to perturb this pathway and determine cause-effects.

      The data of fission/fusion seem quite preliminary and the gene/protein expression changes are not so clear cut to be a convincing explanation that this is the main reason for the increased mitochondria respiration in tumours.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      De Seze et al. investigated the role of guanine exchange factors (GEFs) in controlling cell protrusion and retraction. In order to causally link protein activities to the switch between the opposing cell phenotypes, they employed optogenetic versions of GEFs which can be recruited to the plasma membrane upon light exposure and activate their downstream effectors. Particularly the RhoGEF PRG could elicit both protruding and retracting phenotypes. Interestingly, the phenotype depended on the basal expression level of the optoPRG. By assessing the activity of RhoA and Cdc42, the downstream effectors of PRG, the mechanism of this switch was elucidated: at low PRG levels, RhoA is predominantly activated and leads to cell retraction, whereas at high PRG levels, both RhoA and Cdc42 are activated but PRG also sequesters the active RhoA, therefore Cdc42 dominates and triggers cell protrusion. Finally, they create a minimal model that captures the key dynamics of this protein interaction network and the switch in cell behavior.

      The conclusions of this study are strongly supported by data, harnessing the power of modelling and optogenetic activation. The minimal model captures well the dynamics of RhoA and Cdc42 activation and predicts that by changing the frequency of optogenetic activation one can switch between protruding and retracting behaviour in the same cell of intermediate optoPRG level. The authors are indeed able to demonstrate this experimentally albeit with a very low number of cells. A major caveat of this study is that global changes due to PRG overexpression cannot be ruled out. Also, a quantification of absolute protein concentration, which is notoriously difficult, would be useful to put the level of overexpression here in perspective with endogenous levels. Furthermore, it remains unclear whether in cases of protein overexpression in vivo such as cancer, PRG or other GEFs can activate alternative migratory behaviours.

      Previous work has implicated RhoA in both protrusion and retraction depending on the context. The mechanism uncovered here provides a convincing explanation for this conundrum. In addition to PRG, optogenetic versions of two other GEFs, LARG and GEF-H1, were used which produced either only one phenotype or less response than optoPRG, underscoring the functional diversity of RhoGEFs. The authors chose transient transfection to achieve a large range of concentration levels and, to find transfected cells at low cell density, developed a small software solution (Cell finder), which could be of interest for other researchers.

    1. Reviewer #2 (Public review):

      The resubmitted version of the paper by Yan et al. titled "Frequent intertrophic transmission of Wolbachia by parasitism but not predation" contains all the major flaws I found in the original submission. As far as I could see, the authors did not address my original concerns.

      In short:

      (1) A control of Portiera MUST be included in the FISH experiments, if the claim that Wolbachia is not only transferred from a parasitoid to the whitefly, but finds its way to the bacteriocytes. This is especially true for the Q, a biotype for which the pattern of Wolbachia distribution has been documented as scattered in naturally infected populations. The very strong signal in the whitefly bacteriocytes implies Portiera.

      (2) In my original review I wrote: "The authors fail to discuss, or even acknowledge, a number of published studies that specifically show no horizontal transmission such as the one claimed to be detected in the study presented." In return the authors wrote in their rebuttal letter: "We have made corresponding modifications to the discussion section (Lines 256-271in the revised manuscript) and have discussed the published studies that report no evidence of horizontal transmission (Lines 260-263 in the revised manuscript)." However, the stated lines are concerned with a different subject. In addition, in their letter the authors write "Additionally, some experiments have found no evidence of horizontal transmission of Wolbachia (39- 42) (Lines 260-263 in the revised manuscript)." Beside the fact that the line numbers are wrong, the papers cited are entirely irrelevant as they do not discuss parasitoids.

      (3) My original comment on the origin of sequences used for the phylogenetical analysis still stands. It is hard to claim a data-based search, when most of the data originate in the authors lab. The explanation of the confusion with the Qi et al. (2019) paper should at least be mentioned in the M&M. Apologies if it has been included and I missed it.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      Ghone et al show that HIV-1 Vif causes a pseudo-metaphase arrest rather than a G2 arrest. The metaphase arrest correlates with misregulation of the kinetochore that could be explained by the loss of phosphatase functions that determine chromosome-microtubule interactions.

      Strengths:

      The single-cell imaging using different reporters of cell cycle progression is very elegant and the quantitation is convincing. The authors clearly show that what others have characterized as a G2 arrest by flow cytometry is somewhat later in metaphase and correlates with kinetocore misregulation.

      Weaknesses:

      (1) The major problem with the paper is trying to connect what is observed in tumor cell lines with actual infections in primary T cells. While all of the descriptive work in cell lines is convincing, none of these cells are relevant targets and tumor cells have different cell death and cell cycle regulation than primary T cells. Thus, while Vif might well do all of the things described in the manuscript, it is a stretch to connect any of it to what happens in vivo. In the revised version, the authors now acknowledge this caveat.

      (2) Line 109 and elsewhere. The ability of Vif to cause cell cycle arrest and bind PP2A subunits is not a completely conserved feature. Rather, it is quite variable in different HIV-1 strains. (e.g. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbrc.2020.04.123 and https://elifesciences.org/articles/53036). Therefore, it is necessary for the authors to quite clearly use strain designations in the manuscript rather than a generic "Vif", and to more clearly describe the viruses being used. In the revised version, the authors now make this more clear.

      (3) Figure 5: This figure shows disruption of PP2A-B56 at the kinetochores. However, is this specific to the kinetochores? Since Vif has been described to more broadly degrade PP2A-B56, could this not be a result of a more general decrease in PP2A activity throughout the cell? In the revised version, the authors now clarify this point.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      This study examines to what extent this phenomenon varies based on the visibility of the saccade target. Visibility is defined as the contrast level of the target with respect to the noise background, and it is related to the signal-to-noise ratio of the target. A more visible target facilitates the oculomotor behavior planning and execution, however, as speculated by the authors, it can also benefit foveal prediction even if the foveal stimulus visibility is maintained constant. Remarkably, the authors show that presenting a highly visible saccade target is beneficial for foveal vision as detection of stimuli with an orientation similar to that of the saccade target is improved, the lower is the saccade target visibility, the less prominent is this effect.

      Strengths:

      The results are convincing and the research methodology is technically sound.

      Weaknesses:

      It is still unclear why the pre-saccadic enhancement would oscillate for targets with higher opacity levels, and what would be the benefit of this oscillatory pattern. The authors do not speculate too much on this and loosely relate it to feedback processes, which are characterized by neural oscillations in a similar range.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      In this work, the authors investigate the functional difference between the most commonly expressed form of PTH, and a novel point mutation in PTH identified in a patient with chronic hypocalcemia and hyperphosphatemia. The value of this mutant form of PTH as a potential anabolic agent for bone is investigated alongside PTH(1-84), which is a current anabolic therapy. The authors have achieved the aims of the study.

      Strengths:

      The work is novel, as it describes the function of a novel, naturally occurring, variant of PTH in terms of its ability to dimerise, to lead to cAMP activation, to increase serum calcium, and its pharmacological action compared to normal PTH.

      [Editors' note: the original reviews are here, https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.97579.1.sa1, and here, https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.97579.2.sa1]

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      The study describes the migration of epidermal keratinocytes through porous membranes and observes a unique size selection whereby only on 3-micron membrane are keratinocytes able to migrate and reform an intact epidermis. The authors propose that the model replicates three cell states of the intact epidermis, EMT, and MET. They also show that this response depends on the actin cytoskeleton and Piezo1, and the migration could be stimulated with TGFbeta ligands.

      Strengths:

      Strengths of the study include the establishment of a simple yet robust in vitro model that captures all three cell states, which could be useful for future investigation of wound healing or metastasis. There is also good characterisation of the pore size effects, providing some interesting observations about the physical regulation of keratinocyte migration. The images and presentation are clear.

      Weaknesses:

      (1) Some of the terminology would benefit from better definition or refinement. Triphasic suggests different physical behaviours (e.g. liquid-liquid phase separation) rather than cellular properties. Perhaps it would be better to refer to these as cell states or to describe the model more specifically as an invasion or EMT model. Likewise, the term 'reciprocating' implies two-way communication, but it is used to describe two-way migration or oscillating migration. Here, perhaps oscillatory would be clearer.

      (2) The quantification and statistical analysis of key results could be improved. Notably, quantification of immunostaining in Figures 1 and 2 would strengthen core findings, and greater detail is needed on the sample sizes and number of experiments used for statistical analysis. These details are missing or only appear to N=1 in some places.

      (3) There is an attempt to analyse the underlying molecular mechanisms, but these studies lack depth and detail. For example, it is not clear how actin, keratins, and piezo1 communicate to regulate cell migration. Are they acting directly on EMT genes such as SNAI1 or through changes in cell mechanics and cell-cell adhesions? Likewise, is TGF-beta signalling active in the system (e.g. nuclear pSMAD during cell migration)? As a result, the new biological insight is somewhat limited and confirms much of what is known about these pathways in keratinocyte migration.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Dixit, Noe, and Weikl apply coarse-grained and all-atom molecular dynamics to determine the response of the mechanosensitive proteins Piezo 1 and Piezo 2 proteins to tension. Cryo-EM structures in micelles show a high curvature of the protein whereas structures in lipid bilayers show lower curvature. Is the zero-stress state of the protein closer to the micelle structure or the bilayer structure? Moreover, while the tension sensitivity of channel function can be inferred from the experiment, molecular details are not clearly available. How much does the protein's height and effective area change in response to tension? With these in hand, a quantitative model of its function follows that can be related to the properties of the membrane and the effect of external forces.

      Simulations indicate that in a bilayer the protein relaxes from the highly curved cryo-EM dome (Figure 1).

      Under applied tension, the dome flattens (Figure 2) including the underlying lipid bilayer. The shape of the system is a combination of the membrane mechanical and protein conformational energies (Equation 1). The membrane's mechanical energy is well-characterized. It requires only the curvature and bending modulus as inputs. They determine membrane curvature and the local area metric (Equation 4) by averaging the height on a grid and computing second derivatives (Eqsuations 7, 8) consistent with known differential geometric formulas.

      The bending energy can be limited to the nano dome but this implies that the noise in the membrane energy is significant. Where there is noise outside the dome there is noise inside the dome. At the least, they could characterize the noisy energy due to inadequate averaging of membrane shape.

      My concern for this paper is that they are significantly overestimating the membrane deformation energy based on their numerical scheme, which in turn leads to a much stiffer model of the protein itself. Two things would address this:

      (1) Report the membrane energy under different graining schemes (e.g., report schemes up to double the discretization grain).

      (2) For a Gaussian bump with sigma=6 nm I obtained a bending energy of 0.6 kappa, so certainly in the ballpark with what they are reporting but significantly lower (compared to 2 kappa, Figure 5 lower left). It would be simpler to use the Gaussian approximation to their curves in Figure 3 - and I would argue more accurate, especially since they have not reported the variation of the membrane energy with respect to the discretization size and so I cannot judge the dependence of the energy on discretization. I view reporting the variation of the membrane energy with respect to discretization as being essential for the analysis if their goal is to provide a quantitative estimate for the force of Piezo. The Helfrich energy computed from an analytical model with a membrane shape closely resembling the simulated shapes would be very helpful. According to my intuition, finite-difference estimates of curvatures will tend to be overestimates of the true membrane deformation energy because white noise tends to lead to high curvature at short-length scales, which is strongly penalized by the bending energy.

      The fitting of the system deformation to the inverse time appears to be incredibly ad hoc ... Nor is it clear that the quantified model will be substantially changed without extrapolation. The authors should either justify the extrapolation more clearly (sorry if I missed it!) or also report the unextrapolated numbers alongside the extrapolated ones.

      In summary, this paper uses molecular dynamics simulations to quantify the force of the Piezo 1 and Piezo 2 proteins on a lipid bilayer using simulations under controlled tension, observing the membrane deformation, and using that data to infer protein mechanics. While much of the physical mechanism was previously known, the study itself is a valuable quantification. I identified one issue in the membrane deformation energy analysis that has large quantitative repercussions for the extracted model.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      The authors address the role of the centromere histone core in force transduction by the kinetochore.

      Strengths:

      They use a hybrid DNA sequence that combines CDEII and CDEIII as well as Widom 601 so they can make stable histones for biophysical studies (provided by the Widom sequence) and maintain features of the centromere (CDE II and III).

      Weaknesses:

      The main results are shown in one figure (Figure 2). Indeed the Centromere core of Widom and CDE II and III contribute to strengthening the binding force for the OA-beads. The data are very nicely done and convincingly demonstrate the point. The weakness is that this is the entire paper. It is certainly of interest to investigators in kinetochore biology, but beyond that, the impact is fairly limited in scope.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      The authors tried to identify the relationships among the gut microbiota, lipid metabolites, and the host in type 2 diabetes (T2DM) by using macaques that spontaneously develop T2DM, considered one of the best models of the human disease.

      Strengths:

      The authors comprehensively compared the gut microbiota and plasma fatty acids between macaques with spontaneous T2DM and control macaques and verified the results with macaques on a high-fat diet-fed mice model.

      Weaknesses:

      The observed multi-omics of the macaques can be done on humans, which weakens the impact of the conclusion of the manuscript.

      In addition, the age and sex of the control macaque group did not necessarily match those of the T2DM group, leaving the possibility for compromising the analysis.

      Regarding the metabolomic analysis, the authors did not include fecal samples which are important, considering the authors' claim about the importance of gut microbiota in the pathogenesis of T2DM.

      In the mouse experiments, the control group should be given a FMT from control macaques rather than just untreated SPF mice since the fecal microbiota composition is likely very different between macaques and mice. Additionally, the palmitic acid-containing diets fed to mice to induce a diabetes-like condition do not mimic spontaneous T2DM in macaques.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      First, the authors confirm the up-regulation of the main genes involved in the three branches of the Unfolded Protein Response (UPR) system in diet-induced obese mice in AT, observations that have been extensively reported before. Not surprisingly, IRE1a inhibition with STF led to an amelioration of the obesity and insulin resistance of the animals. Moreover, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease was also improved by the treatment. More novel are their results in terms of thermogenesis and energy expenditure, where IRE1a seems to act via activation of brown AT. Finally, mice treated with STF exhibited significantly fewer metabolically active and M1-like macrophages in the AT compared to those under vehicle conditions. Overall, the authors conclude that targeting IRE1a has therapeutical potential for treating obesity and insulin resistance.

      The study has some strengths, such as the detailed characterization of the effect of STF in different fat depots and a thorough analysis of macrophage populations. However, the lack of novelty in the findings somewhat limits the study´s impact on the field.

    1. Reviewer #2 (Public review):

      Summary:

      This manuscript reports a comparison of microbial traits and host response traits in a laboratory model of infected granuloma using Mtb strains from different lineages. The authors report increased bacillary growth and granuloma formation, inversely associated with T cell activation that is characterized by CXCL9, granzyme B and TNF expression. They therefore infer that these T cell responses are likely to be host-protective and that the greater virulence of modern Mtb lineages may be driven by their ability to avoid triggering these responses.

      Strengths:

      The comparison of multiple Mtb lineages in a granuloma model that enables evaluation of the potential role of multiple host cells in Mtb control, offers a valuable experimental approach to study the biological mechanisms that underpin differential virulence of Mtb lineages that has been previously reported in clinical and epidemiological studies.

      Weaknesses:

      The study is rather limited to descriptive observations, and lacks experiments to test causal relationships between host and pathogen traits. Some of the presentation of the data are difficult to interpret, and some conclusions are not adequately supported by the data.

      Comments on revisions:

      The authors have addressed my previous comments with appropriate revisions and explanations.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      In this work Ritchie and colleagues explore functional consequences of neuronal over-expression or deletion of the MAP3K DLK that their labs and others have strongly implicated in both axon degeneration, neuronal cell death, and axon regeneration. Their recent work in eLife (Li, 2021) showed that inducible over-expression of DLK (or the related LZK) induces neuronal death in the cerebellum. Here, they extend this work to show that inducible over-expression in Vglut1+ neuron also kills excitatory neurons in hippocampal CA1, but not CA3. They complement this very interesting finding with translatomics to quantify genes whose mRNAs are differentially translated in the context of DLK over-expression or knockout, the latter manipulation having little to no effect on the phenotypes measured. The authors note that several genes and pathways are differentially regulated according to whether DLK is over-expressed or knocked out. They note DLK-dependent changes in genes related to synaptic function and to the cytoskeleton and ultimately relate this in cultured neurons to findings that DLK over-expression negatively impacts synapse number and changes microtubules and neurites, though with a less obvious correlation.

      Strengths:

      Where this work represents a conceptual advance is in defining DLK-dependent changes in translation. Moreover, the finding that DLK may differentially impact neuronal death will become the basis for future studies exploring whether DLK contributes to differential neuronal susceptibility to death, which is a broadly important topic.

      Comments on the latest version:

      The addition of the P10 data is an important advance. With this, the authors have satisfactorily addressed the concerns that I raised.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      The role of enteric glial cells in regulating intestinal mucosal functions at steady state has been a matter of debate in recent years. Enteric glial cell heterogeneity and related methodological differences likely underlie the contrasting findings obtained by different laboratories. Here, Prochera and colleagues used Plp1-CreERT2 driver mice to deplete the vast majority of enteric glia from the gut, and performed an elegant set of transcriptomic, microscopic and biochemical essays to examine the impact of enteric glia loss. It was found that enteric glia depletion has very limited effects on the transcriptome of gut cells 11 days after tamoxifen treatment (used to induce Diphtheria Toxin A expression in the majority of enteric glia including those present in the mucosa), and by extension - more specifically, has only minimal impact on cells of the intestinal mucosa. Interestingly, in the colon (where Paneth cells are not present) they did observe transcriptomic changes related to Paneth cell biology. Although no overt gene expression alterations were found in the small intestine - also not in Paneth cells - morphological, ultrastructural and functional changes were detected in the Paneth cells of enteric glia-depleted mice. In addition, and likely related to impaired Paneth cell secretory activity, enteric glia-depleted mice also show alterations in intestinal microbiota composition. This is an excellent study that convincingly demonstrates a role for enteric glia in supporting Paneth cells of the intestinal mucosa, suggesting that enteric glial cells shape host-microbiome interactions via the regulation of Paneth cell homeostasis.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      The article by Piersma et al. aims to reduce the complex process of NK cell licensing to the action of a single inhibitory receptor for MHC class I. This is achieved using a mouse strain lacking all of the Ly49 receptors expressed by NK cells and inserting the Ly49a gene into the Ncr1 locus, leading to expression on all the majority of NK cells.

      Strengths:

      The mouse model used represents a precise deletion of all NK-expressed genes within the Ly49 cluster. Re-introduction of the Ly49a gene into the Ncr1 locus allows expression by most NK cells. Convincing effects of Ly49a expression on in vitro activation and in vivo killing assay are shown.

      Weaknesses:

      The choice of Ly49a provides a clear picture of H-2Dd recognition by this Ly49. It would be valuable to perform additional studies investigating Ly49c and Ly49i receptors for H-2b. This is of interest because there are reports indicating that Ly49c may not be a functional receptor in B6 mice due to strong cis interactions. Investigation of the Ly49c and Ly49i receptors in this model would be the basis of future studies that are beyond the scope of the current report.

      This work generates an excellent mouse model for the study of NK cell licensing by inhibitory Ly49s that will be useful for the community. It provides a platform whereby the functional activity of a single Ly49 can be assessed.

      Comments on revisions: No additional concerns

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      Zanetti et al use biophysical and cellular assays to investigate the interaction of the birnavirus VP3 protein with the early endosome lipid PI3P. The major novel finding is that association of the VP3 protein with an anionic lipid (PI3P) appears to be important for viral replication, as evidenced through a cellular assay on FFUs.

      Strengths:

      Support previously published claims that VP3 associates with early endosome membrane, potentially through binding to PI3P. The finding that mutating a single residue (R200) critically affects early endosome binding and that the same mutation also inhibits viral replication suggests a very important role for this binding in the viral life cycle.

      Weaknesses:

      The manuscript is relatively narrowly focused: the specifics of the bi-molecular interaction between the VP3 of an unusual avian virus and a host cell lipid (PIP3). Further, the affinity of this interaction is low and its specificity relative to other PIPs is not tested, leading to questions about whether VP3-PI3P binding is relevant.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      Hua et al show how targeting amino acid metabolism can overcome Trastuzumab resistance in HER2+ breast cancer.

      Strengths:

      The authors used metabolomics, transcriptomics and epigenomics approaches in vitro and in preclinical models to demonstrate how trastuzumab-resistant cells utilize cysteine metabolism.

      Weaknesses:

      However, there are some key aspects that needs to be addressed.

      Major:

      (1) Patient Samples for Transcriptomic Analysis: It is unclear from the text whether tumor tissues or blood samples were used for the transcriptomic analysis. This distinction is crucial, as these two sample types would yield vastly different inferences. The authors should clarify the source of these samples.

      (2) The study only tested one trastuzumab-resistant and one trastuzumab-sensitive cell line. It is unclear whether these findings are applicable to other HER2-positive tumor cell lines, such as HCC1954. The authors should validate their results in additional cell lines to strengthen their conclusions.

      (3) Relevance to Metastatic Disease: Trastuzumab resistance often arises in patients during disease recurrence, which is frequently associated with metastasis. However, the mouse experiments described in this paper were conducted only in the primary tumors. This article would have more impact if the authors could demonstrate that the combination of Erastin or cysteine starvation with trastuzumab can also improve outcomes in metastasis models.

      Minor:

      (1) The figures lack information about the specific statistical tests used. Including this information is essential to show the robustness of the results.

      (2) Figure 3K Interpretation: The significance asterisks in Figure 3K do not specify the comparison being made. Are they relative to the DMSO control? This should be clarified.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      In this manuscript, the authors report that GPR55 activation in presynaptic terminals of Purkinje cells decrease GABA release at the PC-DCN synapse. The authors use an impressive array of techniques (including highly challenging presynaptic recordings) to show that GPR55 activation reduces the readily releasable pool of vesicle without affecting presynaptic AP waveform and presynaptic Ca2+ influx. This is an interesting study, which is seemingly well-executed and proposes a novel mechanism for the control of neurotransmitter release. However, the authors' main conclusions are heavily, if not solely, based on pharmacological agents that most often than not demonstrate affinity at multiple targets. Below are points that the authors should consider in a revised version.

      Major points:

      (1) There is no clear evidence that GPR55 is specifically expressed in presynaptic terminals at the PC-DCN synapse. The authors cited Ryberg 2007 and Wu 2013 in the introduction, mentioning that GPR55 is potentially expressed in PCs. Ryberg (2007) offers no such evidence, and the expression in PC suggested by Wu (2013) does not necessarily correlate with presynaptic expression. The authors should perform additional experiments to demonstrate the presynaptic expression of GPR55 at PC-DCN synapse.

      (2) The authors' conclusions rest heavily on pharmacological experiments, with compounds that are sometimes not selective for single targets. Genetic deletion of GPR55 would be a more appropriate control. The authors should also expand their experiments with occlusion experiments, showing if the effects of LPI are absent after AM251 or O-1602 treatment. In addition, the authors may want to consider AM281 as a CB1R antagonist without reported effects at GPR55.

      (3) It is not clear how long the different drugs were applied, and at what time the recordings were performed during or following drug application. It appears that GPR55 agonists can have transient effects (Sylantyev, 2013; Rosenberg, 2023), possibly due to receptor internalization. The timeline of drug application should be reported, where IPSC amplitude is shown as a function of time and drug application windows are illustrated.

      (4) A previous investigation on the role of GPR55 in the control of neurotransmitter release is not cited nor discussed Sylantyev et al., (2013, PNAS, Cannabinoid- and lysophosphatidylinositol-sensitive receptor GPR55 boosts neurotransmitter release at central synapses). Similarities and differences should be discussed.

      Minor point:

      (1) What is the source of LPI? What isoform was used? The multiple isoforms of LPI have different affinities for GPR55.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      In their paper entitled "Combined transcriptomic, connectivity, and activity profiling of the medial amygdala using highly amplified multiplexed in situ hybridization (hamFISH)" Edwards et al. present a new method designated as hamFISH (highly amplified multiplexed in situ hybridization) that enables sequential detection of {less than or equal to}32 genes using multiplexed branched DNA amplification. As proof-of-principle, the authors apply the new technique - in conjunction with connectivity, and activity profiling - to the medial amygdala (MeA) of the mouse, which is a critical nucleus for innate social and defensive behaviors.

      As mentioned by Edwards et al., hamFISH could prove beneficial as an affordable alternative to other in situ transcriptomic methods, including commercial platforms, that are resource-intensive and require complex analysis pipelines. Thus, the authors envision that the method they present could democratize in situ cell-type identification in individual laboratories.

      The data presented by Edwards et al. is convincing. The authors use the appropriate and validated methodology in line with the current state-of-the-art. The paper makes a strong case for the benefits of hamFISH when combining transcriptomics studies with connectivity tracing and immediate early gene-based activity profiling. Notably, the authors also discuss the caveats and limitations of their study/approach in an open and transparent manner.

      In its current state, the manuscript touches upon a number of most intriguing, yet rather preliminary findings. For example, the roles of inhibitory neuron cluster i3 or of the selective and apparently MeA neuron-specific projections (Figure 3 - Figure Supplement 2D) remain elusive. As it is the authors' prime intent to provide "a proof-of-principle example of overlaying transcriptomic types, projection, and activity in a behaviorally relevant manner and demonstrates the usefulness of hamFISH in multiplexed in situ gene expression profiling", such studies might be beyond the scope of the present manuscript. The absence of such more in-depth hypothesis-based analysis, however, prevents an even more enthusiastic overall assessment.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      This study experimentally examined diet-microbe-host interactions through a complex systems framework, centered on dietary oxalate. Multiple, independent molecular, animal, and in vitro experimental models were introduced into this research. The authors found that microbiome composition influenced multiple oxalate-microbe-host interfaces. Oxalobacter formigenes were only effective against a poor oxalate-degrading microbiota background and give critical new insights into why clinical intervention trials with this species exhibit variable outcomes. Data suggest that, while heterogeneity in the microbiome impacts multiple diet-host-microbe interfaces, metabolic redundancy among diverse microorganisms in specific diet-microbe axes is a critical variable that may impact the efficacy of bacteriotherapies, which can help guide patient and probiotic selection criteria in probiotic clinical trials.

      Strengths:

      The paper has made significant progress in both the depth and breadth of scientific research by systematically comparing multiple experimental methods across multiple dimensions. Particularly through in-depth analysis from the enzymatic perspective, it has not only successfully identified several key strains and redundant genes, which is of great significance for understanding the functions of enzymes, the characteristics of strains, and the mechanisms of genes in microbial communities, but also provided a valuable reference for subsequent experimental design and theoretical research.

      More importantly, the establishment of a novel research approach to probiotics and gut microbiota in this paper represents a major contribution to the current research field. The proposal of this new approach not only breaks through the limitations of traditional research but also offers new perspectives and strategies for the screening, optimization of probiotics, and the regulation of gut microbiota balance. This holds potential significant value for improving human health and the prevention and treatment of related diseases.

      Weaknesses:

      While the study has excellently examined the overall changes in microbial community structure and the functions of individual bacteria, it lacks a focused investigation on the metabolic cross-feeding relationships between oxalate-degrading bacteria and related microorganisms, failing to provide a foundational microbial community or model for future research. Although this paper conducts a detailed study on oxalate metabolism, it would be beneficial to visually present the enrichment of different microbial community structures in metabolic pathways using graphical models.

      Furthermore, the authors have done a commendable job in studying the roles of key bacteria. If the interactions and effects of upstream and downstream metabolically related bacteria could be integrated, it would provide readers with even more meaningful information. By illustrating how these bacteria interact within the metabolic network, readers can gain a deeper understanding of the complex ecological and functional relationships within microbial communities. Such an integrated approach would not only enhance the scientific value of the study but also facilitate future research in this area.

  2. Feb 2025
    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      This is a comprehensive study that clearly and deeply investigates the function of GATA6 in human early cardiac development.

      Strengths:

      This study combines hESC engineering, differentiation, detailed gene expression, genome occupancy, and and pathway modulation to elucidate the role of GATA6 in early cardiac differentiation. The work is carefully executed and the results support the conclusions. The use of publicly available data is well integrated throughout the manuscript. The RIME experiments are excellent.

      Weaknesses:

      Much has been known about GATA6 in mesendoderm development, and this is acknowledged by the authors.

      Comments on revised version:

      The authors have addressed my comments appropriately.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      The study by Pudlowski et al. investigates how the intricate structure of centrioles is formed by studying the role of a complex formed by delta- and epsilon-tubulin and the TEDC1 and TEDC2 proteins. For this they employ knockout cell lines, EM and ultrastructure expansion microscopy as well as pull-downs. Previous work has indicated a role of delta- and epsilon-tubulin in triplet microtubule formation. Without triplet microtubules centriolar cylinders can still form, but are unstable, resulting is futile rounds of de novo centriole assembly during S phase and disassembly during mitosis. Here the authors show that all four proteins function as a complex and knockout of any of the four proteins results in the same phenotype. They further find that mutant centrioles lack inner scaffold proteins and contain an extended proximal end including markers such as SAS6 and CEP135, suggesting that triplet microtubule formation is linked to limiting proximal end extension and formation of the central region that contains the inner scaffold. Finally, they show that mutant centrioles seem to undergo elongation during early mitosis before disassembly, although it is not clear if this may also be due to prolonged mitotic duration in mutants.

      Strengths:

      Overall this is a well-performed study, well presented, with conclusions supported by convincing data based on knockout cell lines, rescue experiments, and detailed quantifications.

      Weaknesses:

      Most weaknesses have been addressed in the revised version. The precise mapping of TED complex proteins to centrioles remains challenging with the available tools but has been addressed through the use of several complementary super-resolution techniques.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      Gene transfer agent (GTA) from Bartonella is a fascinating chimeric GTA that evolved from the domestication of two phages. Not much is known about how the expression of the BaGTA is regulated. In this manuscript, Korotaev et al noted the structural similarity between BrrG (a protein encoded by the ror locus of BaGTA) to a well-known transcriptional anti-termination factor, 21Q, from phage P21. This sparked the investigation into the possibility that BaGTA cluster is also regulated by anti-termination. Using a suite of cell biology, genetics, and genome-wide techniques (ChIP-seq), Korotaev et al convincingly showed that this is most likely the case. The findings offer the first insight into the regulation of GTA cluster (and GTA-mediated gene transfer) particularly in this pathogen Bartonella. Note that anti-termination is a well-known/studied mechanism of transcriptional control. Anti-termination is a very common mechanism for gene expression control of prophages, phages, bacterial gene clusters, and other GTAs, so in this sense, the impact of the findings in this study here is limited to Bartonella.

      Strengths:

      Convincing results that overall support the main claim of the manuscript.

      Weaknesses:

      A few important controls are missing.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      In this work, Huang et al used SMRT sequencing to identify methylated nucleotides (6mA, 4mC, and 5mC) in Pseudomonas syringae genome. They show that the most abundant modification is 6mA and they identify the enzymes required for this modification as when they mutate HsdMSR they observe a decrease of 6mA. Interestingly, the mutant also displays phenotypes of change in pathogenicity, biofilm formation, and translation activity due to a change in gene expression likely linked to the loss of 6mA.

      Overall, the paper represents an interesting set of new data that can bring forward the field of DNA modification in bacteria.

      Comments on revisions:

      Thank you for the additional work. The authors have now addressed all my concerns.

    1. Reviewer #2 (Public review):

      Summary:

      In this work, the authors use a theoretical model to study the potential impact of Horizontal Gene Transfer on the number of alternative stable states of microbial communities. For this, they use a modified version of the competitive Lotka Volterra model-which accounts for the effects of pairwise, competitive interactions on species growth-that incorporates terms for the effects of both an added death (dilution) rate acting on all species and the rates of horizontal transfer of mobile genetic elements-which can, in turn, affect species growth rates. The authors analyze the impact of horizontal gene transfer in different scenarios--such as bistability between pairs of species and multistability in communities--over an extended range of parameter values. In almost all these cases, the authors report an increase in either the number of alternative stable states or the parameter region (e.g. growth rate values) in which they occur.

      Understanding the origin of alternative stable states in microbial communities and how often they may occur is an important challenge in microbial ecology and evolution. Shifts between these alternative stable states can drive transitions between e.g. a healthy microbiome and dysbiosis. A better understanding of how horizontal gene transfer can drive multistability could help predict alternative stable states in microbial communities, as well as inspire novel treatments to steer communities towards the most desired (e.g. healthy) stable states. In my opinion, this manuscript is a solid theoretical approach to the subject.

      Strengths:<br /> - Generality of the model: the work is based on a phenomenological model that has been extensively used to predict the dynamics of ecological communities in many different scenarios.<br /> - The question of how horizontal gene transfer can drive alternative stable states in microbial communities is important and there are very few studies addressing it.

      Weaknesses:<br /> - In the revised version of the manuscript, the authors significantly extended the analyzed region of parameter values. Still, the model has many parameters and the analysis is typically done by changing one or two parameters at a time. Thus, the work shows how HGT can indeed promote multistability, but it remains hard to grasp whether it consistently does so across a large region of the parameter values space.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      The authors studied why the two more antigenic proteins of the influenza A virus, hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA), are expressed later during the infection. They set an experimental approach consisting of a 2-hour-long infection at a multiplicity of infection of 2 with the viral strain WSN. They used cells from the lung carcinoma cell line A549. They used the FISH technique to detect the mRNAs in situ and developed an imaging-based assay for mathematically modeling and estimating the nuclear export rate of each of the eight viral segments. They propose that the delay in the expression of HA and NA is based on the retention of their mRNA within the nucleus.

      Strength

      The study of an unaddressed mechanism in influenza A virus infectious cycle, as is the late expression of HA and NA, by creating a work flow including mRNA detection (FISH) plus mathematical calculations to arrive at a model, which additionally could be useful for general biological processes where transcription occurs in a burst-like manner.

      Weakness

      The authors built on several assumptions regarding the viral infection to "quantify" the transcript' export rate lacking experimental support. It would greatly improve if more precise experiments could be performed and/or include demonstration of the assumptions made (i.e., empirically demonstrating that cRNA production does not occur within the first 2 hours of infection, and the late expression of HA and NA proteins).

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      This paper presents a model of the whole somatosensory non-barrel cortex of the rat, with 4.2 million morphologically and electrically detailed neurons, with many aspects of the model constrained by a variety of data. The paper focuses on simulation experiments, testing a range of observations. These experiments are aimed at understanding how multiscale organization of the cortical network shapes neural activity.

      Strengths

      • The model is very large and detailed. With 4.2 million neurons and 13.2 billion synapses, as well as the level of biophysical realism employed, it is a highly comprehensive computational representation of the cortical network.

      • Large scope of work - the authors cover a variety of properties of the network structure and activity in this paper, from dendritic and synaptic physiology to multi-area neural activity.

      • Direct comparisons with experiments, shown throughout the paper, are laudable.

      • The authors make a number of observations, like describing how high-dimensional connectivity motifs shape patterns of neural activity, which can be useful for thinking about the relations between the structure and the function of the cortical network.

      • Sharing the simulation tools and a "large subvolume of the model" is appreciated.

      Weaknesses

      • A substantial part of this paper - the first few figures - focuses on single-cell and single-synapse properties, with high similarity to what was shown in Markram et al., 2015. Details may differ, but overall it is quite similar.

      • Although the paper is about the model of the whole non-barrel somatosensory cortex, out of all figures, only one deals with simulations of the whole non-barrel somatosensory cortex. Most figures focus on simulations that involve one or a few "microcolumns". Again, it is rather similar to what was done in Markram et al., 2015 and constitutes relatively incremental progress.

      • With a model like this, one has an opportunity to investigate computations and interactions across an extensive cortical network in an in vivo-like context. However, the simulations presented are not addressing realistic specific situations corresponding to animals performing a task or perceiving a relevant somatosensory stimulus. This makes the insights into roles of cell types or connectivity architecture less interesting, as they are presented for relatively abstract situations. It is hard to see their relationship to important questions that the community would be excited about - theoretical concepts like predictive coding, biophysical mechanisms like dendritic nonlinearities, or circuit properties like feedforward, lateral, and feedback processing across interacting cortical areas. In other words, what do we learn from this work conceptually, especially, about the whole non-barrel somatosensory cortex?

      • Most of comparisons with in vivo-like activity are done using experimental data for whisker deflection (plus some from the visual stimulation in V1). But this model is for the non-barrel somatosensory cortex, so exactly the part of the cortex that has less to do with whiskers (or vision). Is it not possible to find any in vivo neural activity data from non-barrel cortex?

      • The authors almost do not show raw spike rasters or firing rates. I am sure most readers would want to decide for themselves whether the model makes sense, and for that the first thing to do is to look at raster plots and distributions of firing rates. Instead, the authors show comparisons with in vivo data using highly processed, normalized metrics.

      • While the authors claim that their model with one set of parameters reproduces many experimentally established metrics, that is not entirely what one finds. Instead, they provide different levels of overall stimulation to their model (adjusting the target "P_FR" parameter, with values from 0 to 1, and other parameters), and that influences results. If I get this right (the figures could really be improved with better organization and labeling), simulations with P_FR closer to 1 provide more realistic firing rate levels for a few different cases, however, P_FR of 0.3 and possibly above tends to cause highly synchronized activity - what the authors call bursting, but which also could be called epileptic-like activity in the network.

      • The authors mention that the model is available online, but the "Resource availability" section does not describe that in substantial detail. As they mention in the Abstract, it is only a subvolume that is available. That might be fine, but more detail in appropriate parts of the paper would be useful.

      Comments on revisions:

      The authors addressed all my comments by revising and adding text as well as revising and adding some figures and videos. The limitations described in my previous review (above) mostly remain, but they are much better acknowledged and described now. These limitations can be addressed in the future work, whereas the current paper represents a step forward relative to the state of the art and provides a useful resource for the community.

      Two minor points about the new additions to the paper:

      (1) Something does not seem right in the sentence, "Unlike the Markram et al. (2015) model, the new model can also be exploited by the community and has already been used in a number of follow up papers studying (Ecker et al., 2024a,b; ...)". Should the authors remove "studying"?

      (2) It is great that the authors added more plots and videos of the firing rates, but most of them show maximum-normalized rates, which sort of defeats the purpose. No scale on the y-axis is shown (it can be useful even for normalized data). And it is impossible to see anything for inhibitory populations.

      These are minor points that may not need to be addressed. Overall, it is a nice study that is certainly useful for the field.

      A great improvement is that the model is made fully available to the public.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      Giménez-Orenga et al. investigate the origin and pathophysiology of myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) and fibromyalgia (FM). Using RNA microarrays, the authors compare the expression profiles and evaluate the biomarker potential of human endogenous retroviruses (HERV) in these two conditions. Altogether, the authors show that HERV expression is distinct between ME/CFS and FM patients, and HERV dysregulation is associated with higher symptom intensity in ME/CFS. HERV expression in ME/CFS patients is associated with impaired immune function and higher estimated levels of plasma cells and resting CD4 memory T cells. This work provides interesting insights into the pathophysiology of ME/CFS and FM, creating opportunities for several follow-up studies.

      Strengths:

      (1) Overall, the data is convincing and supports the authors' claims. The manuscript is clear and easy to understand, and the methods are generally well-detailed. It was quite enjoyable to read.

      (2) The authors combined several unbiased approaches to analyse HERV expression in ME/CFS and FM. The tools, thresholds, and statistical models used all seem appropriate to answer their biological questions.

      (3) The authors propose an interesting alternative to diagnosing these two conditions. Transcriptomic analysis of blood samples using an RNA microarray could allow a minimally invasive and reproducible way of diagnosing ME/CFS and FM.

      Weaknesses:

      (1) The cohort analysed in this study was phenotyped by a single clinician. As ME/CFS and FM are diagnosed based on unspecific symptoms and are frequently misdiagnosed, this raises the question of whether the results can be generalised to external cohorts.

      (2) The analyses performed to unravel the causes and effects of HERV expression in ME/CFS and FM are solely based on sequencing data. Experimental approaches could be used to validate some of the transcriptomic observations.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      In the paper, the authors investigate how the availability of genomic information and the timing of vaccine strain selection influence the accuracy of influenza A/H3N2 forecasting. The manuscript presents three key findings:

      (1) Using real and simulated data, the authors demonstrate that shortening the forecasting horizon and reducing submission delays for sharing genomic data improve the accuracy of virus forecasting.

      (2) Reducing submission delays also enhances estimates of current clade frequencies.

      (3) Shorter forecasting horizons, for example, allowed by the proposed use of "faster" vaccine platforms such as mRNA, resulting in the most significant improvements in forecasting accuracy.

      Strengths:

      The authors present a robust analysis, using statistical methods based on previously published genetic-based techniques to forecast influenza evolution. Optimizing prediction methods is crucial from both scientific and public health perspectives. The use of simulated as well as real genetic data (collected between April 1, 2005, and October 1, 2019) to assess the effects of shorter forecasting horizons and reduced submission delays is valuable and provides a comprehensive dataset. Moreover, the accompanying code is openly available on GitHub and is well-documented.

      Weaknesses:

      While the study addresses a critical public health issue related to vaccine strain selection and explores potential improvements, its impact is somewhat constrained by its exclusive reliance on predictive methods using genomic information, without incorporating phenotypic data. The analysis remains at a high level, lacking a detailed exploration of factors such as the genetic distance of antigenic sites.

      Another limitation is the subsampling of the available dataset, which reduces several tens of thousands of sequences to just 90 sequences per month with even sampling across regions. This approach, possibly due to computational constraints, might overlook potential effects of regional biases in clade distribution that could be significant. The effect of dataset sampling on presented findings remains unexplored. Although the authors acknowledge limitations in their discussion section, the depth of the analysis could be improved to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the underlying dynamics and their effects.

    1. ZFIN: ZDB-GENO-060207-1

      DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2025.111935

      Resource: (ZFIN Cat# ZDB-GENO-060207-1,RRID:ZFIN_ZDB-GENO-060207-1)

      Curator: @areedewitt04

      SciCrunch record: RRID:ZFIN_ZDB-GENO-060207-1


      What is this?

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      The authors wanted to use AlphaFold-multimer (AFm) predictions to reduce the challenge of physics-based protein-protein docking.

      Strengths:

      They found two features of AFm predictions that are very useful. 1) pLLDT is predictive of flexible residues, which they could target for conformational sampling during docking; 2) the interface-pLLDT score is predictive of the quality of AFm predictions, which allows the authors to decide whether to do local or global docking.

      Weaknesses:

      (1) As admitted by the authors, the AFm predictions for the main dataset are undoubtedly biased because these structures were used for AFm training. Could the authors find a way to assess the extent of this bias?<br /> (2) For the CASP15 targets where this bias is absent, the presentation was very brief. In particular, I'm interested in seeing how AFm helped with the docking? They may even want to do a direct comparison with docking results w/o the help of AFm.

      Comments on revisions:

      This revision has addressed my previous comments.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      The authors sought to identify unknown factors involved in the repair of uracil in DNA through a CRISPR knockout screen.

      Strengths:

      The screen identified both known and unknown proteins involved in DNA repair resulting from uracil or modified uracil base incorporation into DNA. The conclusion is that the protein activity of METTL3, which converts A nucleotides to 6mA nucleotides, plays a role in the DNA damage/repair response. The importance of METTL3 in DNA repair, and its colocalization with a known DNA repair enzyme, UNG2, is well characterized.

      Weaknesses:

      This reviewer identified no major weaknesses in this study. The manuscript could be improved by tightening the text throughout, and more accurate and consistent word choice around the origin of U and 6mA in DNA. The dUTP nucleotide is misincorporated into DNA, and 6mA is formed by methylation of the A base present in DNA. Using words like 6mA "deposition in DNA" seems to imply it results from incorporation of a methylated dATP nucleotide during DNA synthesis.

    1. Joint Public Review:

      Summary:

      The authors of the study investigated the generalization capabilities of a deep learning brain age model across different age groups within the Singaporean population, encompassing both elderly individuals aged 55 to 88 years and children aged 4 to 11 years. The model, originally trained on a dataset primarily consisting of Caucasian adults, demonstrated a varying degree of adaptability across these age groups. For the elderly, the authors observed that the model could be applied with minimal modifications, whereas for children, significant fine-tuning was necessary to achieve accurate predictions. Through their analysis, the authors established a correlation between changes in the brain age gap and future executive function performance across both demographics. Additionally, they identified distinct neuroanatomical predictors for brain age in each group: lateral ventricles and frontal areas were key in elderly participants, while white matter and posterior brain regions played a crucial role in children. These findings underscore the authors' conclusion that brain age models hold the potential for generalization across diverse populations, further emphasizing the significance of brain age progression as an indicator of cognitive development and aging processes.

      Strengths:

      (1) The study tackles a crucial research gap by exploring the adaptability of a brain age model across Asian demographics (Chinese, Malay, and Indian Singaporeans), enriching our knowledge of brain aging beyond Western populations.<br /> (2) It uncovers distinct anatomical predictors of brain aging between elderly and younger individuals, highlighting a significant finding in the understanding of age-related changes and ethnic differences.

      In summary, this paper underscores the critical need to include diverse ethnicities in model testing and estimation.

      Comments on revisions:

      The previously mentioned weaknesses were addressed in the revision process. As stated earlier the paper tackles a crucial research gap by exploring the adaptability of a brain-age model across Asian demographics (Chinese, Malay, and Indian Singaporeans), enriching our knowledge of brain aging beyond Western populations.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      The present paper by Redman et al. investigated the variability of grid cell properties in the MEC by analyzing publicly available large-scale neural recording data. Although previous studies have proposed that grid spacing and orientation are homogeneous within the same grid module, the authors found a small but robust variability in grid spacing and orientation across grid cells in the same module. The authors also showed, through model simulations, that such variability is useful for decoding spatial position.

      Strengths:

      The results of this study provide novel and intriguing insights into how grid cells compose the cognitive map in the axis of the entorhinal cortex and hippocampus. This study analyzes large data sets in an appropriate manner and the results are convincing.

      Comments on revisions:

      In the revised version of the manuscript, the authors have addressed all the concerns I raised.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Hotinger et al. explore the population dynamics of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium in mice using genetically tagged bacteria. In addition to physiological observations, pathology assessments, and CFU measurements, the study emphasizes quantifying host bottleneck sizes that limit Salmonella colonization and dissemination. The authors also investigate the genetic distances between bacterial populations at various infection sites within the host.

      Initially, the study confirms that pretreatment with the antibiotic streptomycin before inoculation via orogastric gavage increases the bacterial burden in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, leading to more severe symptoms and heightened fecal shedding of bacteria. This pretreatment also significantly reduces between-animal variation in bacterial burden and fecal shedding. The authors then calculate founding population sizes across different organs, discovering a severe bottleneck in the intestine, with founding populations reduced by approximately 10^6-fold compared to the inoculum size. Streptomycin pretreatment increases the founding population size and bacterial replication in the GI tract. Moreover, by calculating genetic distances between populations, the authors demonstrate that, in untreated mice, Salmonella populations within the GI tract are genetically dissimilar, suggesting limited exchange between colonization sites. In contrast, streptomycin pretreatment reduces genetic distances, indicating increased exchange.

      In extraintestinal organs, the bacterial burden is generally not substantially increased by streptomycin pretreatment, with significant differences observed only in the mesenteric lymph nodes and bile. However, the founding population sizes in these organs are increased. By comparing genetic distances between organs, the authors provide evidence that subpopulations colonizing extraintestinal organs diverge early after infection from those in the GI tract. This hypothesis is further tested by measuring bacterial burden and founding population sizes in the liver and GI tract at 5 and 120 hours post-infection. Additionally, they compare orogastric gavage infection with the less injurious method of infection via drinking, finding similar results for CFUs, founding populations, and genetic distances. These results argue against injuries during gavage as a route of direct infection.

      To bypass bottlenecks associated with the GI tract, the authors compare intravenous (IV) and intraperitoneal (IP) routes of infection. They find approximately a 10-fold increase in bacterial burden and founding population size in immune-rich organs with IV/IP routes compared to orogastric gavage in streptomycin-pretreated animals. This difference is interpreted as a result of "extra steps required to reach systemic organs."

      While IP and IV routes yield similar results in immune-rich organs, IP infections lead to higher bacterial burdens in nearby sites, such as the pancreas, adipose tissue, and intraperitoneal wash, as well as somewhat increased founding population sizes. The authors correlate these findings with the presence of white lesions in adipose tissue. Genetic distance comparisons reveal that, apart from the spleen and liver, IP infections lead to genetically distinct populations in infected organs, whereas IV infections generally result in higher genetic similarity.

      Finally, the authors investigate GI tract reseeding, identifying two distinct routes. They observe that the GI tracts of IP/IV-infected mice are colonized either by a clonal or a diversely tagged bacterial population. In clonally reseeded animals, the genetic distance within the GI tract is very low (often zero) compared to the bile population, which is predominantly clonal or pauciclonal. These animals also display pathological signs, such as cloudy/hardened bile and increased bacterial burden, leading the authors to conclude that the GI tract was reseeded by bacteria from the gallbladder bile. In contrast, animals reseeded by more complex bacterial populations show that bile contributes only a minor fraction of the tags. Given the large founding population size in these animals' GI tracts, which is larger than in orogastrically infected animals, the authors suggest a highly permissive second reseeding route, largely independent of bile. They speculate that this route may involve a reversal of known mechanisms that the pathogen uses to escape from the intestine.

      The manuscript presents a substantial body of work that offers a meticulously detailed understanding of the population dynamics of S. Typhimurium in mice. It quantifies the processes shaping the within-host dynamics of this pathogen and provides new insights into its spread, including previously unrecognized dissemination routes. The methodology is appropriate and carefully executed, and the manuscript is well-written, clearly presented, and concise. The authors' conclusions are well-supported by experimental results and thoroughly discussed. This work underscores the power of using highly diverse barcoded pathogens to uncover the within-host population dynamics of infections and will likely inspire further investigations into the molecular mechanisms underlying the bottlenecks and dissemination routes described here.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      This is an interesting manuscript where the authors systematically measure rG4 levels in brain samples at different ages of patients affected by AD. To the best of my knowledge this is the first time that BG4 staining is used in this context and the authors provide compelling evidence to show an association with BG4 staining and age or AD progression, which interestingly indicates that such RNA structure might play a role in regulating protein homeostasis as previously speculated. The methods used and the results reported seems robust and reproducible.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      The manuscript investigates lipid scrambling mechanisms across TMEM16 family members using coarse-grained molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. While the study presents a statistically rigorous analysis of lipid scrambling events across multiple structures and conformations, several critical issues undermine its novelty, impact, and alignment with experimental observations.

      Critical issues:

      (1) Lack of Novelty:<br /> The phenomenon of lipid scrambling via an open hydrophilic groove is already well-established in the literature, including through atomistic MD simulations. The authors themselves acknowledge this fact in their introduction and discussion. By employing coarse-grained simulations, the study essentially reiterates previously known findings with limited additional mechanistic insight. The repeated observation of scrambling occurring predominantly via the groove does not offer significant advancement beyond prior work.

      (2) Redundancy Across Systems:<br /> The manuscript explores multiple TMEM16 family members in activating and non-activating conformations, but the conclusions remain largely confirmatory. The extensive dataset generated through coarse-grained MD simulations primarily reinforces established mechanistic models rather than uncovering fundamentally new insights. The effort, while statistically robust, feels excessive given the incremental nature of the findings.

      (3) Discrepancy with Experimental Observations:<br /> The use of coarse-grained simulations introduces inherent limitations in accurately representing lipid scrambling dynamics at the atomistic level. Experimental studies have highlighted nuances in lipid permeation that are not fully captured by coarse-grained models. This discrepancy raises questions about the biological relevance of the reported scrambling events, especially those occurring outside the canonical groove.

      (4) Alternative Scrambling Sites:<br /> The manuscript reports scrambling events at the dimer-dimer interface as a novel mechanism. While this observation is intriguing, it is not explored in sufficient detail to establish its functional significance. Furthermore, the low frequency of these events (relative to groove-mediated scrambling) suggests they may be artifacts of the simulation model rather than biologically meaningful pathways.

      Conclusion:

      Overall, while the study is technically sound and presents a large dataset of lipid scrambling events across multiple TMEM16 structures, it falls short in terms of novelty and mechanistic advancement. The findings are largely confirmatory and do not bridge the gap between coarse-grained simulations and experimental observations. Future efforts should focus on resolving these limitations, possibly through atomistic simulations or experimental validation of the alternative scrambling pathways.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      This experiment sought to determine what effect congenital/early-onset hearing loss (and associated delay in language onset) has on the degree of inter-individual variability in functional connectivity to the auditory cortex. Looking at differences in variability rather than group differences in mean connectivity itself represents an interesting addition to the existing literature. The sample of deaf individuals was large, and quite homogeneous in terms of age of hearing loss onset, which are considerable strengths of the work. The experiment appears well conducted and the results are certainly of interest.

      Comment from Reviewing Editor: In the revised manuscript, the authors have addressed all concerns previously identified by reviewer 1.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      The study aimed to investigate the significant impact of criterion placement on the validity of neural measures of consciousness, examining how different standards for classifying a stimulus as 'seen' or 'unseen' can influence the interpretation of neural data. They conducted simulations and EEG experiments to demonstrate that the Perceptual Awareness Scale, a widely used tool in consciousness research, may not effectively mitigate criterion-related confounds, suggesting that even with the PAS, neural measures can be compromised by how criteria are set. Their study challenged existing paradigms by showing that the construct validity of neural measures of conscious and unconscious processing is threatened by criterion placement, and they provided practical recommendations for improving experimental designs in the field. The authors' work contributes to a deeper understanding of the nature of conscious and unconscious processing and addresses methodological concerns by exploring the pervasive influence of criterion placement on neural measures of consciousness and discussing alternative paradigms that might offer solutions to the criterion problem.

      The study effectively demonstrates that the placement of criteria for determining whether a stimulus is 'seen' or 'unseen' significantly impacts the validity of neural measures of consciousness. The authors found that conservative criteria tend to inflate effect sizes, while liberal criteria reduce them, leading to potentially misleading conclusions about conscious and unconscious processing. The authors employed robust simulations and EEG experiments to demonstrate the effects of criterion placement, ensuring that the findings are well-supported by empirical evidence. The results from both experiments confirm the predicted confounding effects of criterion placement on neural measures of unconscious and conscious processing.

      The results are consistent with their hypotheses and contribute meaningfully to the field of consciousness research.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      Tubert C. et al. investigated the role of dopamine D5 receptors (D5R) and their downstream potassium channel, Kv1, in the striatal cholinergic neuron pause response induced by thalamic excitatory input. Using slice electrophysiological analysis combined with pharmacological approaches, the authors tested which receptors and channels contribute to the cholinergic interneuron pause response in both control and dyskinetic mice (in the L-DOPA off state). They found that activation of Kv1 was necessary for the pause response, while activation of D5R blocked the pause response in control mice. Furthermore, in the L-DOPA off state of dyskinetic mice, the absence of the pause response was restored by the application of clozapine. The authors claimed that 1) the D5R-Kv1 pathway contributes to the cholinergic interneuron pause response in a phasic dopamine concentration-dependent manner, and 2) clozapine inhibits D5R in the L-DOPA off state, which restores the pause response.

      Strengths

      The electrophysiological and pharmacological approaches used in this study are powerful tools for testing channel properties and functions. The authors' group has well-established these methodologies and analysis pipelines. Indeed, the data presented were robust and reliable.

      Weaknesses:

      Although the paper has strengths in its methodological approaches, there is a significant gap between the presented data and the authors' claims.

      The authors answered the most of concerns I raised. However, the critical issue remains unresolved.

      I am still not convinced by the results presented in Fig. 6 and their interpretation. Since Clozapine acts as an agonist in the absence of an endogenous agonist, it may stimulate the D5R-cAMP-Kv1 pathway. Stimulation of this pathway should abolish the pause response mediated by thalamic stimulation in SCINs, rather than restoring the pause response. Clarification is needed regarding how Clozapine reduces D5R-ligand-independent activity in the absence of dopamine (the endogenous agonist). In addition, the author's argued that D5R antagonist does not work in the absence of dopamine, therefore solely D5R antagonist didn't restore the pause response. However, if D5R-cAMP-Kv1 pathway is already active in L-DOPA off state, why D5R antagonist didn't contribute to inhibition of D5R pathway?<br /> Since Clozapine is not D5 specific and Clozapine experiments were not concrete, I recommend testing whether other receptors, such as the D2 receptor, contribute to the Clozapine-induced pause response in the L-DOPA-off state.

    1. Reviewer #2 (Public review):

      Summary:

      Cell intrinsic signaling pathways controlling the function of macrophages in inflammatory processes, including in response to infection, injury or in the resolution of inflammation are incompletely understood. In this study, Rosell et al. investigate the contribution of RAS-p110α signaling to macrophage activity. p110α is a ubiquitously expressed catalytic subunit of PI3K with previously described roles in multiple biological processes including in epithelial cell growth and survival, and carcinogenesis. While previous studies have already suggested a role for RAS-p110α signaling in macrophage function, the cell intrinsic impact of disrupting the interaction between RAS and p110α in this central myeloid cell subset is not known.

      Strengths:

      Exploiting a sound previously described genetically engineered mouse model that allows tamoxifen-inducible disruption of the RAS-p110α pathway and using different readouts of macrophage activity in vitro and in vivo, the authors provide data consistent with their conclusion that alteration in RAS-p110α signaling impairs various but selective aspects of macrophage function in a cell-intrinsic manner.

      Weaknesses:

      My main concern is that for various readouts, the difference between wild-type and mutant macrophages in vitro or between wild-type and Pik3caRBD mice in vivo is modest, even if statistically significant. To further substantiate the extent of macrophage function alteration upon disruption of RAS-p110α signaling and its impact on the initiation and resolution of inflammatory responses, the manuscript would benefit from a more extensive assessment of macrophage activity and inflammatory responses in vivo.

      In the in vivo model, all cells have disrupted RAS-p100α signaling, not only macrophages. Given that other myeloid cells besides macrophages contribute to the orchestration of inflammatory responses, it remains unclear whether the phenotype described in vivo results from impaired RAS-p100α signaling within macrophages or from defects in other haematopoietic cells such as neutrophils, dendritic cells, etc.

      Inclusion of information on the absolute number of macrophages, and total immune cells (e.g. for the spleen analysis) would help determine if the reduced frequency of macrophages represents an actual difference in their total number or rather reflects a relative decrease due to an increase in the number of other/s immune cell/s.

      Comments on revisions:

      I thank the authors for addressing my comments.<br /> - I believe that additional in vivo experiments, or the inclusion of controls for the specificity of the inhibitor, which the authors argue are beyond the scope of the current study, are essential to address the weaknesses and limitations stated in my current evaluation.<br /> - While the neutrophil depletion suggests neutrophils are not required for the phenotype, there are multiple other myeloid cells, in addition to macrophages, that could be contributing or accounting for the in vivo phenotype observed in the mutant strain (not macrophage specific).<br /> - Inclusion of absolute cell numbers (in addition to the %) is essential. I do not understand why the authors are not including these data. Have they not counted the cells?<br /> - Lastly, inclusion of representatives staining and gating strategies for all immune profiling measurements carried out by flow cytometry is important. This point has not been addressed, not even in writing.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary:

      The authors sought to identify unknown factors involved in the repair of uracil in DNA through a CRISPR knockout screen.

      Strengths:

      The screen identified both known and unknown proteins involved in DNA repair resulting from uracil or modified uracil base incorporation into DNA. The conclusion is that the protein activity of METTL3, which converts A nucleotides to 6mA nucleotides, plays a role in the DNA damage/repair response. The importance of METTL3 in DNA repair, and its colocalization with a known DNA repair enzyme, UNG2, is well characterized.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      This paper describes a number of patterns of epistasis in a large fitness landscape dataset recently published by Papkou et al. The paper is motivated by an important goal in the field of evolutionary biology to understand the statistical structure of epistasis in protein fitness landscapes, and it capitalizes on the unique opportunities presented by this new dataset to address this problem.

      The paper reports some interesting previously unobserved patterns that may have implications for our understanding of fitness landscapes and protein evolution. In particular, Figure 5 is very intriguing. However, I have two major concerns detailed below. First, I found the paper rather descriptive (it makes little attempt to gain deeper insights into the origins of the observed patterns) and unfocused (it reports what appears to be a disjointed collection of various statistics without a clear narrative. Second, I have concerns with the statistical rigor of the work.

      (1) I think Figures 5 and 7 are the main, most interesting, and novel results of the paper. However, I don't think that the statement "Only a small fraction of mutations exhibit global epistasis" accurately describes what we see in Figure 5. To me, the most striking feature of this figure is that the effects of most mutations at all sites appear to be a mixture of three patterns. The most interesting pattern noted by the authors is of course the "strong" global epistasis, i.e., when the effect of a mutation is highly negatively correlated with the fitness of the background genotype. The second pattern is a "weak" global epistasis, where the correlation with background fitness is much weaker or non-existent. The third pattern is the vertically spread-out cluster at low-fitness backgrounds, i.e., a mutation has a wide range of mostly positive effects that are clearly not correlated with fitness. What is very interesting to me is that all background genotypes fall into these three groups with respect to almost every mutation, but the proportions of the three groups are different for different mutations. In contrast to the authors' statement, it seems to me that almost all mutations display strong global epistasis in at least a subset of backgrounds. A clear example is C>A mutation at site 3.

      1a. I think the authors ought to try to dissect these patterns and investigate them separately rather than lumping them all together and declaring that global epistasis is rare. For example, I would like to know whether those backgrounds in which mutations exhibit strong global epistasis are the same for all mutations or whether they are mutation- or perhaps position-specific. Both answers could be potentially very interesting, either pointing to some specific site-site interactions or, alternatively, suggesting that the statistical patterns are conserved despite variation in the underlying interactions.

      1b. Another rather remarkable feature of this plot is that the slopes of the strong global epistasis patterns seem to be very similar across mutations. Is this the case? Is there anything special about this slope? For example, does this slope simply reflect the fact that a given mutation becomes essentially lethal (i.e., produces the same minimal fitness) in a certain set of background genotypes?

      1c. Finally, how consistent are these patterns with some null expectations? Specifically, would one expect the same distribution of global epistasis slopes on an uncorrelated landscape? Are the pivot points unusually clustered relative to an expectation on an uncorrelated landscape?

      1d. The shapes of the DFE shown in Figure 7 are also quite interesting, particularly the bimodal nature of the DFE in high-fitness (HF) backgrounds. I think this bimodality must be a reflection of the clustering of mutation-background combinations mentioned above. I think the authors ought to draw this connection explicitly. Do all HF backgrounds have a bimodal DFE? What mutations occupy the "moving" peak?

      1e. In several figures, the authors compare the patterns for HF and low-fitness (LF) genotypes. In some cases, there are some stark differences between these two groups, most notably in the shape of the DFE (Figure 7B, C). But there is no discussion about what could underlie these differences. Why are the statistics of epistasis different for HF and LF genotypes? Can the authors at least speculate about possible reasons? Why do HF and LF genotypes have qualitatively different DFEs? I actually don't quite understand why the transition between bimodal DFE in Figure 7B and unimodal DFE in Figure 7C is so abrupt. Is there something biologically special about the threshold that separates LF and HF genotypes? My understanding was that this was just a statistical cutoff. Perhaps the authors can plot the DFEs for all backgrounds on the same plot and just draw a line that separates HF and LF backgrounds so that the reader can better see whether the DFE shape changes gradually or abruptly.

      1f. The analysis of the synonymous mutations is also interesting. However I think a few additional analyses are necessary to clarify what is happening here. I would like to know the extent to which synonymous mutations are more often neutral compared to non-synonymous ones. Then, synonymous pairs interact in the same way as non-synonymous pair (i.e., plot Figure 1 for synonymous pairs)? Do synonymous or non-synonymous mutations that are neutral exhibit less epistasis than non-neutral ones? Finally, do non-synonymous mutations alter epistasis among other mutations more often than synonymous mutations do? What about synonymous-neutral versus synonymous-non-neutral. Basically, I'd like to understand the extent to which a mutation that is neutral in a given background is more or less likely to alter epistasis between other mutations than a non-neutral mutation in the same background.

      (2) I have two related methodological concerns. First, in several analyses, the authors employ thresholds that appear to be arbitrary. And second, I did not see any account of measurement errors. For example, the authors chose the 0.05 threshold to distinguish between epistasis and no epistasis, but why this particular threshold was chosen is not justified. Another example: is whether the product s12 × (s1 + s2) is greater or smaller than zero for any given mutation is uncertain due to measurement errors. Presumably, how to classify each pair of mutations should depend on the precision with which the fitness of mutants is measured. These thresholds could well be different across mutants. We know, for example, that low-fitness mutants typically have noisier fitness estimates than high-fitness mutants. I think the authors should use a statistically rigorous procedure to categorize mutations and their epistatic interactions. I think it is very important to address this issue. I got very concerned about it when I saw on LL 383-388 that synonymous stop codon mutations appear to modulate epistasis among other mutations. This seems very strange to me and makes me quite worried that this is a result of noise in LF genotypes.

    1. Reviewer #1 (Public review):

      Summary

      Behavioural adjustments to different sources of uncertainty remain a hot topic in many fields including reinforcement learning. The authors present valuable findings suggesting that human participants integrate prior beliefs with sensory evidence to improve their predictions in dynamically changing environments involving perceptual decision-making, pinpointing to hallmarks of Bayesian inference. Fitting of a reduced Bayesian model to participant choice behaviour reveals that decision-makers overestimate environmental volatility, but were reasonably accurate in terms of tracking environmental noise.

      Strengths

      Using a perceptual decision-making task in which participants were presented with sequences of noisy observation in environments with constant volatility and variable noise, the authors demonstrate solid evidence in favour of reduced Bayesian models that can account for participant choice behaviour when its generative parameters are fitted freely. The work nicely complements recent work demonstrating the fitting of a full Bayesian model to human reinforcement learning. The authors' approach to the fitting of the model in a principled/factorial manner that is exhaustive performs the model comparison and highlights the need for further work in evaluating the model's performance in environments outside of its generative parameters. Overall the work further highlights the utility of using perceptual decision-making for Bayesian inference questions.

      Weaknesses

      Although data sharing and reanalysis of data are extremely welcome, particularly considering their utility for open science, the small sample size (N= 29) of the original dataset somewhat restricts the authors' ability to show more conclusive findings when it comes to deciphering the optimal memory capacity of the fitted models. It is likely that the relatively small sample size also contributes to certain key hypotheses not being confirmed intuitively, for example, the expected negative relationship between hazard rates and log (noise). The notion that the participants rely on priors to a greater extent in low noise environments relative to high noise may also indicate that they might misattribute noise as volatility, as higher noise in the environment usually obscures the information content of outcomes, and in the case of pure random/noisy sequences, it should increase reliance to priors as new sensory evidence becomes unreliable.