6,780 Matching Annotations
  1. Apr 2021
    1. However, it can be extremely frustrating placing the tiles. Very commonly there will be no position to place a tile in and it will be put to one side. Perhaps someone new to tile-laying games wouldn't find this so odd, but to anyone with experience of Carcassonne it will seem very limiting. In Carcassonne you can pretty much always place a tile, with several choices of position available. Every player I've introduced this game to has looked at me as if to say, "We must be doing something wrong." But no, that game is designed that way. Sometimes it feels like the map builds itself - there is often only one viable placement, so it starts to feel like a jigsaw, searching for that available position. Surely placing a single tile shouldn't be this difficult!

      I don't think I'd find it frustrating. I think I would enjoy the puzzle part of it.

      But indirectly I see that difficulty in placing tiles impacting my enjoyment: because it means that there are no/few meaningful decisions to be had in terms of where to place your tile (because there's often only 1 place you can put it, and it may sometimes benefit your opponent more than yourself) or which tile to place (because you don't get any choice -- unless you can't play the first one, and then you can play a previously unplayable one or draw blind).

    1. Rob May 所言的训练,则是广义层面的「训练」,他这样写道: ……and by training I don’t mean training a neural net. The current model of doing so is way too targeted to be a generic benefit like we need for the AI-as-electricity framework to make sense. At some point, I think training will be a more generic process that includes humans training machines, and machines learning by reacting to a broad based environment like humans do — not just narrowly targeted applications. I think broad based training is the place to really get economies of scale — train a thing once and see it execute that training as many times as the world needs it to for all kinds of applications. 利用这种更广义的人与机器、机器与环境甚至机器与机器的「训练」,有望可以大幅降低 AI 的训练成本

      机器与环境,机器与机器的训练。

      这个靠脑补感觉就能极大降低训练成本 Imp

      所以m2m的目标并仅仅是自动化,而是机器之间的自动反馈。

      可控网络下,带5g,带边缘智能,这一切的目的都是降低训练成本,而非单纯奔着应用去的 imp

    1. Accountability to the Learning Community

      This is talk that attends seriously to and builds on the ideas of others; participants listen carefully to one another, build on each other’s ideas, and ask each other questions aimed at clarifying or expanding a proposition. When talk is accountable to the community, participants listen to others and build their contributions in response to those of others. They make concessions and partial concessions (yes...but...) and provide reasons when they disagree or agree with others. They may extend or elaborate someone else’s argument, or ask someone for elaboration of an expressed idea.

      I think this paragraph thoroughly explains accountability to the learning community. As teachers, it is crucial we create an environment where students listen to and expand upon the ideas of their classmates. Thus, this is a collaborative discussion between students and guided by teachers so that a meaningful discussion can be had.

      Examples of this could be a teacher asking if anyone else wants to add on to a classmate's response or providing wait time during a discussion.

    2. Q1: Accountability to the learning community involves talk that has meaning. This allows students to be active listeners and participants in conversations. The goal is for students to be heard and to hear one another, we want them to be able to build on each other’s ideas and ask questions to clarify their thoughts and expand their understanding. Example: Take your time, we’ll wait. I really like this example because even today (as a 27 year old) there are times when I’m talking, I lose my thought and I need that chance to gather myself back.

      Q2: Accountability to standards of reasoning is “talk that emphasizes logical connections and the drawing of reasonable conclusions...involves explanation and self-correction.” In other words accountability to standards of reasoning is talk that is supported with reasonable thought. From what I learned from the kindergarten discussion is we want students to be able to have a discussion, and in this discussion there will be disagreements. However, what happens after the disagreement is what matters, can we get the other person to agree with me? And can I use reasonable evidence to get them to understand why this is why it may be better, etc. Example: Student A: I think Robert is happy that Stevie is gone because now he doesn’t need to play with him anymore. Student B: I disagree, I think Robert is sad Stevie is gone, because he was like a little brother to him.

      Q3: Accountability to knowledge is based on information that can be shared and accessed with one another which can include facts, written texts or other publicly accessible information. According to the article this is the most complex of the three accountabilities. Example: George Washington is the first president of the United States, we read about it in a book and it’s written down in history.

      Q4: Interdependent means that the three dimensions go hand and hand, they work together, or “must co-occur”. I think it is best explained in the article, “Knowledge is most easily identified as agreed-upon facts. Yet disconnected facts are a weak basis for reasoned argument. What makes facts usable is the connection to other facts, tools, and problem-solving situations, that is, the network of concepts, relationships, and the norms of evidence characteristic of reasoned argument taking place within a coherent discipline or practice.” In order for discourse to occur the three dimensions will work side by side for students to fully grasp and be involved in meaningful conversations.

      Q5: The main challenge to accountable talk is the different backgrounds students are coming from and how the discourse norms may be available to some but not others. This is a challenge because some students will easily engage in accountable talk while others may struggle and this is the first time for them practicing accountable talk. I agree with this statement and the part of this article where there are challenges to accountable talk, however, because it is school and our job is to educate our students I think it should still be done. One way to help those students who aren't familiar with accountable talk is to pair them up with students who are familiar with it and group them as a team to go against a similar pair and learn that way first. Make it more of an observable lesson before it becomes an active participant lesson.

    1. Note: This rebuttal was posted by the corresponding author to Review Commons. Content has not been altered except for formatting.

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      Reply to the reviewers

      Response to Reviewers

      Reviewer #1 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      **Major points:**

      • The affinity analyses need more work. This is against A/B/C isoforms, and also the dimerization affinity between the fluorescent proteins could change the apparent on/off rates. This point is not quantified or discussed. Due to the chemical equilibrium analysis, the apparent equilibrium is not only affected by this on/off rates, but also the local availability (concentrations) of the reacting moieties. In the limit where the biosensor concentration is low within a cellular subcompartment or vice versa, how this is going to change the sensitivity of detection because this can push the reaction in either directions. Since equimolar distribution of the moieties are not guaranteed, this affects the detection characteristics of this biosensor. This point should be discussed and emphasized. Regarding the A/B/C isoforms: We did not mean to claim, that the sensor is specific for RhoA, based on the literature, we are certain it will also bind Rho B and C. We observed binding to active RhoB in an experiment not shown in the manuscript. To make this clearer, we changed the name of the Rho GTPase to Rho. Regarding the dimerization affinity: Some initial data has been acquired for the weaker dimers Venus and iRFP. They seem to have a slightly beneficial effect but less beneficial than the stronger dimer dTomato. We agree that the biosensor concentration affects the performance (which is an important point with respect to optimizing the right concentration, as will be discussed later). We think that the local availability is not limiting because of fast diffusion of the soluble biosensor. However, this may be an issue in highly polarized cell types such as neurons. This is added to the discussion: ‘The biosensor concentration of relocation probes affects their performance. Although the diffusion of a soluble probe will not readily lead to differences in local availability in most cell types, this may be an issue in highly polarized cell types.’

      • Fig 1 A: Are the fluorescence changes of the biosensors due to stimulation with histamine completely reversible ? In other words, is it possible to see a total recovery of the signals with pyrilamine or in the presence of another antagonist ? If not, why?

      This is typically what we observe for this antagonist. Although it is added at a saturating concentration, it cannot completely switch of the Rho GTPase activity. This has also been observed with a DORA FRET sensor (Figure 4B in: https://doi.org/10.1124/mol.116.104505)

      Does histamine stimulation induce a maximal activation of RhoA in HeLa cells? What happens in terms of fluorescence changes when the activity of RhoA is inhibited or in the presence of a Gαq-inhibitor, and in conditions in which RhoA activating GEF, RhoA GAP or RhoA GDI is overexpressed ? Generally, I think it is useful to have a calibration curve of the biosensors activity, maximal/minimal (ON/OFF) response. For exemple, it would help to answer the question concerning biosensors binding affinity for RhoA ("The function of rhotekin is not clear, it seems to lock RhoA in the GTP bound state (Ito et al., 2018; Reid et al., 1996). We can only speculate that rhotekin has a stronger binding affinity for active RhoA than anillin and PKN1 have." (p.15))

      We have optimized our system to achieve high Rho activation and this has previously allowed us to do a quantitative comparison of the contrast of RhoA FRET sensors (see supplemental material of: https://doi.org/10.1038/srep14693). Whether this is a maximal response is unclear, but we do observe robust and consistently strong responses, which were not achieved by other strategies.

      What is the effect of histamine stimulation on a membrane marker expression/location ?

      We propose to perform an additional experiment, measuring the fluorescent intensity for a cytosolic fluorescent protein in the HeLa cell histamine stimulation assay, since we measure the depletion in fluorescent intensity of the sensor in the cytosol.

      What is the effect of histamine stimulation on dT2xrGBD biosensor response when this one is forced to be located in other subcellular compartments (mitochondria, nucleus) by fusing the construct to targeting sequences.

      We have not tried this experiment and we are not sure what would be the point of that experiment? If the construct would be forced to localize, we would not observe relocalization.

      Physiological control: Effect of the presence of the biosensor in cell morphology/behavior... Experimental data concerning this point are evoked in the discussion section. "We demonstrate that low expression of the biosensor, through the truncated CMV promotor, did not inhibit cell division and cell edge retraction. Plus, endothelial cells expressing the sensor still show the typical reaction of contracting followed by spreading, when stimulated with thrombin. Low expression results in a low fluorescent signal of the sensor." (p.16) I think this results would deserve a section in this manuscript.

      This is the data shown in Figure 6, we will refer to it more clearly.

      Fig 2D : "The anillin sensor AHD+PH showed a 15% decrease in cytosolic intensity (Figure 2D), but it also relocalizes to striking punctuate structures upon histamine stimulation. These structures did not seem to represent local, high activity of RhoA, as the optimized rGBD sensor in the same cell showed no such locally clustered RhoA activation, but rather a homogenous activation at the membrane and a 60% drop in cytosolic intensity. Similar punctuate structures were observed in endothelial cells, when stimulated with the strong RhoA activator thrombin (Supplemental Movie 5)." And p. 15 : "However, we noticed that the AHD+PH sensor, containing aGBD, C2 and PH domain, localizes in a punctate manner. These 'dots' were observed in both HeLa cells and endothelial cells and were only observed with the AHD+PH RhoA sensor. As aGBD does not localize in puncta, it seems that the localization is caused by domains other than of the RhoA binding domain, i.e. the C2- and/or PH-domain." Punctate structures are also present in HeLa cells expressing the anillin sensor before histamine stimulation (see Supplemental Movie 4). Moreover, punctuate pattern activated by thrombin in endothelial cells looks different (more widespread) than the one activated by histamine in HeLA cells. In addition, these structures can also be found in human endothelial cells expressing dT2xrGBD (fig. 6B, Supplemental movie 10). What are those structures thrombin activated in endothelial cells that would be similar to the ones in Hela cells activated by histamine and that "did not seem to represent local, high activity of RhoA"? This is not further commented by the authors.

      Very well spotted. What can be seen in Figure 6B and SMovie 10, are different vesicles, that are always observed in endothelial cells expressing fluorescent proteins. We think they are endosomes/lysosomes, which would explain why especially the more pH stable red fluorescent proteins are visible in these structures. They do not localize at the membrane but in the cytosol. These structure are not induced by RhoA activation, and are not present in the TIRF data which excludes the cytosol.

      • Fig 3A: "The rGBD sensors solely colocalized in the nucleus with RhoA but not with Rac1 and Cdc42, indicating that rGBD specifically binds constitutively active RhoA." What about dT2xrGBD binding specificity for the three homologues RhoA, RhoB and RhoC? This point is evoked in the discussion part (p.16) but there is no experimental data to support it "The specificity of the relocation sensor is determined by the binding specificity of the GBD. The rGBD binds the three homologues RhoA, B and C but not to Rac1 and Cdc42". So, why rGBD is presented as a RhoA biosensor?

      We apologize for this misunderstanding. We have no reason to assume that the biosensor does not bind all three isoforms. We will refer to the RhoA/B/C isoforms as ‘Rho’ and we will call it a Rho sensor.

      Fig 3B: The data scatter for the dTomato-2xrGBD is very wide compared to the mScarlet-1xrGBD. What is causing this wide data scatter and such heterogeneous response? This is a problem if the sensor is really so heterogeneously responding to a strong mutant of RhoA, is this a dimerization-dependent problem?

      We think that this is related to expression levels. Since dTomato-2xrGBD shows higher amplitudes, the spread also becomes larger and so we think the coefficient of variation will be similar. We will add standard deviations an indicate fluorescent intensity.

      These domain-based biosensors could cause dominant negative/inhibitory artefacts. Also the dimerizing fluorescent proteins could introduce oligomerization of the signaling complex which is not real in cells and clearly affect phenotype. These issues should be tested and addressed by a quantitative measure of cell behavior against increasing concentration/changing dimerization potentials of the biosensor in live cell assays.

      We agree that these type of biosensors in a general sense can cause dominant negative/inhibitory artefacts and we explicitly mention this in the text: “Visualizing the endogenous Rho activity may interfere with the biological role of Rho, as the sensor binds endogenous Rho and may compete with natural effectors of Rho”

      We were worried about this possible downside and have been very carefully looking at the effects of the biosensor. As highlighted in the manuscript, we noticed mitosis and natural contraction/spreading of endothelial cells. We were able to make stable cell lines. These are all signs that there are no strong negative effects. We also advice to use low expression of the senor to limit negative effects: “To limit the perturbation, the sensor should be expressed at a low level to allow Rho signaling”

      Fig 4 C: "Given the successful improvement of the rGBD-based biosensor by increasing the number of binding domains, we explored whether the same strategy can be applied to the G protein binding domains from PKN1 and Anillin" and "The dimericTomato-2xrGBD sensor shows the best relocation efficiency, with a median change in cytosolic intensity of close to 50%"... So why the dT-2xaGBD construct has not been tried ?

      Because we did not see the stepwise improvement as we saw for the rGBD sensor, so we do not expect an improvement in that construct. Plus, the cloning for the 2xaGBD was initially not working out.

      p.9 : "None of the pGBD sensors showed a clear membrane localization upon stimulation with histamine (Figure 4A). The increase in cytosolic intensity observed in some cells, seems to be caused by changes in cell shape." Do changes in HeLa cell shape induced by histamine stimulation? How this can be explained? Do some cells expressing the rGBD sensors (single, tandem and triple and dimericTomato) undergo these changes of shape too, upon histamine stimulation? If yes, to what extent these changes in cell shape affect signals?

      The activation of Rho GTPases by the histamine receptor often results in changes in cell shape in HeLa cells. We propose to perform an additional experiment with a cytosolic fluorescent protein in the HeLa cell histamine stimulation assay, to measure potential intensity changed solely caused by shape changes.

      p9: Overall, the paragraph about Fig 4 E,F is not clear. What amino acid sequences of G Protein Binding Domains of Anillin and PKN1 bring for the understanding of rGbD, aGBD and pGBD sensors?

      Since there is no crystal structure for rGBD available, we thought it is interesting to compare the amino acid sequences to see how similar/ different these domains are.

      p. 12, Fig 6C, Fig. 6E: "The membrane marker showed a relatively small increase in intensity after stimulation and the curve did not show the same pattern as the RhoA biosensor intensity curve. Therefore, we conclude that the increase in RhoA biosensor intensity is caused by relocalization." It surprises me that decrease in cell areas induced a very small increase in fluorescence intensity of the membrane marker. It would be very helpful to see a figure with a quantification of the membrane marker intensity changes during this process. What about a cytoplasmic marker?

      Figure 6D shows the intensity measurements of the membrane marker intensity. The small change can be caused by membrane changes, but also other factors that affect intensity (focus change). We will add the membrane intensity measurements to Figure 6F and G as well. Since these measurements are made in TIRF, the intensity of the cytoplasmic marker would be very low. Therefore, we decided to use a membrane marker.

      In addition, how does the movement artefact is corrected?

      The ROIs were drawn by hand to measure the fluorescence intensity.

      "Our data revealed that the RhoA biosensor displays RhoA activity at subcellular locations where RhoA activity is expected, and appears mostly independent of fluorescent intensity measured by a separate membrane marker." This part should be developed further. Are there examples of cells for which the biosensor activity is dependent on fluorescent intensity measured by a separate membrane marker?

      The intensity of the membrane marker is only affected by changes in membrane area or morphology (and other technical reasons that lead to a change in intensity, e.g. focal drift, bleaching). This point is made in the paper by Dewitt that we cite (https://doi.org/10.1083/jcb.200806047). We are not aware of papers that show biosensor activity dependent on a separate membrane marker. One potential confounding issue is quenching of the membrane marker by FRET, but this would lead to a decrease in intensity and we do not observe that.

      Discussion (p.16): "Comparing relocation sensors to FRET sensors, both have their own advantages and disadvantages." The dT2xrGBD sensor is here presented as a new relocation sensor for RhoA activity. However in general, there should be more development of the direct comparisons, pros and cons, with quantitative data or more details allowing to have a general overview of the advantages and disadvantages of this new relocation biosensor as compared to the existing ones.

      We explain the pros and cons of FRET sensors and relocation sensors in the introduction and we show a quantitative comparison of this new relocation biosensor as compared to existing relocation biosensors (figure 2). The advantage of the relocation sensor relative to a FRET sensor is highlighted in the discussion: “Furthermore, the relocation sensor requires confocal microscopy or TIRF microcopy to spatially separate the bound from unbound probe, whereas FRET measurements are usually performed with widefield microscopes. However, the former mentioned techniques usually offer the higher resolution. Here we presented previously unachieved visualization of Rho activity at subcellular resolution. We observed local activation of Rho at the Golgi which was not possible with the DORA RhoA FRET sensor (Van Unen et al., 2015), indicating a higher sensitivity of the relocation sensor.”

      Minor points:

      • Overall, scale bars should have to be included in HeLa cells microscopy images.

      We will provide the width of the image in the figure captions.

      It was not clear until the Methods section that the widefield analysis appeared to be normalized against another fluorescent protein-based cytoplasmic signal to correct for variations in cell volume. I think this point should be mentioned in the main text more prominently and emphasized so that readers are not misled.

      The normalization of time traces has been done to account for differences in the initial intensity (e.g. due to differences in expression level), this is now better explained: “The mean gray value or cell area respectively, were normalized by dividing each value by the value of the first frame, to account for differences in the initial intensity.” Of note, there is no extra cytoplasmic signal to correct for variations in cell volume.

      • p. 9 : "Anillin AH+PH sensor" instead of "Anillin AHD+PH sensor"

      Corrected.

      • Fig 2B and 2D : Explain what parameter is used for the normalization of each signals ?

      We state in the methods: “ The mean gray value or cell area respectively, were normalized by dividing each value by the value of the first frame, to account for differences in the initial intensity.”

      • Fig. 1A, top panel: it would be good to know which images correspond to the addition of histamine and which ones correspond to the addition of pyrilamine

      The time line with the grey bars indicating the stimulus of the graph matches the images. We changed the legend to clarify: “The images match with the perturbation that is indicated for the plot in panel C.”

      • "TRIF microscopy" is written in legends of Fig. 6 and of Supplemental movie 11, and in Materiel and Methods section p. 23
      • Fig. 3 legend: Correct "mScralet-I-1xrGBD"
      • Fig 4F, legend: " Anillin and the bound RhoA are depicted in dark and light yellow, respectively. PKN1 and the bound RhoA are depicted in light and dark blue, respectively." Color codes in legend are opposites to the figure ones.
      • p.11 : "To examine this, we used a rapamycin-induced hetero dimerization system to recruit the dbl homology (DH) domain, of the RhoA activating GEF p63, to the membrane of the Golgi apparatus." Corresponding references should be included.

      Thanks for pointing these out, all have been addressed/corrected.

      Fig. 5A : Explain FRB, Fig 5C : no unit for a ratio

      We changed the legend “A) Still images of HeLa cells expressing FRB (part of rapamycin hetero-dimerization system) anchored to the membrane, Golgi and mitochondria (first column), FKBP-p63-DH (counterpart of rapamycin hetero-dimerization system, not shown), localization of the dimericTomato-2xrGBD sensor pre activation (second column) and post activation with 100 nM rapamycin (third column).”

      Reviewer #1 (Significance (Required)):

      Mahlandt et al. optimized and compared several G protein binding domain (GBD)-based biosensors in order to improve the potential of existing RhoA-domain-based biosensors for visualizing and reporting RhoA subcellular activity in living cells and tissue. The authors demonstrate that fusing a dimerizing fluorescent protein to the rhotekin GBD (rGBD) is an efficient strategy to increase the brightness of the sensor. The use of Rhotekin-RBD as affinity domain for Rho-class of GTPase is very well established, both in the methods of affinity pulldowns and in biosensor designs for Rho-class of GTPases in the field. The authors show that the dimericTomato-2xrGBD biosensor can indicate endogenous RhoGTPase spatial activity in dividing HeLa cells and during cell retraction of human endothelial cells.

      The dimericTomato-2xrGBD biosensor is thus introduced and described as a RhoA localization-based biosensor, however no experimental data demonstrate the binding specificity of the biosensor for RhoA. Moreover, authors discuss about a previous work showing that rGBD binds the three paralogs RhoA, RhoB and RhoC. This point and the apparent singular claim of this biosensor reporting RhoA activity as this manuscript alludes to are inappropriate and misleading.

      We apologize for the misconception that this probe is specific for RhoA. We do not want to claim this sensor is specific for RhoA (and note that we have been involved in generating FRET biosensors for the different isoforms, RhoA/B/C ourselves: https://doi.org/10.1038/srep25502). We have addressed this in the introduction, and we have changed RhoA to Rho to better reflect that we are looking at all three isoforms.

      This point especially in light of the field has moved on in the past 20 years to assign more specificity (not less) to which GTPase the biosensors are being specific, i.e., via FRET, etc., significantly tempers the enthusiasm of this reviewer. In addition to this main issue, the incomplete characterization of the relative affinities of the domain to the target GTPase isoforms and of the dimerization affinities of the fluorescent proteins (which could change the apparent reaction rate constants), and the impact of which on the reversibility, oligomerization states and detection sensitivity, and the biology, also appeared lacking. Additional stoichiometric considerations and apparent reaction equilibrium that are impacted by the relative concentrations of interacting moieties require careful and further analyses, study and discussion. In general, I think that this work could be interesting to a more specialized field audience with further analyses of the affinities of the interacting moieties and better characterization of the behavior of this biosensor in living cells since it is likely causing oligomerization of the signaling units due to the forced dimerization of the detection unit.

      **Referees cross-commenting**

      This is a dimerizing probe. It gets pretty bulky. Is dimerization occurring prior to GTPase binding or after? Is the dimerized probe/GTPase complex somehow more stable than would otherwise be if they were monomeric? If so, how would that affect the lifetime of the detection and also the diffusivity of the probe("s", if already dimerized) and possibly the whole oligomer?

      dTomato is shown to be a strong, obligate dimer. Therefore, we assume that the fluorescent probe is present as a dimer before (and after) binding to the GTPase. With respect to size/bulkiness we’d like to note that the biosensor is only somewhat larger than a FRET sensor, i.e 2x47 kDa and 74 kDa, respectively.

      It still feels to me that, yes new brighter fluorescent proteins were used, and dimerization and multimerization of the signaling complex increased the SNR of the system, but the whole premise just reverted the biosensor field back 20yrs, which has been my biggest single concern regarding this paper.

      This evaluation is in our opinion largely based on the misconception that we claim RhoA specificity. We do not claim that this sensor is specific for RhA (and we have revised the manuscript accordingly) and we are not aiming to replace FRET sensors (being quite fond of FRET sensors as is clear from our previous work). We think that there is ample opportunities and applications for the improved relocation sensor (as is also evident from requests for the plasmids that encode the probe), for instance in experiment were FRET sensors are challenging to use, such as optogenetics experiments and multiplexing biosensors. We state in the discussion: “Single color relocation sensors are ideal candidates for multiplexing experiments. Plus, the growing field of optogenetics is in need of single color biosensors to detect the effect of optogenetic perturbations. The conventional CFP-YFP FRET sensor is incompatible with most, blue light induced optogenetic tools.”

      Reviewer #2 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      **Summary:**

      Visualization of subcellular activity of GTPases is critical for the understanding of signal transduction of cell growth, differentiation, morphogenesis, etc. For this purpose, researchers often use relocation probes, which comprise a fluorescent protein(s) and a GTPase-binding domain(s), and move from cytosol to the location of active GTPases. The authors improved a previously reported RhoA probe with a strategy of increasing the avidity of RhoA-binding domain and optimizing the fluorescent protein. In the beginning, the authors declare "the relocation of the original, single rGBD monomeric fluorescent protein sensor is hardly detectable" in HeLa cells. To overcome this problem, they developed six constructs by changing the number of rGBD (rhotekin GBD) domains and fluorescent proteins. They found that the increase in the number of rGBD and a dimeric prone fluorescent protein, tdTomato, generate a better probe for RhoA activity. The specificity was examined by using active Rac1 and Cdc42 proteins. Different RhoA-bind domains derived from Rhotekin, PKN1, and Anillin were compared to show the superiority of rhotekin GBD. Finally, they show that subcellular RhoA activation detected by the probe is consistent with the knowledge on RhoA activation by using vascular endothelial cells. Overall this work has been well done in an organized way and disclose a novel RhoA probe that will be useful in future research of RhoA.

      **Major comments:**

      Reproducibility: The number of analyzed cells is described in the legend, but the number of independent experiments is not shown. This is critical to evaluate the reproducibility of the data. Preferably, the data should be presented to show data set derived from each trial clearly. It should also be described how cells were selected for the analysis? It is also preferable to apply automatic analysis. Ideally, the raw data with code sets for analysis should be presented.

      We will indicate the independent experiments. ROIs were partly drawn by hand. We agree that segmentation based methods would increase reproducibility, but this data set is not suitable for automated analysis.

      1. A serious defect of the relocation probe is the dependency on the expression level. The lower the number of the probe in a cell, the higher the fraction of recruited to active RhoA. However, lowering the probe concentration will be accompanied by dim fluorescence. The authors should describe how the optimal expression level was achieved.

      We fully agree. Using the low expression promoter improved the dynamic range but we have not gained control over the optimal expression level. It does vary from cell to cell. We added this paragraph to the discussion: “However, the optimal expression level is crucial for the dynamic range of the relocation sensor. Low concentrations of the sensor will show higher levels of relocalization, as a larger fraction of the sensor molecules binds the limited, active, endogenous Rho molecules. Nevertheless, if the concertation of sensor is too low, the fluorescent signal cannot be detected. To optimize the expression level, the CMVdel promoter, leading to a lower expression level, was applied (Watanabe and Mitchison 2002). Even though, this minimal promoter improved the performance of the relocations sensor, a variety of expression levels was observed. Cell sorting could be applied to select for cells with the optimal expression level.”

      1. Statistical analysis is absent throughout the paper.

      We will add standard deviations to the dot plots.

      **Minor comments:**

      In Figure 1, mNeonGreen (mNG) was used as the fluorescent protein fused to rGBD instead of EGFP, which was used in the original paper. For a fair comparison with the previous report, analysis using the original probe, i.e., EGFP-rGBD, is desirable. Or, the author may simply tone done.

      That is a good point. We propose to perform the HeLa cell histamine stimulation assay for the eGFP-rGBD sensor and add the data to Figure 1B.

      1. In the introduction, it says " The RhoA FRET sensors achieve subcellular resolution to a certain extent, but due to their design they do not localize as endogenous RhoA". Reference is required.

      We changed the following in the introduction: The RhoA FRET sensors achieve subcellular resolution to a certain extent, but due to their design they may not localize as endogenous RhoA (Michaelson et al., 2001).

      1. rGBD should be rhotekin GBD. It should be clearly stated in the beginning.

      We wrote in the introduction: “Secondly, the rhotekin G protein binding domain (rGBD)-based eGFP-rGBD Rho sensor, that was reported in 2005 (Benink & Bement, 2005).” and in the results “ The eGFP-rGBD biosensor consists of an enhanced green fluorescent protein (eGFP) and a rhotekin G protein binding domain (rGBD).”

      1. The reason why the CMVdel promoter is used should be stated clearly.

      Thanks for the suggestion. We added to the discussion: “However, the optimal expression level is crucial for the dynamic range of the relocation sensor. Low concentrations of the sensor will show higher levels of relocalization, as a larger fraction of the sensor molecules binds the limited, active, endogenous Rho molecules. Nevertheless, if the concertation of sensor is too low, the fluorescent signal cannot be detected. To optimize the expression level, the CMVdel promoter, leading to a lower expression level, was applied (Watanabe and Mitchison 2002). Even though, this minimal promoter improved the performance of the relocations sensor, a variety of expression levels was observed. Cell sorting could be applied to select for cells with the optimal expression level.”

      1. Page 23: TRIF should read as TIRF.

      Corrected

      1. Figures: Grey letters should be avoided.

      We will verify the figures for readability

      1. Fig. 3A: Apparently the probe binds to Rac1 G12V to some extent. The discrepancy of RhoA localization between mSca-1xrGBD and dt-2xrGBD must be discussed. This observation clearly suggests that GBD may change the localization of RhoA. It is interesting to note that Rac1 and RhoA may localize to the nucleolus.

      We have changed the text to make clear that the dTomato-2xrGBD binds better to RhoA than the 1xrGBD variant: “Comparing the original single rGBD sensor (mScarlet-I-1xrGBD) with the dimericTomato-2xrGBD sensor, a higher nuclear to cytosolic intensity ratio for the multi-domain sensor was detected, supporting its higher affinity for RhoA.”

      Reviewer #2 (Significance (Required)):

      1. This work discloses an improved RhoA probe, which will be welcome by the researchers in the field of small GTPases.

      We are glad that the reviewer shares our enthusiasm

      1. Novelty of increased GBD: The idea of increasing the GTPase-binding domain in the relocation probe was reported some time ago: Augsten et al., Live-cell imaging of endogenous Ras-GTP illustrates predominant Ras activation at the plasma membrane. EMBO Rep. 7, 46-51 (2006).

      Agreed - we added the reference to the discussion: “This strategy, to utilize multiple repeating domains has also been effective for a PH domain based lipid sensor and a cRAF derived Ras-binding domain Ras activity sensor (Augsten et al., 2006; Goulden et al., 2018)”

      1. Novelty of rhotekin GBD: The reason why GBD of PKN is chosen in intramolecular FRET biosensors such as DORA and Raichu is that the affinity of other GBD's is too high [Table 1, Yoshizaki et al., J. Cell Biol. 162, 223-232 (2003)]. Judging from this old data, GBD's of mDia and Rhophilin, may work better than that of Rhotekin. Moreover, it is known that PH domain may be required for proper conformation of GBD's. Thus, it is not surprising that removal of PH domain from the Anillin probe abolishes its translocation ability. Therefore, to the reviewer's eyes, the choice of GBD in Figure 4 is biased to those that will work less efficiently.

      We see the point, but we have chosen these (PKN/anillin) for a practical reason, namely that we had cDNA encoding these probes in our lab. We thank the reviewer for the suggestion to look into other GBDs.

      1. Authors' proposal of "systematic optimization" sounds exaggerated, considering the small number of constructs tested in Fig. 1 and Fig. 4. Similarly, it is not clear whether dimerize prone-fluorescent proteins are better choice by simply comparing tdTomato and mNeonGreen.

      Fair enough, we think of it as a systematic comparison (figure 1) and we have rephrased the sentence: “Improving the rGBD probe by increasing the avidity was successful”

      1. Keywords of expertise: Fluorescent probes. Cell signaling.

      **Referess cross-commenting**

      Because Review Commons does not specify the journal to be published, the request by the Reviewer #1 sounds too much. The probe reported in this work deserves publishing, although it may not be a ground-breaking probe.

      We thank the reviewer for the encouraging words and support.

      Reading the comments by the other reviewers, following concerns should be cleared.

      1.Relationship between the probe's concentration and the response.

      2.Specificity to RhoA, RhoB, and RhoC

      3.The effect of the cell morphology as pointed by Reviewer #1.

      Concern 1 will be addressed by re-analysis of the data. Concern 2 is addressed by changes in the text, was we have indicated in our response. Concern 3 will be addressed by control experiments that look into changes in cell morphology

      To Reviewer #1

      -Since equimolar distribution of the moieties are not guaranteed, this affects the detection characteristics of this biosensor. This point should be discussed and emphasized The probe will diffuse rapidly within cytosol. Therefore, subcellular concentration of the probe may not affect significantly on the performance of the probe.

      -What is the effect of histamine stimulation on dT2xrGBD biosensor response when this one is forced to be located in other subcellular compartments (mitochondria, nucleus) by fusing the construct to targeting sequences. I did not understand this question quite well.

      Reviewer #3 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      **Summary**

      In this paper, Mahlandt et al compared and improved relocation sensors to visualize the activity of endogenous Rho. As a result of screening for several Rho binding domains (GBDs) and the number of repeats, the authors found that dTomato-2xrGBD is optimal, and succeeded in visualizing the activity of Rho during cytokinesis and migrating cells. Overall, this sensor would be a useful tool for many cell biologists. The data are represented clearly in the figures. I provide some concerns; that would be worth addressing in a revised version.

      **Major comments**

      1. The authors should experimentally show the quantitative relationship between biosensor expression level and degree of relocation. In principle, this relocation type sensor binds to the endogenous GTP-bound Rho. Since the number of endogenous GTP-bound Rho is limited in cells, the degree of relocation is considered to be dependent on the expression level of the sensor. If the number of biosensors expressed is too small in a cell, the response will be saturated. If the number of biosensors is too large, the relocation will be weakened and the Rho signal will be suppressed. Furthermore, although a weak promoter is used, the heterogeneity of the expression level in each cell makes quantitative analysis difficult, especially in transient expression experiments. I would like to suggest the addition of quantitative experimental data.

      We propose to re-analyze of our data, indicating the relative expression levels of the biosensor (based on intensity) in the dot plots. We agree that the expression level potentially affects sensor performance and we will address this more clearly in the text We added to the introduction: “A potential drawback is that background signal of the unbound biosensor in the cytosol, which may occlude the bound pool and reduce the dynamic range.” We added to the discussion: “However, the optimal expression level is crucial for the dynamic range of the relocation sensor. Low concentrations of the sensor will show higher levels of relocalization, as a larger fraction of the sensor molecules binds the limited, active, endogenous Rho molecules. Nevertheless, if the concertation of sensor is too low, the fluorescent signal cannot be detected. To optimize the expression level, the CMVdel promoter, leading to a lower expression level, was applied (Watanabe and Mitchison 2002). Even though, this minimal promoter improved the performance of the relocations sensor, a variety of expression levels was observed. Cell sorting could be applied to select for cells with the optimal expression level.”

      1. Most of the time-series data show only a representative example, namely, N = 1. In relation to the aforementioned issue, data and distribution derived from several cells (e.g. SD) should be shown in a clear manner.

      We focused not primarily on the kinetics, but more on maximal relocation, therefore we do not have time lapse movies for all the shown data points (e.g. a time lapse is shown in 1C and the data for a higher number of cells is shown in 1B). However, we can provide time series for multiple cells from our existing data sets.

      **Minor comments**

      1. I hesitate to call the biosensor developed in this study "RhoA sensor". This is because, as the authors mention, it has been reported that the rGBD also binds to RhoB and RhoC. If the authors call it a RhoA sensor, they should investigate the specificity of binding to RhoB and RhoC in addition to RhoA. If not, I would like to suggest changing the name to "Rho sensor" instead of "RhoA sensor".

      This is a fair point, also made by other reviewers. We will change the name to Rho sensor.

      Reviewer #3 (Significance (Required)):

      Rho is one of the low molecular weight G proteins, which regulate the reorganization of the actin cytoskeleton. As biosensors for visualizing the activity of Rho proteins, it has been reported intramolecular and intermolecular FRET biosensors and relocation sensors. The latter is less widely used than the former, because of insufficient sensitivity and specificity. Therefore, the improvement of Rho biosensors is really important and needed in the community of cell biology research field. The importance of this manuscript, I believe, is that the authors compared the existing relocation type Rho sensors. This is informative.

      Rho is one of the low molecular weight G proteins that regulate the rearrangement of the actin cytoskeleton. Intramolecular and intermolecular FRET biosensors and relocation sensors have been reported as biosensors for visualizing the activity of Rho proteins. The latter is not as widely used as the former due to its inadequate sensitivity and specificity. Therefore, improving the Rho biosensor is very important and is needed by the community in the field of cell biology research. I believe the importance of this manuscript is that the author compared existing relocation-type Rho sensors. This is beneficial and informative.

      My expertise: Cell biology, live-cell imaging, development of genetically encoded fluorescent probes

      We thank the reviewer for the positive evaluation of our work.

      **Referees cross-commenting**

      I generally agree with Reviewer 2's opinion. The opinions of our three reviewers can be summarized in three points: expression level, specificity, and statistical analysis and representation. I think these should be asked to the authors as major critics that should be addressed before publication.

      We agree and we propose to address the three main points (see also response to reviewer 2).

      Reviewer #4 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      **SUMMARY:**

      Mahlandt and colleagues use advanced microscopy techniques to test new configurations of several Rho relocation sensors, which report on the activity of members of the endogenous RhoA GTPase family of proteins. A novel variant containing the dimericTomato fluorescent protein and a double rGBD domain shows a substantial increase in dynamic range in comparison with 2 originally published sensors and other new variants they tested. They use a cellular assay to show that this novel variant is specific for the activity of Rho family of Rho GTPases and not the Cdc42/Rac families. Finally, the authors show that this new variant can be used to measure a specific localised increase of Rho activity at the Golgi, and during cell division and cellular morphology changes that are known to activate the RhoA family of Rho GTPases. The biosensor can be useful for the community. However, I think the paper is not well written (I was very confused by several statements). The manuscript should be thoroughly proofread, there are quite some unclear or duplicate passages (for examples, see "text comments" below). Currently this hampers the interpretation of the manuscript for the reader. The authors are very dogmatic - they make claims about the literature that I do not agree with at all. Some of these unbalanced views will confuse the non-expert readers.

      **MAJOR COMMENTS:**

      -The reported dTomato-rGBD sensor is unable to distinguish between the different members of the RhoA familiy of Rho GTPases (measures combined activity of RhoA, RhoB and RhoC), which is unclear for the reader in the current text phrasing in the introduction. The authors seemingly suggest throughout the manuscript to work with a specific RhoA biosensor, which is not the case. This strong statement is completely misleading. The authors need to refer to the biosensor being specific for Rho (RhoA,B,C) GTPases versus Rac1/Cdc42 biosensors, and discuss what this means for the field. Some discussions about this are made in a JCB paper by Graessl et al, that the authors also cite.

      We agree that the probe measures the combined activity of all three isoforms and apologize for the confusion. We have changed the name to Rho sensor and updated the manuscript.

      -If the authors really want to sell that the biosensor is only specific for RhoA, then they need to make a series of experiments with RhoB and RhoC dominant positive/negative constructs, to tackle that specific point.

      No, we did not intend to claim the sensor is specific for RhoA in comparison to Rho B and C.

      -Did the authors consider to use the artificial GBD from Keller, 2019 to make a specific relocation sensor for RhoA? Perhaps the authors can comment on the feasibility of this approach?

      We think that this might be the only way to make a specific RhoA relocation sensor. Recently, we have received the DNA and plan to do the histamine stimulation experiment in HeLa cells as in Figure 1B.

      -A strong (dogmatic) statement is that Rho GTPases FRET sensors report solely on the activity of GEFs. This is not the case, these sensors report on the flux of GAP and GEF activity for Rho GTPase in cells. This is also true for relocation sensors, and has been documented in work from the Bement/Pertz/Nalbant/Dehmelt labs.

      We thank the referee for this correction and we have changed the text to: “By design, these FRET sensors report on the balance between activating guanine exchange factors (GEFs) and inactivating GTPase-activating proteins, instead of visualizing endogenous RhoA-GTP”

      -From the data in Figure 1, it seems to follow that the efficiency of PM relocation is mainly determined by the number of rGBD modules on the sensors. Could the authors speculate on how this works in practice; is the multi-rGBD sensor increasingly kinetically trapped by a single RhoA molecule, or is the sensor mostly bound to multiple RhoA molecules at the PM?

      This is an interesting question to which we do not have an answer. We added some text to the discussion: “It is currently not clear how each of the GBDs of the dimericTomato-2xrGBD sensor contribute to Rho binding and the probe may bind anywhere between 1 and 4 Rho molecules. If the probe is capable of binding multiple Rho proteins, the binding efficiency will depend on the local density of Rho in the membrane. “

      -Some form of statistical analysis should be performed on the data to give the reader a sense of robustness of the findings and its uncertainty. Either a non-parametric test on the median, confidence intervals or e.g. boxplots showing notches.

      We will include standard deviations in our dot plots.

      -Time-series now show single example traces (fig1C, fig2B,D, fig5B). It would be informative for the reader if the curves of all experiments were plotted, and statistical analysis would be performed on the data. It is unclear how representable the kinetics in these curves are.

      We can show the kinetics for more examples but we did not acquire time lapses for all the data points shown in the dot plots, since the microscope could not move fast enough to acquire frames with an interval of 10 -20 s.

      -About the spatial patterns of Rho activity (cytokinesis, tail retraction, ...), the reviewers agree that statistical analysis is much more difficult. But maybe showing 2-3 cells instead of only one, would make the data more convincing.

      We will provide more examples.

      **MINOR COMMENTS:**

      -(fig4a) dTomato-2xpGBD, why is this not good? how is it possible that it binds good to nucleus, but no translocation is observed? const activity? expression levels?

      We were surprised and somewhat disappointed by this as well and we do not have an explanation, besides that the binding affinity required for dynamic relocation seems to be higher than the one for binding the overexpressed active Rho GTPase.

      -(fig4f) The aGBD/pGBD binding sites for RhoA show great overlap but bind to completely different sites at RhoA, is this correct? (color scheme used for the structures is not easily interpretable)

      It is correct they both have two binding sites but apparently, they found crystals for one or the other. Maesaki et al. 1999 is describing the two binding site. We will change the colors.

      -(fig5) Unclear how the intensity at the specific organelles is measured? were the organelles segmented or hand-drawn ROI based? The quantified difference is very small, no statistics are performed, and it is unclear how it was measured. This is currently weak evidence for the main claim in this subsection.

      ROIs are drawn by hand. We will provide standard deviations in our dot plots.

      -(fig5) The kinetics of the response to histamine (fig1C) seems to be much faster as the rapamycin mediated increase in fig5B for the PM condition. Any explanation for this? Why does it not reach a plateau like in the histamine experiments?

      It is probably the recruitment of the p63-DH that takes more time than the activation of the H1R and the downstream signaling. We have the data of the p63-DH recruitment channel so we will check the recruitment kinetics of the p63-DH to the membrane.

      -(fig6F) Data from 6D is repeated here, 6F could potentially show aggregate time-series instead of individual cells. Would also improve interpretation if the membrane marker curve is plotted in every subfigure. Potentially membrane marker intensity could be used to normalise the (TIRF) measurements?

      We will include the data of the membrane intensity for every trace in F.

      -can the authors provide scale bars on the micrographs, as is usually done in any manuscript ? It would also be useful to put time labels when images corresponding to timeseries are shown.

      We will provide the width of the image in the figure captions.

      -ratio values are dimensionless by definition, so no need to write "arbitrary units"

      We will change that.  

      **TEXT COMMENTS:**

      -(abstract): "Due to the improved avidity of the new biosensors for RhoA activity, cellular processes regulated by RhoA can be better understood." -> unclear what the authors mean with 'avidity' in this context? (here, and throughout rest the manuscript)

      Avidity refers to “the accumulated strength of multiple affinities”, we added this explanation to the text in the introduction. Another paper working with multiple biding domains to improve a relocation sensors also calls it avidity: A high-avidity biosensor reveals plasma membrane PI(3,4)P2 is predominantly a class I PI3K signaling product (Goulden at al. 2018 JCB).

      -(introduction) "Although these three Rho GTPases may have different functions, we generally refer to RhoA in this manuscript." -> unclear what message the authors try to convey with this sentence.

      We changed to: “We will use ‘Rho’ throughout the manuscript, which refers to all three isoforms”

      -(introduction) "Active RhoA mainly localizes at the plasma membrane, due to its prenylated C-terminus" -> where else would it be localised? Where is inactive RhoA localised?

      We included: “Active Rho mainly localizes at the plasma membrane, due to its prenylated C-terminus (Garcia-Mata et al., 2011).However, a fraction of RhoA has been found at the Golgi apparatus. Inactive RhoA, in comparison, can be extracted from the plasma membrane by Rho-specific guanine nucleotide dissociation inhibitors (RHOGDIs) (Garcia-Mata et al., 2011)”.

      -(introduction) "Unimolecular Rho GTPase FRET-based biosensors consist of the Rho GTPase itself, a GBD and a FRET pair." -> a short description/explanation of what a "FRET pair" is would benefit the non-specialised audience.

      We included: “Unimolecular Rho GTPase FRET-based biosensors consist of the Rho GTPase itself, a GBD and a FRET pair, which is commonly a cyan and a yellow fluorescent protein.”

      -(Results p9) "For the original Anillin AH+PH sensor...around 15%" -> did the authors do the experiment with G14V on this original sensor variant?

      Yes, it is supposed to say AHD+PH here as well, which has been corrected. We performed the experiment with mScarlet-AHD-PH.

      -(Results p9) The "mScarlet-I-AHD+PH" seems to perform quite good on the fig4D assay, but is not present in 4C analysis?

      eGFP-AHD+PH was used as the original sensors for the 4C assay. Due to the color of the RhoA G14V (mTq2) we switched to the mScarlet version to exclude bleed through. We assume that the sensor performs similar with different monomeric fluorescent proteins.

      -(Results p9) "mScarlet-I-AHD+PH" is the same as "AHD+PH (aGBD+C2+PH)"? descriptions unclear. Would generally advise to thoroughly check the manuscript for consistency of condition descriptions / abbreviations in both text and legends.

      Changed to: AHD+PH (consisting of aGBD+C2+PH). We mention earlier: “Moreover, a published relocation sensor AHD+PH based on Anillin contains, next to a G protein binding domain, also a C2 and a PH domain and localizes in punctuate structures which do not represent Rho activity (Figure 2C,Supplemental Movie 4 and 5) (Munjal et al., 2015; Piekny & Glotzer, 2000). Here, we used only the G protein binding domain of Anillin (aGBD) as a basis for another sensor.”

      -(Results p12) "Visualizing endogenous RhoA activity" as subsection title could potentially confuse readers, since all measured Rho activity in the manuscript is endogenous.

      That could indeed be confusing. What we intending to highlight is that we did not overexpress any signaling molecules or receptors in these experiments. We changed the title to: “Visualizing endogenous Rho activity under physiological conditions”

      **minor text:**

      -(fig3b legend) "mScralet-I-1xrGBD"

      Corrected

      -(fig6H legend) "TRIF", and "cbBOEC" is same as "BOEC"?

      It is a detail, but these are indeed different and we have updated the materials and methods to better reflect this: “cord blood Blood Outgrowth Endothelial cells (cbBOEC)” and “Blood Outgrowth Endothelial cells from healthy adult donor blood (BOEC)”

      Reviewer #4 (Significance (Required)):

      The novel "Rho" family GTPase relocation sensor that the authors present might be a significant improvement over the currently existing ones (for refs, see manuscript). This might provide a substantial technical advance in the field and increases the utilisation and the reproducibility of this tool in the field. This sensor will be of significant interest for the Rho GTPase signalling field, and more broader the cytoskeleton biology community. My expertise in Rho GTPase biology, biosensor development and advanced microscopy granted me the opportunity to judge the complete manuscript

      The reviewer thinks that the new sensor will be of significant interest and we agree.

    2. Note: This preprint has been reviewed by subject experts for Review Commons. Content has not been altered except for formatting.

      Learn more at Review Commons


      Referee #4

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      SUMMARY:

      Mahlandt and colleagues use advanced microscopy techniques to test new configurations of several Rho relocation sensors, which report on the activity of members of the endogenous RhoA GTPase family of proteins. A novel variant containing the dimericTomato fluorescent protein and a double rGBD domain shows a substantial increase in dynamic range in comparison with 2 originally published sensors and other new variants they tested.<br> They use a cellular assay to show that this novel variant is specific for the activity of Rho family of Rho GTPases and not the Cdc42/Rac families. Finally, the authors show that this new variant can be used to measure a specific localised increase of Rho activity at the Golgi, and during cell division and cellular morphology changes that are known to activate the RhoA family of Rho GTPases. The biosensor can be useful for the community. However, I think the paper is not well written (I was very confused by several statements). The manuscript should be thoroughly proofread, there are quite some unclear or duplicate passages (for examples, see "text comments" below). Currently this hampers the interpretation of the manuscript for the reader. The authors are very dogmatic - they make claims about the literature that I do not agree with at all. Some of these unbalanced views will confuse the non-expert readers.

      MAJOR COMMENTS:

      -The reported dTomato-rGBD sensor is unable to distinguish between the different members of the RhoA familiy of Rho GTPases (measures combined activity of RhoA, RhoB and RhoC), which is unclear for the reader in the current text phrasing in the introduction. The authors seemingly suggest throughout the manuscript to work with a specific RhoA biosensor, which is not the case. This strong statement is completely misleading. The authors need to refer to the biosensor being specific for Rho (RhoA,B,C) GTPases versus Rac1/Cdc42 biosensors, and discuss what this means for the field. Some discussions about this are made in a JCB paper by Graessl et al, that the authors also cite.

      -If the authors really want to sell that the biosensor is only specific for RhoA, then they need to make a series of experiments with RhoB and RhoC dominant positive/negative constructs, to tackle that specific point.

      -Did the authors consider to use the artificial GBD from Keller, 2019 to make a specific relocation sensor for RhoA? Perhaps the authors can comment on the feasibility of this approach?

      -A strong (dogmatic) statement is that Rho GTPases FRET sensors report solely on the activity of GEFs. This is not the case, these sensors report on the flux of GAP and GEF activity for Rho GTPase in cells. This is also true for relocation sensors, and has been documented in work from the Bement/Pertz/Nalbant/Dehmelt labs.

      -From the data in Figure 1, it seems to follow that the efficiency of PM relocation is mainly determined by the number of rGBD modules on the sensors. Could the authors speculate on how this works in practice; is the multi-rGBD sensor increasingly kinetically trapped by a single RhoA molecule, or is the sensor mostly bound to multiple RhoA molecules at the PM? -Some form of statistical analysis should be performed on the data to give the reader a sense of robustness of the findings and its uncertainty. Either a non-parametric test on the median, confidence intervals or e.g. boxplots showing notches.

      -Time-series now show single example traces (fig1C, fig2B,D, fig5B). It would be informative for the reader if the curves of all experiments were plotted, and statistical analysis would be performed on the data. It is unclear how representable the kinetics in these curves are.

      -About the spatial patterns of Rho activity (cytokinesis, tail retraction, ...), the reviewers agree that statistical analysis is much more difficult. But maybe showing 2-3 cells instead of only one, would make the data more convincing.

      MINOR COMMENTS:

      -(fig4a) dTomato-2xpGBD, why is this not good? how is it possible that it binds good to nucleus, but no translocation is observed? const activity? expression levels?

      -(fig4f) The aGBD/pGBD binding sites for RhoA show great overlap but bind to completely different sites at RhoA, is this correct? (color scheme used for the structures is not easily interpretable)

      -(fig5) Unclear how the intensity at the specific organelles is measured? were the organelles segmented or hand-drawn ROI based? The quantified difference is very small, no statistics are performed, and it is unclear how it was measured. This is currently weak evidence for the main claim in this subsection.

      -(fig5) The kinetics of the response to histamine (fig1C) seems to be much faster as the rapamycin mediated increase in fig5B for the PM condition. Any explanation for this? Why does it not reach a plateau like in the histamine experiments?

      -(fig6F) Data from 6D is repeated here, 6F could potentially show aggregate time-series instead of individual cells. Would also improve interpretation if the membrane marker curve is plotted in every subfigure. Potentially membrane marker intensity could be used to normalise the (TIRF) measurements?

      -can the authors provide scale bars on the micrographs, as is usually done in any manuscript ? It would also be useful to put time labels when images corresponding to timeseries are shown.

      -ratio values are dimensionless by definition, so no need to write "arbitrary units"

      TEXT COMMENTS:

      -(abstract): "Due to the improved avidity of the new biosensors for RhoA activity, cellular processes regulated by RhoA can be better understood." -> unclear what the authors mean with 'avidity' in this context? (here, and throughout rest the manuscript)

      -(introduction) "Although these three Rho GTPases may have different functions, we generally refer to RhoA in this manuscript." -> unclear what message the authors try to convey with this sentence.

      -(introduction) "Active RhoA mainly localizes at the plasma membrane, due to its prenylated C-terminus" -> where else would it be localised? Where is inactive RhoA localised?

      -(introduction) "Unimolecular Rho GTPase FRET-based biosensors consist of the Rho GTPase itself, a GBD and a FRET pair." -> a short description/explanation of what a "FRET pair" is would benefit the non-specialised audience.

      -(Results p9) "For the original Anillin AH+PH sensor...around 15%" -> did the authors do the experiment with G14V on this original sensor variant?

      -(Results p9) The "mScarlet-I-AHD+PH" seems to perform quite good on the fig4D assay, but is not present in 4C analysis?

      -(Results p9) "mScarlet-I-AHD+PH" is the same as "AHD+PH (aGBD+C2+PH)"? descriptions unclear. Would generally advise to thoroughly check the manuscript for consistency of condition descriptions / abbreviations in both text and legends.

      -(Results p12) "Visualizing endogenous RhoA activity" as subsection title could potentially confuse readers, since all measured Rho activity in the manuscript is endogenous.

      minor text:

      -(fig3b legend) "mScralet-I-1xrGBD"

      -(fig6H legend) "TRIF", and "cbBOEC" is same as "BOEC"?

      Significance

      The novel "Rho" family GTPase relocation sensor that the authors present might be a significant improvement over the currently existing ones (for refs, see manuscript). This might provide a substantial technical advance in the field and increases the utilisation and the reproducibility of this tool in the field. This sensor will be of significant interest for the Rho GTPase signalling field, and more broader the cytoskeleton biology community. My expertise in Rho GTPase biology, biosensor development and advanced microscopy granted me the opportunity to judge the complete manuscript

    1. older-younger relationships are still quite malleable

      I found the idea of older-younger relationships somewhat relevant to my life because (at least for me), people who I am friends with where we have an age gap are people who I share similar life experiences with such as: playing the same sport, having the same interests, or perhaps just being in close proximity with them like neighbors. I also think many occurrences in life bring people together for different reasons although they may not be the same age. I like how in this context, the children were pretty open to the idea of older-younger relationships for a variety of reasons.

    1. In view of all this we may say, not, I think, that psychology is all there is of philosophy, as Wundt does, nor even that it is related to the systems as philosophy to theology, nor that it is a philosophy of philosophy, implying a higher potence of self-consciousness, but only that it has a legitimate standpoint from which to regard the history of philosophy,-- a standpoint from which it does not seem itself a system in the sense of Hegel, but the natural history of mind, not to be understood without parallel [p. 131] study of the history of science, religion, and the professional disciplines, especially medicine, nor without extending our view from the tomes of the great speculators to their lives and the facts and needs of the world they saw. It strives to catch the larger human logic within which all systems move, and which even at their best they represent only as the scroll-work of an illuminated missal resembles real plants and trees, in a way which grows more conventionalized the more finished and current it becomes. In a word, it urges the methods of modern historic research, in a sense which even Zeller has but inadequately seen, in the only field of academic study where they are not yet fully recognized.

      Hall explains how psychology is a different entity than philosophy. Although both fields may share similar beliefs, psychology explores various aspects that philosophy does not. Hall also mentions how psychology is much bigger than a subsection. Psychology deals with various concepts and being confined to a subsection of philosophy limits individuals from gaining new knowledge/information for this area (psychology).

    1. SciScore for 10.1101/2021.04.02.21254818: (What is this?)

      Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

      Table 1: Rigor

      <table><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Institutional Review Board Statement</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Consent: MD website all participants provided informed consent at the start of the online questionnaire for their data to be used for research purposes, and had to agree to the corresponding Your.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Randomization</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Blinding</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Power Analysis</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Sex as a biological variable</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">The gender variable was coded as 0 for male and 1 for female.</td></tr></table>

      Table 2: Resources

      <table><tr><th style="min-width:100px;text-align:center; padding-top:4px;" colspan="2">Software and Algorithms</th></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;text=align:center">Sentences</td><td style="min-width:100px;text-align:center">Resources</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;vertical-align:top;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">(5) For clustering, we excluded symptoms experienced by less than 5% of the individuals in each group to avoid chaining.(6) All statistical analyses were performed using custom programs in the MATLAB R2019b (MathWorks) environment. Ethics: The Covid-10 Symptom Mapper data was provided to us by Your.</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray"><div style="margin-bottom:8px"><div>MATLAB</div><div>suggested: (MATLAB, RRID:SCR_001622)</div></div></td></tr></table>

      Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).


      Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
      Strengths & limitations: One of the strengths of this study was the ability to look globally at symptoms with a specific breakdown by nationality, allowing geolocation and culture/behavioural aspects to be investigated. Symptom reports were conducted in local languages (e.g. Portugese, Hindi, etc) thus increasing accessibility, however translations may not match exactly within cultural contexts, e.g. “pain” in Brazil is “joint ache” in UK (but not stomach pain). Given the data for this analysis came from an Internet based survey, there will be differential access, however only a very low effort was needed to partake given the questionnaire was accessed via a simple website and not an app. Given the widespread use of smartphones globally, this should facilitate participation, however we acknowledge that those who are younger or in wealthier countries may be more likely to partake thus skewing the results, equally educational factors may have played a role and we do not have any socioeconomic or ethnicity information. Whilst we acknowledge that the data used are self-reported, we do not think this undermines the accuracy of underlying disease or symptom reporting. For those who report a COVID-19 positive test, we do not distinguish between type of tests and thus cannot account for differences in accuracy. Clinical and Public Health impact: Our information may be utilised in a clinical setting as an additional triage tool and for target testing, especially to better inform decis...

      Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.


      Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.


      Results from JetFighter: Please consider improving the rainbow (“jet”) colormap(s) used on page 7. At least one figure is not accessible to readers with colorblindness and/or is not true to the data, i.e. not perceptually uniform.


      Results from rtransparent:
      • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
      • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
      • No protocol registration statement was detected.

      <footer>

      About SciScore

      SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

      </footer>

    1. SciScore for 10.1101/2021.04.01.21254744: (What is this?)

      Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

      Table 1: Rigor

      <table><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Institutional Review Board Statement</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">IRB: This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the University of Occupational and Environmental Health, Japan (R2-079).</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Randomization</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Blinding</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Power Analysis</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Sex as a biological variable</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr></table>

      Table 2: Resources

      <table><tr><th style="min-width:100px;text-align:center; padding-top:4px;" colspan="2">Software and Algorithms</th></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;text=align:center">Sentences</td><td style="min-width:100px;text-align:center">Resources</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;vertical-align:top;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">We used Stata/SE 16.1 (StataCorp, College Station, TX, USA) for all analyses.</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray"><div style="margin-bottom:8px"><div>StataCorp</div><div>suggested: (Stata, RRID:SCR_012763)</div></div></td></tr></table>

      Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).


      Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
      This study has several limitations. First, the study recruited panelists who registered with an online research company. Therefore, the participants may not represent general workers. For example, online panelists may be particularly willing to use online tools or more familiar than others with using apps. Consequently, the results may underestimate negative factors for use of the app. Second, we evaluated the use of the contact tracing app by asking participants about whether they had downloaded it. Therefore, we did not confirm whether the application was installed. However, we think that most people who downloaded the app also installed it. Despite these limitations, to the best of our knowledge, this study represents the first study in Japan to examine current use of the COCOA with a large sample. In conclusion, the present study evaluated the associations of industry and workplace characteristics with the use of a COVID-19 contact tracing app in a large-scale online survey of Japanese workers. Those working in the public service sector or in information technology, as well as managers, were frequently found to use the contact tracing app, whereas those working in the retail and wholesale and food/beverage industries were less likely to use it. One possible reason for the under-implementation of the contact tracing app in the retail and wholesale and food/beverage industries may be the small size of businesses in these types of industries. An awareness campaign should be ...

      Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.


      Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.


      Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.


      Results from rtransparent:
      • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
      • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
      • No protocol registration statement was detected.

      <footer>

      About SciScore

      SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

      </footer>

    1. Reviewer #3 (Public Review):

      This is an interesting paper combining several impressive techniques to argue that synaptically released glutamate is allowed to diffuse to and activate receptors at much greater distance than previously thought. iGluSnFR recordings show that glutamate released from single vesicles activates the indicator with a spatial spread (length constant) of 1.2 um, substantially farther than previous estimates based on the time course of glutamate clearance by glial transporters (PMC6725141). Similar parameters are observed with spontaneous and evoked events, large or small, or when glutamate is released via 2P uncaging. Further uncaging experiments show that both AMPARs and especially NMDARs are activated a substantial distance. AMPARs, previously thought to be recruited only within active synapses, are activated with a spatial length constant that compares quite closely with the average distance between synapses in the hippocampus. More heroic experiments and some geometric calculations show that this behavior enables neighboring synapses to interact supralinearly. The results suggest that "crosstalk" between neighboring synapses may be substantially more common than previously thought.

      The experiments in this paper appear carefully performed and are analyzed thoroughly. Despite all of the quantitative rigor and careful thought, however, the authors fail to reconcile convincingly their results with what we know about neuropil structure and the laws of diffusion. There are very good data in the literature regarding the extracellular volume fraction and geometric tortuosity of the neuropil, the diffusion characteristics of glutamate and the time course of glutamate uptake. These data more or less demand that synaptically released glutamate is diluted over a much smaller spatial range than that suggested here. In the Discussion, the authors suggest that this discrepancy might reflect a simplified view of the neuropil as an isotropic diffusion medium (PMC6763864, PMC6792642, PMC6725141), whereas a more realistic network of sheets and tunnels (PMC3540825) might prolong the extracellular lifetime of neurotransmitter. I like this idea in principle, but there is no quantitative support in the paper for the claim - in fact, it seems at odds with the authors' very nice demonstration that diffusion appears to be similar in all directions (Figure 3B). I don't necessarily think a solution is within the scope of this single paper, but I would suggest that the authors acknowledge the present lack of a compelling explanation.

    1. technical skills, interpersonal (or human) skills, and conceptual skills.

      Katz’s model postulates that good leadership comes down to three specific skills or attributes. First, a good leader must have a strong technical foundation, meaning they have to know how the company or agency works on a day to day level. For example, in my role, this knowledge includes the procedures used by staff such as completing an intake or an exit or having an understanding of the criteria for someone to access shelter. Next, a good leader must have strong conceptual skills, meaning they must have the ability to think creatively and look at the bigger picture. In my case this might be looking at the philosophy behind how we help survivors and how we can better integrate it into daily practice. Lastly, a good leader must have good interpersonal skills. In my case this means being able to read what my staff may need emotionally and be able to meet that need. An area I in which I often need to use this skill is in watching for burn out and supporting staff who are struggling with it.<br> I think that these three skills are absolutely still relevant during the technological age. In fact, I think they may be even more important, especially the interpersonal skills. In the age of zoom and digital platforms, it is important to be able to pick up on nonverbal cues that might be harder to see in this format. Also, it’s essential to be able to keep the team connected to one another and to make sure the team feels connected to their leader when they are not always in the same room. In my role, there are agency staff members that I have literally never met in person so I need to be able to figure out how to meet their emotional needs and respond appropriately using the limited information I get through a picture on a screen.<br> One thing I would argue is that there is some need for floor level managers to have conceptual skills. In order for an agency to truly adhere to its mission and vision, everyone needs to have an understanding of what it is and how it applies to their own job. You can’t get to your destination if you don’t know what it is or how to get there. I have also anecdotally found that the agencies for whom I’ve worked that are the most successful are the ones where everyone, regardless of role or position in the hierarchy, have a part in looking at and fine tuning the bigger picture. At my current agency, we literally go through our annual agency goals at staff meetings and will discuss why those are the goals as well as the action steps to get there.

    1. Author Response:

      Reviewer #1 (Public Review):

      Redmond et al. use single-cell and single-nucleus RNA-sequencing to reveal the molecular heterogeneity that underlies regional differences in neural stem cells in the adult mouse V-SVZ. The authors generated two datasets: one which was whole cell RNA-seq of whole V-SVZ and one which consisted of nuclear RNA-seq of V-SVZ microdissected into anterior-posterior and dorsal-ventral quadrants. The authors first identified distinct subtypes of B cells and showed that these B cell subtypes correspond to dorsal and ventral identities. Then, they identified distinct subtypes of A cells and classified them into dorsal and ventral identities. Finally, the authors identified a handful of genes that they conclude constitute a conserved molecular signature for dorsal or ventral lineages. The text of the manuscript is well written and clear, and the figures are organized and polished. The datasets generated in this manuscript will be a great resource for the field of adult neurogenesis. However, the arguments and supporting data used to assign dorsal/ventral identities to B cells and A cells could be strengthened, and more rigorous data analysis could result in new biological insights into stem and progenitor cell heterogeneity in the V-SVZ.

      We thank the Reviewer for their feedback on our manuscript. As suggested by Reviewer #1, we are performing additional analyses in the following areas:

      1) Performing additional analyses to further strengthen the dorsal/ventral scRNA-Seq B cell marker analysis and its relationship to our sNucRNA-Seq B data.

      2) Performing additional analyses to identify potential novel biological insights into stem & progenitor cell heterogeneity and text edits to discuss how differentially-expressed sets of genes among B cells and A cells are related to biological processes and/or signaling pathways.

      Reviewer #2 (Public Review):

      The paper is well written, and the data are well analyzed and presented. My concerns centre on terminology and alternative explanations of some of the data, which the authors might deal with in the introduction or discussion.

      We thank Reviewer #2 for their positive reception of our manuscript and the data, and for the constructive suggestions, which we have addressed by changes to the manuscript and in our responses below:

      1) I am slightly confused about some of the data shown in Figure 1. If B cells are defined as GFAP expressing cells, then why do only 25% of the B cells in the plot in Figure 1C express GFAP? I may be missing something here, as other readers may as well. Similarly in the same panel, only 25% of astrocytes seem to be expressing GFAP or GFP driven by a GFAP promotor.

      Importantly, among all cells captured in our scRNA-Seq, only B cells (51.86%), a subpopulation of parenchymal astrocytes (25%) and a small subpopulation of ependymal cells (E cells) had GFAP expression. This is consistent with immunocytochemical staining (Ponti et al. 2013) and other studies of scRNA-Seq expression (Xie et al. 2020). Similarly, Gfp (under the control of hGFAP promoter) is not expected to be expressed in all B cells (here 31.08% of B cells are Gfp+).

      Note that previous work has shown that B cells express different levels of GFAP protein, and some B1 cells were negative (Ponti et al. 2013). This supports the notion that this intermediate filament is a good marker of the V-SVZ primary progenitors, but also present in a subpopulation of parenchymal astrocytes and ependymal cells. However, a negative signal for GFAP does not imply that a cell is not a B cell. This highlights the importance of our clustering analysis revealing additional genes associated with B cells. Our analysis suggests that a combination of Gfap, Thrombospondin 4, Slc1a3 (GLAST) and S100a6 provide a better marker combination to identify B cells.

      The reason for the variability among B cells in the expression of GFAP remains unknown. It could be associated with the normal regulation of intermediate filaments as B cells transit the cell cycle or different stages of their activation or quiescence. It could also be linked to technical aspects of scRNA-Seq analysis: e.g gene dropout; detection limits; sequencing saturation. Since on our dot plot the actual proportion is only graphically shown, to clarify this issue in the text we have added the specific percentages and the following sentences:

      “A fraction of both populations expressed GFAP: 51.85% of B cells (clusters 5,13,14 & 22), 24.37% of parenchymal astrocytes (clusters 21, 26 & 29). This is consistent with previous reports (Chai et al. 2017; Xie et al. 2020; Ponti et al. 2013). Note that across all cells captured in our scRNAseq analysis, only B cells, parenchymal astrocytes or ependymal cells expressed GFAP. Among these three cell types, B cells had the highest average expression of GFAP (4.41 for B cells, 1.00 for astrocytes, 0.29767 for Ependymal cells, values in Pearson residuals). Other markers, like S100a6 (Kjell et al. 2020) (88.9% of B cells; 54% of parenchymal astrocytes and 80% of ependymal cells) and Thbs4 (Zywitza et al. 2018) (45% of B cells; 28.77% in parenchymal astrocytes, 2.88 % in ependymal cells) are also expressed preferentially in B cells and parenchymal astrocytes, but they alone do not distinguish these two cell populations.”

      2) The authors term the germinal zone of the adult mouse brain - the ventricular-subventricular zone. They should discuss the evidence that the adult germinal zone is made up of cells from both the ventricular zone and the sub ventricular zone in the late embryo, where those zones are described clearly on the basis of morphology. Many of the early embryonic neural stem cells are present in the ventricular zone before the sub ventricular zone has developed and continue to be present into the adult. If there is not clear mouse evidence that the progeny of embryonic sub ventricular cells are present in the adult germinal zone independent of embryonic ventricular zone progeny, then the authors might consider calling the zone - the adult ventricular zone, or alternatively terming the neurogenic area around the lateral ventricle the adult germinal zone or by a more straightforward descriptive term - the adult subependymal zone or the adult periventricular zone. Also, I think the first word in line 6 on page 3 should be neural rather than neuronal.

      We agree that the terminology in the field is confusing and multiple names have been used to describe the same region. In order to clarify that we are referring to the same adult periventricular germinal region, we have added a short sentence in the introduction to indicate that the V-SVZ is also referred by other authors as the SVZ, the subependyma or subependymal zone: We have added in the text: “This neurogenic region has also been referred to as the SVZ or the subependymal zone (Kazanis et al. 2017; Morshead et al. 1994)”.

      This reviewer argues that the adult V-SVZ should only be called V-SVZ if a lineage relationship could be established with the embryonic SVZ. To our knowledge there is no need to link the adult SVZ to the embryo, as this structure, like the embryonic SVZ, anatomically sits beneath the VZ (the area next to the ventricle). However, a lineage relationship does exist between the adult V-SVZ and the embryonic VZ, established in previous studies showing that PreB1 cells around E15.5 became quiescent and give rise to adult B cells in the V-SVZ (Fuentealba et al., 2015; Furutachi et al., 2015). In addition, developmental studies show a continuum in the gradual transformation of the embryonic periventricular germinal layers, including the SVZ. Importantly, B1 cells are derived from VZ radial glia (RG), maintain RG markers and retain RG-like interkinetic behavior establishing that functionally and anatomically a VZ is retained in the adult (Merkle et al., 2004; Mirzadeh et al., 2008). Therefore the adult periventricular epithelium is not made of a pure layer of ependymal cells with progenitor cells underneath, as previously thought. Moreover, recent work indicates that just like in the embryo, the more basal adult SVZ progenitors (B2 cells) can be derived from adult VZ progenitors (B1 cells) (Obernier et al. 2018). This transformation of apical to basal cells begins to occur in embryonic stages further suggesting equivalences between the adult and the embryonic progenitor cells. For all the above reasons we prefer to use the term V-SVZ.

      In line 6, page 3, We have changed neuronal cell types to “neural cell types”, as suggested.

      3) The authors refer to their molecularly described B cells as stem cells. Certainly, their lab and others have shown that adult olfactory bulb neurons are the progeny of those B cells, however the classic definition of stem cells (in the blood or intestine for example) require demonstration that single stem cells can make all of the differentiated cells in that tissue. Is their evidence that a single adult B1 cell can make astrocytes, neurons and oligodendrocytes? Indeed, what percentage of the single adult B cells characterized here on the bases of RNA expression can be shown to be multipoint for both macroglial and neuron lineages in vivo or in vitro? Perhaps progenitor or precursor cells might be a better term for a B cells that appears to give rise to neurons primarily.

      This is also an issue of definitions. We modified the text to refer to the primary progenitors in the V-SVZ as adult neural stem cells, or progenitor cells “NSPCs”. We agree that this needs to be clarified and in the introduction we modified one paragraph to indicate:

      “From the initial interpretation that adult NSPCs are multipotent and able to generate a wide range of neural cell types (Reynolds and Weiss 1992; van der Kooy and Weiss 2000; Morshead et al. 1994), more recent work suggest that the adult NSPCs in vivo are heterogeneous and specialized, depending on their location, for the generation of specific types of neurons, and possibly glia (Merkle et al. 2014; Fiorelli et al. 2015; Chaker, Codega, and Doetsch 2016; Merkle, Mirzadeh, and Alvarez-Buylla 2007; Tsai et al. 2012; Delgado et al. 2020).”

      Under normal in vivo conditions, a primitive state for NSCs capable of generating all neuronal and glial cell types of the CNS may only exist at very early stages of development and even their regional specification seems to occur very early (as early as E10.5; Fuentealba et al. 2015). Note that recent work in the hematopoietic system suggests that stem cells there also become restricted embryonically (Carrelha et al., 2018) and in adults their potential to generate lymphoid or myeloid lineages changes dramatically with age, yet at all these ages they are referred as HSCs. We are well aware of the work from the van der Kooy lab, suggesting the existence in the V-SVZ of rare “primitive” Oct4+/GFAP- cells that may be pluripotent and earlier in the lineage from B cells (Reeve et al., 2017). However, as indicated above lineage tracing from the embryo indicates that adult NSPC are specified in the embryo and are already in place and regionally specified between E11.5 and E15. We have investigated whether we could detect Oct4+/Gfap- cells in our datasets. However, we did not detect Oct4 expression in B cells or other cell types. We now indicate in the discussion:

      “It has been suggested that in the adult V-SVZ a more primitive population of Oct4+/GFAP- NSCs may be present and that these cells may be earlier in the lineage from the “definitive” GFAP+ B cells (Reeve et al. 2017). However, regionally specified NSPCs can be lineage traced to the embryo (Fuentealba et al. 2015; Furutachi et al. 2015), and we could not detect a population of Oct4+ cells in our datasets. We, however, cannot exclude that rare primitive OCT4+ NSPCs were not captured in our analysis for technical reasons.” ……. “This underscores the early embryonic regional specification of adult V-SVZ NSPCs and how these primary progenitors maintain a memory of their regions of origin.”

      4) This may be more than a semantic issue, as the rare clonal neurophere forming neural stem cells that do make all three neural cell types in vitro, and also maintain their AP and DV positional identity through clonal passaging in vitro (Hitoshi et al, 2002). However, Emx1 expressing cortical neural stem cells can be lineage traced as they migrate from the embryonic cortical germinal zone to the striata germinal zone in the perinatal period (Willaime-Morawek et al, 2006). Surprisingly, in their new striatal home the Emx1 lineage cortical neural stem cells will turn down Emx1 expression and turn up Dlx2 striatal germinal zone expression. The switch in positional identities of clonal neural stem cells can be seen also in vitro when the stem cells are co-cultured with an excess of cells from a different region and then regrown as clonal neural stem cells. This may suggested that Emx1 expressing neural stem cells (the clonal neurosphere forming cells), may switch their positional identities in vivo as they migrate into the striatal germinal zone, but the downstream neuron producing precursor B cells studied in this paper may maintain their Emx1 expression into the adult germinal zone. This raises an interesting issue concerning which cells in the neural stem cell lineage can be regionally re-specified.

      The interesting question about plasticity and respecification is not addressed by our current manuscript that focuses on the gene expression profile of unmanipulated cells from adult samples. However, regional re-specification is controversial. While work from van der Kooy lab suggests that striatal Emx1+ NSPCs originate in the pallium and migrate into the striatum in the perinatal brain (Willaime-Morawek et la., 2006), other studies suggest that rare Emx1 cells are already present in the developing LGE from embryonic stages as early as E12.5 (Gorski et al. 2002). In addition, we have labeled neonatal radial glial cells in the pallium, when this migration has been suggested to occur, and do not see migration of cells ventrally into the striatal wall. We have also transplanted dorsal NSPCs into ventral locations -- and vice versa -- and do not observe evidence of regional re-specification (Merkle, Mirzadeh, and Alvarez-Buylla 2007; Delgado et al. 2020).

      5) The authors nicely show dorsal versus ventral germinal zone lineages are marked by some of the same positional genes from B cells to A cells, suggesting complete dorsal versus ventral neurogenic lineages giving rise to different types of olfactory bulb neurons. Indeed, they nicely test this idea with dissection of the dorsal versus ventral germinal zones, followed by nuclear RNA sequencing. However, they don't discuss the broader issues concerning the embryological origins of the dorsal versus ventral germinal zones. Emx1 is one of the genes the authors use to mark dorsal lineages. The authors reference papers (Young et al, 2007; Willaime-Morawek et al, 2006;2008) that use Emx1 lineage tracing to show that certain classes of olfactory bulb neurons originate from embryonic cortical neural stem cells that migrate perinatally from the cortical germinal zone into the dorsal subcortical germinal zone. Could cortical versus subcortical embryonic origins of the dorsal versus ventral adult germinal zone explain the origin of different sets of adult olfactory bulb neurons? Further, the authors report that one of the GO terms for their dorsal lineages in cortical regionalization.

      This is a very interesting question that unfortunately we cannot answer. The dorsal domain includes both pallial and subpallial components, but the specific origin of B cells in this dorsal domain and the contribution of the pallium and subpallium remains unresolved.

      We went back to our data to try to find evidence of pallial vs. subpallial components in the dorsal B clusters (5 & 22). Indeed, there are some hints that cluster 22 may be more pallial and 5 more dorsal subpallial. However, when we try to confirm differential distribution of markers associated with these two dorsal subdomains anatomically, it is not possible to determine segregation, likely due to the intermixing of cells as the wedge is formed. We also looked for Dbx1, a relatively specific marker of the border region between pallium and subpallium that has been termed ventral pallium, but unfortunately our scRNA-Seq dataset did not capture this marker. Further, targeted lineage tracing of this region is required to determine the subdivisions of the dorsal V-SVZ. We have added as requested a short discussion on this issue:

      “The dorsal V-SVZ domain is likely further subdivided into multiple subdomains. In the current analysis we pooled together clusters B(5) and B(22) as dorsal. However, largely pallial marker Emx1 and dorsal lateral ganglionic eminence marker Gsx2 were differentially enriched in clusters B(22) and B(5), respectively, suggesting that these two clusters may also represent different sets of regionally specified B cells with distinct embryonic origins. These regions become blurred by cells intermixing in the formation of the wedge region in the postnatal V-SVZ making it difficult to confirm their origin based on expression patterns. In addition to pallial and dorsal subpallial markers, this wedge region likely also includes what has been termed the ventral pallium (Puelles et al. 2016), which is characterized in the embryo by the expression of Dbx1. Unfortunately, our scRNA-Seq analysis did not detect this marker. Further lineage tracing experiments will help determine the precise embryonic origin and nature of the dorsal V-SVZ, including the wedge region.”

      6) The percentages of dividing cells based on gene expression is given for some clusters of cells but not others. It might be useful to have a chart showing the percentages of cells in cycle (ki67 expression) for each cluster. This might be especially useful in characterizing some fo the differences between various subclusters of B, A and C cells. On page 9 it is suggested that the heterogeneity amongst C cell clusters was driven by cell cycle genes. However, it is possible to remove the cell cycle genes from the data analysis to see if this then produces clearer dorsal versus ventral positional identities. This may be an important issue as the dorsal versus ventral positional identity genes appear to be expressed more in less dividing A and B cells, than in the more dividing C cells. This leads to a potentially alternative conclusion - that dorsal/ventral regional identity genes are primarily expressed in the non-dividing post mitotic cells in their resident dorsal or ventral region, and not in precursor cells in the lineage.This could be easiy tested by removing the cell cycle genes from the analysis of highly dividing clusters to see if they then break down into doral versus ventral clusters.

      We now provide a table indicating the fraction of proliferating cells (defined as in S phase or G2-M phase) for all scRNA-Seq clusters.

      Concerning whether dorsal and ventral identities are maintained during the period of proliferation we have analyzed our data looking at dorsal and ventral signature levels over pseudotime (Figure 6-Supplement 1F). Here we do not observe a reduction in either dorsal or ventral score at the proliferative cell stages (pseudotime ~0.75, Figure 2L). This is in contrast to gene signatures that show clear up- or down-regulation over pseudotime, such as Gfap, Egfr & Dcx (Figure 2M). To understand how cell clustering is affected in the absence of proliferative gene influence, and whether clearer dorsal/ventral signatures are observed in proliferating cells, we are performing additional analyses using our scRNA-Seq dataset that is clustered after cell-cycle gene regression.

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      Chaker, Zayna, Paolo Codega, and Fiona Doetsch. 2016. “A Mosaic World: Puzzles Revealed by Adult Neural Stem Cell Heterogeneity.” Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews. Developmental Biology 5 (6): 640–58.

      Delgado, Ryan N., Benjamin Mansky, Sajad Hamid Ahanger, Changqing Lu, Rebecca E. Andersen, Yali Dou, Arturo Alvarez-Buylla, and Daniel A. Lim. 2020. “Maintenance of Neural Stem Cell Positional Identity by.” Science 368 (6486): 48–53.

      Fiorelli, Roberto, Kasum Azim, Bruno Fischer, and Olivier Raineteau. 2015. “Adding a Spatial Dimension to Postnatal Ventricular-Subventricular Zone Neurogenesis.” Development 142 (12): 2109–20.

      Fuentealba, Luis C., Santiago B. Rompani, Jose I. Parraguez, Kirsten Obernier, Ricardo Romero, Constance L. Cepko, and Arturo Alvarez-Buylla. 2015. “Embryonic Origin of Postnatal Neural Stem Cells.” Cell 161 (7): 1644–55.

      Furutachi, Shohei, Hiroaki Miya, Tomoyuki Watanabe, Hiroki Kawai, Norihiko Yamasaki, Yujin Harada, Itaru Imayoshi, et al. 2015. “Slowly Dividing Neural Progenitors Are an Embryonic Origin of Adult Neural Stem Cells.” Nature Neuroscience 18 (5): 657–65.

      Gorski, Jessica A., Tiffany Talley, Mengsheng Qiu, Luis Puelles, John L. R. Rubenstein, and Kevin R. Jones. 2002. “Cortical Excitatory Neurons and Glia, but Not GABAergic Neurons, Are Produced in the Emx1-Expressing Lineage.” The Journal of Neuroscience: The Official Journal of the Society for Neuroscience 22 (15): 6309–14.

      Kazanis, Ilias, Kimberley A. Evans, Evangelia Andreopoulou, Christina Dimitriou, Christos Koutsakis, Ragnhildur Thora Karadottir, and Robin J. M. Franklin. 2017. “Subependymal Zone-Derived Oligodendroblasts Respond to Focal Demyelination but Fail to Generate Myelin in Young and Aged Mice.” Stem Cell Reports 8 (3): 685–700.

      Kooy, D. van der, and S. Weiss. 2000. “Why Stem Cells?” Science 287 (5457): 1439–41.

      Merkle, Florian T., Luis C. Fuentealba, Timothy A. Sanders, Lorenza Magno, Nicoletta Kessaris, and Arturo Alvarez-Buylla. 2014. “Adult Neural Stem Cells in Distinct Microdomains Generate Previously Unknown Interneuron Types.” Nature Neuroscience 17 (2): 207–14.

      Merkle, Florian T., Zaman Mirzadeh, and Arturo Alvarez-Buylla. 2007. “Mosaic Organization of Neural Stem Cells in the Adult Brain.” Science 317 (5836): 381–84.

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    1. And many white working-class voters feel a sense of subordination, derived from a lack of formal education, and that can play a part in their politics. Back in the early 1970s, the sociologists Richard Sennett and Jonathan Cobb recorded these attitudes in a study memorably titled The Hidden Injuries of Class. This sense of vulnerability is perfectly consistent with feeling superior in other ways. Working-class men often think that middle-class and upper-class men are unmanly or undeserving. Still, a significant portion of what we call the American white working class has been persuaded that, in some sense, they do not deserve the opportunities that have been denied to them.They may complain that minorities have unfair advantages in the competition for work and the distribution of government benefits. Nevertheless, they do not think it is wrong either that they do not get jobs for which they believe they are not qualified, or that the jobs for which they are qualified are typically less well paid. They think minorities are getting “handouts” – and men may feel that women are getting unfair advantages, too – but they don’t think the solution is to demand handouts for themselves. They are likely to regard the treatment of racial minorities as an exception to the right general rule: they think the US mostly is and certainly should be a society in which opportunities belong to those who have earned them.

      A bit of deja vu because it's still happening today

    1. But this “rationalization” account, though compelling in some contexts, does not strike us as the most natural or most common explanation of the human weakness for misinformation. We believe that people often just don’t think critically enough about the information they encounter.

      On the other hand, there is the risk of being critical to everything you read or hear due to the paranoia of getting misinformation. You may dismiss something that is true. Usually we turn this one and off with our political beliefs.

    1. restrict our discussion, as Althusser himself seems to do, to the “individual”interpellation which generates the subject-position of an “individual,” theclass content of such subject-formation will not emerge, since it can onlybecome visible as such when we grasp the positioning of that particularsubject against radically different interpellations. Within the individual“consciousness” this differential relationship must remain external; it is notexperienced from within, but interpretively added on by some apparentlyomniscient commentator.

      In sum, I think, at odds with Althusser's subject-position interpellation, since the school has to be there institutionally to act on the subject. To the subject these classes may not be so, but would be ascribed from above.

    1. I think of all the atrocities we have committed as members of the church: I am saying “we”, not “they”: “we”. The Constitutions of my own congregation reminds me: In Christ we unite ourselves to the whole of humanity, especially to the poor and suffering. We accept our share of responsibility for the sin of the world and so live that his love may prevail. (SHCJ Constitutions #6). I think all of us must acknowledge that our mediocrity, hypocrisy and complacency have brought us to this disgraceful and scandalous place that we find ourselves as a church.

      [8:01 - 8:54]

    1. High-BIA-producing cultivars have lost substantial genetic diver-sity through successive bottlenecks owing to domes-tication and long-term selective breeding for traits thatincrease yield

      This is interesting to think about given what we talked about today. What happens in conservation when you can synthesize something valuable in a lab? Well, before we even get to lab synthesis, what happens when you can easily cultivate it? This! A loss of genetic diversity which arguably is just as bad as habitat loss and extinction. While there is a little bit of a saving grace, it may not always be enough to work with.

    1. It also raises questions about whether and how an author’s works should be posthumously curated to reflect evolving social attitudes, and what should be preserved as part of the cultural record.

      I think it is also crucial to remember that we should consider how and why this passes publishing companies. The types of books that get published, even when they are problematic will tell what the companies, authors, and parts of society truly think and thoughts they prioritize depending on the era, world events, and harness the power to hurt, though it may not be the intent at the time.

  2. Mar 2021
    1. Author Response:

      Reviewer #1 (Public Review):

      In this project, the authors set out to create an easy to use piece of software with the following properties: The software should be capable of creating immersive (closed loop) virtual environments across display hardware and display geometries. The software should permit easy distribution of formal experiment descriptions with minimal changes required to adapt a particular experimental workflow to the hardware present in any given lab while maintaining world-coordinates and physical properties (e.g. luminance levels and refresh rates) of visual stimuli. The software should provide equal or superior performance for generating complex visual cues and/or immersive visual environments in comparison with existing options. The software should be automatically integrated with many other potential data streams produced by 2-photon imaging, electrophysiology, behavioral measurements, markerless pose estimation processing, behavioral sensors, etc.

      To accomplish these goals, the authors created two major software libraries. The first is a package for the Bonsai visual programming language called "Bonsai.Shaders" that brings traditionally low-level, imperative OpenGL programming into Bonsai's reactive framework. This library allows shader programs running on the GPU to seamlessly interact, using drag and drop visual programming, with the multitude of other processing and IO elements already present in numerous Bonsai packages. The creation of this library alone is quite a feat given the complexities of mapping the procedural, imperative, and stateful design of OpenGL libraries to Bonsai's event driven, reactive architecture. However, this library is not mentioned in the manuscript despite its power for tasks far beyond the creation of visual stimuli (e.g. GPU-based coprocessing) and, unlike BonVision itself, is largely undocumented. I don't think that this library should take center stage in this manuscript, but I do think its use in the creation of BonVision as well as some documentation on its operators would be very useful for understanding BonVision itself.

      We have added a reference to the Shaders package at multiple points in the manuscript including lines 58-59 and in Supplementary Details. We will be adding documentation of key Shaders nodes that are important for the creation of BonVision stimuli to the documentation on the BonVision website.

      Following the creation of Bonsai.Shaders, the authors used it to create BonVision which is an abstraction on top of the Shaders library that allows plug and play creation of visual stimuli and immersive visual environments that react to input from the outside world. Impressively, this library was implemented almost entirely using the Bonsai visual programming language itself, showcasing its power as a domain-specific language. However, this fact was not mentioned in the manuscript and I feel it is a worthwhile point to make.

      Thank you - we have now added clarification on this in Supplementary details (section Customised nodes and new stimuli)

      The design of BonVision, combined with the functional nature of Bonsai, enforces hard boundaries between the experimental design of visual stimuli and (1) the behavioral input hardware used to drive them, (2) the dimensionality of the stimuli (i.e. 2D textures via 3D objects), (3) the specific geometry of 3D displays (e.g. dual monitors, versus spherical projection, versus head mounted stereo vision hardware), and (4) automated hardware calibration routines. Because of these boundaries, experiments designed using BonVision become easy to share across labs even if they have very different experimental setups. Since Bonsai has integrated and standardized mechanisms for sharing entire workflows (via copy paste of XML descriptions or upload of workflows to publicly accessible Nuget package servers), this feature is immediately usable by labs in the real world.

      After creating these pieces of software, the authors benchmarked them against other widely used alternatives. IonVisoin met or exceeded frame rate and rendering latency performance measures when compared to other single purpose libraries. BonVision is able to do this while maintaining its generality by taking advantage of advanced JIT compilation features provided by the .NET runtime and using bindings to low-level graphics libraries that were written with performance in mind. The authors go on to show the real-world utility of BonVision's performance by mapping the visual receptive fields of LFP in mouse superior colliculus and spiking in V1. The fact that they were able to obtain receptive fields indicates that visual stimuli had sufficient temporal precision. However, I do not follow the logic as to why this is because the receptive fields seem to have been created using post-hoc aligned stimulus-ephys data, that was created by measuring the physical onset times of each frame using a photodiode (line 389). Wouldn't this preclude any need for accurate stimulus timing presentation?

      We thank the reviewer for this suggestion. We now include receptive field maps calculated using the BonVision timing log in Figure5 – figure supplement 1. Using the BonVision timing alone was also effective in identifying receptive fields.

      Finally the authors use BonVision to perform one human psychophysical and several animal VR experiments to prove the functionality of the package in real-world scenarios. This includes an object size discrimination task with humans that relies on non-local cues to determine the efficacy of the cube map projection approach to 3D spaces (Fig 5D). Although the results seem reasonable to me (a non-expert in this domain), I feel it would be useful for the authors to compare this psychophysical discrimination curve to other comparable results. The animal experiments prove the utility of BonVision for common rodent VR tasks.

      The psychometric test we performed on human subjects was primarily to test the ability of BonVision to present VR stimuli on a head-mounted display. We have edited the text to reflect this. The efficacy of the cube map approach for 3D spaces is well-established in computer graphics and gaming and is currently the industry standard, which was the reason for our choice.

      In summary, the professionalism of the code base, the functional nature of Bonsai workflows, the removal of overhead via advanced JIT compilation techniques, the abstraction of shader programming to high-level drag and drop workflows, integration with a multitude of input and output hardware, integrated and standardized calibration routines, and integrated package management and workflow sharing capabilities make Bonsai/BonVision serious competitors to widely-used, closed-source visual programming tools for experiment control such as LabView and Simulink. BonVision showcases the power of the Bonsai language and package management ecosystem while providing superior design to alternatives in terms of ease of integration with data sources and facilitation of sharing standardized experiments. The authors exceeded the apparent aims of the project and I believe BonVision will become a widely used tool that has major benefits for improving experiment reproducibility across laboratories.

      Reviewer #2 (Public Review):

      BonVision is a package to create virtual visual environments, as well as classic visual stimuli. Running on top of Bonsai-RX it tries and succeeds in removing the complexity of the above mentioned task and creating a framework that allows non-programmers the opportunity to create complex, closed loop experiments. Including enough speed to capture receptive fields while recording different brain areas.

      At the time of the review, the paper benchmarks the system using 60Hz stimuli, which is more than sufficient for the species tested, but leaves an open question on whether it could be used for other animal models that have faster visual systems, such as flies, bees etc.

      Thank you for prompting us to do this - we have now added new benchmarks for a faster refresh rate (144 Hz; new Figure 4 - figure supplement 1).

      The authors do show in a nice way how the system works and give examples for interested readers to start their first workflows with it. Moreover, they compare it to other existing software, making sure that readers know exactly what "they are buying" so they can make an informed decision when starting with the package.

      Being written to run on top of Bonsai-RX, BonVision directly benefits from the great community effort that exists in expanding Bonsai, such as its integration with DeepLabCut and Auto-pi-lot. Showing that developing open source tools and fostering a community is a great way to bring research forward in an additive and less competitive way.

      Reviewer #3 (Public Review):

      Major comments:

      While much of the classic literature on visual systems studies have utilized egocentrically defined ("2D") stimuli, it seems logical to project that present and future research will extend to not only 3D objects but also 3D environments where subjects can control their virtual locations and viewing perspectives. A single software package that easily supports both modalities can therefore be of particular interest to neuroscientists who wish to study brain function in 3D viewing conditions while also referencing findings to canonical 2D stimulus responses. Although other software packages exist that are specialized for each of the individual functionalities of BonVision, I think that the unifying nature of the package is appealing for reasons of reducing user training and experimental setup time costs, especially with the semi-automated calibration tools provided as part of the package. The provisions of documentation, demo experiments, and performance benchmarks are all highly welcome and one would hope that with community interest and contributions, this could make BonVision very friendly to entry by new users.

      Given that one function of this manuscript is to describe the software in enough detail for users to judge whether it would be suited to their purposes, I feel that the writing should be fleshed out to be more precise and detailed about what the algorithms and functionalities are. This includes not shying away from stating limitations -- which as I see it, is just the reality of no tool being universal, but because of that is one of the most important information to be transmitted to potential users. My following comments point out various directions in which I think the manuscript can be improved.

      We thank the reviewer for this suggestion. We have added a major new section, “Supplementary Details”, where we have highlighted known limitations and available workarounds. We also added new rows in the Supplementary Table that make these limitations transparent (eg. web-based deployment).

      The biggest point of confusion for me was whether the 3D environment functionality of BonVision is the same as that provided by virtual spatial environment packages such as ViRMEn and gaming engines such as Unity. In the latter software, the virtual environment is specified by geometrically laying out the shape of the traversable world and locations of objects in it. The subject then essentially controls an avatar in this virtual world that can move and turn, and the software engine computes the effects of this movement (i.e. without any additional user code) then renders what the avatar should see onto a display device. I cannot figure out if this is how BonVision also works. My confusion can probably be cured by some additional description of what exactly the user has to do to specify the placement of 3D objects. From the text on cube mapping (lines 43 and onwards), I guessed that perhaps objects should be specified by their vectorial displacement from the subject, but I have very little confidence in my guess and also cannot locate this information either in the Methods or the software website. For Figure 5F it is mentioned that BonVision can be used to implement running down a virtual corridor for a mouse, so if some description can be provided of what the user has to do to implement this and what is done by the software package, that may address my confusion. If BonVision is indeed not a full 3D spatial engine, it would be important to mention these design/intent differences in the introduction as well as Supplementary Table 1.

      Thank you for prompting us to do this. BonVision does indeed essentially render the view of an avatar in a virtual world (or multiple views, of multiple avatars), without any additional coding required by the user. We have now included in the new “Supplementary Details” specific pathways to the construction and rendering of 3D scenes. We have avoided the use of the terminology ‘game-engine’ as it has a particular definition that most softwares do not satisfy.

      More generally, it would be useful to provide an overview of what the closed-loop rendering procedure is, perhaps including a Figure (different from Supplementary Figure 2, which seems to be regarding workflow but not the software platform structure). For example, I imagine that after the user-specified texture/object resources have been loaded, then some engine runs a continual loop where it somehow decides the current scene. As a user, I would want to know what this loop is and how I can control it. For example, can I induce changes in the presented stimuli as a function of time, whether this time-dependence has to be prespecified before runtime, or can I add some code that triggers events based on the specific history of what the subject has done in the experiment, and so forth. The ability to log experiment events, including any viewpoint changes in 3D scenes, is also critical, and most experimenters who intend to use it for neurophysiological recordings would want to know how the visual display information can be synchronized with their neurophysiological recording instrumental clocks. In sum, I would like to see a section added to the text to provide a high-level summary of how the package runs an experiment loop, explaining customizable vs. non-customizable (without directly editing the open source code) parts, and guide the user through the available experiment control and data logging options.

      We have now added a brief paragraph regarding the basic structure of a BonVision program, and how to ‘close the loop’ in the new “Supplementary Details”.

      Having some experience myself with the tedium (and human-dependent quality) of having to adjust either the experimental hardware or write custom software to calibrate display devices, I found the semi-automated calibration capabilities of BonVision to be a strong selling point. However I did not manage to really understand what these procedures are from the text and Figure 2C-F. In particular, I'm not sure what I have to do as a user to provide the information required by the calibration software (surely it is not the pieces of paper in Fig. 2C and 2E..?). If for example, the subject is a mouse head-fixed on a ball as in Figure 1E, do I have to somehow take a photo from the vantage of the mouse's head to provide to the system? What about the augmented reality rig where the subject is free to move? How can the calibration tool work with a single 2D snapshot of the rig when e.g. projection surfaces can be arbitrarily curved (e.g. toroidal and not spherical, or conical, or even more distorted for whatever reasons)? Do head-mounted displays require calibration, and if so how is this done? If the authors feel all this to be too technical to include in the main text, then the information can be provided in the Methods. I would however vote for this as being a major and important aspect of the software that should be given air time.

      We have a dedicated webpage going through the step-by-step protocol for the automated screen calibration. We now explicitly point to this page in the new Supplementary Details section.

      As the hardware-limited speed of BonVision is also an important feature, I wonder if the same ~2 frame latency holds also for the augmented reality rendering where the software has to run both pose tracking (DeepLabCut) as well as compute whole-scene changes before the next render. It would be beneficial to provide more information about which directions BonVision can be stressed before frame-dropping, which may perhaps be different for the different types of display options (2D vs. 3D, and the various display device types). Does the software maintain as strictly as possible the user-specified timing of events by dropping frames, or can it run into a situation where lags can accumulate? This type of technical information would seem critical to some experiments where timings of stimuli have to be carefully controlled, and regardless one would usually want to have the actual display times logged as previously mentioned. Some discussion of how a user might keep track of actual lags in their own setups would be appreciated.

      We now provide this as part of the Supplementary Details, specifically animation and timing lags.

      On the augmented reality mode, I am a little puzzled by the layout of Figure 3 and the attendant video, and I wonder if this is the best way to showcase this functionality. In particular, I'm not entirely sure what the main scene display is although it looks like some kind of software rendering — perhaps of what things might look like inside an actual rig looking in from the top? One way to make this Figure and Movie easier to grasp is to have the scene display be the different panels that would actually be rendered on each physical panel of the experiment box. The inset image of the rig should then have the projection turned on, so that the reader can judge what an actual experiment looks like. Right now it seems for some reason that the walls of the rig in the inset of the movie remain blank except for some lighting shadows. I don't know if this is intentional.

      Because we have had limited experimental capacity in this period, we only simulated a real-time augmented reality environment off-line, using pre-existing videos of animal behaviour. We think that the comment above reflects a misunderstanding of what the Figure and associated Supplementary Movie represents, and we realise that their legends were not clear enough. We have now made sure that these legends make clear that these are based on simulations (new legends for Figure 3 and Figure 3 - video supplement 1).

    1. Note: This rebuttal was posted by the corresponding author to Review Commons. Content has not been altered except for formatting.

      Learn more at Review Commons


      Reply to the reviewers

      Author responses are written in bold and are italicized. We have underlined the important points in the reviewer's comments. All responses have been read and authorized by all authors of this manuscript. Authors would like to thank the reviewers and the editor for their valuable time. We believe that the comments and suggestions from both reviewers will significantly improve SMorph and the manuscript.

      Reviewer #1 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      First of all, I want to apologize the authors and editor for my delay. Secondly, for clarity, I want to disclose that I am the author of the Fiji's 'Sholl Analysis' plugin, that the authors cite extensively (Ferreira et al, Nat Methods, 2014).

      In this study, Sethi et al introduce a software tool - SMorph - for bulk morphometric analysis of neurons and glia (astrocytes and microglia), based on the Sholl technique. The authors compare it to the state-of-the-art in a series of validation experiments (stab wound injury), to conclude that it is 1000 times faster that existing tools. Empowered by the tool, the authors show that chronic administration of a tricyclic antidepressant (DMI) leads to structural changes of astrocytes in the mouse hippocampus. The paper is well written, the description of the tool is clear, and the authors make all of the source code available, as well as most of the imagery analyzed in the manuscript. The latter on its own, makes me really appreciative of the authors work.

      We thank reviewer #1 for their careful reading of the manuscript and their comments.

      Major comments:

      A major strength of SMorph is that it leverages the Python ecosystem, which allow the authors take advantage of powerful python packages such as sklearn, without the need for external packages or tools. However, I have strong criticisms for the claims that are made in terms of speed and broad-applicability of the software, including PCA.

      Speed:

      The 1000x speed gains, assumes - for the most part -- <u>that the processing in Fiji cannot be automated</u>. This is false. I read the source code of SMorph, and with exception of the PCA analysis, all aspects of SMorph can be automated in Fiji, using any of Fiji's scripting languages to make direct calls to the Fiji and Sholl Analysis plugin APIs (See https://javadoc.scijava.org/) . Now, perhaps the authors do not have experience with ImageJ scripting, or perhaps we Fiji developers failed to provide clear tutorials and examples on how to do so. Or perhaps, there is something inherently cumbersome with Fiji scripting that makes this hard (e.g., there is a current limitation with the ImageJ2 version of 'Sholl Analysis' that does not make it macro recordable). It such limitations do exist, it is perfectly fine to mention them, but do contact us at https://forum.image.sc, if something is unclear. We do strive to make our work as re-usable as possible. Unfortunately our own research does not always allow us the time required to do so. Case in point, our scripting examples (e.g., https://github.com/tferr/ASA/blob/master/scripting-examples/3D_Analysis_ImageStack.py; https://github.com/tferr/ASA/blob/master/scripting-examples/3D_Analysis_ImageStack.py) are not well advertised. <u>That being said, I am still surprised that in their side-by-side comparisons the authors were not able to automate more the processing steps</u> (e.g., the ImageJ1 version of 'Sholl Analysis' remains fully functional and is macro recordable). If I misunderstood what was done, please provide the ImageJ macros you used. Also, I wanted to mention that i) semi-manual tracing with Simple Neurite Tracer (now "SNT"), can also be scripted (see https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.07.13.179325); and that ii) Fiji commands and plugins can also be called in native python using pyimagej (https://pypi.org/project/pyimagej/), see e.g., https://github.com/morphonets/SNT/tree/master/notebooks#snt-notebooks). Arguably, the fact that SMorph handles blob detection and skeletonization-based metrics directly is more advantageous from a user point of view. In Fiji, blob detection, skeletonization and Strahler analysis (https://imagej.net/Strahler_Analysis) of the skeleton are handled by different plugins. However, those are also fully scriptable, and interoperate well. The point that topographic skeletonization in Fiji can originate loops is valid, however the authors should know that such cycles can be detected and pruned programmatically using e.g., pixel intensities (see https://imagej.net/AnalyzeSkeleton.html#Loop_detection_and_pruning and the original publication (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20232465/)

      We completely agree with the reviewer’s assertion that most parts of the functionality of SMorph can be automated within imageJ as well, and in such comparison, the speed gains with SMorph will not be >1000X.

      However, automating the analysis in imageJ is beyond the scope of the present manuscript. In fact, imageJ analysis comparison was not a part of our original manuscript at all. Upon presubmission inquiry to one of the affiliate journals of Review Commons, we were specifically asked to include a side-by-side comparison with <u>“already available”</u> methods. So, we decided to use ImageJ as it is, and automation, if any, was limited to simple macros to run a series of commands sequentially on batches of images. Although it is true that this analysis could be done much more efficiently with additional scripting, it would not have met the definition of “already available” tools. The imageJ analysis was performed in a way an average biologist with no programming experience would perform it, since that group will find SMorph most useful. In no way do we intend to imply that imageJ analysis can’t be made more efficient and automated. Perhaps it was not clear from the way the text was framed in the initial version of the manuscript. We will add additional text to make this point clearer.

      On a side-note, in response to reviewer #2’s comments, we will perform the speed comparison on a per-image basis, so the speed gain (1080X) may change a little in the new comparison.

      Broad applicability:

      In our work, we made a significant effort to ensure that automated Sholl could be performed on any cell type: e.g., By supporting 2D and 3D images, by allowing repeated measures at each sampled distance, and by improving curve fitting. For linear profiles, we implemented the ability to perform <u>polynomial fits of arbitrary degree, and implemented heuristics for 'best degree' determination</u>. For normalized profiles, we implemented several normalizers, and alternatives for determining regression coefficients. We did not tackle segmentation of images directly (we did provide some accompanying scripts to aid users, see e.g. https://imagej.net/BAR) because in our case that is handled directly by ImageJ and Fiji's large collection of plugins. However, <u>in SMorph, several of these parameters are hard-wired in the code</u>. They may be suitable to the analyzed images, but they can be hardly generalized to other datasets. In detail: In terms of segmentation, SMorph is restricted to 2D images, scales data to a fixed 98 percentile, and uses a fixed auto-threshold method (Otsu). These settings are tethered to the authors imagery. They will give ill results for someone else using a different imaging setup, or staining method. In terms of curve fitting, the polynomial regression seems to be fixed at a 3rd order polynomial, which will not be suitable to different cell types (not even to all cells of 'radial morphology').

      We have indeed hard-coded the parameters that the reviewer mentions, and we agree that we can perhaps give all options to the end-users to choose from. The decision was made to hard-code the parameters so that SMorph becomes very easy and minimalistic to use for the end-users. But the reviewer is right to point out that this may compromise the broad applicability and accuracy. We will update the code in the revised version of the manuscript to give the users control over choosing these parameters.

      PCA:

      <u>The idea of making PCA analysis of Sholl-based morphometry accessible to a broader user base has merit and is welcomed</u>. However, it has to be done carefully in a <u>self-critic manner as opposed to a black-box solution</u>. E.g., in the text it is mentioned that 2 principal components are used, in the tutorial notebook, 3. <u>Why not provide intuitive scree plots that empower users with the ability to criticize choice?</u> Also, it would be useful for users to understand which metrics correlate with each other, and their variable weights.

      Reviewer #1’s suggestions would indeed make the PCA analysis more useful to the users. In the revised version of the code, we will provide additional data/plots to the user for making an informed choice of the significant principal components e.g. the elbow method, Ogive or Pareto plots, variable weights of different features in the principal components and correlation/covariance matrices.

      When we showcased the utility of PCA to distinguish closely related morphology groups (as in Type-1 and Type-2 PV neurons), we had been unable to base the distinction on individual metrics, at least not in a robust manner (see Fig. S4 in Ferreira et al, 2014). <u>A minor conundrum of the paper, is that it does not directly highlight the advantages of "analyzes in a multidimensional space"</u>. The differences between groups in the stab wound and DMI assays are such, that PCA is hardly needed: I.e., the differences depicted Fig2F,G are already significant, and already convey changes in "size and branch complexity" (as per PC1). The same argument applies to Fig. 5. The paper would profit from having this discussed.

      PCA data indeed is not required to make any of the inferences we make in the paper and is superfluous. However, as mentioned in the discussion section of this manuscript, the low-dimensional PCA data can be used in future for other applications, e.g to cluster the astrocytes into morphometrically-defined subpopulations. SMorph can be further developed to perform real-time classification of these cells into morphometric clusters, which will allow the researchers to investigate clusters-specific gene expression, electrophysiology etc. Preliminary results from our lab do suggest that such clusters are differentially altered by stress and antidepressant treatments. However, these results are preliminary and are a part of a long-term future study. The data is really premature to publish at this stage, since it will require a lot of experimentation to show that these astrocyte subpopulations are indeed physiologically and functionally different. Nevertheless, we think that the utility of SMorph for such analyses may help others to come up with additional innovative ways to use the PCA data. Hence, we do believe that the community will benefit from the current release of SMorph having PCA. PCA data was shown in the figures just to demonstrate the functionality of SMorph. We will add additional text to make these points clearer.

      Other:

      • All metrics and parameters should be expressed in physical units (e.g.," radii increasing by 3 pixels", axes in Figure 2, 3, 5, S2) so that readers can directly interpret them.

      In the revised manuscript, we will convert all units into actual physical distances.

      We thank the reviewer for suggesting this paper. We will include this in the discussion of the manuscript.

      Minor comments:

      • Usage of RGB images (8-bit per channel) seems hardly justifiable. Aren't you loosing dynamic range of GFAP signal?

      We agree that we could have captured the images at a higher dynamic range. However, for the changes we observe between treatment groups using GFAP immunoreactivity signal as presented in the manuscript, we do not see an advantage of using higher dynamic range. However, as the reviewer rightly pointed out, under certain conditions, imaging using a higher dynamic range may help and hence, we will include this recommendation in the materials and methods section.

      • Please explain how MaxAbsScaler "prevents sub-optimal results"

      Since morphometric features extracted from cell images either have different units or are scalar, we had to perform normalization before PCA. We will add further explanation in the methods section of the manuscript.

      • The fact that automated batch processing can stall on a single bad 'contrast ratio' image seems rather cumbersome to deal with

      This problem has been resolved in the current version of SMorph, which will be uploaded with the revised version of the manuscript.

      We will add a GPLv3 license

      • "mounted on stereotax" should be "mounted on a stereotaxis device"?

      We will make this change

      • Ensure Schoenen is capitalized

      We will make this change

      Reviewer #1 (Significance):

      <u>I find the Desipramine results interesting</u>. However, given the existing claims that DMI can modulate LTP, I regret that the authors did not look at <u>structural modifications in hippocampal neurons</u> (e.g., by performing the experiments in Thy1-M-eGFP animals). I understand, that doing so at this point would be a large undertaking.

      Another manuscript from our lab1, as well as work from other labs have shown that stress causes significant degenerative changes in hippocampal astrocytes2,3. In the light of these observations, we do believe that our observation of chronic antidepressant treatment inducing structural plasticity in astrocytes is significant. Structural alterations in neurons after DMI treatment are of interest. But in our experience, we have not seen gross morphological (dendritic arborization) changes in hippocampal neurons as a result of antidepressant drug treatments. Such changes are restricted to spine morphology and axonal varicosities, which is beyond the capabilities of SMorph.

      Reviewer #2 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity):

      This paper addresses the challenge of automatic Sholl analysis of large dataset of multiple cell types such as neurons, astrocytes and microglia. <u>The developed approach should improve the speed of morphology analysis compared to the state of the art without compromising on the accuracy</u>. The authors present an interesting application of their tool to the morphological analysis of astrocytes following chronic antidepressant treatment. The paper is well written, and the tool presented could be <u>beneficial for different applications and context</u>. However, some major aspects should be addressed by the author concerning the description of the algorithms used and the quantification of the results.

      We thank reviewer #2 for their careful reading of the paper and their comments.

      Major comments/Questions:

      1. In the Results and/or Methods sections, the author should better describe how their approach is different from state-of-the-art approaches in terms of algorithms used and how these difference impacts on the speed and accuracy of the analysis.

      We will add these descriptions in the methods section in response to this comment as well as some comments from reviewer #1.

      1. Imaging was performed on a Zeiss LSM 880 airyscan confocal microscope. Is this method robust to other types of imaging techniques, other microscopes, variable levels of signal-to-noise? This should be tested and quantified.

      We will demonstrate the results obtained from images taken using different microscopes and imaging techniques, and quantify the outcome.

      1. Manual cropping of the cells with ImageJ was used. However, in the methods section, the authors mention that other machine learning tools could be used for this task. Why were these tools not implemented in this paper in order to propose a fully automated analysis approach in combination with SMorph?

      We have tried both the machine learning tools cited in this paper (one for DAB images and other for confocal images). However, in our experience, we do not get robust performance from these tools with our datasets, and these tools will perhaps need more optimization for broad applicability. We are developing an auto-cropping tool in-house, but that is beyond the scope of the current study. Another point is that these tools are tailor-made for astrocytes, and their integration into SMorph will restrict its applicability to just one cell type.

      1. In the methods section you state that cropped cells need to have a good contrast ratio for automated batch processing. Could you define what a good contrast ratio is and characterize the performance of your approach for different contrast ratio?

      In the revised manuscript, we will compare the images taken from multiple microscopes and quantify the outcome. We will change the text accordingly. As such, the comment on rejected cells referred to really poor quality images. In the revised manuscript, we will make specific recommendations on imaging parameters so that this should not be an issue at all.

      1. It is mentioned that the analysis routine can be interupted by a cell with lower contrast ratio. This is a major drawback of the approach (but I think that it could be easily improved), as such interruptions may not be= practicable for many applications that need to rely on automated processing.

      We have already rectified this problem and the updated version of SMorph will be uploaded with the revised manuscript.

      1. Also, you should precise how the contrast ratio should be enhanced without modifying raw data in order to be processed with your approach. You suggest removing cells with lower contrast ratio from the analysis, but can this impact on the findings especially if some treatments impact on the detected fluorescence signal? Can you propose ways to improve the robustness of your approach to variable signal ratios?

      It is indeed possible that removing cells from analysis, may in certain cases, affect the results. To rectify this, we are testing the method on images obtained from different microscopes and under different imaging conditions. From these analyses, we will deduce minimum recommendations for imaging conditions so that images don’t have to be edited/altogether removed from analysis for the software to work. In the materials and methods section, we will add these recommendations to the users on the optimal range of imaging parameters. This way, rejection/modification of images should not be an issue.

      1. In the Results section, you describe the time necessary to perform different analysis. However, giving a total time in hours is not very informative as this will likely vary a lot depending on the size of the dataset, complexity of the images, etc. You should compare the average time per image for both methods and types of analysis.

      We compared the total time required for the entire dataset, since SMorph is meant for batch-processing all the images at once. However, we can change the comparisons to time taken per image. We can divide the total time taken by SMorph by the number of images analysed. However, in our opinion, the time taken to initiate SMorph will make these comparisons inaccurate.

      1. You state that for the number of branch point, the lower value of the measured slope when comparing SMorph and ImageJ was related to a constant overestimation of this parameter with ImageJ. How was this quantified? I think you should stress out more the comparison of both approaches with the manually annotated dataset.

      In the revised version of this manuscript, we will include some examples of skeletonized images that overestimate the number of forks. We have observed this to be a recurring problem with the skeletonization tools we have tried in imageJ. This can be rectified in imageJ itself as pointed out by reviewer #1. However, that’s beyond the scope of the present study and will not fit the definition of comparison with “already available” methods.

      1. How can you explain the differences in the 2D-projected Area, total skeleton length and convex hull between SMorph and ImageJ, which all show a slope around 0.83? Can you quantify the performance of both methods by comparing them with your manually annotated dataset?

      In the revised version, we will include the correlation data between completely manual and SMorph comparisons. We will discuss these comparisons further in the manuscript and make specific conclusions about the accuracy.

      1. In the introduction and discussion, you mention that you present a method that works on neurons, astrocytes and microglia. However, I don't see in the paper the comparison between the accuracy for all these cell types as you seem to have analyzed only the morphology of astrocytes.

      In the revised manuscript, we will include the Sholl analysis comparison (imageJ vs SMorph) from images of neurons and microglia.

      1. You mention that your method is quite sensitive to variation in contrast ratio. You should quantify the contrast ratio throughout the experiments and ensure that this is not biasing the SMorph analysis for some of the treatments.

      We thank both reviewers for highlighting this issue in the initial version of SMorph. As mentioned in our response to point #6, we will perform additional analyses to make specific recommendations to the end users regarding imaging parameters so that SMorph can work on images as they are. As such, our comments on contrast ratio applied only to very poor quality images. If images are acquired conforming to the imaging parameters we will recommend in the revised manuscript, images can be analysed without any issues.

      Minor Points :

      1. Precise the exact inclusion and exclusion criteria for Soma detection and rephrase: "The high-intensity blobs were detected as a position of soma..." & "Boundary blobs coming from adjacent cells...".

      We will add a complete explanation of blob detection and the exclusion criterion in the methods section.

      1. Throughout the text, make sure to always refer to an analysis time per image or per cell and not only include absolute duration values without reference to the task at hand (e.g. in the discussion : SMorph took 40 second to complete the analysis... please state to which analysis you are exactly referring to and if applicable if it varies from cell to cell).

      We will change all comparisons to time taken per cell. Text will be added to mention which datasets were used when any claims of speed are made.

      1. When you state in the discussion that "Although some methods do allow Sholl analysis without manual neurite tracing, they still work on one cell at a time", please precise if the only aspect that is missing from this type of analysis is batch processing (looping through the data) or if there is a major obstacle to automate this technique. This is important a SMorph does proceed with the analysis one cell at a time but can work in a loop/batch.

      We will elaborate further on our assertion regarding the challenges of using imageJ plugins for sholl analysis in large batches of cells.

      Reviewer #2 (Significance):

      <u>This tool could very useful to researchers in the field of cellular neuroscience working with high-throughput analysis of microscopy data</u>. The authors show some interesting improvements over existing methods. An improved quantitative characterization of the robustness of their approach would be of great importance to ensure the significance of this tool to a large community of researchers using different types of microscopes or studying different cell types.

      My expertise is in the field of optical microscopy and high-throughput (automated) image analysis for neuroscience. My expertise to evaluate the biological findings in this study is very limited.

      We thank reviewer #2 for their careful reading of the manuscript and their insightful comments. Growing evidence (clinical and preclinical) shows a significant reduction in astrocyte density in key limbic brain regions as a result of depression. We believe that the structural plasticity induced by chronic antidepressant treatment, as demonstrated in this manuscript, is an interesting novel plasticity mechanism that can negate deleterious effects of stress on astrocytes.

      The improvements suggested by both reviewers will help us to greatly improve SMorph in the revised version of this manuscript.

      References:

      1. Virmani, G., D’almeida, P., Nandi, A. & Marathe, S. Subfield-specific Effects of Chronic Mild Unpredictable Stress on Hippocampal Astrocytes. doi:10.1101/2020.02.07.938472.

      2. Czéh, B., Simon, M., Schmelting, B., Hiemke, C. & Fuchs, E. Astroglial plasticity in the hippocampus is affected by chronic psychosocial stress and concomitant fluoxetine treatment. Neuropsychopharmacology 31, 1616–1626 (2006).

      3. Musholt, K. et al. Neonatal separation stress reduces glial fibrillary acidic protein- and S100beta-immunoreactive astrocytes in the rat medial precentral cortex. Dev. Neurobiol. 69, 203–211 (2009).

    1. Note: This rebuttal was posted by the corresponding author to Review Commons. Content has not been altered except for formatting.

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      Reply to the reviewers

      Overall, we were pleased that the reviewers found our study carefully designed and interesting. We have addressed their comments below.

      Reviewer #1 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity)

      The manuscript by Kern, et al., demonstrates that phagocytosis in macrophages is regulated in part by the intermolecular distance of phagocytosis-promoting receptors engaging phagocytic targets. Cells expressing chimeric receptors containing cytosolic domains of Fc receptors (FcR) and defined ligand-binding DNA domains were used to drive phagocytosis of opsonized glass beads coated with complementary DNA ligands of defined spacing and number. These so-called origami ligands allowed manipulation of receptor spacing following engagement, which allowed the demonstration that tight spacing of ligands (7 nm or 3.5 nm) optimized signaling for phagocytosis. The study is carefully performed and convincing. I have a few technical concerns and minor suggestions.

      1. It is assumed that the origami preparations were entirely uniform. How much variation was there? Is that supported by TIRF microscopy of origami preparations? Was the TIRF microscopy calibrated for uniformity of fluorescence (ie., shade correction)?

      Our laboratory, Dong et al., has extensively characterized the origami uniformity and robustness of these exact pegboards. This paper was just posted on bioRxiv (Dong et. al, 2021). We have also cited this paper in our revised manuscript in reference to the characterization of the DNA origami (Line 117).

      We did not use any shade correction. Instead we only collected data from a central ROI in our TIRF field. To check for uniformity of illumination, we plotted the origami pegboard fluorescent intensity along the x and y axis. We observed very modest drop off in signal - the average signal intensity of origamis within 100 pixels of the edge is 76 ± 6% the intensity of origamis in a 100 pixel square in the center of the ROI. Fitting this data with a Gaussian model resulted in very poor R values. While this may account for some of the variation in signal intensity at individual points, we expect the normalized averages of each condition to be unaffected. We have amended the methods to describe this strategy (Lines 851-854).

      [[images cannot be shown]]

      2. Likewise, how much variation was there in the expression of the chimeric receptors? Large variation in receptor numbers per cell could significantly alter the quantitative studies. Aside from the flow sorting for cells expressing two different molecules, how were cells selected for analysis?

      We thank the reviewer for bringing up this point. We confirmed comparable receptor expression levels at the cell cortex of the DNA CAR-𝛾 and the DNA CAR-adhesion used throughout the paper. We also have confirmed that receptor levels at the cell cortex were similar for the large DNA CAR constructs used in Figure 6C-D. This data is now included in Figures S5 and S7. We have also altered the text to include this (lines 169-172):

      Expression of the various DNA CARs at the cell cortex was comparable, and engulfment of beads functionalized with both the 4T and the 4S origami platforms was dependent on the Fc__𝛾R signaling domain (Figure S5).

      When quantifying bead engulfment, cells were selected for analysis based on a threshold of GFP fluorescence, which was held constant throughout analysis for each individual experiment. We have amended the “Quantification of engulfment” methods section to convey this (lines 921-923).

      3. The scale of the origami relative to the cells is difficult to discern in Figures 2C and D. Additional text would be helpful to indicate, for example, that the spots on the Fig. 2D inset indicate entire origami rather than ligand spots on individual origami particles.

      Thank you for pointing this out, we see how the legend was unclear and have corrected it (lines 453-454), including specifically noting “Each diffraction limited magenta spot represents an origami pegboard.” We have also outlined the cell boundary in yellow to make the cell size more clear.

      4. Figure 5 legend, line 482: How was macrophage membrane visualized for these measurements?

      We have added the following clarification (line 535-536): “The macrophage membrane was visualized using the DNA CAR__𝛾, which was present throughout the cell cortex.”

      5. line 265: "our data suggest that there may be a local density-dependent trigger for receptor phosphorylation and downstream signaling". This threshold-dependent trigger response was also indicated in the study of Zhang, et al. 2010. PNAS.

      The Zhang et al. study was influential in our study design, and we wish to give the appropriate credit. Zhang et al. found that a sufficient amount of IgG is necessary to activate late (but not early) steps in the phagocytic signaling pathway. In contrast, our study addresses IgG concentration in small nanoclusters. We find that this nanoscale density affects receptor phosphorylation. Thus, we think these two studies are distinct and complementary.

      Lines 283-287 now read:

      While this model has largely fallen out of favor, more recent studies have found that a critical IgG threshold is needed to activate the final stages of phagocytosis (Zhang et al., 2010). Our data suggest that there may also be a nanoscale density-dependent trigger for receptor phosphorylation and downstream signaling.

      6. line 55: Rephrase, “we found that a minimum threshold of 8 ligands per cluster maximized FcgR-driven engulfment.” It is difficult to picture how a minimum threshold maximizes something.

      We now state “we found that 8 or more ligands per cluster maximized FcgR-driven engulfment.”

      7. line 184: Rephrase, "we created... pegboards with very high-affinity DNA ligands that are predicted not to dissociate on a time scale of >7 hr". Remove "not".

      Thank you for pointing this out, it is now correct.

      Reviewer #1 (Significance):

      This study provides a significant advance in understanding about the molecular mechanisms of signaling for particle ingestion by phagocytosis.


      Reviewer #2 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity):

      The manuscript on “Tight nanoscale clustering of Fcg-receptors using DNA origami promotes phagocytosis" studies how clustering and nanoscale spacing of ligand molecules for a chimeric Fcg-receptors influence the phagocytosis of functionalized silicon beads by macrophage cell lines. The basis of this study is the design of a chimeric Fc-receptor (DNA-CARg) comprising an extracellular SNAP-tag domain that can be loaded with single-stranded (ss) DNA, the transmembrane part of CD86 and the cytosolic part of the Fc-receptor g-chain containing an immunoreceptor tyrosine-based activation motif (ITAM) as well as a C-terminal green fluorescent protein (GFP). As control the authors used a similar designed DNA-CAR that is lacking the intracellular ITAM-containing FCg tail. The chosen target for this chimeric DNA-CAR, are silicon beads covered by a lipid bilayer that contains biotin-labelled lipids that, via Neutravidin, can be loaded with a biotinylated DNA origami pegboard displaying complimentary ss-DNA as ligand for the DNA-CAR. The DNA origami pegboard contains four ATTO647N fluorescence for visualization and the ssDNA ligand in different quantities and spacing.

      Using these principles, the authors study how ligand affinity, concentration and spacing influence the activation of the DNA-CARg and the engulfment of the loaded beads.

      The authors show that bead engulfment is increased between 2 till 8 ssDNA ligands on the pegboard. After this, ligand numbers do not play a role anymore in the engulfment. They then study the role of the ligand spacing using pegboards that either contain 4 single strand DNA ligands in close (7nm/3,5nm) proximity or a more spaced version using 21/17,5 nm or 35/38,5 nm. The authors find that the bead engulfment is maximally and positively affected by the close spacing of the ssDNA ligands. In their final experiments the authors vary the design of the DNA-CARs by tetramerization of the ITAM-containing Fcg-signaling subunit. In their discussion the authors mention different possibilities for the effect of spacing on the engulfment process.

      I think that, in general, this is an interesting study. However, it has some caveats and open issues that should be clarified before its publication.

      Major comments

      1. As a general comment, it is somewhat a pity that the authors did not use the endogenous FcR as a control. It would have been quite easy for the authors to place the SNAP-tag domain on the Fcg extracellular domain which would allow to do all their experiments in parallel, not only with the DNA-CAR, but also with a DNA-containing wild type receptor. Such a control would be important because, by using a CD86 transmembrane domain, the authors do not know whether the nanoscale localization of their chimeric receptors is reflecting that of the endogenous Fcg receptor.**

      We agree with the reviewer completely. We have repeated experiments shown in Figure 4A with a DNA-CAR containing the Fc𝛾 transmembrane domain instead of CD86 as the reviewer suggests. We also included a DNA-CAR version of the Fc𝛾R1 alpha chain, although this construct was not expressed as well as the others. These data are now included in Figure S5, and referenced in lines 167-168.

      2. An important issue that is discussed by the authors but not addressed in this manuscript is whether the different amount and spacing of the ligand is only impacting on signaling or also on the mechanical stress of the cells. Indeed, mechanical stress on the cytoskeleton arrangement could influence the engulfment process. For this, it would be very important to test that the different bead engulfment, for example, those shown in Fig. 4, is strictly dependent on signaling kinases. The authors should repeat the experiment of Fig. 4 a and b in the presence or absence of kinase inhibitors such as the Syk inhibitor R406 or the Src inhibitor PP2 to show whether the different phase of engulfment is dependent on the signaling function of these kinases. This crucial experiment is clearly missing from their study.

      We agree this is an interesting point. We find that ligand spacing affects receptor phosphorylation; however this does not preclude effects on downstream aspects of the signaling pathway. We will clarify this by adding the following comment to the manuscript (line 299-301):

      While our data pinpoints a role for ligand spacing in regulating receptor phosphorylation, it is possible that later steps in the phagocytic signaling pathway are also directly affected by ligand spacing.

      The DNA-CAR-adhesion in Figure 1 strongly suggests that intracellular signaling is essential for phagocytosis. We have now included additional controls using this construct as detailed in our response to point 3 below. Unfortunately, Src and Syk inhibitors or knockout abrogate Fc𝛾R mediated phagocytosis (for example, PMIDs 11698501, 9632805, 12176909, 15136586) and thus would eliminate phagocytosis in both the 4T and 4S conditions. This precludes analysis of downstream steps in the phagocytic signaling pathway.

      3. Another problem of this study is that the authors show in Fig. 1A the control DNA-CAR-adhesion but then hardly use it in their study. For example, the crucial experiments shown in Fig. 4 should be conducted in parallel with DNA-CAR-adhesion expressing macrophage cells. This study could provide another indication whether or not ITAM signaling is important for the engulfment process.

      We have added this control. It is now included in Figure S5 and S7. Figure 3D also shows that the DNA-CAR-adhesion combined with the 4T origami pegboards does not activate phagocytosis and we have amended the text to make this more clear (line 152).

      4. Another important aspect is how the concentration of the loaded origami pegboard is influencing the engulfment process. In particular, it would be interesting to show the padlocks with different spacings such as the 4T closed spacing versus 4s large spacing show a different dependency on the concentration of this padlock loading on the beads. This would be another important experiment to add to their study.**

      We agree that this is an interesting question. We suspect that at a very high origami density, 4S signaling would improve, and potentially approach the 4T. However, we are currently coating the beads in saturating levels of origami pegboards. Thus we cannot increase origami pegboard density and address this directly.

      Minor comments:

      1. The definition of the ITAM is Immunoreceptor Tyrosine-based Activation Motif and not "Immune Tyrosine Activation Motif" as stated by the authors.

      We have corrected this.

      2. The authors discuss that it is the segregation of the inhibitory phosphatase CD45 from the clustered Fc receptors is the major mechanism explaining their finding that 4T closed spacing is more effective than 4s large spacing. With the event of the CRISPR/Cas9 technology it is trivial to delete the CD45 gene in the genome of the RAW264.7 macrophage cell line used in this study and I am puzzled why they author are not conducting such a simple but for their study very important experiment (it takes only 1-2 month to get the results).

      This experiment may be informative but we have two concerns about its feasibility. First, CD45 is a phosphatase with many different roles in macrophage biology, including activating Src family kinases by dephosphorylating inhibitory phosphorylation sites (PMID 8175795, 18249142, 12414720). Second, CD45 is not the only bulky phosphatase segregated from receptor nanoclusters. For example, CD148 is also excluded from the phagocytic synapse (PMID 21525931). CD45 and CD148 double knockout macrophages show hyperphosphorylation of the inhibitory tyrosine on Src family kinases, severe inhibition of phagocytosis, and an overall decrease in tyrosine phosphorylation (PMID 18249142). CD45 knockout alone showed mild phenotypes in macrophages. We anticipate that knocking out CD45 alone would have little effect, and knocking out both of these phosphatases would preclude analysis of phagocytosis. Because of our feasibility concerns and the lengthy timeline for this experiment, we believe this is outside of the scope of our study.

      In our discussion, we simplistically described our possible models in terms of CD45 exclusion, as the mechanisms of CD45 exclusion have been well characterized. This was an error and we have amended our discussion to read (lines 335-343):

      As an alternative model, a denser cluster of ligated receptors may enhance the steric exclusion of the bulky transmembrane proteins like the phosphatases CD45 and CD148 (Bakalar et al., 2018; Goodridge et al., 2012; Zhu, Brdicka, Katsumoto, Lin, & Weiss, 2008).

      Reviewer #2 (Significance):

      The innovative part of this study is the combination of SNAP-tag attached, chimeric Fc-receptor with the DNA origami pegboard technology to address important open question on receptor function.

      Referees cross-commenting

      I find most of my three reviewing colleagues reasonable I also agrée to Reviewer #1 comments 2

      Likewise, how much variation was there in the expression of the chimeric receptors?

      Large variation in receptor numbers per cell could significantly alter the quantitative studies. Aside from the flow sorting for cells expressing two different molecules, how were cells selected for analysis?

      But I want to add it is not only the amount of receptors but ils the nanoscale location that is key to receptor function

      We have ensured that all receptors are trafficked to the cell surface. We have also measured their intensity at the cell cortex as discussed in response to Reviewer 1.

      Reviewer #3 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity):

      This is a very nicely done synthetic biology/biophysics study on the effect of ligands spacing on phagocytosis. They use a DNA based recognition system that the group has previously use to investigate T cell signaling, but express the SNAP tag linked transmembrane receptor in a macrophage cell line and present the ligands using DNA origami mats to control the number and spacing of complementary ligands that are designed to be in the typical range for low or high affinity FcR, a receptor that can trigger phagocytosis. The study offers some very nice quantitative data sets that will be of immediate interest to groups working in this area and, in the future, for design of synthetic receptors for immunotherapy applications. Other groups are working on similar platform for TCR. I don't feel there is any need for more experiments, but I have some questions and suggestions. Answering and considering these could clarify the new biological knowledge gained.

      We thank the reviewer for their support of our manuscript. Given the reviewer’s statement that no new experiments are required, we have answered their questions to the best of our ability given the current data. Should the editor decide that any of these topics require experimental data to enhance the significance of the paper, we are happy to discuss new experiments.

      Reviewer #3 (Significance):

      I think the significance would be increased by addressing these questions, that would help understand how the synthesis system described related to other system directed as similar questions and more natural settings.

      1.The densities of the freely mobile DNA ligands required to trigger phagocytosis is quite high. Was the length of the DNA duplexes optimized? The entire complex for both the intermediate and high affinity duplexes seems quite short, perhaps <10 nm. Might the stimulation be more efficient if a short stretch of DS DNA is added to increase the length to 12-13 nm?

      The extracellular domain of the DNA-CAR (SNAP tag and ssDNA strand) are approximately 10 nm (PMID 28340336). The biotinylated ligand ssDNA is attached to the bilayer via neutravidin, resulting in a predicted 14 nm intermembrane spacing. The endogenous IgG FcR complex is 11.5 nm. Bakalar et al (PMID 29958103) tested the effect of antigen height on phagocytosis and found that the shortest intermembrane distance tested (approximately 15 nm) was the most effective. As the reviewer notes, the optimal distance between macrophage and target may be larger than our DNA-CAR. However we think the intermembrane spacing in our system is within the biologically relevant range.

      We saw robust phagocytosis at 300 molecules/micron of ssDNA, which is similar to the IgG density used on supported lipid bilayer-coated beads in other phagocytosis studies (PMID 29958103, 32768386). As the reviewer noticed, this is significantly higher than ligand density necessary to activate T cells (PMID 28340336). We have added a comment on ligand density to lines 96-97.

      2. Are the origami mats generally laterally mobile on the bilayers. If so, what is the diffusion coefficient? Can one detect the mats accumulating in the initial interface between the bead and cell, particularly in cased where there is no phagocytosis? Would immobility of the mats make them more efficient at mediating phagocytosis compared to the monodispersed ligands, which I assume are highly mobile and might even be "slippery".

      We have confirmed that our bead protocol generally produces mobile bilayers, where his-tagged proteins can freely diffuse to the cell-bead interface (see accumulation of a his-tagged FRB binding to a transmembrane FKBP receptor at the cell-bead synapse below). We can qualitatively say that the origamis appear mobile on a planar lipid bilayer (see Dong et. al 2021 and images below). Directly measuring the diffusion coefficient on the beads is extremely difficult because the beads themselves are mobile (both diffusing and rotating), and cannot be imaged via TIRF. We do not see much accumulation of the origami at cell-bead synapses. This could reflect lower mobility of the origamis, or could be because the relative enrichment of origamis is difficult to detect over the signal from unligated origamis.

      Overall, we expect the origami pegboards (tethered by 12 neutravidins) are less mobile than single strand DNA (tethered by a single neutravidin, supported by qualitative images below). We are uncertain whether this promotes phagocytosis. At least one study suggests that increased IgG mobility promotes phagocytosis (PMID 25771017). However, the zipper model would suggest that tethered ligands may provide a better foothold for the macrophage as it zippers the phagosome closed (PMID 14732161). Hypothetically, ligand mobility could affect signaling in two ways - first by promoting nanocluster formation, and second by serving as a stable platform for signaling as the phagosome closes. Since our system has pre-formed nanoclusters, the effect of ligand mobility may be quite different than in the endogenous setting.

      [[image cannot be shown]]

      In the above images, a 10xHis-FRB labeled with AlexaFluor647 was conjugated to Ni-chelating lipids in the bead supported lipid bilayer. The macrophages express a synthetic receptor containing an extracellular FKBP and an intracellular GFP. Upon addition of rapamycin, FRB and FKBP form a high affinity dimer, and FRB accumulates at the bead-macrophage contact sites.

      [[image cannot be shown]]

      In the above images, single molecules were imaged for 3 sec. The tracks of each molecule are depicted by lines, colored to distinguish between individual molecules. The scale bar represents 5 microns in both panels.

      3. Breaking down the analysis into initiation and completion is interesting. When using the non-signalling adhesion constructs, would they get to the initiation stage or would that attachment be less extensive than the initiation phase.

      This is an interesting question. While we did not include the DNA-CAR-adhesion in our kinetic experiments, we have now quantified the frequency of cups that would match our ‘initiation’ criteria in 3 representative data sets where macrophages were fixed after 45 minutes of interaction with origami pegboard-coated beads. We found that an average of 16/125 of 4T beads touching DNA-CAR-adhesion macrophages met the ‘initiation’ criteria and an average of 2/125 were eaten (14% total). In comparison, we examined 4T beads touching DNA CAR𝛾 macrophages and found that on average 23/125 met the ‘initiation’ criteria, and 45/125 were already engulfed (54%). This suggests that the DNA-CAR-adhesion alone may induce enough interaction to meet our initiation criteria, but without active signaling from the FcR this extensive interaction is rare. We have added this data in a new Figure S6 and commented on this in lines 213-215.

      4. It would be interesting to put these results in perspective of earier work on spacing with planar nanoarrays, although these can't be applied to beads. For integrin mediated adhesion there was a very distinct threshold for RGD ligand spacing that could be related to the size of some integrin-cytoskeletal linkers (PMID: 15067875). On the other hand, T cell activation seemed more continuous with changes in spacing over a wide range with no discrete threshold (PMID: 24117051, 24125583) unless the spacing was increased to allow access to CD45, in which case a more discrete threshold was generated (PMID: 29713075). The results here for phagocytosis with the very small ligands that would likely exclude CD45 seems to be more of a continuum without a discrete threshold, although high densities of ligand are needed. This issue of continuous sensing vs sharp threshold is biologically interesting so would be good assess this by as consistent standards are possible across systems.**

      We agree that this is an interesting body of literature worth adding to our discussion. We have added a paragraph that puts our study in the context of prior work on related systems, including these nanolithography studies (Line 364-382):

      How does the spacing requirements for Fc__𝛾R nanoclusters compare to other signaling systems? Engineered multivalent Fc oligomers revealed that IgE ligand geometry alters Fcε receptor signaling in mast cells (Sil, Lee, Luo, Holowka, & Baird, 2007). DNA origami nanoparticles and planar nanolithography arrays have previously examined optimal inter-ligand distance for the T cell receptor, B cell receptor, NK cell receptor CD16, death receptor Fas, and integrins (Arnold et al., 2004; Berger et al., 2020; Cai et al., 2018; Deeg et al., 2013; Delcassian et al., 2013; Dong et al., 2021; Veneziano et al., 2020). Some systems, like integrin-mediated cell adhesion, appear to have very discrete threshold requirements for ligand spacing while others, like T cell activation, appear to continuously improve with reduced intermolecular spacing (Arnold et al., 2004; Cai et al., 2018). Our system may be more similar to the continuous improvement observed in T cell activation, as our most spaced ligands (36.5 nm) are capable of activating some phagocytosis, albeit not as potently as the 4T. Interestingly, as the intermembrane distance between T cell and target increases, the requirement for tight ligand spacing becomes more stringent (Cai et al., 2018). This suggests that IgG bound to tall antigens may be more dependent on tight nanocluster spacing than short antigens. Planar arrays have also been used to vary inter-cluster spacing, in addition to inter-ligand spacing (Cai et al., 2018; Freeman et al., 2016). Examining the optimal inter-cluster spacing during phagosome closure may be an interesting direction for future studies.


      Additional experiments performed in revision

      In addition to these reviewer comments, we have added additional controls validating the DNA-CAR-4x𝛾 used in Figure 6c,d. We compared the DNA-CAR-4x𝛾 to versions of the DNA-CAR-1x𝛾-3x𝛥ITAM construct with the functional ITAM in the second and fourth positions (see the schematics now included Figure S7). We found that four individual receptors with a single ITAM each were able to induce phagocytosis regardless of which position the ITAM was in. However the DNA-CAR-4x𝛾 construct, which also contains 4 ITAMs, was not. This further validates the experiment presented in 6c,d. We also fixed minor errors we discovered in the presentation of data for Figures 1C and S1A.

    1. Reviewer #2 (Public Review):

      In this manuscript, the authors set out to provide a comprehensive meta-analysis of associations between masculinized phenotypes and fitness-relevant outcomes (mating, reproduction, and offspring viability), so as to assess the current state of evidence for hypotheses of sexual selection on human males across high- and low-fertility populations. I enjoyed reading this manuscript, which is well organized and very clearly written. I also appreciated the depth of the analyses reported by the authors. Overall, I am pleased with this research and think it will make a valuable contribution to the literature on human sexual selection and masculinity more generally.

      I do not have any major concerns regarding the methods and results. However, I think the paper would greatly benefit from introducing greater nuance into the theoretical framework and conclusions, which I believe will meaningfully change some of the takeaways presented in the discussion. I have provided references throughout to aid the authors in this effort during revision, though they should certainly not feel compelled to cite each reference provided. I would also appreciate that the authors provide some estimates of (a priori) statistical power when they make claims regarding statistical power in the interpretation of results.

      Major comments:

      The authors have done a very nice job of efficiently introducing the reader to mainstream hypotheses regarding sexual selection on human male phenotypes, particularly those emphasized within evolutionary psychology. I recognize that the authors' primary contribution is empirical and that they have in large part followed the typical presentation of these hypotheses in previous literature. However, given that this paper may be an important point of reference for future research in this area, I would like to encourage the authors to address some important nuances in greater detail that are frequently overlooked.

      (i) The authors argue that "Sexual selection is commonly argued to have acted more strongly on male traits as a consequence of greater variance in males' reproductive output (3) and male-biased operational sex ratio, i.e. a surplus of reproductively available males relative to fertile females (e.g. 4)". This argument then leads to a discussion of why formidability as indexed by strength and other potential indicators of physical dominance are expected to be under selection in males. However, recent work in sexual selection theory has begun to emphasize the importance of the co-evolution of male offspring care and reproductive competition, leading in many cases to opposite predictions compared to classical models of OSR. In particular, more recent models predict that males should often increase rather than decrease offspring care relative to mating effort when men are in relative abundance. These predictions have received support in recent empirical studies in human populations, and help to explain otherwise puzzling patterns such as e.g. the association between male-biased sex ratios and monogamy + low reproductive skew across many taxa. Please see

      Kokko, H., & Jennions, M. D. (2008). Parental investment, sexual selection and sex ratios. Journal of evolutionary biology, 21(4), 919-948. Schacht, R., Rauch, K. L., & Mulder, M. B. (2014). Too many men: the violence problem?. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 29(4), 214-222. Schacht, R., & Borgerhoff Mulder, M. (2015). Sex ratio effects on reproductive strategies in humans. Royal Society open science, 2(1), 140402.

      Considering these models, one might expect that a variety of behavioral and psychological phenotypes would be under male-specific sexual selection that are simply not considered in the present study. One might also expect that appropriate proxies of male fitness will also vary across populations, independently of the presence/absence of contraception. The authors argue that they selected mating-based proxies of reproductive behaviors and attitudes under the assumption that "preferences for casual sex, number of sexual partners, and age at first sexual intercourse (earlier sexual activity allows for a greater lifetime number of sexual partners)... correlated with reproductive success in men under ancestral conditions". Yet, in large-scale industrialized societies that have undergone a demographic transition, high status males are often observed to invest more in offspring care and the production of intergenerationally transferable wealth at the expense of greater fertility, which may be an adaptive response to shifting demands in relation to competition for status.

      Shenk, M. K., Kaplan, H. S., & Hooper, P. L. (2016). Status competition, inequality, and fertility: implications for the demographic transition. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 371(1692), 20150150.

      In general, long-run fitness may often not map so simply onto promiscuous sexual behavior in such a straightforward way. Measures such as age at first intercourse may also be confounded with environmental heterogeneity among participants, which could instead indicate environmentally induced plasticity within individuals' lifetimes toward a faster pace of life.

      (ii) Related to this point, the authors discussion of the relationship between testosterone and male phenotypes is somewhat over-simplified, although again in keeping with much of the previous literature in evolutionary psychology. While it was long emphasized that testosterone is a mechanism of aggression per se, recent work has shown that testosterone is better understood as a mechanism for increasing status-seeking, competitive behavior, which can greatly vary in form across socioecological contexts.

      Eisenegger, C., Haushofer, J., & Fehr, E. (2011). The role of testosterone in social interaction. Trends in cognitive sciences, 15(6), 263-271.

      Unfortunately, most of the fWHR and 2D:4D literature has ignored these findings and continues to focus solely on aggression even in WEIRD student samples, where we can be certain that aggression is generally not a viable strategy for attaining and maintaining social status. To my knowledge, only a few studies have explicitly tested this more nuanced hypothesis regarding associations between masculinized phenotypes and differing forms of status-seeking behavior, both of which have found support for ecologically contingent effects in regards to fWHR. Martin et al. (2019) predicted and found support in bonobos for higher fWHR predicting higher scores on an affiliative measure of social rank among both males and females, consistent with the importance of relationship strength and social network centrality for competitive advantage among bonobos. Similarly, Hahn et al. (2017) found that fWHR in human males consistently predicts prosocial behavior and leadership in large-scale institutions. This is consistent with the fact that leadership traits, rather than aggression and formidability per se, are often important predictors of status in human societies (and in contexts of relatively higher SES within those societies).

      Hahn, T., Winter, N. R., Anderl, C., Notebaert, K., Wuttke, A. M., Clément, C. C., & Windmann, S. (2017). Facial width-to-height ratio differs by social rank across organizations, countries, and value systems. PLoS One, 12(11), e0187957. Martin, J. S., Staes, N., Weiss, A., Stevens, J. M. G., & Jaeggi, A. V. (2019). Facial width-to-height ratio is associated with agonistic and affiliative dominance in bonobos (Pan paniscus). Biology Letters, 15(8), 20190232.

      In regard to the male-male competition hypothesis, as noted in the previous comment, we might therefore expect sexual selection to occur on a variety of male traits other than formidability related measures, as well as to be highly population-specific-rather than there being some universal optimum for "masculine" traits-given that what constitutes an adaptive male phenotype likely varies across populations in regard to both male-male competition and female choice. Finally, it should be noted that testosterone is by no means the only sex hormone relevant to considering patterns of human sexual dimorphism. Please see Dunsworth (2020) for a discussion of the centrality of estrogen in proximally explaining sexual dimorphism in body size

      Dunsworth, H. M. (2020). Expanding the evolutionary explanations for sex differences in the human skeleton. Evolutionary Anthropology, 29, 108-116.

      (iii) The authors should provide more references to (and brief discussion of) mixed results regarding the degree of sexual dimorphism in facial and digit ratio metrics. While they cite a few studies in the introduction, one might leave the text with the impression that there is clear enough evidence for 2D:4D being influenced by (pre-natal) sex hormones and being a sexually dimorphic phenotype. However, these results have been strongly challenged, not only be ref 14 and 20 in the main text, but also various other studies e.g.

      Barrett, E., Thurston, S. W., Harrington, D., Bush, N. R., Sathyanarayana, S., Nguyen, R., ... & Swan, S. (2020). Digit ratio, a proposed marker of the prenatal hormone environment, is not associated with prenatal sex steroids, anogenital distance, or gender-typed play behavior in preschool age children. Journal of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease, 1-10. Richards, G. (2017). What is the evidence for a link between digit ratio (2D: 4D) and direct measures of prenatal sex hormones?. Early Human Development. Richards, G., Browne, W. V., Aydin, E., Constantinescu, M., Nave, G., Kim, M. S., & Watson, S. J. (2020). Digit ratio (2D: 4D) and congenital adrenal hyperplasia (CAH): Systematic literature review and meta-analysis. Hormones and Behavior, 126, 104867. Richards, G., Browne, W. V., & Constantinescu, M. (2021). Digit ratio (2D: 4D) and amniotic testosterone and estradiol: An attempted replication of Lutchmaya et al.(2004). Journal of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease.

      Similarly, not all metrics of facial masculinity are equally valid given current empirical evidence. In a recent longitudinal study, only cheekbone prominence was found to show consistent evidence of sexual dimorphism across age groups.

      Robertson, J. M., Kingsley, B. E., & Ford, G. C. (2017). Sexually dimorphic faciometrics in humans from early adulthood to late middle age: Dynamic, declining, and differentiated. Evolutionary Psychology, 15(3), 1474704917730640.

      Overall, I found the authors' discussion of how they selected the specific facial metrics lumped together in their analyses to be underspecified. Please note in the discussion as well that BMI is a well-known confound in studies of facial masculinity and may be a cause of null results in the present study (unless I happened to miss this in the regard to the moderation results - if so, my apologies!).

      Geniole, S. N., Denson, T. F., Dixson, B. J., Carré, J. M., & McCormick, C. M. (2015). Evidence from meta-analyses of the facial width-to-height ratio as an evolved cue of threat. PloS one, 10(7), e0132726.

      (iv) Finally, please provide reference to and potentially brief discussion of the current state of the literature as regards "good genes" hypotheses of female choice, which is relevant for determining how useful previous studies are for directly addressing this hypothesis. Please see:

      Achorn, A. M., & Rosenthal, G. G. (2020). It's not about him: Mismeasuring 'good genes' in sexual selection. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 35, 206-219.

    1. SciScore for 10.1101/2021.03.23.21254207: (What is this?)

      Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

      Table 1: Rigor

      <table><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Institutional Review Board Statement</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">IRB: This study was conducted with the approval of the Ethics Committee of the University of Occupational and Environmental Health,</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Randomization</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Blinding</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Power Analysis</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Sex as a biological variable</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr></table>

      Table 2: Resources

      <table><tr><th style="min-width:100px;text-align:center; padding-top:4px;" colspan="2">Software and Algorithms</th></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;text=align:center">Sentences</td><td style="min-width:100px;text-align:center">Resources</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;vertical-align:top;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">: Release 14.2; StataCorp LLC, TX, USA).</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray"><div style="margin-bottom:8px"><div>StataCorp</div><div>suggested: (Stata, RRID:SCR_012763)</div></div></td></tr></table>

      Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).


      Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
      This study has several limitations. First, selection bias was unavoidable because the study was a survey of Internet monitors. To reduce potential bias, recruitment was conducted by sampling by occupation and gender in each region according to the infection rate. To understand the characteristics of the participants in this study, we compared our findings with those from national and occupational surveys that use various batteries (17). A previous study that used WFun to examine 33,985 workers from a general company showed that 20% had severe work functioning impairment (24). Given that our study protocol found that 21% of the entire study population has severe work functioning impairment (17), we concluded that our present study population was relatively unbiased. Second, we relied on respondents’ self-assessment of their physical environment while working from home, but did not examine the actual physical environments. Therefore, there may be discrepancies with objective evaluation. However, because we inquired about the physical environment, the possibility of erroneous answers is low. Third, since this study was a cross-sectional study, it is impossible to determine the causal relationship between the exposure factors and outcome. However, we think it is unlikely that individuals with severe work functioning impairment would choose to create a poor working environment. For example, a person with back pain is unlikely to actively choose a small space or an ill-fitting desk...

      Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.


      Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.


      Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.


      Results from rtransparent:
      • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
      • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
      • No protocol registration statement was detected.

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      About SciScore

      SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

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    1. Note: This rebuttal was posted by the corresponding author to Review Commons. Content has not been altered except for formatting.

      Learn more at Review Commons


      Reply to the reviewers

      Response to all reviewers

      We thank all the reviewers for carefully considering our manuscript and providing useful comments and suggestions. We agree with the general comment that testing our key findings in breast cancer cells is important. We will therefore carry out this work over the coming months and include this data in the revision. The other specific comments we address individually in the point-by-point responses below, which provides an outline of the other new experiments we plan to carry out prior to revision.

      In addition to this, we would like to just highlight one general point that we only picked up when considering these responses. It is important to highlight this to all reviewers now, since we believe it adds clinical weight to our conclusions. This relates to the issue of P53, which our manuscript shows drives resistance to CDK4/6 inhibition in cells by inhibiting long-term cell cycle withdrawal following genotoxic damage.

      P53 loss has been implicated in abemaciclib resistance in breast cancer patients (P53 mutation was detected in 2/18 responsive patients and 10/13 non-responsive patents (Patnaik et al., 2016)). This was recently corroborated in a larger scale study in breast cancer: the first whole exome sequencing study aimed at characterising intrinsic and acquired resistance to CDK4/6 inhibitors (Wander et al., 2020). In this recent study, P53 loss/mutation was identified in 0/18 sensitive tumours, 14/28 intrinsically resistant tumours, and 9/13 tumour with acquired resistance**. This was the most frequent single genetic change associated with resistance (58.5%), although 8 other genetic changes were also associated with resistance to differing degrees (7-27%).

      Most of these other resistance events occurred in pathways known previously to help drive G1/S progression following CDK4/6 inhibition: i.e. fully predictable resistance mechanism (RB loss, CCNE2 amplification, ER loss, RAS/AKT1 activation, FGFR2/ERB22 mutation/amplification). Importantly, when the authors attempted to recapitulate these resistance event in breast cancer cell lines, they could demonstrate the expected increase in proliferation following CDK4/6 inhibition in all situation tested, except for P53 loss. This caused the authors to conclude that “loss of P53 function is not sufficient to drive CDK4/6i resistance”. This would appear to us to be an unsatisfactory explanation given the clinical data. However, the authors speculated further that: “Enrichment of TP53 mutation in resistant specimens may result from heavier pre-treatment (including chemotherapies), may be permissive for the development of other resistance-promoting alterations, or may cooperate with secondary alterations to drive CDK4/6i resistance in vivo.”

      We believe that our data provide a crucial alternative explanation for these clinical findings. P53 does not affect the efficiency of a G1 arrest (fig.2), but rather it prevents the resulting genotoxic damage from inducing long-term cell cycle withdrawal (figs.2,3). Therefore, this could explain why it drives resistance in clinical disease but not in the in vitro cell growth assays employed by Wander et al. This highlights a crucial general point of our paper – important effects like this can be missed or misinterpreted until the true nature of long-term cell cycle withdrawal is appreciated.

      As part of our breast cancer work at revision we will analyse this closely by comparing the effect of p53 loss on long-term cell cycle withdrawal. If the current RPE1 data holds true in breast cancer, then we believe that out study would provide a crucial explanation for these clinical findings, and in turn, these clinical data would throw weight behind our conclusion that genotoxic damage and p53 loss is a clinically important consequence of CDK4/6 inhibition in patients.


      Reviewer #1 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)): Comments on 'CDK4/6 inhibitors induce replication stress to cause long-term cell cycle withdrawal' The rationale for this work is to understand the mechanism by which Cdk4/6 inhibitors inhibit tumour cell growth, specifically via senescence which seems to be a frequent outcome of Cdk4/6 inhibition. Although several mechanisms by which Cdk4/6 inhibition induce senescence have been proposed these have varied with the cancer cell model studied. To examine the mechanism for the cytostatic effect of cdk4/6i in therapy without potential confounding effects of different cancer cell line backgrounds, Crozier et al tackle this question in the non-transformed, immortalised diploid human cell line, RPE1. They use live cell imaging and colony formation to track the impact of G1 arrests of different lengths induced by a range of clinically relevant cdk4/6 inhibitors. They also use CRISPR-mediated removal of p53 to examine the role of p53 in the observed cell cycle responses. After noting that G1 arrest of over 2 days leads to a pronounced failure in continued cell cycle and proliferation that is associated with features of replication stress, they perform a proteomics analysis to determine the factors responsible for this. They discover that MCM complex components and some other replicative proteins are downregulated and overall suggest a mechanism whereby downregulation of these essential replication components during a prolonged G1 induce replication stress and ultimate failure of proliferation. They show the impact of cdk4/6 inhibition can be increased by combining with either aneuploidy induction (to indirectly elevate replication stress), aphidicolin (to directly elevate replication stress) or chemotherapy agents that damage DNA. Overall this is a well written and presented manuscript. Data are extremely clearly presented and described clearly within the text. Most appropriate controls were included and the work is performed to a high standard. I have a few comments about the proteomic analysis, and the link between MCM component deregulation and the induction of replication stress:

      - We thank the reviewer for this careful, detailed review, and for their kind comments about our work.

      **Major points:**

      1. Relevance to cancer. I appreciate that examining the mechanism in a diploid line is a sensible place to start. However it remains a bit unclear precisely which aspects of this mechanism might be conserved in cancer. It could be helpful to provide evidence (if it exists) of the impact of cdk4/6 inhibition in tumour cells. For example, are catastrophic mitosis, senescence, etc observed? And is there anything further known about the relationship between tumour mutations such as p53 and clinical response to Cdk4/6i?

      - It is important to point out that senescence is a common outcome of CDK4/6 inhibition in tumour cells, but exactly why tumour cells become senescent is still unclear. There have been many possible explanations proposed (see introduction), but so far, none of these implicate DNA damage. This is surprising for us, considering that DNA damage remains the best-known inducer of senescence and this is how most other broad-spectrum anti-cancer drugs induce permanent cell cycle exit. P53 loss has been associated with CDK4/6i resistance in the clinic, but this has also not previously been linked to genotoxic stress or senescence following CDK4/6 inhibition (see detailed description of this in comment to all reviewers above).** Therefore, our data could help to explain both of these key findings. However, we appreciate the importance of testing these results in breast cancer cells, therefore we will perform these experiments and include the data after revision.

      Also - many of the phenotypes followed in this manuscript vary considerably with the length of G1 and the length of release. Which of these scenarios might mimic in vivo conditions?

      - We see that a prolonged arrest (> 2 days) is necessary to see genotoxic effects in RPE cells. Clinically, palbociclib is administered in 3-week on/1-week off cycles, therefore this is consistent with the possibility that replication stress is induced during the off periods to cause genotoxic damage and cell cycle withdrawal.

      Relating to the downregulation of MCM complex members, and the potential impact on origin licensing, how would this mechanism be manifest in cancer cells that have already deregulated gene transcription programs, and are already experiencing replication stress?

      - We hypothesise that cancer cells with ongoing replication stress maybe more sensitive to the MCM downregulation caused by CDK4/6 inhibition. The rationale is that a reduction in licenced origins would impair the ability of dormant origins to fire in response to replication problems, therefore making elevated levels of replication stress less tolerable. This is consistent with the enhanced effect of CDK4/6 inhibition seen when replication stress is elevated in RPE cells. Moreover, others have shown that experimentally reducing MCM protein levels induces hypersensitivity to replication stress in transformed cell lines such as U2OS and HeLa (Ge et al., 2007; Ibarra et al., 2008). Thus, low MCM levels and reduced origin licensing can contribute to replication failure in cancer cells.

      1. MCM protein levels and proposed impact on chromatin loading and origin licensing. Several MCM components are clearly reduced at the protein level. A chromatin assay (assaying fluorescence of signal remaining after pre-extraction of cytosolic proteins) suggests that MCM loading on chromatin is reduced, and this is taken to suggest a reduction in origin licensing. This is quite an indirect method - and it is difficult to conclude that the reduced chromatin bound fraction really represents a meaningful reduction in origin licensing. It would be more convincing if either positive and negative controls for this assay were included. Moreover it is not clear if this MCM reduction and proposed reduction in licensed origins would actually impact replication in an otherwise unperturbed state? Many more origins are licensed than actually fire during a normal S-phase, so it is not entirely clear that MCM levels could lead directly to replication stress here.

      - Quantifying the non-extractable MCM proteins is in truth the most direct assay for origin licensing (not origin firing) available in human cells. To our knowledge, there are no reports of MCM loading by this or similar assays that are not strongly correlated with origin licensing per se. The reviewer is correct that modest reductions in MCM loading are well-tolerated in the absence of other perturbations. Specifically, Ge et al found no proliferation effects after 50% MCM loading reduction, but any further reduction introduced a proliferation delay (Ge et al., 2007). Of note, the U2OS cells used in that study also have a functional p53 response.

      - Another important point that is worth emphasizing, is that many of the differentially downregulated proteins only function at replication forks (fig.4c). Therefore, we believe that the replication stress is a combined result of poor licencing and reduced levels of replication fork proteins that are needed after the origins fire. We will clarify this point in the revised manuscript.

      1. Loss of MCM protein levels and chromatin loading occurs after 1 day, not 4 days, of Cdk4/6 inhibition. The current proposal (based on evidence from the live cell imaging, and the induction of hallmarks of replication stress in figures 1-3) seems to be that something occurs between 2 and 7 days of cdk4/6i to prevent cells from resuming a normal cell cycle. Thus the proteomics was performed between 2 and 7 days, and MCM proteins identified as major changed proteins between those times. However, according to Western blots and FACS profiles in Figure 4, the major reduction in MCM protein levels, and chromatin loading occurs already at 1 day of of cdk4/6i (Figure 4d,e,f). However, replication stress is not observed after this timepoint (Figure 3) - so this seems to decouple the timings of MCM reduction from induction of replication stress. How can this be reconciled?

      - We agree that some of the observed changes to replisome components are quite considerable after just 1 day of arrest (some of these downregulations such as Cdc6 or phospho-Rb can be attributed to the cell cycle arrest itself - Cdc6 is unstable in G1 - but others, such MCM proteins, are not typically lost during G1). We were initially surprised by this too, considering that the phenotype clearly appears later than 1 day of arrest. It is important to state though, that the levels of almost all replisome components continue to decline as the duration of arrest is extended, eventually falling to considerably lower levels than seen after just 1 day. This is observed for MCM2, MCM3 and PCNA by western (fig.4e,e) and a large number of other replisome components by proteomics (fig.4c, 2 vs 7 days). Even MCM loading, which is 58% reduced after just 1-day arrest, is still reduced even further to just 20% of controls after 7 days (p- Our interpretation of the phenotypic data in light of this, is that replication problems become apparent when the number of licensed origins and the function of the replisome is compromised below a certain threshold; which most likely depends on cell type and, in particular, the levels of endogenous replication stress. So, in RPE cells, 1-day treatment is clearly tolerable, perhaps because there are still enough origins to complete DNA replication successfully. But, importantly, if replication stress is enhanced in these cells then 1-day of palbociclib arrest now starts to cause observable defects. This is evident in Figure 5h, where 1-day palbociclib treatment causes minimal effect on long-term growth on its own, but growth is reduced considerably when replication stress is elevated with genotoxic drugs. We interpret this to mean that the reduction in licenced origins and replisome components observed after 1 day of arrest, starts to become problematic in situations when replication stress is elevated.*

      - This is actually an important point that we will highlight this at revision, because one prediction is that other cells with elevated replication stress (e.g. tumour cells with oncogene-induced replication stress) may begin to see defects after as little as 1-day palbociclib arrest.

      **Minor points:**

      1. All the live cell tracking figures would be even more informative if a quantification of key features (such as a cumulative frequency of S-phase entry, or a mean+SD of time in G1, S and G2) were also presented.

      - We agree this will be useful, and we will include this information after revision.

      1. In Figure 2D the cells released from palbociclib seem to delay longer in G1 until they start to enter S phase, compared to cells co-treated with STLC (Figure 2B). Why would this be? It is difficult to tell if other subtle effects might be present in between the +STCL and -STLC conditions, so additional graphs such as those suggested above might be informative here in particular.

      - Fig.2d shows a representative experiment (50 cells) because it is difficult to interpret these individual cell cycle profiles when more than 50 cells are presented. However, we have all the data from 3 experiments (150 cells), therefore we will also calculate timings as suggested and present this information after revision.

      1. Figure 4f It would be helpful to see the FACS plot for at least one of the conditions quantified in the graph as a comparison.

      - These plots will be included after revision

      1. MCM2 protein is not down in p53 wt, but is reduced in p53 KO cells - why is this? And why is MCM2 not impacted when the other MCM complex members are?

      - We think perhaps there has been a mistake in interpreting these graphs. MCM2 is actually slightly lower in WT than KO cells at 1 days, and similar at 4 and 7 days (Fig.4d,e). MCM2 is also reduced slightly more than MCM3 (fig.4d,e) and MCM2, 3, 4, and 5 are all reduced by similar extents between 2 and 7 days palbociclib arrest (30-40% reductions; Fig.4c).

      Inducing aneuploidy with reversine to elevate replication stress may result in additional aneuploidy-related stresses that confound this interpretation. For example, aneuploidy per se is known to elevate p21 and p53 levels, and chromosome mis-segregation could elevate DNA damage. For these reasons these experiments are not as compelling as the direct elevation of replication stress using aphidicolin.

      - We agree that the aneuploidy experiment could have many different interpretations, and only one of these relates specifically to replication stress. This was also commented on by reviewer 3, so we feel it is best to remove this data and just keep the data on drugs that affect replication stress or DNA damage directly. We will address the effects of aneuploidy more extensively in a separate study.

      **Interesting points to follow up/add more mechanism**

      1. What is mechanism of protein downregulation of MCM etc? Was gene transcription impacted, or is this a question of protein stability? Depletion of one subunit can destabilise the complex leading to protein loss of the other MCM subunits, so perhaps this effect could be due to downregulation of a single MCM complex member.
      2. Are these findings specific to Cdk4/6 inhibitors, or would another means or arresting cells in G1 have the same impact?

      Both of these points are interesting questions and they are actually the focus of an entirely separate study that is ongoing. In particular, we are working on the mechanism(s) of MCM and replisome downregulation.

      Reviewer #1 (Significance (Required)): The central question of the paper is an important one so this work would be of interest to many in the clinical and preclinical fields, and also to the cell cycle and replication stress fields.

      - We thank the reviewer for this, and we agree that linking CDK4/6 inhibitors to genotoxic stress is important both for our understanding of cell cycle control and for cancer treatment. We are actually amazed that these drugs have not previously been linked to genotoxic stress, given that they appear to have broad pan-cancer activity and all other broad-spectrum anti-cancer drug work by causing genotoxic stress.

      Reviewer #2 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)): In this paper, Saurin and colleagues investigate the effects of CDK4/6 inhibitors on cell cycle arrest and re-entry. The authors report that long-term G1 arrest induced by CDK4/6i interferes with DNA replication during the next cell cycle, leading to DNA damage and mitotic catastrophe. Additionally, this compromised replication state sensitizes cells to chemotherapeutics that enhance replication stress. The major claims advanced in this paper are well-supported by the presented evidence. Well I have several questions regarding the significance (see below), I have only a few minor points regarding the methodology. 1) Regarding the down-regulation of MCM components induced by long-term palbo treatment shown in Figure 4: MCM levels are tightly regulated by cell cycle phase. I could imagine that this gene expression change may be a consequence of, for instance, 2 days CDK4/6i treatment arresting 95% of cells in G1 while 7 days of CDK4/6i treatment causes a 99.9% G1 arrest. The data in Figure 1B seems to argue against this hypothesis, but how was that data generated? Can the authors rule out a subtle change in S-phase % over 7 days in palbo? Alternately, is the down-regulation of MCM genes a consequence of cells entering senescence?

      - We have performed extensive long-term movies with these cells, and we never see cells dividing or exiting G1 after the first day of palbociclib treatment. This is illustrated in fig.1b which demonstrates that 100% of FUCCI cells are in G1 (Red) at each of the timepoints. This will be clarified in the legend. In addition, MCM protein levels do not actually oscillate with cell cycle phase (Matson et al., 2017; Méndez and Stillman, 2000), although their mRNA levels certainly do (Leone et al., 1998; Whitfield et al., 2002). Furthermore, RPE and mammalian fibroblasts retain MCM proteins after 2 days of growth factor withdrawal despite transcriptional repression of their respective genes **(Cook et al., 2002; Matson et al., 2019)

      - We see significant changes in MCM levels at a time when cells are still permissive to enter the cell cycle following drug release. Therefore, MCM reduction is not a consequence of senescence. Rather, we believe that it is one of the causes of cell cycle withdrawal following the subsequent S-phase.

      2) For the drug studies presented in figure 5, it is important that the authors perform the appropriate statistical comparisons and analyses to demonstrate true synergy. The authors show that combining palbo and certain chemotherapies causes a greater decrease in clonogenicity than palbo alone. This may or may not be surprising (see below) - but this by itself is insufficient to support the claim that palbo "sensitizes" cells to genotoxins. If you treat cells with two poisons, in 9 out of 10 cases, you'll kill more cells than if you treat cells with one poison alone. But that could be due to totally independent effects - see, for instance, Palmer and Sorger Cell 2017. There are several well-established statistical methods for investigating drug synergy - like Loewe Additivity or Bliss Independence - and one of these methods should be used to analyze the drug-combination studies presented in Figure 5.

      - This analysis will be performed at revision

      Reviewer #2 (Significance (Required)): While this study is a comprehensive analysis of the effects of CDK4/6i in RPE1 cells in 2d culture, I am not convinced of its broader significance. 1) So far as I can tell, the authors do not cite any studies establishing that CDK4/6i results in a significant increase in G1-arrested cells in treated patients. What evidence is there for this claim? I am aware that this has been demonstrated in xenografts and in mouse models, but I could not find evidence for this from actual clinical studies. Here, I am reminded of the very interesting work from Beth Weaver's group on paclitaxel - Zasadil STM 2014. While it had been widely assumed that paclitaxel causes a mitotic arrest, they actually show that this drug kills tumor cells by promoting mitotic catastrophe without inducing a complete mitotic arrest. Similarly, in the absence of existing clinical data, the underlying assumption regarding the effects of CDK4/6i that motivates this paper may not be accurate. For instance, if CDK4/6i acts through the immune system (as suggested by Jean Zhao and others), then this G1 arrest phenotype could be entirely secondary to the drug's actual mechanism-of-action.

      - We are very surprised by the suggestion that CDK4/6 inhibitors may not need to cause a G1 arrest in patient tumours. We appreciate that that these inhibitors effect the immune system in many different ways to combat tumourigenesis, but there is also an overwhelming amount of evidence that a G1 arrest in patient tumours is critical for the overall response. Perhaps the most striking evidence is the fact that RB loss in tumours is one of the best-characterised mechanism of resistance in breast cancer patients (Condorelli et al., 2018; Costa et al., 2020; Li et al., 2018; O'Leary et al., 2018; Wander et al., 2020). In addition, tumours types that typically achieve a poor CDK4/6i-induced G1 arrest in preclinical models, such as TNBCs, also exhibit a poor response to CDK4/6i therapy in patients. Recently a luminal androgen receptor subtype of TNBCs has been identified that responds to CDK4/6 inhibition, due to low CDK2 activity which can otherwise drive G1 progression independently of CDK4/6 in basal-like TNBCs (Asghar et al., 2017; Liu et al., 2017). This rationalises combination therapies that converge to inhibit G1 more effectively in this subtype (e.g. AR antagonist + CDK4/6 inhibition (Christenson et al., 2021)), which is akin to the oestrogen receptor and CDK4/6 combinations that have proven so successful at treating HR+ breast cancer. Many other combinations are also currently in trials based on the same premise that inhibiting upstream G1/S regulators can enhancing the response by inducing a more efficient G1 arrest (MEK, PI3K, AKT, mTOR) (Klein et al., 2018).

      - In response to the specific question about clinical G1 arrest in patients, tumour samples from breast cancer patients shows a decrease in S-phase specific markers pRB and TopoIIa following abemaciclib treatment (Patnaik et al., 2016) and there is extensive evidence of a profound cell cycle arrest following CDK4/6 inhibition as judged by staining with the mitotic marker Ki67 (Hurvitz et al., 2020; Johnston et al., 2019; Ma et al., 2017; Prat et al., 2020). Whilst this does not formally prove a G1-arrest is specifical responsible for this overall cell cycle arrest, that is the implicit assumption given the known mechanism of action of CDK4/6 inhibitors in cells.

      2) How relevant are RPE1 cells? Clinically, CDK4/6 inhibitors are combined with fulvestrant (which would not have an effect in RPE1), and the activity that they exhibit in breast cancer has not been matched in any other cancer types. The underlying biology of HR+ breast cancer (particularly regarding the regulation of CCND1 expression and the G1/S transition by estrogen) may not be recapitulated by other cell types. Moreover, the artificial media used in cell culture experiments may alter the regulation of the G1/S transition. I do not believe that these experiments conducted in RPE1 cells in 2d cell culture are generalizable.

      - Fulvestrant/tamoxifen are effective because they enhance the efficiency of a CDK4/6i arrest by reducing Cyclin D expression to enhance Cyclin D-CDK4/6 inhibition. That convergence onto the G1/S transition is why ER antagonists enhance the CDK4/6 response. i.e. CDK activity is inhibited and CycD transcription is reduced, therefore this double hit allows breast cancer cells to arrest in G1 more efficiently than healthy tissue which is not oestrogen-responsive (this provides yet more evidence the G1 arrest in tumours is crucial for the clinical response). It is true that RPE1 cells do not respond to the oestrogen treatment, but that is not really relevant here in our opinion. We are not testing the efficiency of a G1 arrest beyond the initial characterisation in figure 1. We are mainly examining how cells respond to that G1 arrest afterwards. It could be that components of the cell culture media affect that downstream response in unanticipated ways, but we feel that is very unlikely.

      - Having said that, we agree that the general point on the relevance of RPE cells is a valid one, and we will repeat key experiment in breast cancer cells. We suspect that the reason replisome components become widely downregulated during a G1 arrest will not be a specific phenomenon that is characteristic of one particular cell type. Nevertheless, it is important to validate that assumption.

      3) I am confused about the effects of CDK4/6i on genotoxin sensitivity. Replogle and Amon PNAS 2020 and several citations contained therein report that CDK4/6i protects cells from DNA damage. Moreover, trilaciclib has recently received FDA approval for its ability to protect the bone marrow from cytotoxic chemotherapy! Is this a question of dose timing/intensity? The FDA approval of trilaciclib for this indication should certainly be discussed. This underscores my concern that certain findings in this paper are RPE1/tissue culture artifacts, with limited generalizability.

      - The studies the reviewer refers to demonstrate that halting cell cycle progression can protect cells from genotoxic drugs that cause DNA damage during S-phase. However, we can only think that the reviewer must have missed the critical point here: The genotoxic agents in figure 5 were added after washout from CDK4/6 inhibition (we will highlight this more clearly in the revised manuscript). After drug removal, cells enter S-phase with replication competence problems (as a result of the CDK4/6 arrest) and they then experience additional problems during S-phase (as a result of the genotoxic agents included following washout). These effects synergise to enhance replication stress, a key conclusion of figure 5.

      - This does is in no way support that notion that “findings in this paper are RPE1/tissue culture artefacts with limited generalizability”. Experiments in 2D tissue culture have furnished some of the most important fundamental discoveries in cancer research. It remains to be seen whether our study will cause a paradigm shift in our thinking about how CDK4/6 inhibitors work, but we believe that it may do. We appreciate that this will not become clear until our findings are followed up and validated in preclinical models and human disease, but that does not, in our opinion, make them any less valid at this stage. As stated earlier, we will confirm this is not a RPE1 cell phenomenon, but if this holds up in breast cancer cells then we believe our data will have an important impact on future preclinical and clinical work in this area.

      **Referees cross-commenting** I think that we largely agree that RPE1 is not a great model for this study, and repeating certain key experiments in an ER+ BC line like MCF7 may be warranted.

      - We agree that it would add value to examine our findings in BC cells, therefore we will address this point at revision by repeating key experiments in BC cells.

      Additionally, I wanted to draw attention to the fact that, to my knowledge, the evidence for palbociclib inducing a G1 arrest in patients is incredibly spotty. For early-stage breast tumors where palbo is most effective, nearly all tumor cells are in G1 anyway. I think that it makes the most sense that palbo is actually working through immune modulation or through some secondary mechanism, rather than enforcing a G1 arrest. So I'm not sure about the premise of this study.

      - As discussed above, there is extensive evidence that proliferation is reduced in response to CDK4/6 inhibition in patients (Hurvitz et al., 2020; Johnston et al., 2019; Ma et al., 2017; Patnaik et al., 2016; Prat et al., 2020). We agree that proliferation in patient tumours can be slower than observed in preclinical models, and there can be many reasons for this, especially within solid tumour where hypoxia is a major factor that limits proliferation. However, we do not agree that this implies that drugs that target these tumours do not act on proliferating cells. In fact, most other broad-spectrum non-targeted chemotherapies used to treat cancer also work by targeting dividing cells, and many of these are also more effective in early stage breast cancer. In addition, and as discussed extensively above, there are many studies supporting the interpretation that a G1 arrest is critical for CDK4/6i response in breast cancer patients. Considering all of these points, we strongly believe that the premise of our study – to characterise why a G1 arrest becomes irreversible – is valid and important. This point Is also made in numerous recent reviews which also highlight that this key mechanistic information is currently lacking (Goel et al., 2018; Klein et al., 2018; Knudsen and Witkiewicz, 2017; Wagner and Gil, 2020).

      - We do not disagree that the immune effects are important in patients – indeed, we cited and discussed these studies in our manuscript. However, we would argue that this works together with a G1 arrest in tumour cells. The G1 arrest most likely induces a senescent response that stimulates immune engagement and tumour clearance. These multifactorial effect of CDK4/6 inhibition, on both the tumour and the immune system, are discussed at length in these reviews: (Goel et al., 2018; Klein et al., 2018; Wagner and Gil, 2020).

      Reviewer #3 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)): The authors clearly demonstrate, with appropriate techniques, that cells treated with clinically relevant CDK4/6 inhibitors lead to a cell cycle arrest, that is only partly reversible. The authors also demonstrate clearly that release from a cdk4/6i arrest leads to two phenomena: the inability to initiate S-phase, and a cell cycle exit in G2. The inability to initiate S-phase is partly dependent on p53, the cell cycle exit is fully dependent on p53. In the absence of p53, cells that are released from a CDK4/6i block frequently enter mitosis with unrepaired DNA lesions. The authors clearly demonstrate that cdk4/6 inhibition leads to down regulation of key replication genes. Combined treatment with genotoxic agents further exaggerates the phenotype of cell cycle exit upon cdk4/6 inhibition. **Specific comments:** Figure 1B: the loss of reversibility remains at approximately 50%. Does the phenotype of replication protein depletion not happen in the 50% of cells that do restart the cell cycle? it would be good if the authors could experimentally address the heterogeneity that is observed.

      - This is actually a result of the fixed analysis use in fig.1B. The irreversibility is much higher than 50% after long durations of arrest, but at the 24h timepoint used in this fixed assay many cells have exited G1 but not yet had a chance to revert back into G1 from S/G2 phase. We will reinforce this point in the legend. This highlights the value of our extensive live cell assays that can fully capture cell cycle profiles, and accurately determine when cell do/don’t enter or withdraw from different stages of the cell cycle. We believe that an overreliance of fixed endpoints in previous studies may have contributed to the genotoxic effects in S-phase being missed previously: many studies show senescence after drug washout, but the cause of that senescence only becomes apparent when you observe that cells withdraw with defects after the first S-phase.

      Figure 1C: the G1 state after S-phase. The read-out here is loss of the Fucci reporter geminin. Does observation reflect p53-dependent activation of the APC/C-Cdh1 prematerely? this is a known effect of persistent DNA damage in G2 cells.

      - Yes, we expect that APC/C-Cdh1 activation causes geminin and cyclin degradation when cells permanently withdraw from the cell cycle from G2. This is likely caused by p53-dependent p21 activation in response to DNA replication defects, as has been shown previously in direct response to DNA damage.

      Figure 2: there seem to be two distinct phenotypes when comparing p53-wt and p53-KO: the ability to initiate S-phase after CDK4/6i removal (which is largely gone in p53 KO, only slight number after 7d treatment). And cell cycle-drop-out after S-phase (this seems to be fully p53 dependent). I am not sure if a single mechanisms explains both.

      - We agree that there are p53-dependent effects on speed/extent of S-phase entry and on the resulting withdrawal from G2. It may not be a single mechanism that connected these effects, although they may be related. Our manuscript mainly focusses on the DNA replication defects and cell cycle withdrawal, but in the future, it will be important to also characterise what causes the delay in cell cycle re-entry following CDK4/6 inhibition. We suspect that this could reflect differing depths of quiescence, potentially caused by p21, which would explain the p53-dependence.

      Figure 3a: related to the proviso point. it is unclear if the p21 up regulation happens in G1 or G2 cells, and related to the inability of cells to initiate S-phase, or the cell cycle exit in G2.

      - This is a good point, and as discussed above, we suspect both maybe related to p21. We will examine p21 levels during a G1 arrest to compare to the levels seen following release, and we will include this data after revision.

      It is stated that a combined action of the p53 pathways and ATR signaling prevent mitotic entry in RPE-wt cells. However, ATR should also be able to do this in p53-KO cells. Does cdk4/6i inhibiton also down-regulation of ATR pathway components?

      - We do not detect downregulation of any ATRi components in the mass spec data comparing 2 and 7 day palbociclib arrest.

      Following the observation that CDK4/6i leads to replication stress, I would hypothesise that these cells would be very sensitive to agents that inhibit the response to replication stress (inhibitors of Wee1, ATR or Chk1). Yet, these agents work preferentially in p53-deficient cells, and require cell cycle progression. Sequential treatment with CDK4/6 inhibition followed by cell cycle checkpoint inhibition may help in uncovering the phenotype.

      - This is a good point and we will perform experiments with ATR inhibitors after release from CDK4/6 inhibition to examine if this enhances the phenotype.

      The authors increase the amount of replication stress using chemotherapeutic approaches or MPS1 inhibitors. The chemotherapeutic approaches are relevant clinically, but mechanistically it don't understand this beyond adding up treatments that lead to replication defects.

      - We agree that the main value of these experiments is not to provide mechanistic insight, but rather to demonstrate that CDK4/6 inhibition can enhance the effect of current genotoxic drugs. Considering CDK4/6 inhibitors are well-tolerated, this could represent an effective way to enhance the tumour-selectivity of current genotoxic therapeutics. This has been suggested previously in a pancreatic cancer study (Salvador-Barbero et al., 2020), but the reasons given for synergy were different (DNA damage repair) and the order of drugs exposure was reversed (genotoxic before CDK4/6i). This underscores the potential importance of our new data.

      - From a mechanistic point of view, these data do still suggest that CDK4/6i and genotoxic drugs converge onto the same replication stress phenotype, thereby supporting our overall conclusions. One interpretation is that a reduction in replisome levels and licenced replication origins impairs the ability of cells to overcome replication problems induced by chemotherapy drugs. Conceptualising how these drugs may synergize in this way will be important in designing new studies and trials to address this synergy more broadly.

      The aneuploidy treatment is a bit weird, because it may trigger a p53 response, before the cells are released from a cdk4.6i arrest. besides, mps1 inhibition does more than just cause replication stress and is not very clinically relevant in this context.

      - We agree that the aneuploidy experiment could have many different interpretations, and only one of these relates specifically to replication stress. This was also commented on by reviewer 1, so we feel it is best to remove this data and just keep the data on drugs that affect replication stress or DNA damage directly. We will address the effects of aneuploidy more extensively in a separate study.

      Reviewer #3 (Significance (Required)): In their manuscript entitled: Crozier and co-workers studied the effects of CDK4/6 inhibition on cell growth. CDK4/6 inhibitors are currently used in the treatment for hormone-positive breast cancers, but their cell biological effects on tumor cells remain incompletely clear, which may hamper the further clinical development of these drugs for breast cancer or other cancers. Inhibition of CDK4/6 is known to trigger a cell cycle arrest, and it is currently unclear how this could lead to long-term tumor control. This manuscript addresses the question why cdk4/6 inhibitors cause long-term cell cycle exit.

      - We thank the reviewer for this simple description of our work, which we think pitches the significance very clearly. There are currently 15 different CDK4/6 inhibitors in clinical trials, and more than 100 further trials using the 3 currently licenced inhibitors in a wide variety of tumour types and drug combinations. Although the clinical work on these drugs is huge, it is unclear how they cause long-term cell cycle arrest and we now link this to genotoxic stress for the first time. This explains clearly why this work is potentially very significant. We agree, however, that the main caveat is the need to demonstrate our findings are also applicable to breast cancer cells. But, if this is the case, we believe this would represent a paradigm shift in our understanding of how these drugs work, especially considering that genomic damage is an universal route to prolonged cell cycle exit in response to almost all other broad-spectrum anti-cancer drugs.

      There are two issues that affect the significance of the findings: the authors start their manuscript with a strong translational/clinical issue, but solely use RPE1 cell lines to address this issue2. it remains unclear if their observations hold true in breast cancer models. it would be advised to repeat key findings in a hormone receptor-positive breast cancer model.

      - We will examine the applicability of our findings in breast cancer cells and include this work at revision.

      the effects of CDK4/6 inhibitors are observed in clinically relevant doses. however, the effects are observed upon switch-like wash out. this does not per se reflect the pharmacodynamics of more gradual increase and decrease of drug concentrations in tuner cells. by washing out the CDK4/6 inhibitors. the significant of this work would be greater if cell cycle exit with replication stress would be observed either in clinical samples or in vivo treated cancer cells.

      - We agree that the significance of this work will ultimately only become fully apparent if replication stress is confirmed in clinical samples or in vivo. We envisage that our study will stimulate exactly this type of analysis in future. However, we would also add that the gradual increase/decrease in drug concentrations seen in patients is still likely to lead to switch like cell cycle re-entry given the switch-like nature of cell cycle controls at the G1/S transition. So, the timing may be different, but we would not predict that the downstream response in S-phase would be. However, whether replication stress is seen during drug-free washout periods in patients is clearly a critical future question, as we highlight in the discussion.

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      Referee #2

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      In this paper, Saurin and colleagues investigate the effects of CDK4/6 inhibitors on cell cycle arrest and re-entry. The authors report that long-term G1 arrest induced by CDK4/6i interferes with DNA replication during the next cell cycle, leading to DNA damage and mitotic catastrophe. Additionally, this compromised replication state sensitizes cells to chemotherapeutics that enhance replication stress.

      The major claims advanced in this paper are well-supported by the presented evidence. Well I have several questions regarding the significance (see below), I have only a few minor points regarding the methodology.

      1) Regarding the down-regulation of MCM components induced by long-term palbo treatment shown in Figure 4: MCM levels are tightly regulated by cell cycle phase. I could imagine that this gene expression change may be a consequence of, for instance, 2 days CDK4/6i treatment arresting 95% of cells in G1 while 7 days of CDK4/6i treatment causes a 99.9% G1 arrest. The data in Figure 1B seems to argue against this hypothesis, but how was that data generated? Can the authors rule out a subtle change in S-phase % over 7 days in palbo?

      Alternately, is the down-regulation of MCM genes a consequence of cells entering senescence?

      2) For the drug studies presented in figure 5, it is important that the authors perform the appropriate statistical comparisons and analyses to demonstrate true synergy. The authors show that combining palbo and certain chemotherapies causes a greater decrease in clonogenicity than palbo alone. This may or may not be surprising (see below) - but this by itself is insufficient to support the claim that palbo "sensitizes" cells to genotoxins. If you treat cells with two poisons, in 9 out of 10 cases, you'll kill more cells than if you treat cells with one poison alone. But that could be due to totally independent effects - see, for instance, Palmer and Sorger Cell 2017. There are several well-established statistical methods for investigating drug synergy - like Loewe Additivity or Bliss Independence - and one of these methods should be used to analyze the drug-combination studies presented in Figure 5.

      Significance

      While this study is a comprehensive analysis of the effects of CDK4/6i in RPE1 cells in 2d culture, I am not convinced of its broader significance.

      1) So far as I can tell, the authors do not cite any studies establishing that CDK4/6i results in a significant increase in G1-arrested cells in treated patients. What evidence is there for this claim? I am aware that this has been demonstrated in xenografts and in mouse models, but I could not find evidence for this from actual clinical studies. Here, I am reminded of the very interesting work from Beth Weaver's group on paclitaxel - Zasadil STM 2014. While it had been widely assumed that paclitaxel causes a mitotic arrest, they actually show that this drug kills tumor cells by promoting mitotic catastrophe without inducing a complete mitotic arrest. Similarly, in the absence of existing clinical data, the underlying assumption regarding the effects of CDK4/6i that motivates this paper may not be accurate. For instance, if CDK4/6i acts through the immune system (as suggested by Jean Zhao and others), then this G1 arrest phenotype could be entirely secondary to the drug's actual mechanism-of-action.

      2) How relevant are RPE1 cells? Clinically, CDK4/6 inhibitors are combined with fulvestrant (which would not have an effect in RPE1), and the activity that they exhibit in breast cancer has not been matched in any other cancer types. The underlying biology of HR+ breast cancer (particularly regarding the regulation of CCND1 expression and the G1/S transition by estrogen) may not be recapitulated by other cell types. Moreover, the artificial media used in cell culture experiments may alter the regulation of the G1/S transition. I do not believe that these experiments conducted in RPE1 cells in 2d cell culture are generalizable.

      3) I am confused about the effects of CDK4/6i on genotoxin sensitivity. Replogle and Amon PNAS 2020 and several citations contained therein report that CDK4/6i protects cells from DNA damage. Moreover, trilaciclib has recently received FDA approval for its ability to protect the bone marrow from cytotoxic chemotherapy! Is this a question of dose timing/intensity? The FDA approval of trilaciclib for this indication should certainly be discussed. This underscores my concern that certain findings in this paper are RPE1/tissue culture artifacts, with limited generalizability.

      Referees cross-commenting

      I think that we largely agree that RPE1 is not a great model for this study, and repeating certain key experiments in an ER+ BC line like MCF7 may be warranted.

      Additionally, I wanted to draw attention to the fact that, to my knowledge, the evidence for palbociclib inducing a G1 arrest in patients is incredibly spotty. For early-stage breast tumors where palbo is most effective, nearly all tumor cells are in G1 anyway. I think that it makes the most sense that palbo is actually working through immune modulation or through some secondary mechanism, rather than enforcing a G1 arrest. So I'm not sure about the premise of this study.

    1. Author Response:

      Evaluation Summary:

      This paper will be of considerable interest to anybody focusing on highly sensitive T cell antigen recognition. It uses an extended experimental protocol and analytical methods to assess very low T cell receptor binding affinities, and to determine how T cells discriminate between self- and non-self antigens. The main conclusions are well supported by the presented analysis and provide a novel view on a previously considered concept.

      Reviewer #1 (Public Review):

      The presented manuscript takes a comprehensive and elaborated look at how T cell receptors (TCR) discriminate between self and non-self antigens. By extending a previous experimental protocol for measuring T cell receptor binding affinities against peptide MHC complexes (pMHC), they are able to determine very low TCR-pMHC binding affinities and, thereby, show that the discriminatory power of the TCR seems to be imperfect. Instead of a previously considered sharp threshold in discriminating between self and non-self antigen, the TCR can respond to very low binding affinities leading to a more transient affinity threshold. However, the analysis still indicates an improved discrimination ability for TCR compared to other cell surface receptors. These findings could impact the way how T cell mediated autoimmunity is studied.

      The authors follow a comprehensive and elaborated approach, combining in vitro experiments with analytical methods to estimate binding affinities. They also show that the general concept of kinetic proofreading fits their data with providing estimates on the number of proofreading steps and the corresponding rates. The statistical and analytical methods are well explained and outlined in detail within the Supplemental Material. The source of all data, and especially how the data to analyze other cell surface receptor binding affinities was extracted, are given in detail as well. Besides being able to quantify TCR-pMHC interactions for very low binding affinities, their findings will improve the ability to assess how autoimmune reactions are potentially triggered, and how potent anti-tumour T cell therapies can be generated.

      In summary, the study represents an elaborated and concise analysis of TCR-pMHC affinities and the ability of TCR to discriminate between self and non-self antigens. All conclusions are well supported by the presented data and analyses without major caveats.

      Reviewer #2 (Public Review):

      The paper revisits the question of ligand discrimination ability of TCRs of T cells. The authors find that the commonly held notion of very sharp discrimination between strongly and weakly binding peptides does not hold when the affinities of the weak peptides are re-measured more accurately, using their own new method of calibration of SPR measurements. They are able to phenomenologically fit their results with a ~2 step Kinetic Proofreading model.

      It is a very carefully researched and thorough paper. The conclusions seem to be supported by the data and fundamental for our understanding of the T cell immune response with potentially very high impact in many scientific and applied fields. The calibration method could be of potential use in other cases where low affinities are an issue.

      As a non-expert in the details of experimental technique, it is somewhat difficult to understand in detail the Ab calibration of the SPR curve - which is a central piece of the paper. The main question is - what are the grounds (theoretical and/or empirical) to expect that the B_max of the TCR dose response curve will continue to be proportional to the plateau level of the Ab. Figure 1D does suggest that, but it would be hard to predict what proportionality shape the curve will take for lower affinity peptides. Given that essentially all the paper claims rest on this assumption, this should explained/reasoned/supported more clearly.

      We have revised the relevant Results and Methods sections to provide additional information. This information should clarify the expected relationship between Bmax and W6/32 binding. We emphasise that we have only interpolated within the curve and therefore, have not relied on any assumptions about the relationship between these two values outside of the empirical curve that we have generated.

      On the theoretical side - I think the scaling alpha\simeq 2 in Figure 2 is indeed consistent with a two-step KPR amplification. However, there are some questions regarding the fitting of the full model to the P_15 of the CD69 response. As explained in the Supplementary Material the authors use 3 global and 2 local parameters resulting in 37 (or 27) parameters for 32 data points. To a naive reader this might look excessive and prone to overfitting. On the other hand, looking at Figure S8 shows the value ranges of lambda and k_p are quite tight. This is in contrast to gamma and dellta that look completely unconstrained.

      We have revised the relevant Results section to explicitly indicate that the number of data points ex- ceeds the number of free parameters, which together with the ABC-SMC results, should provide additional confidence that we are not over-fitting.

      Finally, one of the stated advantages of the adaptive proof-reading model is that it is capable of explaining antagonism. It is hard to see how a 'vanilla" KPR model is capable of explaining antagonism.

      We have added a discussion paragraph to discuss antagonism, which cannot be explained by the basic KP model that we found is sufficient to explain our data on antigen discrimination in the presence of self pMHCs on autologous APCs. We describe how the methods we have employed can be used to study antagonism.

      Reviewer #3 (Public Review):

      Pettmann et al. aimed at significantly improving the accuracy of SPR-based measurements of low affinity TCR-pMHC interactions by including a 100% binding control (injecting of a conformation-specific HLA-antibody) in the surface plasmon resonance protocol. Interpolating with the information of saturated pMHC binding on the chip The authors arrive at KDs for low affinity binders that are significantly higher than the previously reported constants. If correct, this has considerable ramifications for the interpretations of the results obtained from functional assays measuring the T cell response towards pMHCs featured in a titrated fashion. Unlike what was put forward by earlier reports, the authors conclude that the discriminatory power of TCRs is far from perfect, as T cells still respond to low affinity pMHC-ligands without a sharp affinity threshold. This is also because they managed to detect T cells responding to even ultra-low affinity ligands if provided in sufficient numbers.

      The body of work convinces in several regards:

      (i) It is exceedingly well thought out and introduces a quality of analytical strength that is absent in most of the literature published thus far on this topic.

      (ii) At the same time theoretical arguments are bolstered by a large body of experimental "wet" work, which combines a synthetic approach with cellular immunology and which appears overall well executed.

      (iii) The data lead to hypotheses in the field of T cell antigen recognition in general and in the theatre of autoimmunity, cancer and infectious diseases.

      There are a few aspects that may limit the impact of the study. I have listed them below:

      (i) The study does not provide kinetic data for the low affinity ligand-TCR binding but rather argues from the position of affinities as determined via Bmax. This limits somewhat the robustness of the statements made with regard to kinetic proofreading.

      We agree with this statement and are hoping to directly measure off-rates in the future. We note that in the published literature, including our own work, point mutations to the peptide generally modify the off-rate with only minor impact on the on-rate. An example of this can be found in Lever et al (2016) PNAS where point mutations led to 100,000-fold change in the off-rate but only a 10-fold change in the on-rate. This likely explains why antigen potency is often well-correlated with affinity when using point mutations to the peptide.

      (ii) Thresholds for readouts were arbitrarily chosen (e.g. 15% activation). It appears such choices were based on system behavior (with the largest differences observed among the groups) but may have implications for the drawn conclusions.

      We have chosen 15% in order to capture the ultra-low affinity pMHCs in our potency plots and have now added a sentence for why we have chosen this particular threshold. We did explore different thresholds but found that they produced similar values of α. The precise threshold could change the estimate of α if the shape of dose-response curves was dependent on antigen affinity but we did not find any evidence for this within our data.

      In summary, the work presented contributes to demystifying the link between TCR-engagement and (membrane proximal) signaling. It also provides a fresh perspective on the potential of TCR-cossreactivity.

    1. Note: This rebuttal was posted by the corresponding author to Review Commons. Content has not been altered except for formatting.

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      Reply to the reviewers

      We are grateful to the editors at Review Commons and to the reviewers for their thoughtful attention to our manuscript. Our work presents data showing that deletion of the apoptosis regulator Mcl-1 in CNS stem cells that give rise to neurons and glia resulted in specific degeneration of the white matter, beginning after postnatal day 7 (P7). Cellular analysis shows that oligodendrocytes were depleted while astrocytes persisted. Co-deletion of apoptosis effectors Bax or Bak rescued different aspects of the Mcl-1 deletion phenotype, confirming the role of apoptosis. Based on these observations, we conclude that oligodendrocytes require MCL-1 to prevent spontaneous apoptosis, and that MCL-1 depletion results in leukodystrophy, which resembles severe cases of the human disorder Vanishing White Matter Disease (VWMD). We further suggest that MCL-1 deficiency, caused by the eIF2B mutations of VWMD, may play a critical role in VWMD pathogenesis.

      The reviewers questioned the similarity of the Mcl-1 deletion phenotype to VWMD and were not convinced that MCL-1 deficiency is integral to VWMD. Based on reviewer feedback, we concede that a firm link to VWMD is not supported by the available data. We consider, however, that our findings that MCL-1 is required for oligodendrocyte survival and white matter stability remain highly significant. Accordingly, we propose to revise the work as suggested by Reviewer 1 to highlight the insight our data provide as to apoptosis regulation in glia and its importance for brain development, and to revise the title, as suggested by Reviewer 3, to remove the specific reference to VWMD.

      In the revision, we will make clear that the comparison to specific leukodystrophies is hypothetical and will require extensive follow-up experiments that are suggested by the findings of this work, as described in the reviews. Revising our work by removing the assertion that our data strongly implicate MCL-1 in VWMD pathogenesis will address the main reviewer concern, strengthen the logical flow, and highlight the potential for MCL-1 to be broadly relevant to white matter pathology. The significance of our findings that oligodendrocytes depend on MCL-1 protein to prevent their spontaneous apoptosis, and that MCL-1 deficiency produces white matter degeneration, will not be altered by these changes. Our data will continue to show that MCL-1 dependence is a physiologic vulnerability of oligodendrocytes that sets them apart from astrocytes and neurons and that this vulnerability is sufficient to cause white matter-specific brain degeneration when MCL-1 expression is blocked.

      The other issues raised by the reviewers are all tractable and can be addressed with new experiments that we can complete in a short time-frame, such as studies of retinal pathology and addition immunohistochemistry studies, or with changes to the text. We consider that with these revisions, the manuscript will be an important contribution to understanding glial biology and the pathogenesis of white matter-specific disorders. We describe in detail below our responses to reviewer feedback and planned changes to the manuscript.

      Reviewer comments are in italics and our responses are in plain text.

      *Reviewer #1 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):**

      **Comments** *

      While we acknowledge many important points in this review, this first point is based on a premise that is inaccurate. Based on published data, we respectfully disagree with the statement that “Depletion of MCL-1 in any tissue would promote apoptosis in cells of this tissue”. Most cells do not require an anti-apoptotic protein to prevent spontaneous apoptosis; cells that depend on anti-apoptotic proteins are specifically referred to as “primed for apoptosis” (1-5). Our conditional deletion genotypes ablated Mcl-1 in neurons of the forebrain and cerebellum and in all subtypes of glial cells. The loss of oligodendrocytes in our Mcl-1-deleted mice shows that a specific subset of white matter cells in the postnatal brain require MCL-1. Together with the increase in apoptosis and the rescues by co-deletion of Bax or Bak, these data demonstrate that cells within the oligodendrocyte lineage are primed for apoptosis in a manner that is restricted by MCL-1. In contrast, we have shown in published data that we cite in this manuscript that conditional deletion of Mcl-1 cerebellar granule neurons, the largest neuronal population in the brain, does not cause apoptosis (6); these data provide direct evidence that large populations of cells in the brain do not depend on MCL-1. We therefore disagree with the characterization of the brain-specific Mcl-1 deletion phenotype as “non-specific”.

      • The white matter disease is interpreted as similar to VWM; VWM is specifically investigated and MCL-1 is found to be decreased in VWM brain tissue. The decrease is most likely nonspecific. Decrease in MCL-1 is most likely part of a general mechanism of degeneration of brain tissue or white matter. That is a different but also important conclusion. It is essential that other progressive leukodystrophies and acquired brain diseases with tissue degeneration, such as encephalitis, are investigated as well to see whether MCL-1 is also decreased in these disorders. If so, the MCL-1 decrease in white matter disease and other brain degenerative disease should be described as a final common pathway rather than specifically applicable to VWM.*

      We agree that MCL-1 is likely to be a final common point in multiple disease processes that affect white matter. As described in our response to point 3 below, we are persuaded by the reviewers that the proposed similarity of the Mcl-1 deletion phenotype and VWMD is not sufficiently supported by the available evidence. We will revise the text to make clear that we consider that impaired MCL-1 is “likely part of a general mechanism of degeneration of… white matter”.

      • Adding to point 2 is the fact that the pathology of the brain-specific MCL-1 knock-out mouse does not resemble the pathology of VWM at all. The central features of VWM are abnormal astrocyte morphology with astrocytes having a few stunted processes, lack of reactive astrogliosis, lack of microgliosis, increase in number of oligodendrocytes and presence of foamy oligodendrocytes. The increase in oligodendrocytes in VWM may be such that the high cellularity leads to diffusion restriction on MRI. Bergmann glia are typically ectopic, but not reduced in number. By contrast, the brain-specific MCL-1 knock-out mouse is characterized by decreased numbers of oligodendrocytes, increased numbers of microglia, reactive astrogliosis, decreased numbers of Bergmann glia and ectopic granule cells. No morphological abnormalities of oligodendrocytes and astrocytes are observed. So, histopathologically the only shared feature is preferential involvement of the brain white matter.*

      We are persuaded by the reviewers that our assertion of a high degree of similarity between the Mcl-1 deletion phenotype and VWMD was not adequately supported by our available data. In the revision, we will state that a role for MCL-1 deficiency in VWMD pathogenesis is hypothetical, and that additional studies beyond the scope of this project will be needed to test this hypothesis. However, we reassert that the white matter specificity of the Mcl-1-deletion phenotype is important.

      The reviewer accurately characterizes the pathology of the Mcl-1 deletion phenotype and notes “the preferential involvement of the white matter”. We consider that the preferential involvement of white matter, and of oligodendrocytes within the white matter are highly significant. We will revise the work to focus on the Mcl-1 deletion phenotype, the white matter specificity, and the potential relevance to diverse white matter-specific disease.

      While we concede that more data would be needed to firmly connect MCL-1 to VWMD, we do not agree that the Mcl-1 phenotype “does not resemble the pathology of VWM at all”. There is a diversity of published observations of pathology in VWMD and not all published reports support the descriptions in the reviewer comment. This diversity of findings is highly relevant to our work. For example, while autopsy studies of humans with end stage VWMD show lack of microgliosis (7), studies of mice with a mutation known to cause VWMD in humans, that clearly recapitulate VWMD, show robust microgliosis earlier in the disease process (8). These different observations raise the possibility that microgliosis occurs during the period of active neurodegeneration or at least that in murine brain, the VWMD process activates a microglial reaction. Either interpretation would support a likeness between Mcl-1-deleted mice and VWMD mouse models. Another study of cerebellar pathology in twin human fetuses with characteristic VWMD mutations showed complete absence of Bergmann glia (9). We propose in the revision to address the reviewer’s concerns by presenting the diversity of perspectives on microglial reaction and Bergmann glial changes in VWMD, including all of the citations above.

      • The clarity of the work would benefit from a different approach to introduce the study. It would help the reader to know that (1) gray matter cell specific Mcl-1 deletion in mice did not cause apoptosis and (2) apoptosis may have different effector proteins. This important information is now in the discussion. The switch to another cell type in the brain (hGFAP+ cells) would be logical and the significance of the work may improve. When approaching the topic from the field of leukodystrophies one would not necessarily think of deleting the Mcl-1 gene, especially as this gene is not associated with any known leukodystrophy and tends to associate with preneoplastic and neoplastic disease.*

      We appreciate these suggestions, which we agree will enhance the logical flow and the significance, in line with our response to point 3. We will revise the Introduction as suggested.

      • The authors claim that the ISR is activated in VWM, which means that eIF2α phosphorylation levels are increased, general protein synthesis is decreased and a transcription pathway is regulated by ATF4 and other factors. However, this is not what is seen in VWM. Increased eIF2α phosphorylation and reduced general protein synthesis are not observed in VWM; strikingly, the level of eIF2α phosphorylation is reduced, general protein synthesis appears at a normal rate, and only the ATF4-regulated transcriptome is continuously expressed in VWM astrocytes. *

      This point is not well-settled, as published studies show that the ISR is activated in VWMD despite decreased eIF2α phosphorylation (10, 11). Published scRNA-seq studies of mice with VWMD mutations moreover, show that the ISR transcriptome is activated in oligodendrocytes, as well as neurons, endothelial cells and microglia (8). We will address this concern in the revision by citing these published reports that show both decreased eIF2α phosphorylation and lines of evidence that support ISR activation.

      Fritsh et al. show that MCL-1 protein synthesis is reduced by increased eIF2α phosphorylation due to reduced translation rates at the Mcl-1 mRNA and not due to differences in Mcl-1 mRNA levels.

      We agree with this interpretation of Fritsh et al, which is fully compatible with our proposed mechanism. We suggest that ISR activation in VWMD decreases translation of Mcl-1 mRNA, leading to reduced MCL-1 protein expression. MCL-1 protein is rapidly degraded and may therefore be a more sensitive detector of impaired translation than other readouts. We currently cite published work documenting altered translation in VWMD in the manuscript and in the revision will add the reference Moon et al, which is directly on point (11).

      One would a priori not expect to find altered MCL-1 synthesis rates in the mildly affected VWM mouse model Eif2B5R132H/R132H.

      The model does not show reduced global translation under normal conditions, but rather hypo-activity of eIF2B affects the translation of specific mRNAs (12). We will make this point clear in the revision.

      Actually, ISR deregulation has not been reported in the Eif2B5R132H/R132H VWM mouse model. The authors need to rephrase this part of their study taking this information into account, when explaining their experiments and interpreting their results.

      Consistent with the data that the ISR is activated in VWMD, mice show ATF4 up-regulation and other evidence of ISR activation (13) and impaired responses to physiologic stress (14, 15). In the revision, we will add these citations. To address the reviewer concerns, we will state in the revision that ISR activation is one of many potential mechanisms of reduced MCL-1 expression.

      The authors now imply that their study adds mechanistic insight into the VWM field and that is not the case.

      As we describe in response to point 3, we will acknowledge in the revision that the assertion that MCL-1 deficiency causes VWMD is hypothetical.

      In addition, Figure 7C shows differences in actin signal rather than MCL-1 signal, suggesting that transfer of the actin protein from the gel to the blot was not optimal for the middle lanes. MCL-1 protein may thus not be reduced in these samples from Eif2B5R132H/R132H VWM mice.

      We stand by our Western blot data that show that MCL-1 levels are lower in the Eif2B5R132H/R132H VWM mouse model, coincident with the onset of symptoms. The Western blot shown is a representative image that includes 3 biological replicates for each condition and of a total of 12 mice. The quantification demonstrates the reproducibility of the finding.

      • Can the authors show in which cell type was apoptosis found (lines 315-316)? Their study uses the hGFAP - Cre mouse model to generate conditional Mcl-1 knock-out mice. The original paper by Zhuo et al. describing the hGFAP - promoter mouse model suggests that Mcl-1 expression is also affected in neurons and ependymal cells. The authors can investigate this further to assess which cell types (1) are sensitive to apoptosis by Mcl-1 deletion and (2) depend on Bax and Bak.*

      Apoptosis may occur at different times in different cell populations, and asynchronous apoptosis can be difficult to detect at any point in time, which can complicate the suggested studies. Despite significant effort, we have not been able to co-localize any markers with dying cells in our model.

      To address the question of neuronal involvement, the revised manuscript will refer to prior published studies (16-18) which show that Mcl-1 deletion affects forebrain neural progenitors. In this context, we will discuss that our Mcl-1 deletion studies show that significant neural progenitor populations survive prenatal Mcl-1 deletion and generate appropriate cortical and hippocampal architecture in Mcl-1-deleted mice at P7, prior to the onset of white matter degeneration.

      To identify involved glial cells, we quantified the cells that were depleted or persisted in the Mcl-1 deleted brain. These studies identified oligodendrocytes and Bergmann glial as cell types depleted during P7-P15, when postnatal degeneration occurs in Mcl-1 deleted mice. In contrast, astrocytes persisted, indicating that astrocytes are not MCL-1-dependent. In the review, we will add new data quantifiying the immature, PDGFRA-expression subset of oligodendrocytes, which will increase the specification of which cells are depleted by Mcl-1 deletion.

      We share the reviewer’s interest in the question of which subsets of Mcl-1 dependent cells are rescued by co-deletion of Bax or Bak. As known markers may not be sufficient to distinguish these subsets, we consider that scRNA-seq studies are an ideal approach to identify these subsets and their specific gene expression patterns. However, these studies are outside the scope of the present work, which establishes that specific white matter cells depend on Mcl-1.

      • Heterozygous deletion of Bak greatly reduces the number of Bak-expressing cells (Fig. 3C, line, 331-333). Authors need to explain this remarkable finding. *

      As we state in the text, the reduced Bak expression in the heterozygous Bak +/- mice is consistent with a gene dosage effect, which has been observed for other genes.

      Please provide raw IHC data.

      Our IHC data is “raw” in the sense of unaltered. We are happy to include a supplementary figure with additional low power and high-power images of BAK staining.

      Co-staining with neuronal, astrocytic or oligodendrocytic markers would be insightful.

      To address this point, we have successfully performed double labeling with antibodies to BAK and with antibodies to the oligodendrocyte marker SOX10 and the astrocyte marker GFAP. We will add these images to the revision. These images show that BAK+ cells include oligodendrocytes and astrocytes. The position and morphology of the BAK+ cells show that they are not neurons.

      In addition, what does the Western blot signal for the BAX protein represent in Bax homozygous knock out mice (Fig. 3C)?

      We will add text stating that the small residual BAX protein detected in the conditional Bax-deleted mice can be attributed to BAX expression in cells outside the Gfap lineage, including endothelial cells, vascular fibroblasts, and microglia.

      Can the percentage of BAX+ cells in Mcl-1/BaxdKO corpus callosum be determined, similarly as was done for BAK? Co-staining with neuronal, astrocytic or oligodendrocytic markers would be insightful here as well. The legend of Fig. 3D does not state what staining is shown (H&E?).

      We were not able to label BAX protein in individual cells using immunohistochemistry. In contrast, BAK immunohistochemistry worked well, allowing us to analyze the cellular distribution of BAK protein. We will revise the legend in 3D to state the staining is H&E.

      • What explains the strong GFAP expression in processes of Mcl-1 KO astrocytes? Are these cells refractory to apoptosis or to hGFAP-driven Cre expression and recombination? Do they lack BAK or BAX or other apopotic-regulating protein? Or do specific factors compensate for the loss of MCL-1?*

      As we discuss in our response to point 1 above, not all cells require MCL-1 to prevent spontaneous apoptosis. The persistence of GFAP+ astrocytes in Mcl-1-deleted mice shows that astrocytes do not require MCL-1 to maintain their survival. These data do not mean that these astrocytes are refractory to apoptosis, but rather they are not primed for apoptosis in a way that is critically restricted by MCL-1. We will add a discussion of these implications to the revision.

      • Which developing symptoms do the authors refer to in line 468? Please specify and introduce appropriate references.*

      We will add a description of symptoms to the revision.

      • The definition of leukodystrophies given in the paper is outdated. Leukodystrophies are not invariably progressive and fatal disorders. For more recent definition of leukodystrophies see Vanderver et al., Case definition and classification of leukodystrophies and leukoencephalopathies, Mol Genet Metab 2015, and van der Knaap et al., Leukodystrophies a proposed classification system based on pathology, Acta Neuropathol 2017.*

      We appreciate this advice. We will revise the Introduction accordingly and cite the recommended work.

      • It is not correct that there is no specific targeted therapy clinically implemented to arrest progression of the disease in any leukodystrophy. Perhaps hematopoietic stem cell transplantation is not specific targeted, although curative if applied in time in adrenoleukodystrophy and metachromatic leukodystrophy, but certainly genetically engineered autologous hematopoietic stem cells would qualify the definition. In any case, the suggestion that no leukodystrophy is treatable is not correct.*

      We appreciate this correction. We will revise the text to provide a more detailed description of treatment options while underscoring the need for mechanistic insight.

      Reviewer #2 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      In this manuscript, the authors characterize the phenotype associated with brain-specific deletion of the mcl-1 gene in mice as a model for vanishing white matter-like disease in humans. Unfortunately, the gfap gene is expressed in many cell types during development which are outside of the intended cell type for this study, so functional data presented from the mutant mice is open to interpretation. The authors have not ruled out other interpretations of their results. The authors need to address major shortcomings in their data interpretation by addressing the following issues.

      We appreciate that concerns related to vision and hearing in the Mcl-1 deleted mice, and address these concerns as described below.

      On line 57, the authors indicate that seizures are common in leukodystrophy. This is controversial. Patients may have attacks that look like seizures, but without EEG recordings there is no way to distinguish these events from myoclonus. The authors should note this ambiguity.

      We will note this ambiguity in the revision. On line 58, the authors indicate the absence of treatments for leukodystrophies. The authors should review the following articles: PMID: 7582569, 15452666 and 27882623, and moderate the text.

      We will cite these papers and moderate the text as recommended

      The methods section is lacking in details in several areas. For example beginning line 136, there is virtually no indication of the MRI details without going to secondary literature. The authors should provide a brief description including magnet strength, type of imaging and the general sequence, software used to collect and analyze the images.

      We will include these details in the revision.

      Were the brains actually harvested fresh, where mechanical stresses easily deform brain structure, prior to immersion fixation for 48h? This could be troubling despite the method being previously published.

      Brains were harvested fresh and drop fixed. We have extensive experience over more than ten years in handling brain tissue from neonatal mice and subsequently analyzing MRI images and sections. These methods have allowed us to make quantitative volumetric comparisons of the 3-dimensional architecture of the developing brain using MRI in prior studies, that detected genotypic differences in brain growth without confounding fixation artefact (19). We can confirm that no mechanical stress of handling can reproduce the white matter specific changes that we see in the Mcl-1-deleted brain. We did not detect any abnormalities in control brains subjected to the same handling techniques. Beginning on line126, the authors could at least indicate the fixative details and whether the mice were perfused or tissue was immersion fixed. Compare this lack of detail with the description of lysis buffer beginning on line 158.

      We will add fixation details to the revision.

      Behavioral testing at young ages is rather problematic regarding data interpretation. For example, open field testing (Fig. 2B) at postnatal day 7, which relies on visual cues, is rather dubious when mice do not open their eyes until 12-13 days after birth. How would the pups know if they were in the middle of an open field and exhibit thigmotaxis, even if they were capable of the behavior at such a young age? Thus, the P7 data likely cannot be interpreted in terms of the knockouts being normal.

      We fully agree with the reviewer on the challenges with behavioral analysis of such young mice. The rationale for the open field test was that, at P7, mouse pups are gaining greater control of hind limb function, which can be observed as a transition from pivoting in one place to forward locomotion. Thus, we measured the number of pivots and distance traveled in the open field as indicators for maturation of motor function. Center time was presented to show that, at P7, both WT and knockout mice stayed in the middle (i.e., the groups were at the same stage of limited mobility). We consider that these measures, together with geotaxis and latency to righting (Table 1), provide a developmentally-appropriate neurologic assessment for an age when behaviors are very limited. We will make clear in the revision that these specific tests must be considered together in order to be informative.

      By P14, when the mutants exhibit a phenotype, they are already significantly underweight, which can lead to non-specific phenotypes such as retinal dysfunction or degeneration. Did the authors look for pathological changes in the retina?

      Further, GFAP is expressed in retina of many vertebrate species (PMID 1283834) which would inactivate mcl1 in that tissue and possibly lead to blindness. Indeed, the table at the following link provides a list of tissues in which the gfap-cre transgene is expressed during development. The authors need to address this major issue. http://www.informatics.jax.org/allele/MGI:2179048?recomRibbon=open

      We appreciate this suggestion and we will look for pathology in the retina and optic nerve. Such pathology, if we find it, is likely to be specific, as the optic nerve is myelinated and we have already noted extensive myelination abnormalities in the Mcl-1-deleted mice. If we find retinal or optic nerve abnormalities, we will note the potential for these abnormalities to impact on open field testing.

      For the startle response, which relies on normal hearing, did the authors check to determine if the mutants are deaf? This is very difficult at such a young age, especially prior to tight junction assembly in the lateral wall at around P14. Again, GFAP is expressed in the cochlea at an early age (see PMID 20817025) and may have caused degenerative pathology in this tissue. The authors need to address this major issue.

      The reviewer brings up the potential issue of deafness as a confounding factor for acoustic startle testing. Our results showed that startle responses in the mutant mice were increased at P14, which clearly indicates the mice were able to hear the acoustic stimuli. Further, at P14 and P21, both WT and knockout mice had orderly patterns of prepulse inhibition, providing confirmation of good hearing ability at each timepoint. We will make these points clear in the revision.

      *Reviewer #2 (Significance (Required)):

      Unknown.*

      The reviewer has not raised specific issues with the significance. We consider the significance of our work to be the finding that oligodendrocyte-lineage glial cells depend on MCL-1 and thus are primed for apoptosis, such that disrupting MCL-1 expression results in catastrophic degeneration of the cerebral white matter. Addressing the reviewer’s concerns described in the section on Evidence, reproducibility and clarity will support this significance.*

      Reviewer #3 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      Cleveland et al. tried to argue that brain-specific depletion of apoptosis regulator MCL-1 reproduces Vanishing White Matter Disease (VWMD) in mice. The authors show that brain-specific MCL-1 deficiency leads to brain atrophy, increased brain cell apoptosis, decreased oligodendrocytes, decreased MBP immunoreactivity, and activation of astrocytes and microglia. It is known that VWMD is a hypomyelinating disorder caused by mutation of eIF2B subunits, which displays severe myelin loss but minimal oligodendrocyte apoptosis or loss in the CNS white matter. In fact, a number of studies show increased oligodendrocyte numbers in the CNS white matter.*

      Published reports show decreased normal oligodendrocytes and increased immature oligodendrocyte populations (20)**.

      The characteristic oligodendrocyte pathology is foamy oligodendrocytes (Wong et al., 2000), rather than apoptosis.

      Foamy oligodendrocyte pathology and increased oligodendrocyte apoptosis are not mutually exclusive. The above referenced paper, Wong et al, in addition to foamy oligodendrocytes, also describes a “decrease in numbers of cells with oligodendroglial phenotype, both normal and abnormal” (21); this decrease is compatible with increased apoptosis. Moreover, published reports specifically describe apoptotic oligodendrocytes in human brains with VWMD (22). To address this point, we propose to include both of these citations in the revision to reference foamy oligodendrocyte pathology in VWMD and to state that this pathologic finding does exclude a role for apoptosis in VWMD pathogenesis.

      Since the CNS pathology of brain-specific MCL-1 deficient mice is drive by brain cell apoptosis, the relevance of this mouse model to VWMD is very limited.

      Whether apoptosis plays a mechanistic role in VWMD is less clear than this comment suggests, as described in multiple publications (22, 23).

      The title of this manuscript is misleading, and should be changed.

      We accept that our statement that Mcl-1-deletion recapitulates VWMD is premature and not adequately supported by the available data. We will revise the title, introduction and discussion accordingly, to focus on the white matter specificity of the Mcl-1-deletion phenotype.

      *Moreover, there are a number of major concerns.**

      1. Figure 1 clearly shows severe atrophy of neocortex in Mcl-1 cKO mice; however, the white matter appears largely normal in the cerebellum and brain stem. Mcl-1 cKO mice also display ventricular dilation and possible atrophy of corpus callosum. The authors should discuss severe atrophy of neocortex in Mcl-1 cKO mice and the possibility that ventricular dilation and corpus callosum atrophy result from severe atrophy of neocortex?*

      The cortical atrophy that the reviewer notes begins after P7 and is minimal at P14 when white matter loss is already pronounced. At P21, when there is clear cortical thinning, the white matter loss is extreme. Based on the time course, we consider that the white matter loss is the primary pathology, and the cortical thinning is secondary. Importantly, glial cells populate the cortex as well as the white matter and our cellular data show that oligodendrocytes are reduced in the cortex as well as in the white matter structures. Based on these lines of evidence, we consider that the primary cell type affected is the oligodendroglial population of the glia. We will add a discussion along these lines to the revision.

      We agree that the brain stem is preserved. Our data show that the hGFAP-Cre promoter is least efficient in the brain stem and midbrain regions (Sup Fig.1). We will note this differential efficiency in the revision.

      • The motor and sensory tests in Figure 2 are potential interesting, but their relevance to myelin abnormalities is limited. The authors should perform the behaviors tests that are highly relevant to myelin abnormalities.*

      The tests presented show progressive neurologic impairment, correlating with the onset of neuropathology. In the revision we will note that ataxia and tremor are common features of leukodystrophies and the Mcl-1-deleted mice show both ataxia and tremor.

      • It is well expected that there are increased apoptotic cells in the brain of Mcl-1 cKO mice. The authors should perform double labeling to demonstrate which cell types undergo apoptosis: neurons, oligodendrocytes, or other cell types? On the other hand, Figure 3A shows that there are substantial apoptotic cells in the cerebral cortex, which is consistent with severe cerebral cortex atrophy in Mcl-1 cKO mice, suggesting neuron apoptosis in the cerebral cortex. Neuron apoptosis would further rule out the relevance of Mcl-1 cKO mice to VWMD.*

      These studies would be of interest, but we have not been able to co-label apoptotic cells in the Mcl-1-deleted mice with any marker. In the advanced state of apoptosis when dying cells are detectable by TUNEL staining, the relevant marker proteins have been degraded beyond recognition by IHC. In contrast, the apoptotic marker cleaved caspase-3, which is positive earlier in the apoptotic process and might allow marker co-labeling, was not detectably elevated in the Mcl-1-deleted mice. We attribute the lack of cleaved caspase-3+ cells to the asynchronous nature of the increased cell death, and to the short duration in which dying cells are cleaved caspase-3+. While double label studies of dying cells have been problematic, our studies quantifying each cell type provide information to address the reviewer’s question. Our cell counts show clearly that oligodendrocytes are the primary cell type reduced in number in the Mcl-1 deleted mice.

      • Figure1, 4 the authors use H&E staining to demonstrate white matter loss. H&E staining is good to show general CNS morphology; however, it is impossible to use H&E staining to quantify the integrity of the white matter. The authors should perform specific staining to quantify white matter loss in the mouse models.*

      Our MBP stains later in the paper are used to quantify white matter loss.

      • Figure 5, MBP IHC is good to show general myelin staining, but is not a reliable assay to quantify myelin integrity in the CNS. The authors should perform electron microscopy analysis to quantify myelin integrity in the CNS in the mouse models.*

      Our studies of MBP staining show that the myelinated area in cross sections is significantly reduced in the Mcl-1-deleted mice. Electron microscopy studies cannot show whether the myelinated area is reduced and studies of myelin integrity are not needed to prove that reduced oligodendrocytes correlate with reduced myelination.

      • Figure 6, SOX10 is a marker of oligodendrocytes and OPCs. The authors should quantify the number of oligodendrocytes (using oligodendrocyte markers, such as CC1) and the number of OPCs (using OPC markers, such as NG2). Does deletion of BAK or BAX reduce oligodendrocyte apoptosis in the CNS of Mcl-1 cKO mice?*

      We agree that this is an important question, and we are working to quantify OPCs in the Mcl-1-deleted mice by counting cells labelled with the OPC marker PDGFRA. We will add these data to the revision and discuss their significance when we know what they show.

      • The authors show that the level of MCL-1 is comparable in brain lysates of wildtype and eIF2B5 R132H/R132H mice at the age of 7 months, and moderately decreased in eIF2B5 R132H/R132H mice at the age of 10 months. VWMDis a developmental disorder. Similarly, brain-specific MCL-1 deficiency causes developmental abnormalities in the CNS. The normal level of MCL-1 in 7-month-old eIF2B5 R132H/R132H mice strongly suggests that MCL-1 is not a major player involved in the pathogenesis of VWMD. Does brain-specific MCL-1 deficiency starting at the age of 10 months (using CreERT mice) cause CNS abnormalities in adult mice?*

      We agree that Mcl-1 deletion in our model disrupts postnatal brain development. Our studies show that in early life, oligodendrocytes depend on MCL-1 to prevent spontaneous apoptosis. It is an interesting, but separate question whether Mcl-1 deletion induced in the adult would also cause a similar phenotype. The suggested studies would take over a year to conduct, and while they are of interest, they are not required to prove our main point, which is that developmental leukodystrophies may result from the dependence of oligodendrocytes on MCL-1. In the revision, we will state that our comparison on the Mcl-1-deletion phenotype to VWMD is hypothetical, and that additional studies are needed to test this hypothesis.

      • Does MCL-1 deletion exacerbate the pathology in eIF2B5 R132H/R132H mice? Moreover, does MCL-1 overexpression rescue the pathology in eIF2B5 R132H/R132H mice? These two experiments are necessary to demonstrate the involvement of MCL-1 in VWMDpathogenesis.*

      We agree that these are interesting and important studies; however, these studies will require years to complete and extensive resources. These studies are not needed to show that Mcl-1 deletion produces early onset white matter degeneration, which is our main point. As in our response to point 7 above, we will state in the revision that our comparison on the Mcl-1-deletion phenotype to VWMD is hypothetical, and list these experiments as follow up studies that are needed to test this hypothesis.

      *Reviewer #3 (Significance (Required)):

      The study will not significantly advance the understanding of VWMD pathogenesis.*

      We recognize that our assertion of a direct relevance to VWMD was premature, and that additional studies, beyond the scope to this project, are needed to determine if MCL-1 deficiency contributes to VWMD pathology. We agree that the available data do not yet inform VWMD pathogenesis, but these data may become relevant to VWMD as follow-up studies are conducted. The data remain highly relevant to the broad group of leukodystrophies as they demonstrate a physiologic vulnerability of oligodendrocytes that sets them apart from astrocytes and neurons, and thus may play a role in disorders in which oligodendrocyte pathology is central.

      Neuroscientists may be interested in the reported findings.

      We appreciate the reviewer noting the significance for neuroscience.

      My field of expertise: oligodendrocyte, myelin, neurodegeneration, ER stress

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    1. Arguments

      I couldn't highlight the section I wanted to highlight since this table is a .jpg, but I wanted to cover the argument of "This has always been done"

      This argument is heard so often in not just education but the work force, politics, and more. From my experience with this argument, in my undergraduate studies in landscape architecture, at the end of every design studio we give a presentation of our work. A number of the professors in the program I would consider to be old fashioned, but not all of them. The format of the final presentation would always be a powerpoint slide presentation where visuals of sites would be shown as pictures and photography. A common critique would be that the pictures either looked bad, looked too good, and did not show parts of the site they wanted to see.

      I wanted to make not only the powerpoint but design projects to be more interactive and engaging. So I developed presentations for my class in a video format. While some forms of interpretation may be left out such as "going back to a slide and having a closer look at infographics and images, the viewing experience of the presentation became more engaging and interesting.

      Another process I wanted to incorporate is using real-time modeling tools like Minecraft as a development tool for my site designs. Though, that idea was shot down, but I think with the accessibility of the application as well as realism mod packs to the game, that dream can be a reality. That and going even further by implementing VR capabilities. This is not just in landscape design, but in other forms of media making as well.

    1. Conversely, avoidingspecies extinction can be seen as the fundamentalgoal of biodiversity conservation, because whileall of humanity’s other impacts on the Earth canbe repaired, species extinction, Jurassic Park fan-tasies notwithstanding, is irreversible.

      I think this is an extremely important thing to focus on, and to educate about. People seem to have the wrong idea on what extinction truly means, especially for plants and pollinator species like bees. Loosing these food sources are permanent, and will change the face of the earth. I think it would be a good start to do as we have talked about in previous classes and start early with educating children on what extinction means, and why we must preserve natural habitats for both plants and animals. Yes, we talk about how our kids will not get to see Polar Bears, but we should also talk about how our kids may not have enough food to feed their families because of the way we are driving plant live and pollinators to dangerous levels of endangerment.

    2. Madagasca

      The Rosie Periwinkle is only found in Madagascar as are many indigenous plants. This flower has been proven to fight cancer. There are so many species threatened on Madagascar that we may not even know about. Think of all of the medicines ect that could be hiding on this island that we have no idea about and may never know about because of the high rate of extinction currently present on the island due to human interference. https://livingrainforest.org/learning-resources/rosy-periwinkle

    1. Author Response to Public Reviews

      Reviewer #1 (Public Review):

      [...] What is left unclear is what is unique about the fibrotic substrate in ESUS patients in comparison to AFib patients in the future.

      We thank the reviewer for these reasonable and accurate critiques. In the revised version of our manuscript, we offer a more in-depth analysis of potential cohort-scale differences in the spatial distribution of fibrosis between ESUS and AFib patients and how that might affect the overall arrhythmogenicity of fibrotic remodeling between the two populations. We further acknowledge comprehensive understanding of pathophysiological consequences of fibrosis in ESUS will require much more research in the future. Our plans include analysis of how fibrosis might affect LA hemodynamic properties and the likelihood of clot formation. Future work (both clinical and computational) will also be needed to test the hypothesis generated by the present study that ESUS patients lack the triggers needed to initiate AFib. We have added clarifying text to the Discussion section of our manuscript to acknowledge these two points (see lines 286-289, 367-368).

      Reviewer #2 (Public Review):

      [...] 1) As the authors point out, clinical studies have revealed that the fibrotic burden in ESUS patients is similar to those with aFib. The question is why then, do so few ESUS patients exhibit clinically detectable arrhythmias with long-term monitoring. The authors hypothesize and their data support the notion that while the substrate is prime for pro-arrhythmia in ESUS patients, a lack of triggering events may explain the differences between the two groups.

      We thank the reviewer for their kind comment about the level of anatomical and structural variability in our study. We concur that additional analysis of fibrosis spatial pattern properties (local fibrosis density and entropy, as calculated in our previous work) on a region-wise basis between AFib/ESUS and inducible/non-inducible models would add significant value to our work. Accordingly, we have made significant additions to the text including a completely new figure.

      2) I think the authors could go further in describing why this is surprising. Generally, severe fibrosis is thought to potentially serve as a means or mechanism for pro-arrhythmic triggers. This is because damage to cardiac tissue typically results in calcium dysregulation. When calcium overload occurs in isolated fibrotic tissue areas, or depolarization of the resting membrane potential due to localized ischemia allows for ectopic peacemaking, we might expect that the diseased/fibrotic tissue is itself the source of arrhythmia generation. I think the novel finding here is that this notion may be a simplification, and the sources of arrhythmia generation may be more complex and may need to come from outside the areas of fibrosis. I think this is a big deal.

      Patients with stroke were excluded from the AFib cohort because the etiology of stroke in our AFib cohort was not explicitly adjudicated to be cardioembolic, other ischemic such as atherosclerotic, or haemorrhagic and therefore would not allow us to draw reliable conclusions regarding the role of the atrial substrate in stroke in this population. A separate issue is the fact that the cell- and tissue-scale electrophysiology in models reconstructed from ESUS patients was based on the same representation as those used in AFib models. In fact, this was a deliberate design choice to ensure that our modeling results represented a “worst case scenario” for the potential impact of fibrosis in patients with ESUS. Given the fact that our aim is to determine whether there are any differences in the pro-arrhythmic capacity of fibrotic substrate in ESUS and AFib groups, we believe that this is a suitable and justifiable modeling choice – modeling fibrosis differently in the two populations would be difficult to justify due to a lack of good experimental data and would introduce more confounding factors.

      Nevertheless, we agree this is a relevant limitation of our study and we have added an acknowledgement of that fact to our revised manuscript (see lines 361-365).

      3) An acknowledged limitation of the study is the assumption of fixed conduction velocity and action potential duration/effective refractory period. Bifulco et al. base this assumption on previous studies by the group (e.g. L312), which, however, concluded that reentrant driver locations and inducibility are sensitive to changes of action potential and conduction velocity (Deng et al.). For conduction velocity, wider ranges have been reported since the publication of the supporting reference (35) in 1994, e.g. Verma et al.; Roney et al.

      The reviewer’s point is well taken. Accordingly, we have added qualifying language pertaining to RD localization analysis in our Discussion (see lines 323-326). Having said that, we do not think this issue stands to fundamentally change our top-line interpretation of the findings from simulations, as it pertains to the idea that fibrosis in ESUS might plausibly be latent proarrhythmic substrate. The point of the paper by Deng et al. was to analyze sensitivity of reentrant driver localization to altered cell- and tissue-scale electrophysiological properties, not the concept of inducibility per se. It is thus likely that if our entire study were repeated with ±10% CV or APD (both within normal physiological range for average fibrotic atrial tissue) the take-home message would be the same.

      4) The number of pacing sites is rather low for a comprehensive in silico arrhythmia inducibility test but likely a good balance of coverage and computational feasibility considering that the primary goal of this research was to check whether the two groups of models show differences when undergoing the same (but not necessarily exhaustive) protocol.

      We would argue that 15 sites in the LA alone is comparable in coverage to prior studies in biatrial models (e.g., 30 LA/RA sites in Zahid et al. [2016] Cardiovasc Res; 40 LA/RA sites in Boyle et al. [2019] Nat Biomed Eng). We would further stress that our decision to use these specific sites was based on our motivation to simulate triggered activity (i.e., rapid pacing) exclusively from sites identified as common clinically relevant trigger locations documented in AFib patients (see ref. [14] by Santangeli et al. [2016] Heart Rhythm). If we were to instead pace from randomly distributed atrial sites as in prior work, we would jeopardize our ability to draw conclusions on the potential relevance of our simulations to the real-world susceptibility of atrial fibrotic substrate in ESUS patients to ectopic beats originating from realistic locations.

      5) The discussion does a good job in putting the results into context. Two interesting observations that deserve more attention are that i) the Inducibility Score was always higher for AFib vs. ESUS (Figure 6A, no statistical test performed). However, this did not translate to a difference in silico arrhythmia burden (inducibility). ii) Reentrant drivers were about twice as likely to localize to the left pulmonary veins than the right pulmonary veins in the AFib models (Figure 6D).

      Regarding the first point (i), with corrections made to the fiber mapping process, the statement regarding uniformly higher IdS values in AFib models is no longer true. Moreover, with our revised analysis there is no significant difference in the region-wise inducibility rates (P=0.45). The reviewer’s second point (ii) still stands and is even more pronounced with a ~3x higher rate of localization to the LPV vs. RPV areas in AFib models. Notably, our new region-wise analysis of fibrosis spatial pattern (see new Fig. 6 and our response to major points 4 and 5 above) shows that LPV regions in AFib models in this cohort were much more likely to have the combination of high fibrosis density and entropy previously shown to be highly favorable to reentrant driver localization. However, we recognize that a more fulsome analysis will be required to draw truly meaningful conclusions on this subject in the context of either AFib or ESUS patients; this has been briefly noted in our Limitations section (see lines 332-335).

      6) The study succeeded in answering the question it posed in the sense that no marked difference was found between the ESUS and AFib models. This leads to the question what the stroke-inducing mechanism is in the ESUS patients. A hypothesis for future work could be that the fibrotic infiltrations in the ESUS patients reduce the hemodynamic efficacy of the left atrium and render clot formation (e.g. in the atrial appendage) more likely in this way.

      The reviewer’s comment is duly noted and entirely consistent with our plans for future work. In fact, we recently published a white paper (Boyle et al. [2021] Heart) outlining a vision to combine electrophysiological models of the left atrium with biomechanics and hemodynamics simulation to comprehensively understand how fibrosis might influence clot formation. Our revised Discussion emphasizes this exciting trajectory for future work (see lines 370-372).

      7) The negative finding in this study (no difference between groups) does not naturally allow us to draw clinical implications for diagnosis or stratification. Additional ways to put the hypothesis proposed by the authors (fewer arrhythmogenic triggers in the ESUS patients) to test could be to consider readouts/surrogate measures of the autonomic nervous system.

      We have noted in our Discussion (see lines 286-289) that future work could test the hypothesis arising from this project via electrocardiographic monitoring in ESUS patients with different levels of fibrosis. Concerning the idea of using direct readouts of autonomic tone, we chose to leave this out since we are unaware of any clinically available systems. The usefulness of surrogate measurements (e.g., heart rate variability) in this context also remains unclear.

      Reviewer #3 (Public Review):

      [...] 1) As the authors point out, clinical studies have revealed that the fibrotic burden in ESUS patients is similar to those with aFib. The question is why then, do so few ESUS patients exhibit clinically detectable arrhythmias with long-term monitoring. The authors hypothesize and their data support the notion that while the substrate is prime for pro-arrhythmia in ESUS patients, a lack of triggering events may explain the differences between the two groups.

      We thank the reviewer for these kind remarks. It is encouraging to have our results interpreted so elegantly and accurately. We are excited to test this new hypothesis (and others prompted by the peer review process for this manuscript) in future studies.

      2) I think the authors could go further in describing why this is surprising. Generally, severe fibrosis is thought to potentially serve as a means or mechanism for pro-arrhythmic triggers. This is because damage to cardiac tissue typically results in calcium dysregulation. When calcium overload occurs in isolated fibrotic tissue areas, or depolarization of the resting membrane potential due to localized ischemia allows for ectopic peacemaking, we might expect that the diseased/fibrotic tissue is itself the source of arrhythmia generation. I think the novel finding here is that this notion may be a simplification, and the sources of arrhythmia generation may be more complex and may need to come from outside the areas of fibrosis. I think this is a big deal.

      This is an excellent point and we strongly concur that the “trigger-centric” interpretation of the pathophysiological consequences of fibrotic remodeling should be reconsidered. To further reinforce this fact, we ran additional simulations to rule out the possibility that there might be exaggerated resting membrane potential depolarization in AFib but not in ESUS, which might provide an alternative explanation for the clinical manifestation of arrhythmia in the former but not the latter. Our new results support the point raised by the reviewer and, in our opinion, increase the overall impact of the work.

    1. Note: This rebuttal was posted by the corresponding author to Review Commons. Content has not been altered except for formatting.

      Learn more at Review Commons


      Reply to the reviewers

      Reviewer #1 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      The authors aimed to understand the control and the elimination of disseminated tumor cells by NK cells within the lung, their main question being how pulmonary NK cells are able to prevent tumor cells from colonization in the lung.

      To dissect this question, Hiroshi Ichise and colleagues took advantage of the ultra-sensitive bioluminescence whole body imaging system combined with intravital two-photon microscopy technology involving genetically-encoded biosensors tumor or NK cells to explore the behavior and functional competences of NK cells in an experimental lung metastasis model.

      First, the authors have monitored the fate of intravenously injected B16-Akaluc cells from 5 min to 10 days and observe that tumor cells decrease rapidly within the first 12-24 hours. In parallel, they performed asialoGM1+ and NK1.1+ cells depletion by injection of depleting anti-aGM1 and anti-NK1.1 antibodies in order to see the involvement of these populations on the elimination of the disseminated tumor cells. They conclude that a rapid decrease of the tumor cells is mediated by NK cells. Consisting with this first data, the authors observe also the same early NK cells mediated impact on two other syngenic mouse tumor cell lines : the BRAFV600E melanoma and the colon adenocarcinoma MC-38.

      In a second part, the authors dissected NK cell dynamic behaviors in the pulmonary capillaries by taking advantage of the NKp46iCRExrosa26dtTomato mice where NKp46+ cells are fluorescents and performed 2P intravital imaging to follow the in situ the NKp46+ cells behavior. They could nicely observe that NK cells arrive from the capillaries and patrol on the lung epithelial cells in a stall-crawl-jump manner. Moreover, they also show that the attachment to the pulmonary capillaries is mediated by LFA-1. In the presence of B16F10 tumor model, they observe that NK cells stay longer in the capillaries and increase their duration time of crawling indicating that NK cells stay in contact longer with tumor cells.

      The authors then explored the NK-mediated tumor killing in the lung by measuring tumor cell apoptosis using B16F10-SCAT3 cells (which leads to visualize caspase 3 activation) and Ca2+ influx in tumor cells expressing two Ca2+ sensors, GCaMP6s and R-GECO. They could observe casp3 activation but also Ca+ influx on tumor cells within few minutes after encountering NK cells. They also observe that evasion of NK cell surveillance is mediated by Nectin-5 and Nectin-2 expressed on tumor cells.

      Then, they focus on NK cell activation by looking at ERK activation. To do so, they have isolated NK cells from Tg mice expressing a FRET-based ERK biosensor and performed in vitro killing assay against B16-R-GECO tumor cells but also in vivo experiments. For the in vivo experiments, they have developed reporter mice whose NK cells express the FRET biosensor for ERK. They observe that ERK-dependent NK cell activation contributes to the elimination of disseminated tumor cells within the first few hours but not after 24hours. Indeed, theu observe that B16F10-Akaluc tumor cells are equally eliminated when injected 24h after a first injection of B16F10 or PBS in mice. The authors concluded that tumor cell acquire the capacity to evade NK cell surveillance after 24h rather than a hypothesis toward NK cells loose tumoricidal activity over time.

      Finally, the authors have explored their last result on the potential tumor cell evasion of the NK cell surveillance. They show that this NK cell evasion is mediated by the shedding of cell surface Necl-5. They next show that clivage of extracellular domain of Necl-5 was mediated by thrombin in vitro and that anti-coagulation factors such as Warfarin, Edoxaban or Dabigatran Etexilate promote tumor elimination as observed by the bioluminescence experiments. This loss prevents the NK cell signaling needed for effective killing of tumor targets.

      However, most of the results remain correlations and have not been formally demonstrated or miss controls.

      B16F10 is a well known and characterized NK cell target in a in vivo model so the first part is not really knew except the in situ behavior of NK cells within the lung capillaries. The new mecanism of thrombin-mediated shedding of Necl-5 causing evasion from NK Cell surveillance is really concentrated on the last figure (Fig N{degree sign}6) and some supplemental experiments are mandatory and needed to really confirm this affirmation.

      Response: We deeply appreciate the reviewer’s effort to evaluate our work. The reviewer criticizes that the mechanism is well known except “the in situ behavior of NK cells within the lung capillaries.” Indeed, this is what we wish to emphasize in our work. Nobody has ever seen how NK cells kill metastatic tumor cells in the lung. There is a big GAP between in vitro tissue culture experiments and in vivo macroscopic counting of metastatic nodules. Most researchers do not even know when and where in the lung NK cells kill metastatic tumor cells. Live imaging is a powerful approach to address such questions.

      Reviewer #1 (Significance (Required)):

      There are several points to address to improve the significance of these data.

      \*Major points***

      1) A global point : 3 mice/group is to small to analyse and interprete data because of the heterogeneity of the mice. Mean +/- SEM have to represented instead of SD.

      Response: For the sake of animal welfare, researchers are asked to use minimal number of mice. Moreover, only one mouse can be observed in each imaging session, which takes several hours. In most experiments we performed two independent experiments with three mice each. We believe, the number is appropriate for this type of experiment. In the case of small number of samples, we think SD is better than SEM.

      2) The authors used the well known polyclonal anti-asialoGM1 Ab to deplete NK cells. AsialoGM1 is also expressed by ILC1, T, NKT and gd+T cells but also basophils (Trambley J et al., Asialo GM1(+) CD8(+) T cells play a critical role in costimulation blockade-resistant allograft rejection. JCI, 1999). The authors checked the involvement only for the basophils. They have to check the depletion of each of these populations specifically in the lung to assume that the depletion impact only the NK cells or they must change their conclusion on the entire manuscrit and say that not only NK cells is responsible and involved in the control of the disseminated tumor cells but maybe also ILC1, NKT and or gd+T cells.

      Response: We obtained similar observations by using BALB/c nu/nu mice, which lack T cells. Therefore, we can exclude the contribution of T cells at least in the acute phase (*3) Lines 133 to 136 : The authors say that they « did not observe any significant difference in the relative increase of the bioluminescence signal between the control and αAGM1-treated mice, implying that NK cells eliminate disseminated melanoma cells primarily in the acute phase (Response: After 24 hrs, the slope of increment of bioluminescence intensity (BLI) did not change significantly betweenαAGM1-treated mice and control mice. In both mice, the doubling times of melanoma cells are approximately one day.

      4) Fig S3A-B : The authors say that basophils express aGM1 so they performed basophils involvement on the elimination of B16F10 tumor cells with depleting aCD200R3 mab. They also checked the involvement of neutrophils and monocytes. They observed that basophils, neutrophils and monocytes are not involved on the B16F10 elimination. But what is the hypohesis to assess the role of neutrophils and monocytes ? Moreover, they did not explore Basophil roles in the other models including MC-38, BRAFV600E and 4T1 tumor cells.

      Response: We depleted neutrophils and monocytes because antibody-mediated removal of leukocytes could have non-specifically increased the survival of tumor cells. As for expanding the number of experiments with different cell lines, we are afraid but it is too much burden, considering the period required for the experiments and animal welfare.

      5a) Fig 1D : Missing control : the author must add the WT Balbc + a-AGM1 as control.

      Response: We have this data, which will be included in the revised paper.

      5b) Lines 154 to 156 : the authors say that « T cell immunity does not contribute to tumor cell reduction » because tumor cells are eliminated in the nu/nu mice as efficiently as in the WT Balbc mice. This is not correct because they are looking in a window that correspond to innate immunity activation (up to 24h) so they cannot talk about T cell immunity, the adpative response will come more later around 8 days after.

      Response: Yes, we are focusing on the early phase of the rejection of metastatic tumor cells. We will rephrase the sentences.

      6) Line 159 : (refer to point #2) To affirm that NK cells is critical and involved in the elimination of the disseminated tumor, authors have to perform experiment in a model of NK cell deficiency. The most relevant nowaday is the NKp46ICRExrosa26DTA mice that are deficients in NK cells but also ILC1 cells. Indeed, the authors have used the NKp46iCre mice model for other questions.

      Response: As the reviewer stated, the contribution of NK cells in the rejection of metastatic tumors is very well known. We do not think we need to repeat the experiments by using other genetically modified mouse lines, which will take at least one year. We wish to emphasize again that the new findings of our paper are in the in vivo imaging.

      7a) Fig 2F : IC missing

      Response: According to the reviewer's suggestion, we will perform control experiments with an isotype control.

      7b) Lines 181-182 : Authors conclude that the effect of anti-LFA-1 on NK cells adhesion to the pulmonary endothelial cells is mediated primarily by LFA-1. It is not totally true because it is partially mediated as observed in the fig 2F. So authors should change their conclusion and precise that the involvement is partially mediated by LFA-1.

      Response: We will rephrase the result section in the revised paper.

      8) Fig S5B-C-D and S7: The authors talk about tumor cell death. But they are analyzing Ca2+ influx in vitro so it is a little bit different from the cell death. I'm wondering how the cell death is mesured espacially in the fig S5D and S7?

      Response: Under microscopes, apoptosis can be easily recognized by the appearance of blebs. We will include videos in the revised paper.

      9) Fig 4H and lines 232-233 : the authors conclude that « damage to tumor cells is dependent on the engagement of DNAM-1 on NK cells ». There is any experiment performed to affirm this point so the authors cannot maintain this conclusion. First, the authors only analyzed Ca2+ influx at a specific time point. So this result only show that Nectin-5 and/or Nectin-2 expressed by B16F10 is involved in the Ca2+ influx following NK cell contact but there is any data on DNAM-1 contribution. So, the role on the NK cells and specifically DNAM-1+ NK cells have not been adressed here. To answer to that question, the author have to perform in vivo model of engrafted WT vs Necl-5/2 ko B16F10 in a WT vs DNAM1 deficient NK cells mouse model to ascertain the contribution of Necl-5/2-DNAM-1 on NK cells. Moreover, survival curve and bioluminescent experiments would be very appreciated.

      Response: We have shown the data with Necl-5/Nectin-2-deficientB16F10 cells in Fig. S7. I understand the importance of the experiment with the DNAM-1-deficient mice. But the introduction of another knockout mouse line cannot be performed easily. Instead, we will tone down the conclusion on the requirement of signaling from Necl-5/Nectin-2 to DNAM-1.

      10) Lines 253-254 : the authors talk about tumor apoptosis but they are looking at Ca2+ influx. So, they should change their conclusion or show killing experiment.

      Response: In Figure S7, we have shown that the sustained Ca2+ influx is a useful surrogate marker for apoptosis. We will include this information explicitly in the revised paper.

      11) Fig 6 : the authors conclude that the trombin dependent shedding of Necl-5 causes evasion of NK cells surveillance. Moreover, all experiments are correlations and do not implicate in the same experiment Necl-5, DNAM-1+ NK cells and trombin or anti-coagulation factors. So, as in the comment #9, to adress this point, the authors should inject WT vs Necl-5 deficient B16F10-Akaluc into WT vs NK cell depleted mice and monitor the bioluminescence of the tumor cells within 24h following injection of anti coagulation factors as in the fig 6H. Moreover, the monitoring of the survival curve and the number of the lung metastasis would be also very important and informative to really answer to this point.

      Response: We will try the requested experiments during revision.

      \*Minor points***

      1) Fig 2E: The authors assess the involvement of LFA-1 and MAC-1 on the NK cells attachement to the the pulmonary endothelial cells. But there is other adhesion molecules that are known to be expressed by NK cells as for example CR4 (CD11c/CD18). So, the attachement of NK cells could be also due to this molecule.

      Response: We agree. The text will be modified to suggest the involvement of other adhesion molecules.

      2) Lines 190 to 197 : Authors should put this methodology part in the « material and method » in order to be more clear on the message they want to deliver.

      Response: We will modify the text according to the suggestion.

      3) line 228 : There is any hypothesis or explanation regarding the use of Necl5/Necl2 deficient B16F10. Why authors decided to go and explore this pathway ? Authors could add some transition sentence and explanation to help readers.

      Response: We will refer to previous papers suggesting the role of DNAM-1 and its ligands, Necl-5 and nectin-2.

      4) The author could performed the same experiment as in Fig S7D and assessed ERK activation of DNAM+ vs - NK cells against WT vs Necl-5/Necl-2KO R-GEKO B16F10 cells.

      Response: We will try the suggested experiments.

      5) Line 283 : Thanks to reformulate the sentence. Check the firgures associated with the text.

      Response: We will correct this error. The figures will be Fig. 5E and 5F.

      Reviewer #2 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      The authors use in vivo imaging techniques to investigate the killing of lung metastasis by NK cells. They demonstrate that the cleavage of CD155 may result in resistance of killing by NK cells and suggest that this could be an immune evasion mechanism of metastatic tumor cells.

      Overall, the subject is highly relevant, and the in vivo imaging is an interesting and highly relevant technique. However, the message, that tumor cells escape the killing by NK cells by cleavage of CD155 is interesting, but not yet fully supported by the data.

      \*Major comments:***

        • Figure 6: To support their main claim the authors would need to transfect the tumor cells with a CD155 mutant, which cannot be cleaved by Thrombin and show that these tumor cells can no longer escape NK cell-mediated killing. This experiment is straight forward and feasible. Another important experiment along this line would be the use the CD155/CD112 deficient tumor cells (Which the authors use in figure 4) in the experiments shown in figure 1. One would expect that tumor control by NK cells within the first 24h is absent when using these tumor cells.* Response: We previously made five CD155 mutants, which could be resistant to thrombin-mediated cleavage, and re-expressed in CD155/CD112 deficient tumor cells. However, none of the mutants was not killed by NK cells both in vivo and in vitro. It appears that the potential thrombin-cleavage site(s) reside in the recognition site by DNAM-1. We will include this observation in the discussion.
      • Figure 5: The demonstration that ERK is activated in this in vivo setting is novel. However, ERK activation is not DNAM-1 specific and the ERK inhibitor is significantly less effective that the depletion of NK cells. Therefore, the relevance of these data to the main message of the manuscript is unclear and the figure could be omitted.*

      Response: We agree that the modest effect of MEKi implies that ERK activation is dispensable for NK activation. However, ERK activation is a useful marker of NK cell activation. The data shown here vividly show the timing of NK cell activation and following tumor cell killing. Because the in vivo dynamics of NK cell activation and tumor cell killing is the most important message of this work, we wish to show this data.

      • In general, the issue of NK cell exhaustion should be addressed in more detail. The experiments do not address serial killing activity of NK cells and more data is needed to show that it is not an exhaustion of NK cells but the cleavage of CD155 from the tumor cells that prevents further killing.*

      Response: We believe, Fig. 5G clearly shows that NK cells are not exhausted 24 hours after tumor cell injection.

      **Minor comments:**

      • Figure 1C: The relevance of this experiment needs to be better explained.*

      Response: We will rephrase the result section in the revised paper.

      • Figure 3A: What does SHG stand for?*

      Response: It is shown in line 625, M&M section. We will show the statement that SHG stands for second harmonic generation channel in the figure legend.

      • Figure 3: Please add a statistical analysis for these experiments.*

      Response: We will include P values in the revised paper.

      • Figure 4: The use of the caspase-3 and the calcium sensors may detect different cytotoxic mechanisms used by the NK cells. While caspase-3 can be activated by death receptor and perforin/granzyme B mediated killing, the calcium sensor may report mostly on perforin mediated membrane damage. These killing mechanisms have different kinetics and are differentially used during serial killing by NK cells. This should be addressed (at least in the discussion).*

      Response: We thank this invaluable comment. We will include this discussion.

      Reviewer #2 (Significance (Required)):

      Investigating the in vivo cytotoxicity of NK cells against tumor cells by using live imaging technologies is highly relevant for the understanding of the dynamic relationship between tumor and killer cells. Therefore, the subject of this manuscript and the technologies used are very relevant, as in vivo killing activities do not always translate to the in vivo setting.

      Response: We thank the reviewer for the favorable comment.

      Reviewer #3 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      \*Summary***

      Ichise et al., present a solid work describing the modality and time frame of action of NK control over seeding metastatic cells within the lung vasculature. Th authors use a variety of technique able to dissect how NK patrol lung vasculature, that they interact with cancer cells as they interact with the endothelial cells and they activate a ERK dependent activation leading to calcium influx in cancer cells leading to their death. The data support the notion that this NK control occur over an early time frame, 4h after cancer cells arrival and is mediated by Necl expression on cancer cells. After this time point cancer cells show a thrombin dependent loss of Necl expression on their surface and therefore become resistant to NK control.

      \*Comments:***

      The data presented are supporting the conclusions. This work utilizes a variety of elegant strategy combining reporter strategy with in vivo imaging to assess the phenomenon of interaction, ERK activation, Calcium Inflax and Apoptosis activation directly in the lung.

      In term of experiments, I found the work thorough and complete.

      The data a presented well overall and the statistics seems adequate.

      I only have few suggestions:

      Supplementary Figure S3, show the use of antiLy6G to deplete neutrophils in the lungs of C57BL/6 mice injected with melanoma B16F10 cells. It was recently shown that this antibody is not efficient in depleting neutrophils in this background, but only lead neutrophils to internalise the Ly6G so they cannot be detected by FACS. As shown in Boivin et al 2020 http://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-16596-9) neutrophils depletion in C57BL/6 mice can be achieved by using antiGr1 antibody. Therefore, if the authors aim to show this additional control, which I also agree is really good to have, I suggest performing the experiment accordingly to the best-known practice.

      Response: We will perform the suggested experiment.

      Figure 1E: in the text the experiment is described as 4T1 Akaluc cells were inoculated into the foot pad of BALB/c mice with either control antibody or αAGM1, but the legend states that mice subcutaneously injected with B16 Akaluc cells into footpad.

      As B16 melanoma cells are not in BALB/c background, I assume the legend needs to be corrected as the cells should be 4T1, however I wonder if injecting 4T1 breast cancer cells in the footpad could have let to the substantial growth required for lung metastasis without impairing the animal mobility. Could it be that cells where actually injected in the fat pad of the mice and this is just a misspelling in the text?

      In this case, the different in the tissue residence NK cells could also potentially explain why 4T1 are not cleared in the fat pad like the B6 cells are in the footpad.

      The authors should comment on the difference in the in clearance of the cells at the injection site in Figure 1C VS Figure 1E.

      Response: We apology the erratum in the legend.

      Figure 1C was performed to examine whether NK cells in the lung could be exhausted or inert 14 days after the inoculation of B16F10 cells. In this experiment, Akaluc-expressing B16F10 cells were inoculated to monitor the bioluminescence for 24 hrs.

      In figure 1E, we used Akaluc-expressing 4T1 breast cancer cells because 4T1 cells inoculated into footpad can be spontaneously metastasized to the lung (Kamioka et al., 2017). We observed the bioluminescence of 4T1 cells in the lung for up to 20 days.

      Ref: Kamioka, Y., Takakura, K., Sumiyama, K., and Matsuda, M. (2017). Intravital FRET imaging reveals osteopontin-mediated polymorphonuclear leukocyte activation by tumor cell emboli. Cancer Sci 108, 226-235.

      Reviewer #3 (Significance (Required)):

      The present work is highly relevant to the field of cancer metastasis. While it is known that NK are responsible for the first line of defence against metastatic seeding, most of the studies focuses on how they are suppressed or influenced by other immune cells. The present study provides a very accurate description of their mechanism of action, how they depend in the interaction with the endothelial cells and highlight the novel aspect of thrombin in inducing cancer cells NK resistance. What cause thrombin activation is the next relevant question, by in my opinion this study is complete and important.

      My field of expertise is cancer metastasis and their interaction with the immune system and I personally enjoy very much reading this work.

      Response: We thank the reviewer for favorable comments and appreciate the effort to evaluate our work.

    1. SciScore for 10.1101/2020.04.30.20086223: (What is this?)

      Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

      Table 1: Rigor

      NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.

      Table 2: Resources

      No key resources detected.


      Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).


      Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
      This study has several limitations. First, while quotas were used to ensure a sample that was broadly representative of the general UK population, we cannot be certain whether respondents in survey panels are representative of the general population.(16, 17) We also cannot rule out participation bias. Given potential participants were not aware of the topic of the survey before starting it, the risk of this is low. Second, we did not differentiate between outings that were in line with Government guidelines and those that were not in our measure of “total out-of-home activity”. Third, because we used a cross-sectional study design, we are unable to determine the direction of associations. Fourth, due to the large sample size, small differences between groups were statistically significant. Where detected differences were very small, there may not be meaningful influence of these differences (e.g. perceived risk to self). People are likely to change their behaviour in line with their belief of whether they have had COVID-19. Even when tested, the reported result of an antigen test was not necessarily reflected in people’s belief about whether they had had COVID-19. Results from this study indicate that people who think they have had COVID-19 are less likely to adhere to social distancing measures. Clear, targeted communications might be used to advise this constantly growing group both to reduce reliance on self-diagnosis in the absence of a test and to provide advice on what ...

      Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.


      Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.


      Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.


      Results from rtransparent:
      • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
      • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
      • No protocol registration statement was detected.

      <footer>

      About SciScore

      SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

      </footer>

    1. SciScore for 10.1101/2020.05.05.20091983: (What is this?)

      Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

      Table 1: Rigor

      <table><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Institutional Review Board Statement</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">IRB: The study was approved by the institutional review board (IRB) of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine with a waiver of the inform consent (IRB number 2020-11296).<br>Consent: The study was approved by the institutional review board (IRB) of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine with a waiver of the inform consent (IRB number 2020-11296).</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Randomization</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Blinding</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Power Analysis</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Sex as a biological variable</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr></table>

      Table 2: Resources

      <table><tr><th style="min-width:100px;text-align:center; padding-top:4px;" colspan="2">Software and Algorithms</th></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;text=align:center">Sentences</td><td style="min-width:100px;text-align:center">Resources</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;vertical-align:top;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">All analyses were performed using STATA software (version 14·1; STATA Corporation, College Station, TX, USA).</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray"><div style="margin-bottom:8px"><div>STATA</div><div>suggested: (Stata, RRID:SCR_012763)</div></div></td></tr></table>

      Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).


      Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
      On the other hand, our study has several limitations. First, our sample was relatively small, but given the nature of the evolving pandemic, it was of paramount importance to make our early data and findings widely available as soon as possible, especially given the lack of data up to date in COVID-19 in minorities and underserved population. Second, this was a real-world study with a retrospective design utilizing the electronic medical records, which is suboptimal compared to a prospective study that could have more accurate follow-up assessment. Third, the rapidly changing management of COVID-19 might have affected our results but it highly unlikely that could have differentials affected associations between obesity and mortality. Fourth, we handled BMI as a categorical variable in the regression analysis. This can lead to suboptimal conclusions, but we think that specific cut-offs, following established clinical guidelines on obesity, may be of more interest and ease for the clinicians compared to interpretation of continuous variables in a regression model. In conclusion in this early cohort of hospitalized patients with COVID-19 in an underserved, minority-predominant population in the Bronx, we found that severe obesity was associated with higher in-hospital mortality even after adjusting for other pertinent potential confounding factors. Particular attention should be paid in protection of this population given the higher chance for negative outcomes once they are dia...

      Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.


      Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.


      Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.


      Results from rtransparent:
      • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
      • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
      • No protocol registration statement was detected.

      <footer>

      About SciScore

      SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

      </footer>

    1. SciScore for 10.1101/2020.08.28.272955: (What is this?)

      Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

      Table 1: Rigor

      NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.

      Table 2: Resources

      <table><tr><th style="min-width:100px;text-align:center; padding-top:4px;" colspan="2">Antibodies</th></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;text=align:center">Sentences</td><td style="min-width:100px;text-align:center">Resources</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;vertical-align:top;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Transfected cells were then incubated overnight at 4°C with monoclonal anti-FLAG M2 mouse antibody (dilution 1:2,000, Sigma-Aldrich).</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray"><div style="margin-bottom:8px"><div>anti-FLAG</div><div>suggested: None</div></div></td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;vertical-align:top;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">After 3 washes for 10 min with PBS 0.01% Triton X-100, cells were incubated for 1 h at 37 °C with the Alexa Fluor 647-conjugated secondary antibody donkey anti mouse IgG (H+L) (1:2,000</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray"><div style="margin-bottom:8px"><div>anti mouse IgG</div><div>suggested: None</div></div></td></tr><tr><th style="min-width:100px;text-align:center; padding-top:4px;" colspan="2">Experimental Models: Cell Lines</th></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;text=align:center">Sentences</td><td style="min-width:100px;text-align:center">Resources</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;vertical-align:top;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">T-REx™ HEK293 cells were grown in Dulbecco’s Modified Eagle’s Medium (DMEM, Gibco) supplemented with 10% fetal bovine serum (FBS, Sigma-Aldrich), GlutaMAX™ and Penicillin-Streptomycin (1x).</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray"><div style="margin-bottom:8px"><div>HEK293</div><div>suggested: None</div></div></td></tr><tr><th style="min-width:100px;text-align:center; padding-top:4px;" colspan="2">Software and Algorithms</th></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;text=align:center">Sentences</td><td style="min-width:100px;text-align:center">Resources</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;vertical-align:top;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">BioID data analysis: The proteins were identified by comparing all MS/MS data with the Homo sapiens proteome database (Uniprot, release March 2020, Canonical+Isoforms, comprising 42,360 entries + viral bait protein sequences added manually), using the MaxQuant software version 1.5.8.3.</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray"><div style="margin-bottom:8px"><div>MaxQuant</div><div>suggested: (MaxQuant, RRID:SCR_014485)</div></div></td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;vertical-align:top;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">The statistical analysis was done by Perseus software (version 1.6.2.3).</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray"><div style="margin-bottom:8px"><div>Perseus</div><div>suggested: (Perseus, RRID:SCR_015753)</div></div></td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;vertical-align:top;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">The tabs ‘Enrichment basal condition’ and ‘Enrichment poly(I:C)’ have been generated entering the lists of high confidence proximal interactors of each viral bait protein in the ToppCluster online tool4 (</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray"><div style="margin-bottom:8px"><div>ToppCluster</div><div>suggested: ( ToppCluster , RRID:SCR_001503)</div></div></td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;vertical-align:top;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">All interactors individual annotations are shown in Supplemental Table 2, which was generated using the Metascape annotation tool5 (https://metascape.org/).</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray"><div style="margin-bottom:8px"><div>Metascape</div><div>suggested: (Metascape, RRID:SCR_016620)</div></div></td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;vertical-align:top;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Processing of the images was performed using Zeiss Zen 2 software and assembled using Adobe Illustrator.</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray"><div style="margin-bottom:8px"><div>Adobe Illustrator</div><div>suggested: (Adobe Illustrator, RRID:SCR_010279)</div></div></td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;vertical-align:top;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Our code is written in Python 3.87 and makes use of several modules, primarily: NetworkX8 for graph operations, NumPy9 for array manipulation and numerical computations, pandas10 for data handling and Plotly11 for visualization.</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray"><div style="margin-bottom:8px"><div>Python</div><div>suggested: (IPython, RRID:SCR_001658)</div></div></td></tr></table>

      Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).


      Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
      We thus do think that this apparent limitation could be also seen as an asset of our study; (ii) In our opinion, the main limitation sits in the expression of a single protein at a time. Knowing that several viral proteins require viral cofactors, infected context and/or the presence viral RNA to function properly (e.g. NSP10-NSP14 or NSP10-NSP16), the present analysis almost certainly misses cooperative viral interactions. Similar studies performed in infected cells will thus bring highly valuable additional information on putative SARS-CoV-2 pathogenesis mechanisms. As an attempt to mimic a physiopathological context, we artificially induced an anti-viral response by transfecting poly(I:C) and repeating the proximal interactome analysis. These experiments already revealed novel interactions of the utmost importance; and (iii), the proximal interactions are not necessarily physical and should therefore be considered as a discovery step systematically requiring orthogonal or functional validation. However, the proximal interactomics multiple analysis generated by us and others have been at the basis of fundamental mechanism discoveries, supporting the validity of the approach for identifying new biology (see177 for review). This first proximal interaction mapping of SARS-CoV-2 proteins provides a plethora of novel research tracks to better understand this virus pathogenesis. Although for a few proteins our approach did not lead to satisfying results (NSP3, NSP5, NSP8, ORF8 an...

      Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.


      Results from Barzooka: We found bar graphs of continuous data. We recommend replacing bar graphs with more informative graphics, as many different datasets can lead to the same bar graph. The actual data may suggest different conclusions from the summary statistics. For more information, please see Weissgerber et al (2015).


      Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.


      Results from rtransparent:
      • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
      • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
      • No protocol registration statement was detected.

      <footer>

      About SciScore

      SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

      </footer>

    1. SciScore for 10.1101/2020.12.04.20244087: (What is this?)

      Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

      Table 1: Rigor

      <table><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Institutional Review Board Statement</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Randomization</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Blinding</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Power Analysis</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Sex as a biological variable</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr></table>

      Table 2: Resources

      <table><tr><th style="min-width:100px;text-align:center; padding-top:4px;" colspan="2">Software and Algorithms</th></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;text=align:center">Sentences</td><td style="min-width:100px;text-align:center">Resources</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;vertical-align:top;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Any N95 that failed the seal check or the saccharine fit-test was further evaluated with a confirmatory quantitative fit-test using the ambient aerosol condensation nuclei counter (PortaCount®) protocol6,7.</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray"><div style="margin-bottom:8px"><div>PortaCount®</div><div>suggested: None</div></div></td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;vertical-align:top;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Analyses were performed using StataCorp 2019 (College Station, TX: StataCorp LLC).</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray"><div style="margin-bottom:8px"><div>StataCorp</div><div>suggested: (Stata, RRID:SCR_012763)</div></div></td></tr></table>

      Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).


      Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
      Our study has limitations. We did not perform a PortaCount on N95s that passed the seal check or the saccharine fit-test due to limited N95 supplies and we may have overestimated “passes”; however, false passes are infrequent with the saccharin method8. Although we evaluated two of the most commonly used N95 respirators in the United States 9, findings may not be generalizable to alternative models. The number of repeated N95 donnings was based on HCW recall, which may have been under- or over-estimated; however, we do not think there was bias in either direction. We did not sample the N95s to assess for pathogen contamination, a risk of N95 reuse, but our protocol of face shield to protect N95 reduces this risk by preventing droplets from landing on the respirator surface. This study was not powered to assess effectiveness of N95s to prevent SARS-COV-2 infection or other potentially airborne transmitted infections. Notably, no patient-to-HCW SARS-COV-2 transmissions have been documented for HCWs who complied with the recommended COVID-19 precautions at JHH to date (authors’ personal communication). There was missing PortaCount data from some HCWs who failed the seal check or saccharine fit-test; however, we performed a sensitivity analysis to minimize the impact of missing data on interpretation of the study results. In summary, extensive reuse of the N95 models tested in our study seems an acceptable and safe approach during critical supply shortages rather than uniform dis...

      Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.


      Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.


      Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.


      Results from rtransparent:
      • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
      • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
      • No protocol registration statement was detected.

      <footer>

      About SciScore

      SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

      </footer>

    1. SciScore for 10.1101/2021.01.22.21250304: (What is this?)

      Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

      Table 1: Rigor

      <table><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Institutional Review Board Statement</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Randomization</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Blinding</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Power Analysis</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Sex as a biological variable</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr></table>

      Table 2: Resources

      <table><tr><th style="min-width:100px;text-align:center; padding-top:4px;" colspan="2">Software and Algorithms</th></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;text=align:center">Sentences</td><td style="min-width:100px;text-align:center">Resources</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;vertical-align:top;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Software and reproducibility: Data management was performed using the OpenSAFELY software, Python 3.8 and SQL, and analysis using Stata 16.1.</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray"><div style="margin-bottom:8px"><div>Python</div><div>suggested: (IPython, RRID:SCR_001658)</div></div></td></tr></table>

      Results from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your code.


      Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
      Strengths and limitations: We were able to source our cohorts from the OpenSAFELY platform, which contains over 17m adults. This gave us a population of patients who were discharged following hospitalisation with COVID-19 of 31,569, allowing us to obtain precise estimates of the rate of each outcome. We were also able to draw on multiple linked data sources, including primary care records, hospitalisations and death certificates. This allows a more complete picture to be presented of the clinical activity surrounding each outcome. We believe that our use of an active control population of patients hospitalised with pneumonia in 2019 provides useful context for the rates of these outcomes in COVID-19 patients who survive hospitalisation. A comparison cohort could also have been attained by matching patients from the general population on various attributes such as age, sex and comorbidities. However, such a cohort would be lacking the exposure of an acute respiratory illness event requiring hospitalisation. We think presenting the rates in this context is more informative than within a general population. We note that our study aimed to describe clinical events that occurred after discharge from hospital, and therefore may not reflect the true additional morbidity burden of COVID-19 hospitalisation: specifically we did not set out to describe events that occurred during hospital admission with COVID-19 or pneumonia. However, in our view reliable analysis of in-hospital events ...

      Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.


      Results from Barzooka: We found bar graphs of continuous data. We recommend replacing bar graphs with more informative graphics, as many different datasets can lead to the same bar graph. The actual data may suggest different conclusions from the summary statistics. For more information, please see Weissgerber et al (2015).


      Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.


      Results from rtransparent:
      • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
      • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
      • Thank you for including a protocol registration statement.

      <footer>

      About SciScore

      SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

      </footer>

    1. SciScore for 10.1101/2020.04.11.20062158: (What is this?)

      Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

      Table 1: Rigor

      <table><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Institutional Review Board Statement</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Randomization</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Population and study period: We included three groups of patients in our study: Group 1 (healthy controls): a randomly selected group of 55 patients who had a serum sample taken for other serologic studies, from October 1 to November 30, 2019 (before the first cases of COVID-19 were reported).</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Blinding</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Power Analysis</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Sex as a biological variable</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr></table>

      Table 2: Resources

      <table><tr><th style="min-width:100px;text-align:center; padding-top:4px;" colspan="2">Software and Algorithms</th></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;text=align:center">Sentences</td><td style="min-width:100px;text-align:center">Resources</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;vertical-align:top;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Statistical analysis was performed with SPSS v20.0 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA).</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray"><div style="margin-bottom:8px"><div>SPSS</div><div>suggested: (SPSS, RRID:SCR_002865)</div></div></td></tr></table>

      Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).


      Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
      Our study is subject to some limitations. First, it has been conducted in a single hospital. Further multicenter studies are necessary to reinforce our findings. Second, patient selection was made according to the diagnostic needs of our hospital. Consequently, group 3 patients were all patients with negative PCR patients with clinical and radiological criteria of pneumonia and because of that, our results could not be generalized to other patients with COVID-19 and other clinical syndromes. Additionally, group 3 patients also presented a longer evolution time than group 2 patients. This probably explains that the overall positivity rates of the serological test are better than in group 3 (88.9% vs 47.3% in group 2). However, when we focus on patients with 14 or more days from onset of symptoms, the sensitivity and positivity rate increased for groups (91.1% for group 3 and 73.9% for group 2 patients). Because all of these limitations, further studies including all kinds of clinical presentations are needed in order to reinforce our conclusions. The question about the reliability of serologic rapid tests is still under debate (18,19) and more research is needed on this topic. We think that our study may help to point out the usefulness of these rapid tests.

      Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.


      Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.


      Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.


      Results from rtransparent:
      • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
      • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
      • No protocol registration statement was detected.

      <footer>

      About SciScore

      SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

      </footer>

    1. SciScore for 10.1101/2020.05.04.20090878: (What is this?)

      Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

      Table 1: Rigor

      <table><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Institutional Review Board Statement</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">IRB: Retrospective collection of patient data was approved by UCI’s Institutional Review Board.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Randomization</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Blinding</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Power Analysis</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Sex as a biological variable</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr></table>

      Table 2: Resources

      No key resources detected.


      Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).


      Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
      The significantly greater presence of metabolic syndrome in underserved populations11 may provide some insight into the racial-ethnic disparities in COVID-19 incidence, particularly for critical disease Limitations of this study include the small sample of patients from a single-center, so conclusions may not be broadly generalizable. However, the strengths of this study include the collection of comprehensive data, including race-ethnic and census-tract derived community determinants from all patients presenting with COVID-19 over the study period. Future studies should evaluate the complex interactions of the social determinants of income and ethnicity with other demographic, clinical, and laboratory factors. In summary, our study examines the unveiling of race-ethnic disparities over the first six weeks of COVID-19 in Orange County, CA, and highlights vulnerable populations that are at increased risk for contracting COVID-19 and experiencing disproportionately severe outcomes. While our findings that Hispanic/Latinx populations are at increased risk corroborates reports elsewhere in the United States2, this study demonstrates the increase was most dramatic in minority groups living in disadvantaged communities. When we think of race-ethnic disparities, we often investigate immediate causes of disease, including risk factors. Our descriptive case series illustrates that for COVID-19 disparities, we also need to consider the “causes of those causes,” which ultimately set the...

      Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.


      Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.


      Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.


      Results from rtransparent:
      • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
      • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
      • No protocol registration statement was detected.

      <footer>

      About SciScore

      SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

      </footer>

    1. SciScore for 10.1101/2020.06.01.20119149: (What is this?)

      Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

      Table 1: Rigor

      <table><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Institutional Review Board Statement</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">IRB: TOCIVID-19, an academic multicentre clinical trial, was promoted by the National Cancer Institute of Naples and was approved for all Italian centres by the National Ethical Committee at the Lazzaro Spallanzani Institute on March 18th, 2020; two amendments followed on March 24th, 2020 and April 28th, 2020.<br>Consent: Informed consent for participation in the study could be oral if a written consent was unfeasible.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Randomization</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Blinding</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Power Analysis</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Phase 2 study design and analysis: Sample size for the phase 2 study was initially calculated using 1-month lethality rate as the primary endpoint; based on March 10th daily report on Italian breakout, 1-month mortality for the eligible population was estimated around 15%; 330 patients were planned to test the alternative hypothesis that tocilizumab may halve lethality rate (from 15% to 7.5%), with 99% power and 5% bilateral alpha error.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Sex as a biological variable</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr></table>

      Table 2: Resources

      No key resources detected.


      Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).


      Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
      Mostly, retrospective or observational data have been reported so far, not based on prospective hypothesis testing, with prevalently positive results.[8, 16-25] However, our study has several limitations that deserve discussion for a better interpretation of findings. The first limitation is the single-arm study design, which prevents definitive conclusions.[26] However, we think that a randomised controlled trial was unfeasible for many reasons. There was a tremendous pressure to have the drug available, due to a widespread media diffusion of positive expectations and the increasing number of patients hospitalized for the disease, as confirmed by the massive registration of centres when the study began. Thus, obtaining a proper informed consent to randomization would have been extremely difficult also due to patients’ condition and clinical burden. Finally, developing a placebo was impossible, and, within a non-blind study, the risk of cross-over from the control to the experimental arm would have been high, reducing the validity of the randomised trial. Within this context, the problem of “learning while doing” was increased.[27] In our opinion, when the TOCIVID-19 trial started this protocol was the best trade-off between do-something and learn-something. A critical issue of the single-arm design was the definition of the null hypotheses to be tested, already acknowledged in the initial protocol where future modifications of study design were explicitly planned as an optio...

      Results from TrialIdentifier: We found the following clinical trial numbers in your paper:<br><table><td style="min-width:95px; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Identifier</td><td style="min-width:95px; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Status</td><td style="min-width:95px; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Title</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:95px; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">NCT04317092</td><td style="min-width:95px; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Active, not recruiting</td><td style="min-width:95px; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Tocilizumab in COVID-19 Pneumonia (TOCIVID-19)</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:95px; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">NCT04320615</td><td style="min-width:95px; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Completed</td><td style="min-width:95px; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">A Study to Evaluate the Safety and Efficacy of Tocilizumab i…</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:95px; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">NCT04381936</td><td style="min-width:95px; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Recruiting</td><td style="min-width:95px; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Randomised Evaluation of COVID-19 Therapy</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:95px; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">NCT04330638</td><td style="min-width:95px; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Active, not recruiting</td><td style="min-width:95px; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Treatment of COVID-19 Patients With Anti-interleukin Drugs</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:95px; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">NCT04346355</td><td style="min-width:95px; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Terminated</td><td style="min-width:95px; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Efficacy of Early Administration of Tocilizumab in COVID-19 …</td></tr></table>


      Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.


      Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.


      Results from rtransparent:
      • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
      • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
      • No protocol registration statement was detected.

      <footer>

      About SciScore

      SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

      </footer>

    1. SciScore for 10.1101/2020.06.08.138990: (What is this?)

      Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

      Table 1: Rigor

      <table><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Institutional Review Board Statement</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Consent: All donors provided written informed consent and tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 at the time of plasmapheresis.<br>IRB: Studies were conducted with the approval of the Houston Methodist Research Institute ethics review board, and with informed patient or legally-authorized representative consent when applicable.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Randomization</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Blinding</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Power Analysis</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Sex as a biological variable</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Generalized Liner model (GLM), using the first plasma donation data only, was performed between the same variables, as a response, and each of the following predictor factors: dyspnea (yes, no), disease severity (five classes as described above), hospitalization (yes, no) gender (male, female), and age combined into five age groups (<=30, 31-40, 41-50, 51-60 and >60).</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Cell Line Authentication</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr></table>

      Table 2: Resources

      <table><tr><th style="min-width:100px;text-align:center; padding-top:4px;" colspan="2">Antibodies</th></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;text=align:center">Sentences</td><td style="min-width:100px;text-align:center">Resources</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;vertical-align:top;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Donors were documented to be negative for anti-HLA antibodies, hepatitis B, C, HIV, HTLV I/II, Chagas disease, WNV, Zika virus, and syphilis per standard blood banking practices</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray"><div style="margin-bottom:8px"><div>anti-HLA</div><div>suggested: None</div></div></td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;vertical-align:top;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">The ELISA used to measure antispike IgG antibodies in donor serum specimens was performed as follows.</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray"><div style="margin-bottom:8px"><div>antispike IgG</div><div>suggested: None</div></div></td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;vertical-align:top;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">A similar ELISA was used to study anti-spike ECD antibody titers in serum obtained from surveilled asymptomatic individuals</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray"><div style="margin-bottom:8px"><div>anti-spike ECD</div><div>suggested: None</div></div></td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;vertical-align:top;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">All samples were tested with an initial screen assay and IgG antibody titers were subsequently performed on positive samples.</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray"><div style="margin-bottom:8px"><div>IgG</div><div>suggested: None</div></div></td></tr><tr><th style="min-width:100px;text-align:center; padding-top:4px;" colspan="2">Experimental Models: Cell Lines</th></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;text=align:center">Sentences</td><td style="min-width:100px;text-align:center">Resources</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;vertical-align:top;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">The virus and plasma mixture was added to Vero E6 cells grown in a 96-well microtiter plate, incubated for 3 d, after which the host cells were treated for 1 h with crystal violet-formaldehyde stain (0.013% crystal violet, 2.5% ethanol, and 10% formaldehyde in 0.01 M PBS).</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray"><div style="margin-bottom:8px"><div>Vero E6</div><div>suggested: RRID:CVCL_XD71)</div></div></td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;vertical-align:top;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Diluted plasma was mixed with the SARS-CoV-2 WA1 strain, incubated at 37° C for 1 h, then added to Vero-E6 cells at a target MOI of 0.4.</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray"><div style="margin-bottom:8px"><div>Vero-E6</div><div>suggested: None</div></div></td></tr><tr><th style="min-width:100px;text-align:center; padding-top:4px;" colspan="2">Software and Algorithms</th></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;text=align:center">Sentences</td><td style="min-width:100px;text-align:center">Resources</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;vertical-align:top;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Cells were fixed 24 h post-infection, and the number of infected cells was determined using SARS-CoV-S specific mAb (Sino Biological 401430-R001) and fluorescently labeled secondary antibody.</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray"><div style="margin-bottom:8px"><div>SARS-CoV-S</div><div>suggested: None</div></div></td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;vertical-align:top;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Whole genome alignments of consensus virus genome sequence generated from the ARTIC nCoV-2019 bioinformatics pipeline were trimmed to the start of orf1 ab and the end of orf10 and used to generate a phylogenetic tree using RAxML (https://cme.h-its.org/exelixis/web/software/raxml/indexhtml).</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray"><div style="margin-bottom:8px"><div>RAxML</div><div>suggested: (RAxML, RRID:SCR_006086)</div></div></td></tr></table>

      Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).


      Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
      Limitations: Our study has several limitations. The study was retrospective, only IgG titers were analyzed, and all VN studies were conducted in vitro. Plasma from the convalescent donors was used for VN assays, whereas serum samples were used for ELISA assays. As such, the findings may not be entirely applicable to all antibody testing platforms or other sample types. Conclusions: Taken together, the data clearly show that anti-RBD and anti-ECD IgG titers serve as important surrogates for in vitro VN activity. A substantial fraction of convalescent plasma donors may have VN titers below the FDA recommended cutoff of ≥1:160. Dyspnea, hospitalization, and higher disease severity were associated with higher VN titer. Importantly, a small percentage of asymptomatic individuals have virus-neutralizing antibodies, including some with a titer of ≥1:160. In the aggregate, it is reasonable to think that our findings provide impetus for widespread implementation of anti-RBD and anti-ECD IgG antibody titer testing programs. The resulting data could be useful in several settings, including, but not limited to, identification of plasma donors for therapeutic uses (e.g., convalescent plasma transfusion and/ or source plasma for fractionation in the manufacture of hyperimmune globulin) (5, 11), assessment of recipients of candidate vaccines, assessment of recipients of passive immune therapies, assessment of previously infected individuals, and identification of asymptomatic individuals wi...

      Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.


      Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.


      Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.


      Results from rtransparent:
      • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
      • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
      • No protocol registration statement was detected.

      <footer>

      About SciScore

      SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

      </footer>

    1. Author Response to Public Reviews

      We thank the reviewers and editors for their detailed and insightful comments. We believe the consequent revisions have greatly increased the overall clarity of the manuscript, and provide important additional context and analysis.

      Reviewer #1 (Public Review):

      We thank the reviewer for the detailed comments.

      [...] Overall, the manuscript lacks substantial statistical support or clear evidence of some of the patterns they are stating and would require a substantial revision to justify their conclusions. The majority of the manuscript relies on 8 infant/mother pairs where they have evidence of pertussis infection and rely on the dense sampling to investigate infection dynamics. However, this is a very small sample size and further, based on the results displayed in Figure 1, it is not obvious that the data has a very pattern that warrant their assertions.

      As noted in the introduction, we begin our results with “a descriptive analysis of eight mother/infant pairs where each symptomatic infant had definitive qPCR-based evidence of pertussis infection.” Our goal in this section is to use noteworthy examples to highlight salient epidemiological patterns, which we explore in further detail using data from the full cohort in subsequent sections. We note that the results presented in Fig 3 onwards in no way rely on any arguments and/or specific patterns described in Fig 2. In other words, the original eight pairs revealed several unanticipated findings (particularly the finding of repeated high CT values PCR findings in the mothers of a child with definite pertussis), that were intriguing and potentially relevant in terms of pertussis epidemiology. They are also unique – we have not seen any published time series data using qPCR in this way before. These early observations motivated us to conduct a more detailed and quantitative analysis of the cohort of >1,300 mother/infant pairs.

      The sample size under consideration in the majority of the manuscript (i.e., all except for the above section) is 1,320 mother/infant pairs (2,640 subjects), as shown in Table 1 and 2. In the original submission, sample sizes were also clearly indicated in Figure 2B (assays per week), Fig 3B (subjects per group), Table 2 (subjects per group), Figures S1-2 (study profile), Figure S3 (NP samples per infant), and Table S1.

      We have revised the panel order and axes labels of the current Figure 3 to more clearly illustrate the relationship between panels, and to clarify that the 6 example pairs shown in Fig 3A are unrelated to the 8 pairs shown in Figure 2. We hope this addresses any remaining confusion.

      While there are some instances with a combination of higher/lower IS481 CT values, it does not appear to have a clear pattern. For example, what are possible explanations for time periods between samples with evidence of IS481 and those without (such as pair A, C, D, E, F and H)? There also does not appear to be a clear pattern of symptoms in any of these samples (aside from having fewer symptoms in the mothers than infants).

      The ambiguity of these patterns played a role in guiding our analysis of the entire cohort, where we establish evidence for infection based on a preponderance of evidence from a large number of individuals.

      Further, it is not obvious how similar these observed (such as a mixture of times of high or low values often preceded or followed by times when IS481 was not detected) is similar to different to the rest of the cohort (in contrast to those who have a definitive positive NP sample during a symptomatic visit).

      The main results are primarily a descriptive analysis of these 8 mother/infant pairs with little statistical analyses or additional support.

      We strongly disagree with this characterization of our results, where we state that “In this analysis, we focus on the 1,320 pairs with ≥4 NP samples per subject (Figure S3)”. We believe the reviewer’s confusion may stem, in part, from a mis-interpretation of Figure 2 (below), along with our erroneous reference to Figure 3 (we incorrectly stated Fig 2, adding to the confusion). With this in mind, we have revised the previous Figure 2 (now Figure 3) in the interest of clarity, and more carefully described exactly what the points displayed in Figure 3 represent.

      The authors do not provide evidence or detail about what is known about the variability in IS481 CT values, amongst individuals, or over time, or pre/post vaccination. Without this information, it is not clear how informative some of this variability is versus how much variability in these values is expected.

      We agree that this is important information, and we have added figures and results summarizing the observed impact of vaccination on CT values (see essential revision 1, above), and the patterns of transitions of CT values across adjacent samples within individuals throughout the study (see essential revision 2). This latter analysis is now summarized in Figure 6, and shows a clear tendency for step-wise transitions over time. The implication is that the data present structure rather than random noise. This supports our overall contention that full-range CT values can provide meaningful insights into pertussis epidemiology. We also note that Fig. 7A (previously Fig 3A) and Table 3 (previously Table S1) do indeed summarize the distribution of CT values, including variability amongst individuals. As noted above, we have also included an additional analysis summarizing the interdependence of CT value on both symptoms and antibiotics (Fig 8-figure supplement 1).

      I think particularly in Figure 1, how many of the individuals have periods between times when IS481 evidence was observed when it was not observed, is concerning that these data (at this granular a level) are measuring true infection dynamics.

      Adding in additional information about the distribution and patterns of these values for the other cohort members would also provide valuable insight into how Figure 1 should be interpreted in this context.

      We believe our previous comments concerning the relationship between the current Figure 2 (illustrative example) and the remaining figures (cohort analysis) addresses this comment.

      As it stands, the authors do not provide sufficient interpretation and evidence for having relevant infection arcs.

      We have revised the manuscript to clarify that infection arcs are observed in other studies and expected in infected individuals, rather than directly observed and/or quantified in this study.

      It appears that Figure 2A was created using only 8 data points (from the infant data values). If so, this level of extrapolation from such few data points does not provide enough evidence to support to the results in the text (particularly about evidence for fade-in/fade-out population-level dynamics). Also, in Figure 2, it is not clear to me the added value of Figure 2C and the main goal of this figure.

      We believe our previous comments have addressed this point. As noted, we have revised the current Fig 3 for clarity. Figure 3A and 3C are intended to demonstrate the structure of the cohort across the study period. We have revised the caption to clarify this point.

      The authors have created a measure called, evidence for infection (EFI), which is a summary measure of their IS481 CT values across the study. However, it is not clear why the authors are only considering an aggregated (sum) value which loses any temporality or relationship with symptoms/antibiotic use. For example, the values may have been high earlier in the study, but symptoms were unrelated to that evidence for infection - or visa versa.

      We believe that temporal patterns of CT values within subjects now described in Figure 6 deserve further detailed attention that is outside the scope of the current work. We believe the high-level empirical summaries presented here are strengthened by their reliance on a preponderance of evidence. In the current revision, we have also included additional analyses that we believe address some (if not all) of the reviewers concerns.

      This seems to be an important factor - were these possible undiagnosed, asymptomatic, or mild symptomatic pertussis infections? It is not clear why the authors only focus on a sum value for EFI versus other measures (such as multiple values above or below certain thresholds, etc.) to provide additional support and evidence for their results.

      Our approach seeks to use an objective statistical summary (geometric mean RCD proportion) to quantify the “signal” contained in IS481 assays within individuals across the course of the study. We note that, while both false positives and false negatives are likely in this study, the sample characteristics of the cohort mean that repeated false positives within individuals are unlikely based on chance alone. Further, a central aspect to our argument is that dichotomizing a continuous variable at an arbitrary threshold is reductive and unnecessarily introduces misclassification that reduces, rather than improves, statistical power.

      It is not clear why the authors have emphasized the novelty and large proportion of asymptomatic infections observed in these data. For example, there have been household studies of pertussis (see https://academic.oup.com/cid/article-abstract/70/1/152/5525423?redirectedFrom=PDF which performed a systematic review that included this topic) that have also found such evidence.

      We are aware of the paper above, which we had cited in the discussion. A key limitation of the referenced study is reliance on retrospective recall spanning many months. Since pertussis infections may be mild and non-specific, the fact that household contacts of an index case cannot recall a pertussis-like infection is consistent with asymptomatic infection, but far from definitive evidence. Moreover, the use of seroconversion as the measure of exposure is unreliable, since variations in antibody concentrations can be driven by a number of factors other than natural exposure.

      While cross-sectional surveys may be commonly used in practice, it is not clear that there is no other type of study that provides any evidence for asymptomatic infections.

      Our core argument is that it is impossible to know with certainty that a symptom-free patient with a detecting qPCR on Monday would not have become symptomatic if recontacted on Tuesday. By their nature, cross-sectional studies simply cannot parse asymptomatic from pre-symptomatic infections. To do that, one needs a longitudinal design, as reflected in the aforementioned longitudinal household contact studies. A key consideration addressed in the current work is the extent to which low and/or borderline CT values should be reinterpreted within the context of A) repeated sampling of individuals over time and B) epidemiological surveillance versus clinical diagnosis. We do not claim that our approach is the only one possible.

      Further, it is not clear why the authors refer to widespread asymptomatic pertussis when a large proportion of individuals with evidence for pertussis infection had symptoms. Would it not be undiagnosed pertussis if it is associated with clinical symptomatology?

      We have revised the text to highlight the significance of both asymptomatic and minimally symptomatic pertussis. As we describe both here and in Gill et al. 2016, only a handful of individuals meet the consensus criteria for clinical pertussis (Ct<35). In addition, qPCR results were not available to clinic staff in real-time. This, coupled with the relative absence of severe symptoms during study visits (especially in mothers), meant that only one study participant was diagnosed with pertussis at the time of their visit.

      Reviewer #2 (Public Review):

      We thank the reviewer for their supportive comments.

      This study was done in a population with wP vaccine, I wonder if that's part of the reason many of the CT values are high. Can the authors speculate what this study would look like in a population having received aP for a long period? I'd appreciate more discussion around vaccination in general.

      We have added results summarizing the possible interaction between IS481 assays with infant vaccination.

      We also note that aP is widely used in high-resource settings where overall pertussis incidence is lower, while pertussis diagnosis and treatment are more widely available. Our results indicate that mothers in this population experience non-trivial pertussis incidence over time, yielding immunological profiles from repeated infection that we expect differ markedly from that of individuals who lack naturally-derived resistance to infection via, e.g., mucosal antibodies and tissue-resident T-cells. Recognizing that our study does not provide a direct comparison with aP-vaccinated populations, we nonetheless believe that directly comparable populations (urban poor in under-served communities) are both numerous and under-studied.

    1. Saura has observed: "I have never believed in the child's paradise. On the contrary, I think that childhood is a stage where nocturnal terror, fear of the unknown, loneliness, are present with at least the same intensity as the joy of living and that curiosity of which peda- gogues talk so much."3 The intensity of Ana's passions is made so credible that, without any melodrama, we can accept a nine-year-old con- templating suicide and poisoning one of her family elders. Her interior fantasy life is so vivid that when she awakens from a nightmare and discovers her mother's phantom has fled, without any sentimentality, we can identify with her panic and terror and her desperate longing for her mother. The child's perception of adult realities (e.g., her father's sexual adventures, which lead to his fatal heart attack, and his mistreatment of her mother, which is partly responsible for her death) is so convincing because, without fully comprehending all of the events, she intuits the emotional reality. Through her eyes, we are able to see the adults with a double perspective that may also partially reflect the adult Ana's con- sciousnes

      write about this maybe?

    1. Secondly, does everyone have the building blocks of a better life: education, information, health and a sustainable environment? And does everyone have the opportunity to improve their lives, through rights, freedom of choice, freedom from discrimination, and access to the world’s most advanced knowledge?

      I think that these are all good points. However, I do wonder if things such this as equal access to 'top tier' knowledge and education could cripple the growth of societies. If everyone has access to knowledge and resources I think two things that are bad could possibly happen. Because everyone has access to everything their is no drive to 'push forward' or be innovative. Because they have 'everything' they need right in front of them. also, having access to top tier information means less failure as an entrepreneur or normal person in our economy and while less failure is better. Failure usually means you learn more. Without failure Elon Musk may not be THE Elon we know to day and etcetera. The amount of access and databases could potentially hinder exponential growth of society as we have seen in the past.

    1. Despite what many may believe, online learning is fast, efficient, prioritizes students' own learning pace, adds flexibility, and lets each individual student learn at their own best time. As individuals, we are not all the same. 

      Do you think that online learning for information and more interaction in class is our future?

    1. we have to think about what we can start saving.

      So many people are uneducated about the impacts of hunger, while some may not even be interested in this issue as they have not personally experienced “true” hunger. We can apply pathos by spreading awareness of this issue with frequent commercials or billboards showing the victims of hunger. As well as showing the ludicrous amount of food being wasted and the faces of the hungry around the world (or of people in surrounding communities). These images can bring a reality to some people as visuals could be more impactful than words. Words can go through one ear through the other, an image could stay in somebody’s mind as it is more of a shock seeing it, opposed to reading it. Raising awareness may be the solution but I also believe that there may be some people that are too stuck in their ways to contribute to change as our world has become very money hungry and less focused on our surrounding environment.

    2.  There will always be waste. I’m not that unrealistic that I think we can live in a waste-free world. But that black line shows what a food supply should be in a country if they allow for a good, stable, secure, nutritional diet for every person in that country.

      I completely agree with this. It's so normalized to have fast food everyday, for breakfast, lunch and dinner. That can be caused by laziness, no knowledge of how to cook, whatever the case may be. But as humans, we should realize what we put into our bodies, especially for a necessity like food. Home-cooked meals are 10x better than fast food in many aspects. It's so much healthier. It can taste so much better. You can cook food to last several days. And you know exactly what you're putting into your body. Yes, of course there are people who can't cook out there but what else is life about? We learn something new everyday. Cooking is no different. And as time passes, you might even learn to love cooking. Cooking at home benefits not just you, but also the community.

    3. This is the result of my hobby, which is unofficial bin inspections. (Laughter) Strange you might think, but if we could rely on corporations to tell us what they were doing in the back of their stores, we wouldn’t need to go sneaking around the back, opening up bins and having a look at what’s inside.

      Corporations may hide things, but this is what we call least privilege. As an employee, we should not be sneaking around such as opening up bins. We have our own responsibilities and that should be it. For example, as an employee working at a supermarket, say Giant, your job may be as a cashier. If you are a cashier for that store, you wouldn't be tasked to go through inventory in back, unless specifically requested by your supervisor for that task. What’s its very suspicious for you to sneak around the back and open up bins. Being the cashier or inventory supplier has nothing to do with opening up bins. Your main goal is a cashier so we will only focus on payments and card transactions with items.

    1. Q: So, this means you don’t value hearing from readers?A: Not at all. We engage with readers every day, and we are constantly looking for ways to hear and share the diversity of voices across New Jersey. We have built strong communities on social platforms, and readers inform our journalism daily through letters to the editor. We encourage readers to reach out to us, and our contact information is available on this How To Reach Us page.

      We have built strong communities on social platforms

      They have? Really?! I think it's more likely the social platforms have built strong communities which happen to be talking about and sharing the papers content. The paper doesn't have any content moderation or control capabilities on any of these platforms.

      Now it may be the case that there are a broader diversity of voices on those platforms over their own comments sections. This means that a small proportion of potential trolls won't drown out the signal over the noise as may happen in their comments sections online.

      If the paper is really listening on the other platforms, how are they doing it? Isn't reading some or all of it a large portion of content moderation? How do they get notifications of people mentioning them (is it only direct @mentions)?

      Couldn't/wouldn't an IndieWeb version of this help them or work better.

    1. Note: This rebuttal was posted by the corresponding author to Review Commons. Content has not been altered except for formatting.

      Learn more at Review Commons


      Reply to the reviewers

      We thank the reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions. Addressing them will improve our work. Please find below our point-by-points answers to the issues raised. We also provide a partially revised version of the manuscript with changes indicated in blue.


      Reviewer #1 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required

      **Summary**

      The authors propose a mechanism through which voltage dependent water pore formation is key to the internalization of Cell permeable peptides (CPPs). The claim is based on an in-silico study and on several experimental approaches. The authors compare 5 peptides (R9, TAT-48-57, Penetratin, MAP and Transportan and use 3 distinct cell lines (Raji, SKW6.4 and HeLa cells), plus neurons in primary cultures. The also present in vivo experiment (mouse skin and zebrafish embryo). All in all, it is an interesting study, but it raises several issues that need to be addressed. Moreover, the length and structure of the manuscript make it very difficult to read (see below under "Reviewer statement")

      **Reviewer statement**

      The instructions are to use the "Major comments" section to answer 6 precise questions. Unfortunately, this is not possible due to the structure of the document to review. The main manuscript (22 pages) comes with 4 primary figures and 19 supplemental ones. Most of these figures have an enormous number of panels and their legends occupy 17 pages. To this, are added 6 supplemental tables and 7 supplemental movies (with 2 pages of legends), 28 pages of Material and Methods, and 146 References (109 for the main manuscript and 37 for Supplemental information). To be frank, I was often tempted to send the manuscript back, asking for the authors to submit a document facilitating the task of the reviewers.

      Because of this complexity, my "Major comments" will come after a page by page, paragraph ({section sign}s) by paragraph and figure by figure "Detailed analysis" of the manuscript.

      **Detailed analysis**

      Q1. Page 4 {section sign} 3

      The test is based on the ability of TAT-RasGAP to kill the cells. Although controls exist, this is worrying since necrotic death might participate in the rupture of the membrane and artificially amplify internalization after a first physiological entry of the peptide. It is also a bit dangerous to add a FITC group to a short peptide without controlling that it has no effect on the interaction with the membrane (FITC-induced local hydrophobicity can provoke peptide tilting and membrane shearing). In the same vein, the very high peptide concentrations often used in the study (40µM for Raji and SKW6.4 cells and 80µM on HeLa cells) can be highly toxic.

      A1. We took advantage of the fact that TAT-RasGAP317-326 can kill cells to design a CRISPR/Cas9 screen based on cell survival for the identification of genes encoding proteins involved in CPP uptake. For this purpose, it was important therefore that the peptide was able to kill wild-type cells. Even if we consider the possibility that “necrotic death might participate in the rupture of the membrane and artificially amplify internalization after a first physiological entry of the peptide”, it remains that the cells that survived the screen did so because they were carrying mutations in genes that encoded potassium channels required for CPP uptake. And since the cells that survived the screen, by definition, were not dying, the issue raised by the reviewer is void in this case. The reviewer mentions that we included controls to validate the observations made with FITC-TAT-RasGAP317-326. Indeed, these controls were performed to address the potential problem raised by the reviewer. These controls, listed below, demonstrate that the genes identified through the CRISPR/Cas9 screen were also involved in the uptake of CPPs devoid of killing properties as well as CPPs that were not labelled with fluorophores.

      i) Three different cell lines, lacking specific potassium channels identified through the CRISPR/Cas9 screen, were unable to allow a non-labelled, non-toxic CPP (TAT-PNA) to enter cells (Supplementary Fig. 8a).

      ii) The Cre recombinase hooked to TAT, a construct that is not labelled with a fluorochrome and that is not toxic, did not enter Raji cells lacking the KCNQ5 potassium channels, also identified through a CRISPR/Cas9 screen (Supplementary Fig. 8b).

      iii) The internalization of a TAT-conjugated FITC-labelled cell-protective therapeutic compound was inhibited, sometimes fully, in three different cell lines, lacking specific potassium channels identified through the CRISPR/Cas9 screen (Supplementary Fig. 8c).

      Additionally, we are now reporting that the entry of FITC-labelled TAT, R9, and penetratin, all non-toxic CPPs, is impaired in Raji cells lacking the KCNQ5 potassium channel identified in the CRISPR/Cas9 screen. These new results will be incorporated in the revised version of our manuscript.

      As supportive evidence that a potential toxicity effect of TAT-RasGAP317-326 is not a confounding factor in experiments recording the initial uptake of the peptide is that internalization is measured after one hour of incubation with the cells (Figure 1), time at which the peptide only minimally impacts the survival of cells (PNAS December 15, 2020 117 31871-31881).

      Finally, please note that depolarizing cells, which is what happens in cells lacking the potassium channels identified through the CRISPR/Cas9 screen, not only blocked the uptake of TAT-RasGAP317-326, but also the uptake of a series of non-toxic CPPs (using short-time incubation protocols; Figure 2).

      Page 5 {section sign} 1

      Q2. Supp. Fig.1a shows no differences between the 3 cell types, even though they differ in their modes of peptide internalization, some favoring vesicular staining and others cytoplasmic diffusion.

      A2. The images shown in panel A of this figure depicts, for each cell line, examples of cells that do not take up the CPP, those that only display vesicular staining, and those that additionally take up the peptides in their cytosol. These images were picked to depict these uptake phenotypes and this is why they are similar in the three cells lines. Panel A does not provide any quantitative information on the prevalence of these different uptake modes in the three cell lines. This is shown in panel B of Supplementary Fig. 1. There is, therefore, no discrepancies between the two panels.

      Q3. Multiplying cell and peptide types contributes to the complexity of the manuscript without increasing its interest. If there is a conceptual breakthrough, as might be the case, it is obscured by the accumulation of useless images and data. A step into simplifying the manuscript would be (i), to concentrate on Raji cells (leaving out SKW6.4 and HeLa cells) and (ii) to only discuss the R9, TAT (including TAT-RasGAP) and Penetratin peptides.

      A3. We are sorry that the inclusion of several cell lines and several CPPs was seen as confusing by the reviewer. Our current vision is that our observations are strengthened if we show that the observed effects are seen in several cell lines and with a variety of CPPs. We would like therefore to not exclude supportive evidence presented in our work because if we do remove some of the data shown in the manuscript, we will definitely weaken some of our claims. We nevertheless remain open with this point that can be further discussed with the editors.

      Q4. TAT and R9 are poly-R peptides, which is not the case for Penetratin that has only 3 Rs. These 3 Rs are important (cannot be replaced by 3 Ks), but the two Ws absent in R9 and TAT are equally important as they cannot be replaced by Fs. This must be considered by the authors when they tend to generalize their model.

      A4. The point raised by the reviewer concerning the importance of W and R residues in CPPs is well taken. We have now developed this in the discussion with the addition of the paragraphs shown below.

      An additional potential explanation to the internalization differences observed between arginine- and lysine-rich peptides is that even though both arginine and lysine are basic amino acids, they differ in their ability to form hydrogen bonds, the guanidinium group of arginine being able to form two hydrogen bonds1** while the lysyl group of lysine can only form one. Compared to lysine, arginine would therefore form more stable electrostatic interactions with the plasma membrane.

      Cationic residues are not the only determinant in CPP direct translocation. The presence of tryptophan residues also plays important roles in the ability of CPPs to cross cellular membranes. This can be inferred from the observation that Penetratin, despite only bearing 3 arginine residues penetrates cells with similar or even greater propensities compared to R9 or TAT that contain 9 and 8 arginine residues, respectively (Supplementary Fig. 9g). The aromatic characteristics of tryptophan is not sufficient to explain how it favors direct translocation as replacing tryptophan residue with the aromatic amino acid phenylalanine decreases the translocation potency of the RW9 (RRWWRRWRR) CPP2. Rather, differences in the direct translocation promoting activities of tryptophan and phenylalanine residues may come from the higher lipid bilayer insertion capability of tryptophan compared to phenylalanine3-5. There is a certain degree of interchangeability between arginine and tryptophan residues as demonstrated by the fact that replacing up to 4 arginine residues with tryptophan amino acids in the R9 CPP preserves its ability to enter cells6. It appears that loss of positive charges that contribute to water pore formation can be compensated by acquisition of strengthened lipid interactions when arginine residues are replaced with tryptophan residues. This can explain why a limited number of arginine/tryptophan substitutions does not compromise CPP translocation through membranes**.

      Q5. Supp. Fig1c-d is not necessary (very little information in it) and Supp. Fig 1e is misleading as it takes a lot of imagination to see a difference between homogenous (top) and focal (bottom) diffusion.

      A5. Since we perform cytosolic quantitation to infer direct translocation, it appears important to us, for allowing others to potentially replicate our results, that we precisely report how methodologically we perform our experiments. For Supplementary Fig. 1e, we agree that the examples shown are not easily interpretable. We have now removed this panel, as well as the accompanying panel f, from the Supplementary Fig. 1.

      Q6. Supp. Fig.1g: How many cells are we looking at? Given the high variance, the result cannot be interpreted easily. A distribution according to fluorescence bits would be a better way to present the data.

      A6. Over 230 cells have been quantitated per condition, which includes all cells where CPP entry has occurred regardless of the intensity or the type of entry. We did not only focus on cells with strong cytosolic staining to avoid any bias with regards to detection limitations. High variance can also be explained by the fact that CPP cellular entry is not synchronized. We tested the way of showing the data as suggested by the reviewer but this did not improve the visualization of the results in our opinion. We will therefore keep the initial presentation. Note that regardless of the way the data are presented, the conclusion remains the same, namely that illumination in our hands is not the cause of CPP membrane translocation.

      Q7. Supp. Fig2i. This panel confirms that Raji cells differ from the two other cell types by showing clear temperature dependency. The explanation will come later with the energy barrier for low Vm-induced pore formation. This contradicts earlier reports showing that Penetratin translocation is not temperature-dependent, possibly because it was done on neurons naturally hyperpolarized. Or else because mechanisms are, at least in part, different from the one proposed here for R9 and TAT. This requires some clarification and supports the suggestion that, instead of multiplying models and peptides, it would be more efficient to compare TAT, R9 and Penetratin internalization by Raji cells and primary neurons.

      A7. Supplementary Fig. 1i (not Supplementary Fig. 2i as indicated by the reviewer) was reporting the overall CPP uptake, both through direct translocation and endocytosis as a function of temperature. As there is limited endocytosis in Raji cells, the data shown for this cell type mostly correspond to direct translocation. For Hela and SKW6.4, endocytosis is not marginal however and we will perform a new set of experiments to define the role of temperature (4, 20, 24, 28, 32°C) in CPP direct translocation (i.e. cytosolic acquisition) in HeLa cells and SKW6.4 (using the CPPs listed by the reviewer). We have partially performed this for HeLa cells already and this shows that direct translocation is indeed inhibited by low temperatures (more than 10-fold at 4°C compared to 37°C). Bear in mind that no endosomal escape occurs in our settings (see Supplementary Fig. 7c). This indicates that the decrease in cytoplasmic fluorescence induced by low temperature is not a consequence of diminished CPP endocytosis.

      Q8. Supp. Fig. 2a-f. Last sentence of the legend "Concentrations above 40µM led to too extensive cell death preventing analysis of peptide internalization". This confirms the warning against the use of concentrations varying between 40 µM and 80 µM and partially jeopardizes the validity of some experiments.

      A8. The reviewer has truncated this sentence that actually reads “Note: concentrations above 40 mM of TAT-RasGAP317-326 led to too extensive Raji and SKW6.4 cell death, preventing analysis of peptide internalization at these concentrations.” As different cell lines display various sensitivities to potential toxic effects induced by CPPs (Raji and SKW6.4 cells being more sensitive than HeLa cells for example), we have adapted the concentrations of CPPs used to monitor cellular uptake so that cell death was minimal or non-existent in order to prevent the potential confounding effects mentioned by the reviewer. Hence in contrast to what the reviewer is stating, we are taking care of the toxicity effect and perform our experiments in conditions were toxicity is minimal. The logic of the reviewer to state that we “jeopardize[d] the validity of some experiments” is therefore unclear to us as we did take care of not exposing our cells to toxic CPP concentrations.

      Page 6 {section sign} 2

      Q9. The authors advocate 2 modes of entry, opposing transport across the membrane and endocytosis. In contrast with R9, TAT and Penetratin, Transportan or MAP seem to be purely endocytosed but, if they reach the cytoplasm, they still have to cross a membrane (unless "a miracle happens"). For Penetratin and R9/TAT, the authors consider that water pore and inverted micelle formation are incompatible. This is a bit rapid as inverted micelles might induce water pores through W/lipids interactions requiring less R residues and, possibly, less energy. This provides the opportunity to signal that, in spite of their very high number, key references are missing or hidden in cited reviews, some of them written by colleagues who are not among the main contributors to the CPP field.

      A9. Transportan in our hands indeed appear to enter cells via endocytosis mostly. As reported by the reviewer, how Transportan reaches the cytosol remains unresolved.

      Our data support a model where CPPs enter cells via water pores that are not made by the CPPs themselves but that are created by the megapolarization state of the membrane. Our data therefore do not support toroidal or barrel-stave pore models because these pores would be built as a result of CPP assemblage.

      Inverted micelles have been hypothesized to mediate CPP translocation across membranes7 but to our knowledge, there is no in silico or cellular experimental evidence for this in the literature. To us, the data on which the involvement of inverted micelle in CPP translocation is based are also fully consistent with the water pore model. CPP translocation through water pores has been seen by several authors during in silico experiments but, to the best of our knowledge, simulations have not reported the formation of inverted micelles during CPP translocation across membranes.

      Finally, we would be grateful to this reviewer if the “key references” that are apparently missing from our manuscript are disclosed so that we could acknowledge them appropriately.

      Page 7 {section sign} 1

      Q10.Fig. 1b confirms that Raji cells provide a good model for loss and gain of function (lovely rescue experiment) and that the authors should drop the two other cell types that provide no decisive information.

      A10. Raji and HeLa cells display a stronger direct CPP uptake impairment phenotype when lacking a given potassium channel (KCNQ5 and KCNN4, respectively). In these cell lines, it appears that one potassium channel predominantly controls the plasma membrane potential. In contrast, in SKW6.4 cells, several potassium channels (e.g. KCNN4 and KCNK5) appear to be equally or redundantly involved in the control of the membrane potential. This probably explains the intermediate impact on the Vm and on CPP direct translocation when knocking out a given potassium channel in this cell line. When pharmacologically inducing cellular depolarization, a clear impairment in CPP translocation is however observed in this cell line. Thus, even though the Vm in SKW6.4 cells, is controlled predominantly by several potassium channels, it remains that an appropriate membrane potential is crucially required for these cells to take up CPP across their membrane. We agree with the reviewer that the stronger phenotypic effect observed in Raji and HeLa cells allows easy interpretation. On the other hand, it seems important to us that we provide data reporting intermediate situations so that readers can appreciate the variability that can be observed in different cell lines. Nevertheless, we would like to propose along the reviewer’s suggestion to move the SKW6.4 data from figure 1 to the supplemental data. Feedback from the editors would also be appreciated in this particular instance.

      Page 8 {section sign} 1

      Q11. A) Supp. Fig. 6b (no serum conditions) allows for the use of "normal" CPP concentrations and suggests that a fraction of the peptides may bind to serum components. No arrows in Supp. Fig.6b (but in 6c), and the R/pyrene butyrate interaction is not in 6c but in 6a. Still for Supp. Fig. 6c, the death of cells at 20µM (or less) even in the absence of K+ channels, confirms that we are borderline in term of peptide toxicity.

      B)There is a confusion between Supp. Fig. 6d and 6e and a legend problem (6e is not described). Cell death is assessed in % of PI-positive cells. Does this securely distinguish between death and holes allowing for PI entry without death?

      C) The CPP is incubated in the presence of Pyrene butyrate, making the KO cells less resistant. How does that demonstrate that the potassium channels are not involved in the killing if the peptide is already in? Unless the KO is done after internalization (but the cells should be already dead or dying?). This lacks clarity.

      A11. We apologize for the lack of clarity in the legend of Supplementary Fig. 6. This will be corrected in the revised version of the manuscript.

      A) Supp. Fig. 6b (no serum conditions) allows for the use of "normal" CPP concentrations and suggests that a fraction of the peptides may bind to serum components.

      A) The reviewer is correct that CPPs interact with serum components. This is indeed what is reported in this figure. The presence or absence of serum has therefore an important impact in experiments performed with CPPs and should be reported to allow proper interpretation of our data.

      No arrows in Supp. Fig.6b (but in 6c), and the R/pyrene butyrate interaction is not in 6c but in 6a.

      Thank you for noting this. This is now corrected.

      Still for Supp. Fig. 6c, the death of cells at 20µM (or less) even in the absence of K+ channels, confirms that we are borderline in term of peptide toxicity.

      It has to be understood that in Supplementary Fig. 6c, we use the TAT‑RasGAP317‑326 peptide that is inducing cell death when translocating into cells8. This cell death response is not provided by the CPP portion of TAT‑RasGAP317‑326 (i.e. TAT) but by its bioactive cargo (i.e. RasGAP317‑326). The read-out in this particular experiment is therefore cell death and this should not be confused with general CPP toxicity.

      B) There is a confusion between Supp. Fig. 6d and 6e and a legend problem (6e is not described).

      B) This has now been fixed.

      Cell death is assessed in % of PI-positive cells. Does this securely distinguish between death and holes allowing for PI entry without death?

      The answer to this question is yes. In this manuscript we used PI in two very different experimental set-ups.

      i) the conventional cell death detection assay where cells are incubated with 8 mg/ml PI prior to flow cytometry. In this set-up, dead cells with compromised membrane integrity have their nucleus brightly stained with PI.

      ii) the detection of small pores in the plasma membrane (water pore) where cells are incubated with ~30 mg/ml PI and the fluorescence of PI measured in the cytosol by confocal microscopy. In this set-up, PI enters into the cytosol through small plasma membrane pores but PI does not stain the DNA in the nucleus. This protocol has been previously described9 and we have further validated it in the present work (Figure 3 and Supplementary Fig. 12).

      PI does not fluoresce well unless it binds to DNA. In solution without cells, PI cannot be detected below 128 mg/ml (Supplementary Fig. 12e). At low PI concentrations (8 mg/ml), living cells (even when treated with compounds such as CPPs that create transitory pores) do not display cytosolic PI fluorescence. At high PI concentrations (32 mg/ml), the cytosol of CPP-treated cells becomes PI fluorescent. PI is positively charged and is attracted by the negative membrane potential of the cells. Its movement across the cell membrane is therefore unidirectional. This enables the PI molecules to accumulate/concentrate within the cytosol to values (> 64 mg/ml) allowing its detection (Supplementary Fig. 12a-c). PI and CPPs do no interact (Supplementary Figure 12d); hence they move independently from one another. If PI enters through the water pores induced by CPPs, the entry kinetics of PI and CPPs should be identical. Indeed, this is what we show now in a new figure (refer to our answer #31).

      C) The CPP is incubated in the presence of Pyrene butyrate, making the KO cells less resistant. How does that demonstrate that the potassium channels are not involved in the killing if the peptide is already in? Unless the KO is done after internalization (but the cells should be already dead or dying?). This lacks clarity.

      C) For the pyrene butyrate experiments the rationale was the following. The CRISPR/Cas9-identified potassium channels could either be involved in CPP internalization or they could be required for the killing activity of TAT-RasGAP317-326 when the peptide is already in the cytosol. To experimentally introduce TAT-RasGAP317-326 in the cytosol and to bypass any potential entry depending on potassium channels, we used pyrene butyrate that efficiently creates an artificial entry route for CPPs into cells. Our data show that when TAT-RasGAP317-326 is introduced in the cytosol through the use of pyrene butyrate, cells died whether they lack specific potassium channels or not. This led to our interpretation that potassium channels are not modulating the cell death activity of TAT-RasGAP317-326 once in the cytosol but that they are required for the entry of the CPP in the cytosol.

      Page 9 {section sign} 1

      Q12.The conclusion that the diffuse staining does not come from endosomal escape is based on the certainty that LLOME disrupts both endosomes and lysosomes. First, it should be verified with specific markers (rab5, rab7) that the fluorescent vesicles are endosomes. Second, the literature strongly suggests that LLOME primarily disrupts lysosomes and not endosomes. Finally, even if some endosomes are disrupted, the endosomal population is heterogenous and some CPPs may be in a subpopulation insensitive to LLOME. In addition, the importance of this issue is not well explained. In practice, access to the cytoplasm and nucleus requires crossing the plasma and/or the endosomal membrane and the latter, at least in early endosomes (thus the need of identifying the CPP-enriched vesicles), might not be very different from the plasma membrane.

      A12. The conclusion that diffuse staining does not come from endosomal escape is based on experiments where HeLa cells were incubated in the presence of CPP for 30 minutes to allow CPP entry into cells, then the cells were washed to prevent further uptake (Supplementary Fig. 7c). We only monitored the cells that initially took up the CPP by endocytosis and not through direct translocation (for the HeLa cell line, there is always a substantial fraction of such cells; see Supplementary Fig. 1b). We measured the cytosolic CPP fluorescence intensity in these cells by time-lapse confocal microscopy for 4 ½ hours. The procedure to do this is now explained in new Supplementary Fig. 7c. We then assessed the CPP fluorescence intensity within the cytosol. No increase in cytosolic fluorescence was detected in this condition, speaking against the possibility that cytosolic acquisition of CPPs by the cells resulted from vesicular escape (the identity of the vesicles being unimportant in this context). Our set-up has the potential to detect CPPs in the cytosol if these CPPs leak out from vesicles because we could measure increased CPP fluorescence in the cytosol in cells treated with LLOME. It did not matter in this positive control experiment what types of CPP-containing vesicles are disrupted by LLOME. What was important to show in this control condition was that the disruption of at least some CPP-containing vesicles permitted us to detect a cytosolic signal.

      Page 9 {section sign} 2

      Q13. Is Supp. Fig. 7e really necessary? First, as mentioned several times, if 20 µM is a borderline concentration in term of toxicity, raising the concentration up to 100 µM is problematic. Secondly, what matters is not "binding" in general, but binding to the proper membrane components. As mentioned by the authors themselves (Supp. Fig. 1e and movie), there are privileged sites of entry that may correspond to the recognition of specific molecular entities/structures.

      A13. The goal of the experiments presented in Supplementary Figure 7e was to determine whether the CRISPR/Cas9-identified potassium channels modulate CPP/membrane interaction. If those channels were to be required for the initial binding of the CPPs to the plasma membrane, this would have not hampered cells to take up the CPPs. Our data showed (Figure 7e) that Raji cells lacking the KCNQ5 potassium channel had a slightly decreased ability to bind TAT-RasGAP317-326 but importantly, these cells, at similar or even higher initial surface binding compared to wild-type cells (this was achieved by adequately varying the CPP concentrations), were still drastically impaired in taking up the peptide. Note that after one hour of incubation with TAT-RasGAP317-326 in the presence of serum there is only marginal amount of cell death (317-326, we have now performed an additional experiment with TAT that is not toxic to cells that confirms our data obtained with TAT-RasGAP317-326.

      Page 9 {section sign} 3 and Page 10 {section sign} 1

      Q14.The authors should have used a construct that does not kill the cells much earlier, just after the screening experiments based on resistance to necrosis induced by TAT-rasGAP. For Supp. Fig 8a and b: I am fully convinced by Raji cells and HeLa cells but not by the SKW6.4 cells.

      A14. As mentioned in our answer to point 10, we agree that SKW6.4 cells present intermediate phenotypes probably because, unlike Raji and HeLa cells, a combination of ion channels seems to regulate the plasma membrane potential. As indicated above, we can move the SKW6.4 data to the supplementary information to clarify the message presented in the main text. Again, feedback from the editors is welcome here.

      Page 10 {section sign} 2

      Q15. A) Supp. Fig 9 is quite convincing but adds the information that 2 µM are sufficient in neurons. This again makes the 20 to 80 µM concentrations used on transformed cells unsatisfactory.

      B) If one needs a cell line (more user friendly than primary cultures), there are several neural ones that can be differentiated (SHY, LHUMES, etc.) that may have an appropriate membrane potential (below -90mV). Indeed, it would then be important to verify if pore formation is still induced by TAT, R9 and Penetratin (separately) on "naturally" hyperpolarized cells.

      C) Figure 2a confirms that changes in Vm are not solid for HeLa and SKW6.4 cells. This casts a doubt on the validity of the results obtained with the latter 2 cell lines.

      A15. A) The experiments performed in Supplementary Fig. 9d with cortical rat neurons and HeLa cells were performed in the absence of serum accounting for the low concentrations used. We apologize for not emphasizing enough when experiments were performed in the presence or absence of serum, explaining the use of high CPP concentrations (40-80 mM) and low CPP concentrations (2-10 mM), respectively. We would like to emphasize however that we have adjusted the concentrations of CPPs in our study so as to get similar levels of CPP activity or CPP uptake between the different cell lines used. The concentrations used should not be compared as mere numbers, it is the CPP activity or uptake that should be considered.

      B) We thank the reviewer for his/her suggestion. To address this point, we will perform a new experiment to determine if in neurons TAT, R9, and Penetratin induce pores (using the PI uptake approach).

      C) Please see our answer to point 10.

      Page 11 {section sign} 2

      Q16. Why valinomycin was only tried on Raji cells?

      A16. In this study, valinomycin was used on Raji and HeLa cells (Figure 2 and 3). We did not use valinomycin on SKW6.4 cells, as the drug-induced hyperpolarization levels were insufficient in this cell line. As we got a nice hyperpolarization in HeLa wild-type and KCNN4 KO cells through ectopic expression of the KCNJ2 potassium channels (which restored the ability of the KO cells to take up the CPPs), we did not perform the CPP uptake experiment with valinomycin in HeLa cells (although we had tested that valinomycin is able to hyperpolarize HeLa cells).

      Page 12 {section sign} 2

      Q17.A)Looking at Fig. 2c, it seems that low Vm increases the uptake of all CPPs, except Transportan. Is there any reason why this Figure does not provide the number of vesicles per cell in the hyperpolarized conditions?

      B) In fact, if one goes to Supp. Fig. 9c, it appears that, among all peptides, only Penetratin is almost entirely cytoplasmic after 90' of incubation, whereas MAP and Transportan remain essentially vesicular. TAT and R9 are at mid-distance between these two extremes. This leads to send again the warning that all CPPs cannot be placed in a single category. The table that describes the sequences strongly suggests that, TAT and R9 uptake is due to the numerous Rs that cannot be replaced by Ks. In the case of Penetratin, that only has 3 Rs, the situation is thus different with the presence of 2 Ws previously shown to be mandatory for internalization, although absent in TAT ad R9.

      C) In Supp. Fig9, panel g is useless.

      D) A difference between peptides is also visible in Figure 2d where depolarization with KCl does not show the same efficiency on all peptides. The issue is whether these differences are significant and, if so, why? This discussion could be restricted to TAT, R9 and Penetratin.

      E) Supp. Fig. 10a also suggests that all peptides do not respond similarly to depolarization and that the effects differ between cell types and concentrations used. However, given the high concentrations used and the high variance between replicates, this figure might not be a priority in the reorganization of the manuscript.

      A17. A) As mentioned in the figure legend “Quantitation of vesicles was not performed in hyperpolarizing conditions due to masking from strong cytosolic signal.” This would create a bias towards underestimation of vesicles numbers in cells displaying strong cytosolic signal.

      B) We agree with the reviewer that Transportan enters cells primarily through endocytosis. This is mentioned in the text as well as other differences that were observed with regards to the prevalence of endocytosis or direct translocation. These mentions are reported below.

      Page 12: “With the notable exception of Transportan, depolarization led to decreased cytosolic fluorescence of all CPPs, while hyperpolarization favored CPP translocation in the cytosol (Fig. 2c, Supplementary Fig. 9h and 10a). Transportan, unlike the other tested CPPs, enters cells predominantly through endocytosis (Supplementary Fig. 9e), which could explain the difference in response to Vm modulation.

      Page 14: “Even though this extrapolation is likely to lack accuracy because of the well-known limitation of the MARTINI forcefield in describing the absolute kinetics of the molecular events, the values obtained are consistent with the kinetics of CPP direct translocation observed in living cells (Figure 1c and Supplementary Fig. 1b and 9e). With the exception of Transportan, the estimated CPP translocation occurred within minutes. This is consistent with our observation that Transportan enters cells predominantly through endocytosis and its internalization is therefore not affected by changes in Vm (Fig 2c-d and Supplemental Fig. 9e)”.

      Page 20: “On the other hand, when endocytosis is the predominant type of entry, CPP cytosolic uptake will be less affected by both hyperpolarization and depolarization, which is what is observed for Transportan internalization in HeLa cells (Fig. 2c and Supplementary Fig. 10a).

      Concerning the roles of arginine and tryptophan residues, please refer to our answer #4.

      C) We do not think this panel (now panel h) is useless as it shows representative examples of the quantitation shown in Figure 2c. We can however remove it if requested by the editors.

      D) The reviewer is correct with the observation that KCl-induced depolarization does not lead to similar inhibition in uptake of the tested CPPs. As mentioned in the text, these differences can be explained by the prevalence of direct translocation in the cells. For example, transportan enters cells primarily through endocytosis, which as we show is not regulated/affected by the membrane potential (Figure 2c, lower graphs). Consequently, it is expected that KCl treatment will not impact on transportan cellular uptake.

      E) The reviewer is correct in mentioning that there is quantitative heterogeneity between the different CPP tested. We mentioned these differences in the manuscript. These mentions are those that are reported under B, plus those listed below.

      Page 19: “It is known for example that peptides made of 9 lysines (K9) poorly reaches the cytosol (Fig. 3f and Supplementary Fig. 9e) and that replacing arginine by lysine in Penetratin significantly diminishes its internalization10,11. According to our model, K9 should induce megapolarization and formation of water pores that should then allow their translocation into cells. However, it has been determined that, once embedded into membranes, lysine residues tend to lose protons12,13. This will thus dissipate the strong membrane potential required for the formation of water pores and leave the lysine-containing CPPs stuck within the phospholipids of the membrane. In contrast, arginine residues are not deprotonated in membranes and water pores can therefore be maintained allowing the arginine-rich CPPs to be taken up by cells.

      Page 21: “Therefore, the uptake kinetics of lysine-rich peptide, such as MAP, appears artefactually similar as the uptake kinetics of arginine-rich peptides such as R9 (Supplementary Fig. 11b).

      Page 21: “The differences between CPPs in terms of how efficiently direct translocation is modulated by the Vm (Fig. 2c-d and Supplementary Fig. 10a) could be explained by their relative dependence on direct translocation or endocytosis to penetrate cells. The more positively charged a CPP is, the more it will enter cells through direct translocation and consequently the more sensitive it will be to cell depolarization (Fig. 2c). On the other hand, when endocytosis is the predominant type of entry, CPP cytosolic uptake will be less affected by both hyperpolarization and depolarization, which is what is observed for Transportan internalization in HeLa cells (Fig. 2c and Supplementary Fig. 10a).

      However, what remains is that depolarization always affects CPP uptake, at most concentrations tested. The heterogeneity reported in Supplementary Fig. 10a for a given experimental condition in a given cell type is in itself of interest as it suggests that there are varying factors within a cell population (e.g. cell cycle, metabolism, etc.) that may impact on the ability of cells to take up CPPs. As per reviewer’s suggestion we may remove this panel from the figure if instructed to do so by the editors.

      Page 12 {section sign} 3 and Page 13 {section sign} 1

      Q18. The pH story is either too long or too short.

      A18. One mechanism put forward to explain direct translocation relies on pH variation between the extracellular milieu and the cytosol14. It was therefore of interest in the context of the model we putting forward to see if pH is affecting the uptake of CPPs in our experimental model. Our data show that pH variations do not affect CPP direct translocation. This information should in our opinion be disclosed.

      Page 14 {section sign} 2

      Q19. At low Vm values, there is a decrease in free energy barrier. Does this modify temperature-dependency for internalization? Do cells really require energy when the Vm is very low, like is often the case for neurons?

      A19. We thank the reviewer for this interesting comment. We will now address this by visualizing under a confocal microscope CPP direct translocation in rat cortical neurons incubated at various temperature (4°C, 24°C, 37°C).

      Page 15 {section sign} 2

      Q20. Figure 2e is not explained, not even in the legend while the statement that CPPs induce a local hyperpolarization is central to the study.

      A20. As there is no Figure 2e, we believe that the reviewer is talking about Figure 3e, the legend of which was present in the initial version of the manuscript.

      Page 16 {section sign} 1

      Q21. It is confusing that the same agent, here PI, is used to measure internalization (2 nm pore formation in response to hyperpolarization,) and cell death. I have seen the explanation below, but I do not find it fully satisfactory.

      A21. We have tried to explain this better under our answer to point 11B.

      Page 16 {section sign} 2

      Q22. Entry is not necessarily a size issue. Structure is an important parameter, including possible structure changes, for example in response to Vm modifications. Therefore, the statement that molecule with larger diameters are mostly prevented from internalization is not only vague ("mostly") but incorrect.

      A22. We agree with the reviewer’s comment in the sense that the secondary structure of a molecule will also play an important role in its internalization. For that reason, we have used a series of molecules of identical structure (dextrans) but that have different molecular weights. In these experiments we saw that dextran of higher molecular weight enter less efficiently than that of lower molecular weight (Figure 3). We will rephrase some of our sentences so to precise that the size and the shape (structure) of molecules will determine their ability to enter cells through water pores that are characterized by a certain diameter.

      Page 2: “Using dyes of varying sizes and shapes, we assessed the diameter of the water pores**.

      Page 4: “translocation and we characterize the diameter of the water pores used by CPPs**.

      Page 15: “cells were co-incubated with molecules of different sizes and structure and FITC-labelled CPPs at a peptide/lipid ratio of 0.012-0.018 (Supplementary Fig. 11c-d).”

      Page 16: “3 kDa, 10 kDa, and 40 kDa dextrans, 2.3 ±0.38 nm, 4.5 nm and 8.6 nm (diameter estimation provided by Thermofisher), respectively, were used to estimate the diameter of the water pores formed in the presence of CPP.

      Page 16: “These results are in line with the in silico prediction of the water pore diameter obtained by analyzing the structure of the pore at the transition state.

      Page 16: “The marginal cytosolic co-internalization of dextrans was inversely correlated with their diameter.

      Page 35: “200 µg/ml dextran of different molecular weight in the presence or in the absence of the indicated CPPs in normal […]”.

      Page 17 {section sign} 4 and Page 18 {section sign} 1

      Q23. In Supp. Fig. 13b and c, since the GAP domain is mutated, death is not due to RasGAP activity. So what causes zebrafish death (hyperpolarization?) The results seem contradictory with those of Supp. Fig 13f where survival is 100% at 48 h.

      A23. Indeed, it appears that valinomycin in water leads to zebrafish embryo death, as can be seen in Supplementary Fig. 13c. However, the main difference between Supplementary Fig. 13c and S13f is that in Supplementary Fig. 13f zebrafish were not incubated in valinomycin-containing water, but were locally injected with a CPP in the presence or in the absence of valinomycin. This has now been clarified in the text. We saw that local injections with the hyperpolarizing agent are much less toxic and are well tolerated by the zebrafish embryos.

      Page 18 {section sign} 2

      Q24. The formation of inverted micelles is not incompatible with that of pores. CPP-induced hyperpolarization (Vm) is not measured directly, but deduced from experiments involving artificial membranes and in silico modeling. It would be useful to distinguish between what takes place on live cells (in vitro and in vivo) and what is speculated (based on modeling and artificial systems).

      A24.

      The formation of inverted micelles is not incompatible with that of pores.

      As mentioned above (point 9), we do also think that what has been presented as inverted micelles could have been in fact water pores.

      CPP-induced hyperpolarization (Vm) is not measured directly, but deduced from experiments involving artificial membranes and in silico modeling. It would be useful to distinguish between what takes place on live cells (in vitro and in vivo) and what is speculated (based on modeling and artificial systems).

      If we understand this point correctly, the reviewer is talking about the -150 mV hyperpolarization. This value is not a speculation but has been estimated from in silico experiments and also from experiments using live cells (not artificial membranes). In living cells, the hyperpolarization (megapolarization) has been estimated based on accumulation of intracellular PI over time in the presence or in the absence of CPP.

      Page 19 {section sign} 3

      Q25A. The model posits that the number of Rs influences the ability of the CPPs to hyperpolarize the membrane and, consequently, to induce pore formation. Since pore formation is key to the addressing to the cytoplasm, how can one explain that Penetratin which has only 3 Rs is transported to the cytoplasm more readily that TAT or R9? The authors should take this contradiction in consideration and should not leave aside, in the literature, what does not fit with their model.

      A25A. We fully agree that this should be discussed and not left aside. Please refer to point 4 for detailed discussion about the role of arginine and tryptophan in the ability of CPPs to translocate across membranes.

      Q25B. The fact that that Rs cannot be replaced by Ks, both in R9 and Penetratin is explained by differences in deprotonization. This is interesting but speculative. It might be that the interaction between Rs versus Ks with lipids and sugars are different and not only based on charge. After all their atomic structures, beyond charges, are different.

      A25B. We do not claim that protonation differences between R and K is the definitive answer for their ability to promote CPP translocation. It is one possible explanation that we find sound. As suggested by the reviewer, the ability of K and R to bind lipids and sugars can also play a role. We can mention in this context that the guanidinium group of arginine residues can form two hydrogen bonds1, which allow for more stable electrostatic interactions while the lysyl group of lysine residues can only form one hydrogen bond. We have included these additional possibilities in the revised version of our manuscript as indicated under point 4.

      Page 20 {section sign} 1 Q26. We still need to understand endosomal escape.

      A26. We agree with the reviewer that endosomal escape is still poorly understood. This is an interesting research topic that deserves its own separate study.

      **Major comments**

      • The key conclusions are convincing for a subset of CPPs and cell types
      • Yes, some claims should be qualified as speculative, but not preliminary
      • Many experiments should be removed. Neuronal primary cultures should be introduced to verify the main conclusions, at least for the 3 mains CPPs (TAT, R9, Penetratin). Answers must be given to the concentration issue. Vesicles should be characterized as well as the localization of the peptides in or around the vesicles. See above for less decisive but still important experiments that would benefit to the study.
      • Yes, the requested experiments correspond to a reasonable costs and amount of time (10 to 20,000 € and 3 to 5 months of work)
      • Yes, the methods are presented with great details. -Yes, the experiments are adequately replicated and statistical analysis is adequate

      **Minor comments (not so minor for some of them)**

      • See "Detailed analysis"
      • No, prior studies are not referenced appropriately (see above)
      • No, the text and figures are not clear and not accurate (see above)
      • (i) use Raji cells and primary neuronal cultures, plus in vivo model and forget the other cell types; (ii) forget MAP and Transportan and compare TAT/R9 and Penetratin; (iii) drastically reduce the number of figures, tables and movies (6 primary figures, 6 supplemental figures and 4 tables are reasonable numbers; movies are not absolutely necessary); (iv) limit to 6 (max) the number of panels per figure; (v) limit the number of references to less than 50 and cite the primary reports rather than reviews); (vi) reduce the size of the Material and Methods and the length of figure legends.

      Reviewer #1 (Significance (Required)):

      • The mode of CPP internalization is an unanswered question and the report, if revised, will represent a conceptual and technical advance.
      • Bits and pieces of the conclusions can be found in previous reports. But the Vm-dependent pore formation as well as the CPP-induced "megapolarization" (even if only shown for a subset of CPPs) would be an important contribution. The authors must resist the tentation to generalize to all CPPs what might only be true for a few of them.
      • I do not have the expertise for the in-silico work, but my field of expertise allows me to understand all other aspects of the manuscript.


      Reviewer #2 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      In this manuscript, the authors investigated the effect of membrane potential on the internalization of CPPs into the cytosol of some cancer cell lines. Using a CRISPR/Cas9-based screening, they found that some potassium channels play an important role in the internalization of CPPs. The depolarization decreases the rate of internalization of CPPs and the hyperpolarization using valinomycin increases the rate. Using the coarse-grained MD simulations, the authors investigated the interaction of CPPs with a lipid bilayer in the presence of membrane potential. In the interaction of CPPs with the cells, propidium iodide (PI) enters the cytosol significantly. Based on this result, the authors concluded that pores with 2 nm diameter are formed in the plasma membrane.

      This reviewer raises one main issue concerning CPP endocytosis. The reviewer challenges our method to investigate CPP direct translocation and specifically how do we make sure that what we consider direct translocation is not a combination of CPP endocytosis (followed or not by endosomal escape) and CPP plasma membrane translocation. As explained below in details our methodology is able to accurately distinguish CPP uptake by direct translocation from CPP endocytosis and we further demonstrate that endosomal escape does not occur in our experimental settings.

      Q27. One of the defects in this manuscript is the method to determine the fraction of internalization of CPPs via direct translocation across plasma membrane. The authors estimated the fraction of the direct translocation of CPPs by the fluorescence intensity of the cytosolic region (devoid of endosomes) and the fraction of the internalization via endocytosis by the fluorescence intensity of vesicles. However, the CPPs can enter the cytoplasm via endocytosis, and thus the increase in the fluorescence intensity of the cytoplasm is due to two processes (via endocytosis and direct translocation). The authors should use inhibitors of clathrin-mediated endocytosis and macropinocytosis to determine the fraction of internalization of CPPs via direct translocation accurately. Low temperature (4 C) has been also used as the inhibitor of endocytosis (e.g., J. Biophysics, 414729, 2011; J. Biol. Chem., 284, 33957, 2009). Supplementary Figure 1i (the temperature dependence of internalization of TAT-RasGAP317-326) clearly shows that at 4 C the fraction of the internalization was very low, indicating that this peptide enters the cytosol mainly via endocytosis. The determination of the fraction of the internalization via endocytosis by the fluorescence intensity of vesicles in this manuscript is not accurate because it is difficult to examine all endosomes in cells and it is not easy to discriminate the fluorescence intensity due to the endosomes from that due to the cytosol.

      It is important to follow a time course of the fluorescence intensity of single cells from the beginning of the interaction of CPPs with the cells (at least from 5 min) in the presence and absence of inhibitors of the endocytosis (J. Biol. Chem., 278, 585, 2003) to elucidate the process of the internalization of CPPs in the cytosol.

      A27. The reviewer raises the possibility that the signal of fluorescent CPPs in endosomes somehow perturbs the acquisition of the signal in cytosol. This could occur in two ways: CPP endosomal escape and diffusion of the signal located in endosomes into adjacent cytosolic regions (halo effect). The second possibility can be readily dismissed because in situations where cells only take up fluorescent CPPs by endocytosis, the cytosol emits background fluorescence (autofluorescence). This can be seen in Supplementary Fig. 1a (“vesicular” condition) or in Supplementary Fig. 9h in the depolarized cells that cannot take up CPP by direct translocation. Also note that when we record the cytosolic signal we take great care of using regions of interest (ROI) that are distant from endosomes. In contrast to what the reviewer is saying (“it is not easy to discriminate the fluorescence intensity due to the endosomes from that due to the cytosol”), it is actually not difficult discriminating the cytosolic fluorescence from the endosome fluorescence. To illustrate this, we now provide examples of high magnification images of cells incubated with fluorescent CPPs (new Supplementary Fig. 1c, right[1]) to better explain/illustrate our methodology and to show that it is quite straightforward to find cytosolic areas devoid of endosomes. Such high magnification images are those that are used for our blinded quantitation. The other possibility is endosomal escape. We demonstrate in Supplementary Fig. 7c that in our experimental conditions, no endosomal escape is detected[2]. We may not have explained our methodology well enough in the earlier version. We will try and improve the description of our quantitation procedures better in the revised version. To this end, we have now added a scheme illustrating the experimental setup (now part of Supplementary Fig. 7c) that is used to assess endosomal escape.

      The reviewer also questions the way we quantitate the CPP signals in endosomes. In the present paper, our goal is to characterize the direct translocation process of CPPs in to cells. We do not wish here to investigate in details the endocytic pathway taken by CPPs. This has been done in a separate study that we are currently submitting for publication. In a nutshell, this work shows that the endocytic pathway taken by CPPs is different from the classical Rab5- and Rab7-dependent pathway and that the CPP endocytic pathway is not inhibited by compounds that affect the classical pathway. Thus, even if we had wanted to use the inhibitors mentioned by the reviewer, they would not have blocked CPP endocytosis.

      To sum up the issues raised under this point, we believe we have presented the reasons why there are no grounds to support the concerns raised by the reviewer.

      [1] Supplementary Fig. 1c (right) is mentioned in the “Cell death and CPP internalization measurements” section of the methods.

      [2] In this experiment, cells were incubated with CPPs for 30 minutes to allow CPP entry into cells. Then the cells were either washed (to prevent further uptake including uptake through direct translocation) or incubated in the continued presence of CPPs. In both conditions, cells where only endocytosis took place were followed by time-lapse confocal microscopy for 4 hours (i.e. these cells do not display any cytosolic CPP signal at the beginning of the recording). We then assessed the CPP fluorescence intensity within the cytosol (i.e. away from endosomes). From these experiments we saw that cytosolic fluorescence increased only in conditions where CPP was present in the media throughout the experiment. No increase of cytosolic fluorescence was detected in the condition where CPPs were washed out. In conclusion these results demonstrate that the cytosolic signal that we observed in our experiments is due to direct translocation and not endosomal escape. In these experiments we have used the LLOME lysosomotropic agent as a control to make sure that if endosomal escape had occurred (even if only from a subset of endosomes/lysosomes), we would have been able to detect it. Indeed, upon addition of LLOME we were able to record CPP release from endosomes to the cytosol. There is therefore no endosomal escape occurring in our experimental conditions. In conclusion, the observed cytosolic signal in our confocal experiments do not originate, even partly, from endosomal escape.

      Supplementary Figure 1i (the temperature dependence of internalization of TAT-RasGAP317-326) clearly shows that at 4 C the fraction of the internalization was very low, indicating that this peptide enters the cytosol mainly via endocytosis.

      The experiment shown in Supplementary Fig. 1i was analyzed by flow cytometry that cannot discriminate the cytosolic signal from the endosomal signal. We will therefore perform this experiment again but this time using confocal imaging to record the impact of temperature on CPP cytosolic acquisition. We have performed this for HeLa cells already and this shows that direct translocation is indeed inhibited by low temperatures (full blockage at 4°C). Bear in mind that no endosomal escape occurs in our settings (see Supplementary Fig. 7c). This indicates that the decrease in cytoplasmic fluorescence induced by low temperature is not a consequence of diminished CPP endocytosis.

      Q28. Recently, it has been well recognized that membrane potential greatly affects the structure, dynamics and function of plasma membranes (e.g., Science, 349, 873, 2015; PNAS, 107, 12281, 2010). The results of the effect of membrane potential on the internalization of CPPs (depolarization decreases the rate of internalization and hyperpolarization increases the rate), which is main results of this manuscript, can be interpreted by various ways. For example, the rate of endocytosis may be greatly controlled by membrane potential, which can explain the authors' results.

      A28. This reviewer may have missed the experiment presented in Figure 2c that clearly shows that CPP endocytosis is unaffected by depolarization or hyperpolarization of cells. We have also determined that transferrin uptake through endocytosis is not affected by potassium channel knockout (which also leads to depolarization). The possibility raised by the reviewer is therefore refuted by our experimental evidence.

      Q29. A) The authors used the similar concentrations of various CPPs for their experiments (10 to 40 microM), and did not examine the peptide concentration dependence of the internalization. It has been recognized that the CPP concentration affects the mode of internalization of CPPs (e.g., J. Biol. Chem., 284, 33957, 2009). The authors should examine the peptide concentration dependence of the mode of internalization (less than 10 micorM, e. g., 1 microM).

      B) In the case of depolarization, can higher concentrations of CPPs (e.g., 100 micorM) induce their internalization?

      A29. A) We agree that CPPs/cell ratio might prompt one mode of entry over the other. It has been reported by imaging that at lower CPP concentrations endocytosis is favored since only vesicles were observed15-19. Our data confirm this (new Supplementary Fig. 9f).

      B) In Supp. Fig. 7e we have incubated KCNQ5 KO Raji cells that are slightly more depolarized than WT cells in the presence of increasing CPP concentrations up to 100 m From the obtained results, we can see that at 100 mM, the uptake in depolarized cells is increased but does not reach the level of uptake seen in wild-type cells. Therefore, lack of hyperpolarization can be compensated to a mild extent by increased CPP availability.

      Q30. A) The effects of membrane potential on plasma membranes and lipid bilayers have been extensively investigated experimentally and thus are well understood, although currently the coarse-grained MD simulations cannot provide quantitative results which can be compared with experimental results. In this manuscript, using the coarse-grained MD simulations, the authors applied 2.2 V to a lipid bilayer to examine the translocation of CPPs. However, it is well known the experimental results that application of such large voltage to a lipid bilayer induces pore formation in the membrane or its rupture (Bioelectrochem. Bioenerg., 41, 135, 1996; Sci. Rep., 7, 12509, 2017), but at low membrane potential (B) What is the probability of the existence of R9 in the surface of the membrane? R9 cannot bind to the electrically neutral lipid bilayers (such as PC) under a physiological ion concentration (Biochemistry, 55, 4154, 2016). Even if in the case of R9 the membrane potential reaches at -150 mV, the other CPPs have lower surface charge density than that of R9, and hence, the decrement of membrane potential is lower. The authors should provide the data of other CPPs.

      C) It has been reported that the negative membrane potential increases the rate of entry of two kinds of CPPs into the lumen of giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs) without leakage of water-soluble fluorescent probe (Stokes-Einstein radius; ~0.9 nm diameter), i.e., no pore formation in the GUV membrane (Biophys., 118, 57, 2020, J. Bacteriology, 2021, DOI: 10.1128/JB.00021-21). The authors should discuss the similarity and the difference between the results in these papers and the above results in this manuscript.

      A30. A) As correctly stated by this Reviewer, we reported simulations with high transmembrane potential values, which is a common procedure in in silico simulations used to accelerate the kinetics of the studied process. In this manuscript we have additionally developed and carefully validated a novel protocol to estimate the free energy landscape of water pore formation and CPP translocation under physiological transmembrane potential (further details about the methodological procedure, the convergence and the validation of the free energy estimation are reported in Supplementary Fig. 15-19 of the manuscript). This protocol allowed us to demonstrate the impact of megapolarization (‑150 mV) on the free energy barrier corresponding to the CPP translocation process. The results exemplify how the megapolarization process modifies the uptake probability of the R9 peptide, reducing locally the free energy barrier of the membrane translocation (Fig. 3c-d). Moreover, we have also demonstrated how a single CPP produces a local transmembrane potential of about -150 mV, in agreement with our hypothesis (Fig. 3e).

      Finally, the quantitative accuracy of the molecular simulations was found to be satisfactory because the water pore formation free energy in a symmetric DOPC membrane that we calculated is in excellent agreement with previous atomistic estimation (Table S5).

      B) It has been demonstrated that CPP/membrane interactions are mostly electrostatic between positively charged amino acids carried by the CPPs and various negatively charged cell membrane components, such as glycosaminoglycans20-31 and phosphate groups32. It is in line with our model that the more positively charged CPPs are the better they should translocate into cells. Therefore, we agree with the reviewer that the level of megapolarization may vary according to the charges carried by the CPPs. However, our data clearly indicate that a certain membrane potential hyperpolarization threshold must be achieved to induce water pore formation. As suggested by the reviewer we will now conduct additional modeling experiments with other CPPs.

      C) We have carefully read these papers and do not necessarily reach the same conclusions as the authors. In both papers, the translocation of CPPs in polarized GUVs is monitored through CPP acquisition on vesicles found within the GUVs (intraluminal vesicles; either smaller GUVs or LUVs). There is actually no evidence of the presence of luminal CPPs outside of the intraluminal vesicle membranes. We would therefore argue that these studies elegantly demonstrate that membrane potential increases CPP binding and insertion into the membrane of the mother GUVs but that the CPPs then move, by diffusion, from the lipidic boundary of the mother GUVs to the lipidic membranes of its intraluminal vesicles. This CPP diffusion would presumable occur when the intraluminal vesicles touch the outer membrane bilayer of the mother GUV. There is a marked lag between binding of the CPPs to the membrane of the mother GUV and appearance of CPPs on the intraluminal vesicles (Figure 3c of the Biophysical Journal paper). This lag is, according to us, more compatible with the explanation we are giving than with a translocation mechanism. If there were direct translocation of the CPP through the membrane of the mother GUV, such a large lag would not be expected to be seen (see next point). If there is no translocation of the CPPs across the GUV membrane, it could explain why the water soluble dye within the mother GUVs does not leak out.

      Q31. The authors consider that the translocation of CPPs induces depolarization, and as a result, the pore closes immediately. This kind of transient pore cannot explain the authors' result of the significant entry of PI into the cytosol during the interaction of CPPs with the cells. The authors should explain this point.

      A31. Our interpretation is that PI takes advantage of the water pore triggered by hyperpolarization to penetrate cells. PI is positively charged and is attracted by the negative membrane potential of the cells. Its movement across the cell membrane is therefore unidirectional. This enables the PI molecules to accumulate/concentrate within the cytosol (Supplementary Fig. 12). When PI is in the presence of a CPP, both molecules enter with similar kinetics (Supplementary Fig. 12a and the new quantitation provided in the partially revised version of the manuscript; Supplementary Fig. 12b). PI and CPPs do no interact (Supplementary Figure 12d); hence they move independently from one another.

      Q32. In this manuscript, the authors used only cancer cell lines (Raji cell, SKW6.4 cell, and HeLa cell). The lipid compositions and the stability of the plasma membranes of these cells may be different from normal cells (e.g., 33; Cancer Res., 51, 3062, 1991). Is there a possibility that negatively charged lipids such as PS and PIP2 locate in the outer leaflet locally in these cells? At least, some discussions on this point is essential.

      A32. We agree with the reviewer that plasma membrane composition may vary between cancerous and not cancerous cells and that this may impact on the ability of CPPs to cross cellular membranes. We now mention this in the discussion: “While the nature of the CPPs likely dictate their uptake efficiency as discussed in the precedent paragraph, the composition of the plasma membrane could also modulate how CPPs translocate into cells. In the present work, we have recorded CPP direct translocation in transformed or cancerous cell lines as well as in primary cells. These cells display various abilities to take up CPPs by direct translocation and the present work indicates that this is modulated by their Vm. But as cancer cells display abnormal plasma membrane composition33, it will be of interest in the future to determine how important this is on their capacity to take up CPPs”.

      Q33. The authors found that PI enters the cytosol significantly when CPPs interact with these cells. Based on this result, the authors concluded that pores with 2 nm diameter are formed in the plasma membrane. However, they did not show the time courses of entry of PI and that of CPPs, and thus we cannot judge whether the pore formation in the plasma membrane is the cause of the entry of CPPs or the result of the entry of CPPs. We can reasonably consider that CPPs enters the cytosol via endocytosis and bind to the inner leaflet of the plasma membrane, inducing pore formation in the plasma membrane.

      A33. The kinetics we are now showing in point A31 indicate co-entry of CPPs and PI, an observation that is in line with our model. Also note that we have demonstrated that CPPs do not escape endosomes (please see our answers to questions 12 and 28). These data are therefore not compatible with the reviewer’s interpretation.

      Q34. It has been reported that the negative membrane potential increases the rate constant of antimicrobial peptide (AMP)-induced pore formation or local damage in the GUV membrane (J. Biol. Chem., 294, 10449, 2019; BBA-Biomembranes, 1862, 183381, 2020). These results are related to those in the present manuscript, because here the authors consider that CPPs induce pores in the plasma membrane in the presence of negative membrane potential.

      A34. We thank the reviewer for mentioning these interesting articles. As we understand them, they demonstrate that antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) bind membranes better as a function of increasing negative membrane potential and that this favors their ability to form pores in the membrane, compromising membrane integrity and inducing the release of cytosolic or luminal content. These AMPs do not behave exactly like CPPs because the latter do not compromise the integrity of the membranes.

      In conclusion, the results of the membrane potential dependence of the rate of the internalization of CPPs may be solid results, which is an important contribution. However, the other analyses and the interpretations are not conclusive at the current stage.

      We thank the reviewer for the positive assessment of our results concerning the membrane potential dependence on CPP uptake. Hopefully we have clarified the remaining points with our answers developed above and with the new data we are presenting.

      Reviewer #2 (Significance (Required)):

      (1) Using a CRISPR/Cas9-based screening, the authors found that some potassium channels play an important role in the internalization of CPP TAT-RasGAP317-326. This result advances the field of CPPs.

      (2) Several researches have suggested that the depolarization decreases the rate of internalization of CPPs into cell cytosol and the hyperpolarization increases the rate. It has been also reported that negative membrane potential increases the rate of entry of two kinds of CPPs into the lumen of GUVs of lipid bilayers. The authors provide a new genetic evidence that membrane potential plays an important role in the internalization of CPPs in the cytosol. However, modulation of membrane potential affects the structure, dynamics and function of plasma membranes greatly. At the current stage, it is difficult to judge which process of the internalization of CPPs is affected by the membrane potential.

      (3) The researchers of CPPs and AMPs are interested in their results after they improve the contents of the manuscript.

      (4) My field of expertise is membrane biophysics, especially the interaction of AMPs and CPPs with GUVs and cells.

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      15 Kosuge, M., Takeuchi, T., Nakase, I., Jones, A. T. & Futaki, S. Cellular Internalization and Distribution of Arginine-Rich Peptides as a Function of Extracellular Peptide Concentration, Serum, and Plasma Membrane Associated Proteoglycans. Bioconjugate Chemistry 19, 656-664, doi:10.1021/bc700289w (2008).

      16 Fretz, M. M., Penning, N. A., Al-Taei, S., Futaki, S., Takeuchi, T., Nakase, I., Storm, G. & Jones, A. T. Temperature-, concentration- and cholesterol-dependent translocation of L- and D-octa-arginine across the plasma and nuclear membrane of CD34+ leukaemia cells. The Biochemical journal 403, 335-342, doi:10.1042/BJ20061808 (2007).

      17 Drin, G., Cottin, S., Blanc, E., Rees, A. R. & Temsamani, J. Studies on the internalization mechanism of cationic cell-penetrating peptides. J Biol Chem 278, 31192-31201, doi:10.1074/jbc.M303938200 (2003).

      18 Duchardt, F., Fotin‐Mleczek, M., Schwarz, H., Fischer, R. & Brock, R. A Comprehensive Model for the Cellular Uptake of Cationic Cell‐penetrating Peptides. Traffic 8, 848-866, doi:10.1111/j.1600-0854.2007.00572.x (2007).

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    1. BETWEEN me and the other world there is ever an unasked question: unasked by some through feelings of delicacy; by others through the difficulty of rightly framing it. All, nevertheless, flutter round it. They approach me in a half-hesitant sort of way, eye me curiously or compassionately, and then, instead of saying directly, How does it feel to be a problem? they say, I know an excellent colored man in my town; or, I fought at Mechanicsville; or, Do not these Southern outrages make your blood boil? At these I smile, or am interested, or reduce the boiling to a simmer, as the occasion may require. To the real question, How does it feel to be a problem? I answer seldom a word. 1 And yet, being a problem is a strange experience,—peculiar even for one who has never been anything else, save perhaps in babyhood and in Europe. It is in the early days of rollicking boyhood that the revelation first bursts upon one, all in a day, as it were. I remember well when the shadow swept across me. I was a little thing, away up in the hills of New England, where the dark Housatonic winds between Hoosac and Taghkanic to the sea. In a wee wooden schoolhouse, something put it into the boys’ and girls’ heads to buy gorgeous visiting-cards—ten cents a package—and exchange. The exchange was merry, till one girl, a tall newcomer, refused my card,—refused it peremptorily, with a glance. Then it dawned upon me with a certain suddenness that I was different from the others; or like, mayhap, in heart and life and longing, but shut out from their world by a vast veil. I had thereafter no desire to tear down that veil, to creep through; I held all beyond it in common contempt, and lived above it in a region of blue sky and great wandering shadows. That sky was bluest when I could beat my mates at examination-time, or beat them at a foot-race, or even beat their stringy heads. Alas, with the years all this fine contempt began to fade; for the worlds I longed for, and all their dazzling opportunities, were theirs, not mine. But they should not keep these prizes, I said; some, all, I would wrest from them. Just how I would do it I could never decide: by reading law, by healing the sick, by telling the wonderful tales that swam in my head,—some way. With other black boys the strife was not so fiercelysunny: their youth shrunk into tasteless sycophancy, or into silent hatred of the pale world about them and mocking distrust of everything white; or wasted itself in a bitter cry, Why did God make me an outcast and a stranger in mine own house? The shades of the prison?house closed round about us all: walls strait and stubborn to the whitest, but relentlessly narrow, tall, and unscalable to sons of night who must plod darkly on in resignation, or beat unavailing palms against the stone, or steadily, half hopelessly, watch the streak of blue above. 2 After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world,—a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double?consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness,—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. 3 The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife,—this longing to attain self?conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost. He would not Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly in his face. 4 This, then, is the end of his striving: to be a co-worker in the kingdom of culture, to escape both death and isolation, to husband and use his best powers and his latent genius. These powers of body and mind have in the past been strangely wasted, dispersed, or forgotten. The shadow of a mighty Negro past flits through the tale of Ethiopia the Shadowy and of Egypt the Sphinx. Throughout history, the powers of single black men flash here and there like falling stars, and die sometimes before the world has rightly gauged their brightness. Here in America, in the few days since Emancipation, the black man’s turning hither and thither in hesitant and doubtful striving has often made his very strength to lose effectiveness, to seem like absence of power, like weakness. And yet it is not weakness,—it is the contradiction of double aims. The double-aimed struggle of the black artisan—on the one hand to escape white contempt for a nation of mere hewers of wood and drawers of water, and on the other hand to plough and nail and dig for a poverty-stricken horde—could only result in making him a poor craftsman, for he had but half a heart in either cause. By the poverty and ignorance of his people, the Negro minister or doctor was tempted toward quackery and demagogy; and by the criticism of the other world, toward ideals that made him ashamed of his lowly tasks. The would-be black savant was confronted by the paradox that the knowledge his people needed was a twice-told tale to his white neighbors, while the knowledge which would teach the white world was Greek to his own flesh and blood. The innate love of harmony and beauty that set the ruder souls of his people a-dancing and a- singing raised but confusion and doubt in the soul of the black artist; for the beauty revealed to him was the soul-beauty of a race which his larger audience despised, and he could not articulate the message of another people. This waste of double aims, this seeking to satisfy two unreconciled ideals, has wrought sad havoc with the courage and faith and deeds of ten thousand thousand people,—has sent them often wooing false gods and invoking falsemeans of salvation, and at times has even seemed about to make them ashamed of themselves. 5 Away back in the days of bondage they thought to see in one divine event the end of all doubt and disappointment; few men ever worshipped Freedom with half such unquestioning faith as did the American Negro for two centuries. To him, so far as he thought and dreamed, slavery was indeed the sum of all villainies, the cause of all sorrow, the root of all prejudice; Emancipation was the key to a promised land of sweeter beauty than ever stretched before the eyes of wearied Israelites. In song and exhortation swelled one refrain—Liberty; in his tears and curses the God he implored had Freedom in his right hand. At last it came,—suddenly, fearfully, like a dream. With one wild carnival of blood and passion came the message in his own plaintive cadences:— “Shout, O children! Shout, you’re free! For God has bought your liberty!” 6 Years have passed away since then,—ten, twenty, forty; forty years of national life, forty years of renewal and development, and yet the swarthy spectre sits in its accustomed seat at the Nation’s feast. In vain do we cry to this our vastest social problem:— “Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves Shall never tremble!” 7 The Nation has not yet found peace from its sins; the freedman has not yet found in freedom his promised land. Whatever of good may have come in these years of change, the shadow of a deep disappointment rests upon the Negro people,—a disappointment all the more bitter because the unattained ideal was unbounded save by the simple ignorance of a lowly people. 8 The first decade was merely a prolongation of the vain search for freedom, the boon that seemed ever barely to elude their grasp,—like a tantalizing will-o’-the-wisp, maddening and misleading the headless host. The holocaust of war, the terrors of the Ku-Klux Klan, the lies of carpet-baggers, the disorganization of industry, and the contradictory advice of friends and foes, left the bewildered serf with no new watchword beyond the old cry for freedom. As the time flew, however, he began to grasp a new idea. The ideal of liberty demanded for its attainment powerful means, and these the Fifteenth Amendment gave him. The ballot, which before he had looked upon as a visible sign of freedom, he now regarded as the chief means of gaining and perfecting the liberty with which war had partially endowed him. And why not? Had not votes made war and emancipated millions? Had not votes enfranchised the freedmen? Was anything impossible to a power that had done all this? A million black men started with renewed zeal to vote themselves into the kingdom. So the decade flew away, the revolution of 1876 came, and left the half-free serf weary, wondering, but still inspired. Slowly but steadily, in the following years, a new vision began gradually to replace the dream of political power,—a powerful movement, the rise of another ideal to guide the unguided, another pillar of fire by night after a clouded day. It was the ideal of “book?learning”; the curiosity, born of compulsory ignorance, to know and test the power of the cabalistic letters of the white man, the longing to know. Here at last seemed to have been discovered the mountain path to Canaan; longer than the highway of Emancipation and law, steep and rugged, but straight, leading to heights high enough to overlook life. 9Up the new path the advance guard toiled, slowly, heavily, doggedly; only those who have watched and guided the faltering feet, the misty minds, the dull understandings, of the dark pupils of these schools know how faithfully, how piteously, this people strove to learn. It was weary work. The cold statistician wrote down the inches of progress here and there, noted also where here and there a foot had slipped or some one had fallen. To the tired climbers, the horizon was ever dark, the mists were often cold, the Canaan was always dim and far away. If, however, the vistas disclosed as yet no goal, no resting-place, little but flattery and criticism, the journey at least gave leisure for reflection and self-examination; it changed the child of Emancipation to the youth with dawning self-consciousness, self?realization, self-respect. In those sombre forests of his striving his own soul rose before him, and he saw himself,—darkly as through a veil; and yet he saw in himself some faint revelation of his power, of his mission. He began to have a dim feeling that, to attain his place in the world, he must be himself, and not another. For the first time he sought to analyze the burden he bore upon his back, that dead-weight of social degradation partially masked behind a half-named Negro problem. He felt his poverty; without a cent, without a home, without land, tools, or savings, he had entered into competition with rich, landed, skilled neighbors. To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships. He felt the weight of his ignorance,—not simply of letters, but of life, of business, of the humanities; the accumulated sloth and shirking and awkwardness of decades and centuries shackled his hands and feet. Nor was his burden all poverty and ignorance. The red stain of bastardy, which two centuries of systematic legal defilement of Negro women had stamped upon his race, meant not only the loss of ancient African chastity, but also the hereditary weight of a mass of corruption from white adulterers, threatening almost the obliteration of the Negro home. 10 A people thus handicapped ought not to be asked to race with the world, but rather allowed to give all its time and thought to its own social problems. But alas! while sociologists gleefully count his bastards and his prostitutes, the very soul of the toiling, sweating black man is darkened by the shadow of a vast despair. Men call the shadow prejudice, and learnedly explain it as the natural defence of culture against barbarism, learning against ignorance, purity against crime, the “higher” against the “lower” races. To which the Negro cries Amen! and swears that to so much of this strange prejudice as is founded on just homage to civilization, culture, righteousness, and progress, he humbly bows and meekly does obeisance. But before that nameless prejudice that leaps beyond all this he stands helpless, dismayed, and well-nigh speechless; before that personal disrespect and mockery, the ridicule and systematic humiliation, the distortion of fact and wanton license of fancy, the cynical ignoring of the better and the boisterous welcoming of the worse, the all?pervading desire to inculcate disdain for everything black, from Toussaint to the devil,— before this there rises a sickening despair that would disarm and discourage any nation save that black host to whom “discouragement” is an unwritten word. 11 But the facing of so vast a prejudice could not but bring the inevitable self-questioning, self-disparagement, and lowering of ideals which ever accompany repression and breed in an atmosphere of contempt and hate. Whisperings and portents came borne upon the four winds: Lo! we are diseased and dying, cried the dark hosts; we cannot write, our voting is vain; what need of education, since we must always cook and serve? And the Nation echoed and enforced this self-criticism, saying: Be content to be servants, and nothing more; what need of higher culture for half-men? Away with the black man’s ballot, by force or fraud,— and behold the suicide of a race! Nevertheless, out of the evil came something of good,—the more careful adjustment of education to real life, the clearer perception of the Negroes’ social responsibilities, and the sobering realization of the meaning of progress. 12So dawned the time of Sturm und Drang: storm and stress to-day rocks our little boat on the mad waters of the world-sea; there is within and without the sound of conflict, the burning of body and rending of soul; inspiration strives with doubt, and faith with vain questionings. The bright ideals of the past,—physical freedom, political power, the training of brains and the training of hands,—all these in turn have waxed and waned, until even the last grows dim and overcast. Are they all wrong,—all false? No, not that, but each alone was over-simple and incomplete,—the dreams of a credulous race-childhood, or the fond imaginings of the other world which does not know and does not want to know our power. To be really true, all these ideals must be melted and welded into one. The training of the schools we need to-day more than ever,—the training of deft hands, quick eyes and ears, and above all the broader, deeper, higher culture of gifted minds and pure hearts. The power of the ballot we need in sheer self-defence,—else what shall save us from a second slavery? Freedom, too, the long-sought, we still seek,—the freedom of life and limb, the freedom to work and think, the freedom to love and aspire. Work, culture, liberty,—all these we need, not singly but together, not successively but together, each growing and aiding each, and all striving toward that vaster ideal that swims before the Negro people, the ideal of human brotherhood, gained through the unifying ideal of Race; the ideal of fostering and developing the traits and talents of the Negro, not in opposition to or contempt for other races, but rather in large conformity to the greater ideals of the American Republic, in order that some day on American soil two world-races may give each to each those characteristics both so sadly lack. We the darker ones come even now not altogether empty-handed: there are to-day no truer exponents of the pure human spirit of the Declaration of Independence than the American Negroes; there is no true American music but the wild sweet melodies of the Negro slave; the American fairy tales and folk-lore are Indian and African; and, all in all, we black men seem the sole oasis of simple faith and reverence in a dusty desert of dollars and smartness. Will America be poorer if she replace her brutal dyspeptic blundering with light-hearted but determined Negro humility? or her coarse and cruel wit with loving jovial good-humor? or her vulgar music with the soul of the Sorrow Songs? 13 Merely a concrete test of the underlying principles of the great republic is the Negro Problem, and the spiritual striving of the freedmen’s sons is the travail of souls whose burden is almost beyond the measure of their strength, but who bear it in the name of an historic race, in the name of this the land of their fathers’ fathers, and in the name of human opportunity.


      14 And now what I have briefly sketched in large outline let me on coming pages tell again in many ways, with loving emphasis and deeper detail, that men may listen to the striving in th

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      Reply to the reviewers

      Reviewer #1 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)): **Summary:** Previously, the authors showed the importance of contractile force in cell positioning and cell fate specification in preimplantation mouse development. In this study, the authors generated maternal-zygotic mutants of the non-muscle myosin-II heavy chain (NMHC) genes Myh9 and Myh10, and quantitatively analyzed their development using time-lapse microscopy and immunostaining. The authors first examined the expression of NMHCs. Myh9 and Mhy10 are present in preimplantation embryos, and Myh9 is maternally inherited. Single maternal-zygotic mutants of Myh9 or Myh10 revealed that maternal Myh9 plays a major role in actomyosin contractility. In maternal Myh9 mutants, compaction and contractility at the 8-cell stage were reduced. Maternal Myh9 mutants demonstrated a longer 8-cell stage, and mutant blastocysts had reduced cell numbers. Cell positioning was not affected; however, cell differentiation was slightly affected by reduced expression of TE and ICM markers. Maternal Myh9 mutants formed blastocoels, but lumen opening was observed earlier than that in wild-type embryos. In double maternal-zygotic mutants of Myh9 and Myh10, cytokinesis was severely affected. Nevertheless, TE fate was specified and embryos formed blastocoels. Interestingly, single-celled mutants swelled upon the formation of fluid-filled vacuoles in their cytoplasm. Similar TE fate specifications and cytoplasmic vacuoles were also observed with single-celled embryos produced by blastomere fusion. Based on these results, the authors concluded that maternal Myh9 is the major NMHC. However, Myh10 can significantly compensate for the loss of Myh9, and that cell fate specification and morphogenesis are independent of the success of cell division. **Minor comments:** Overall, the conclusions of this study are supported by high-quality data. However, I have a few minor concerns:

      We thank the referee for her/his careful analysis of our manuscript.

      1. Line 200~205. The authors showed the correlation between the cell number at the blastocyst stage and the 8-cell stage, and concluded that "the lengthened 8-cell stage of mzMyh9 is an important determinant of their reduced cell number at the blastocyst stage". This conclusion is not well supported because of several reasons. First, the timing of cell count is not clear. Cell number was compared at the blastocyst stage, but Figure 1c shows that mzMyh9 embryos initiate blastocoel formation earlier than wild-type embryos. Therefore, if cell count timing was determined based on the blastocyst morphology of the embryos, the timing of cell count (i.e., time after 3rd cleavage) for mzMyh9 mutants is earlier than that observed for wild-type embryos. This shorter culture time likely contributes to the reduced cell number of mzMyh9. Second, the authors only showed a correlation, and no experimental data supporting this conclusion were shown. If the cell number was counted at the same time after the 3rd cleavage, and if the authors' hypothesis is correct, then culturing mzMyh9 mutants for an additional three hour, which is the difference in the duration of the 8-cell stage, should make the cell numbers of mutants comparable to those of wild-type blastocysts.

      Although, this correlation provides the best explanation we had based on the data, we agree that the statement above is weakly supported by our study. We do not want to make a strong point about it since we do not think it brings much to the narrative of the study. We have removed the sentence.

      Discussion. In the paragraph starting from line 405, the authors discussed the inconsistencies in the observation of the phenotypes of mzMyh9 and mzMyh10 mutants with the conclusions of previous studies by others about cell polarization. It will be informative to also discuss about inconsistency with their previous observations on cell fate. In their previous report (reference 8), the authors concluded that without contractile forces, blastomeres adopt an inner-cell-like fate regardless of their position. This is clearly opposite of the phenotype of mzMyh9;mzMyh10 mutants, in which all the cells are specified to TE. Please add a discussion addressing this discrepancy.

      The data provided here are consistent with the ones from ref 8 (Maître et al, 2016): reduced contractility (Myh9 KO, double Myh9;Myh10 KO or Blebbistatin treatment) leads to reduced CDX2 levels. In ref 8, CDX2 and YAP are checked at the 16-cell stage, before the definitive differentiation into TE and ICM, whereas here we present data at the mid-blastocyst stage (~64 cells). We had not checked SOX2 in ref 8 since it is not expressed at such early stage, so we cannot conclude about this marker.

      We want to clarify that, as stated in the manuscript, in mzMyh9;mzMyh10 KO we detect CDX2 in 5/7 embryos only and therefore not all cells are correctly specified into TE. However, SOX2 could be detected in the inner cell of the one embryo that produced an inner cell. We had not discussed this issue further since it is difficult to conclude much from such rare events and we would prefer to keep it as such.

      To strengthen our argument about reduced differentiation in NMHC mutant embryos, we now provide YAP immunostaining (Fig S4). YAP is correctly patterned in Myh10 mutants and shows slightly less defined nuclear localization in Myh9 mutants, in agreement with our previous observations on CDX2 in the present study and previous observations on YAP at the 16-cell stage (Maître et al 2016).

      Together, we can conclude that, at the 16-cell stage, when ICM fate is not engaged yet (no detectable SOX2 expression), “inhibition of contractility causes (…) blastomeres to become inner-cell-like with respect to (…) Yap localization and Cdx2 levels, despite their external position” (Maître et al, 2016). At the blastocyst stage embryos with chronically impaired contractility can succeed in some but not all cases to produce TE (this study). Between these two developmental stages, blastomeres are exposed to prolonged signals from the apical domain and can be strongly deformed by the growing lumen. Based on the literature (Hirate et al 2013, Dupont et al 2011), both of these stimuli could potentially favor YAP nuclear localisation despite low contractility.

      Throughout the paper, the description of gene and protein symbols should follow the rules of MGI's guidelines for nomenclature of genes (http://www.informatics.jax.org/mgihome/nomen/gene.shtml#gene_sym). Gene and allele symbols are italicized. Protein symbols use all uppercase letters and are not italicized.

      We have corrected this.

      Line 163. The term "contact angles" are used without any explanation or definition. The term should be introduced with a brief explanation in the text, preferably with a figure. It should help facilitate the understanding of the scientists working in different fields.

      We have labelled a contact angle on Fig 1A and specified this in the text and in the figure legend.

      Reviewer #1 (Significance (Required)): The importance of actomyosin contractility in compaction, cell polarization, cell positioning, and cell fate specification in preimplantation embryos has been reported by several groups, mostly using chemical inhibitors, except for the study cited in reference 8, in which chimeras of wild-type and mMyh9 mutant embryos were used. This is the first genetic analysis of the roles of actomyosin contractility in the development of preimplantation embryos. Thus, the major advancement of this study is the genetic dissection of the roles of actomyosin contractility in preimplantation mouse development, and clarifying the contribution of maternal/zygotic Myh9 and Myh10 genes. While the phenotypes of reduced compaction and blastomere contractility are consistent with those observed in previous studies, polarization and TE fate specification of the mutant cells appear inconsistent with the conclusions of previous inhibitor experiments, which show defects in polarization processes and fate specification to ICM. These are potentially important issues, but detailed analyses were not performed. The requirement of actomyosin contractility for the cytokinesis of preimplantation embryos is also a novel finding, although it is expected from studies conducted in other systems. Vacuole formation in single-celled mzMyh9;mzMyh10 mutants in a timely manner suggested that fluid accumulation is a cell autonomous process and that cell differentiation occurs independently of cell division. These are also novel findings, although the latter is somewhat expected from previous studies performed using cell number manipulated embryos. In summary, the conceptual advance offered by this study is small. However, this is a high-quality study and makes critical observations in the field of preimplantation mouse development. Scientists in the field of developmental biology, especially those working on preimplantation development, should be interested in this paper. My field of expertise is preimplantation development.

      We thank the reviewer for her/his appreciation of our work. We want to argue that we did perform a very detailed analysis of the development of the NMHC mutant embryos, with multiple quantitative image and data analyses to thoroughly and objectively characterise the phenotypes of these mutants. If by “detailed analysis”, the reviewer meant a molecular dissection of the phenotype, we argue that 1/ checking the end result (i.e. presence of TE and ICM markers, presence of polarised fluid transport) was sufficient to assess the functionality of biological processes without checking every steps of a signalling cascade; 2/ we now provide additional molecular information on the state of YAP and apico-basal polarisation (Fig S3-4).

      Reviewer #2 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)): In this manuscript, Schliffka et al. report that maternally deposited Myh9 is the major NMHC in preimplantation embryonic morphogenesis and complete removal of both Myh9 and Myh10 caused severe cytokinesis failure similar to tissue culture cells. Interestingly, although the mutant embryos completely failed cytokinesis thus forming single-celled embryos, they initiated trophoblast gene expression and vacuolization (likely similar to blastocoel formation), suggesting that the timing of preimplantation developmental events is independent from cell number and morphogenetic events.

      We thank the reviewer for her/his appreciation of our work.

      Major comments Vacuolization in single-celled embryos is interesting. In the images, there looks to be two types of vacuoles, F-actin positive and negative. The authors speculate the similarity to blastocoel formation. To support this, it is important to stain them with some basolateral markers like Na+ ATPase, E-cadherin and B-catenin. It is also important to confirm if the apical domain is properly formed by staining the apical domain markers like aPKC and Pard6.

      We thank the reviewer for this suggestion. We now provide immunostaining of single Myh9 or Myh10 and double Myh9;Myh10 mutants for aPKC (PRKCz), Na/K ATPase (ATP1A1), Aquaporin-3 (AQP3), the best basolateral marker in our hands, which is also very relevant to fluid pumping, CDH1 and F-actin (Fig S3). We observe that these markers localise similarly in multiple-celled and single-celled embryos, suggesting that vacuoles de facto substitute for the basolateral compartment normally consisting of cell-cell contacts and the lumen. This suggests that the same machinery is at the origin of the fluid inside the lumen and inside vacuoles.

      Minor comments All gene names should be Italicized.

      We have corrected this.

      L157. Myh10 and Myh9 should be mMyh10 and mMyh9.

      We have corrected this.

      L294 1/8 embryos. What does this mean?

      This means this was observed in 1 embryo out of 8 in total.

      L333 6/25 embryos. Does this mean 6 out of 25 embryos combined all maternal double mutants?

      Precisely.

      L438-442. I do not find these embryos are similar to tetraploid embryos. I suggest to remove the sentences.

      We have removed the sentences.

      Reviewer #3 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)): This study investigates the roles of non-muscle myosin in development, reporting a requirement for maternal and zygotic Mhy9 and 10. Strengths of the study include robust genetic techniques, innovative nested imaging to visualize events over different timescales within the same embryos, and analysis of morphological as well as transcriptional/cell fate phenotypes. However, the somewhat superficial phenotype analysis limits the authors' ability to draw strong mechanistic conclusions about what is going on in these mutants. Is cell polarization normal? Is cell signaling (HIPPO signalling) normal?

      We thank the reviewer for carefully assessing our study. We argue that we have thoroughly characterized the phenotypes of the NMHC mutants, which allowed us to draw many important mechanistic conclusions (such as the ability of NMHC mutants to polarise, or to pump fluid in a cell autonomous manner). Each mutant embryo has been imaged at multiple time scales, stained and genotyped. The time-lapses and immunostaining have been extensively quantified using manual as well as automated methods such as particle image velocimetry. We also provided fusion experiments, which phenocopy some aspects of the mutants to provide evidence of the mechanisms causing the observed phenotype.

      Nevertheless, we agree that one can always do more and that we had focused on the biological processes (lineage specification, morphogenesis and cleavages) rather than molecular characterisation. Although polarised fluid pumping ascertains a functioning epithelial polarity, we now provide immunostaining of polarity markers in mutant embryos. Although CDX2 and SOX2 staining inform on the output of the signalling cascade leading to effective TE and ICM differentiation, we now provide YAP immunostaining of mutant embryos. We hope this satisfies the request from the reviewer.

      What determines whether an embryo can form an inside cell or not?

      This is an outstanding question. Cells can internalise by oriented cell division or contractility mediated cell sorting. Contractility-mediated internalisation functions with only 2 cells (as when doublets of 16-cell stage blastomeres form a cell-in-a-cell structure) but requires to grow above a tension asymmetry threshold (of 1.5 in WT and most likely above 3 in these mutants due to their poor compaction, see Maître et al 2016). Oriented cell division only works if there is a cell-cell contact to push dividing cells in between. Therefore, at least 3 cells are required for an inner cell to be internalised by this mechanism.

      In double mutants, the average cell number is 2.9. No embryo consisting of only 2 cells contained an inner cell, about half of embryos with 3-5 cells contained a single inner cell and all embryos with 6 cells or more contained inner cells (Fig 4D). Based on the low contractility of double mutants, we can speculate that they do not succeed in overcoming the tension asymmetry threshold. This would explain why no inner cell is observed in embryos with only 2 cells. We can speculate that with 3-5 cells, oriented divisions could occur thanks to the presence of functional polarity (Korotkevitch et al 2017).

      We have added a discussion about this important matter.

      Similarly, the manuscript would benefit from rewriting to reframe the authors' discoveries within the context of what is known regarding lineage specification (e.g., why does CDX2/SOX2 expression indicate normal lineage specification). Additional minor comments are listed below.

      We elaborate on these points.

      **Minor comments:** • Introduction focuses overly on the work of the PI and his mentor, giving the presentation an unnecessarily biased quality.

      We have corrected this to the best of our ability. Please note that, to our knowledge, there are 8 studies (Anani et al., 2014; Maître et al., 2015; Samarage et al., 2015; Maître et al., 2016; Zhu et al., 2017; Zenker et al., 2018; Chan et al., 2019; Dumortier et al., 2019) looking in more or less details into the contractility of the preimplantation embryo. We mention and cite all of these studies.

      • The text asserts that Myh9 levels are highest during zygote stage, on the basis of qPCR (Fig. S1A), and that this is also observed by RNA-seq (Fig. S1B). However, this conclusion is not supported by the data shown.

      We have corrected this.

      • Would be nice to repeat the qPCR on the mz null.

      We agree with the referee that this would help in assessing the level of compensation between NMHC paralogs in individual mutants. Our qPCR protocol requires a few tens of embryos to be able to amplify the different paralogs. Unfortunately, pooling embryos from our current mating strategy would result in pooling homozygote and heterozygote mutants as we cannot know a priori which embryo is of which genotype.

      We believe that, as nice as this information would be, the current study does not require this information, which would be technically challenging.

      • Were the measurements shown in Fig. S1F taken from the images shown in Fig. S1E? If so, the authors should clarify how the measurements were normalized, since the images in Fig. S1E were clearly taken with different camera settings (as judged by background fluorescence level surrounding the embryos).

      The camera settings were identical but the LUT are set differently (to the maximal signal of a given genotype) so that some signal is visible. The signal intensities are so different between genotypes that if set to a common LUT, we either get the maternal GFP as a saturated white circle or the other genotypes as black images. We explain our LUT settings both in the methods and figure legends.

      As an alternative to the current data presentation, we would be fine to have the same LUT for all images and show almost black images for WT and paternal GFP.

      • Can't really conclude that Myh9 is essential for compaction since compaction occurs (albeit abnormally) in the absence of Myh9 (line 177-178).

      Our statement is “we conclude that maternal Myh9 is essential for embryos to compact fully”. WT and mzMyh10 mutants increase their contact angles by 60° whereas mzMyh9 only grow by 30°. Double mutants compact less than single Myh9 mutants. Therefore, the compaction movement is halved in mzMyh9 and the residual weak compaction could be explained by compensation from Myh10. We stand by our statement.

      • Line 211: "observe" rather than "measure".

      We have corrected this.

      • If the embryos achieve proper ICM/TE ratio, in spite of having half the number of cells in the mutants, is that to be expected? Would/do halved embryos also possess the same ICM/TE ratio? Or is this outcome peculiar to the mutants?

      This is an interesting question on which we had not sufficiently elaborated. Our experiments with cell fusion at the 4-cell-stage (Fig. S5) produced embryos with reduced cell number. These resemble Myh9 mutant embryos in the aspect that they show a reduced cell number while maintaining the total embryonic cell mass. In both cases, the ICM/total cell ratio is similar to control embryos. This indicates a robust mechanism of ICM/TE ratio setting that is robust to the cell number change observed in the single mutant. We have added a discussion about this.

      • Line 222: what is the evidence that Cdx2 and Sox2 are TE and ICM markers?

      We have added references to the studies from Strumpf et al., 2005 and Avilion et al., 2003 to support these claims.

      • Is the reported reduction in CDX2 and SOX2 levels due to a stage-delay? What would the comparison look like in wt embryos with half as many cells? Timing of lumen formation may or may not indicate developmental timing...

      We address this point by fusing embryos to half the cell number and find that the fate marker levels are specifically affected as a result of mutation of Myh9 (Fig S5).

      We agree that the timing of lumen formation is unlikely to be a good reference for staging and we did not use this event. We do synchronise embryos based on lumen opening only when comparing lumen growth rate.

      • Line 240 - what was the correction on the multiple pairwise comparisons (multiple t tests)?

      To compare lumen growth rate, individual growth rates of mutants are compared to those of WT using Student’s t test. Growth rates are considered as normally distributed and independent (not pairwise).

      • Lumen forms on time in mutants, despite having fewer cells. Alternatively, lumen forms early, prior to acquisition of proper cell number. Is there a reason the authors did not consider this alternative?

      The referee is correct. Lumens form with fewer cells in mutant embryos and therefore prior to the acquisition of proper cell number.

      • Lines 306 and 339: why does lack of SOX2 expression suggest that the lineage specification program is intact? Why does expression of CDX2 suggest TE initiation has occurred normally? The regulation of these two markers was not introduced.

      We have better introduced and justified this aspect.

      • Line 349: why is blastocoel formation a cell-autonomous property when it clearly occurs extracellularly? Does this also happen in wild type embryos?

      Blastocoel formation is clearly a multi-cellular process. We argue that fluid accumulation is not. The implications for WT embryos are that fluid can be accumulated in the blastocoel entirely trans-cellularly (no need for fluid to flow through cell-cell junction).

      • Speculate in Discussion on why the ML-7/Blebbistatin experiments results could differ from the genetic results produced here.

      Blebbistatin experiments are in agreement with the mutant data. ML-7 experiments are partially in agreement with the mutant data. The discrepancy lies in the effect on cell polarity. ML-7 affects kinases other than the MLCK, such as PKC, which is a known regulator of cell polarity during preimplantation development. Although this is speculative, we specify this in the revised manuscript.

      • Can these mutant embryos implant?

      We grow colonies of heterozygous mutants, therefore mMyh9, mMyh10 and mMyh9;mMyh10 embryos are viable and must be able to implant. As for homozygous mutants, they are not viable and we do not know whether they can implant.

      Reviewer #3 (Significance (Required)): The study provides the first strong evidence of a requirement for non-muscle myosin in epithelialization. This is significant to embryology and to epithelial biology.

      We thank the reviewer for appreciating the significance of our study. We want to clarify that our study provides evidence for NMHC as NOT being required for de novo epithelialization.

    1. Writer-director Lee Isaac Chung based the film, which was shot in Oklahoma over 25 days, on his own family's story

      The film itself was based off of the director's story. Crazy to think about but I feel that in the film industry we as an audience must take things that are based off of a true story with a grain of salt. While the event and the emotion may be true, the specific details can be very easy to change to better fit the plot.

    1. The second is that when you find (as you often do) three young cads and idiots going about together and getting drunk together every day you generally find that one of the three cads and idiots is (for some extraordinary reason) not a cad and not an idiot.

      Same. Is this true? I generally find that in a group of 5-6 at least that 1-2 are this way. I wonder if in a group of 3 that is still true. It makes me think of how Augustine repeatedly says in the Confessions that he would not have stolen fruit from the pear tree if he had been alone. The things we will do with others that we won't do alone is an interesting phenomenon, and may help explain why someone who is not a cad or an idiot will act like one in a group.

    1. Author Response to Public Reviews

      We thank the reviewers for their careful reading of our work, and their detailed and helpful comments. Their insights have helped us in improving this manuscript. We include their comments and our replies to them below.

      Reviewer #2 (Public Review):

      Line 293, by "comparing the Apo_NE and IB_EQ simulations at equivalent points in time" and perform subtraction "from the corresponding Ca atom from one system to another at 0.05, 0.5, 1, 3, 5ns". It is not clear to me why those time points were chosen? Have authors attempted at validating whether or not the signal from the ligand-binding site has had enough time to propagate across the allosteric signaling pathway? If one considers that the ligand is a spatially localized signal, it requires time to propagate. This is in contrast with the Kubo-Onsager paper cited by authors in which the molecule is responding to a global perturbation such as an external field. However, a local perturbation on one side of the protein will need time to propagate to the other side of the protein (30 angstroms away in this case).

      The time points are chosen to highlight the propagation of signal in the short nonequilibrium simulations. We agree with the reviewer that the signal will take time to propagate; indeed, it evolves over time, as can be seen in the figures and accompanying movies. It is important to emphasise that this is averaged over many trajectories. Some conformational rearrangements will not be fully sampled, as can be seen in Figure 3–Figure supplement 3. It is important to emphasize that the short nonequilibrium simulations are used here to measure the immediate structural response towards a perturbation. The timescale of this response in the nonequilibrium simulation does not correspond to the physical timescale of conformational change induced by/associate with ligand binding. The perturbation here is nonphysical, and the response is rapid. For long simulation times, and as the correlation between the equilibrium and nonequilibrium trajectories is lost, the subtraction technique is no longer useful as the noise arising from the natural divergence of the simulations overcomes the structural response of the system to the perturbation. Thus, this method allows for the identification of the initial conformational changes associated with signal propagation. Also, the difference calculated at any given time point should not be seen in isolation. Instead, it should be compared with the other time points, as it is such a comparison that highlights the cascade of events associated with signal propagation. This is clearly illustrated in Figure 3 supplement 3 and in the movies, where the collective signal from the short nonequilibrium simulations is progressing in a trend that is comparable with the equilibrium simulations. The time evolution of the signal is striking and thought-provoking.

      A simple and naive example is to map out all the bus stops on one's route. 800 simulations between the first and second stop will not be able to provide the locations of other stops. Since authors have used this "subtraction technique" on several other proteins, it would be nice to clarify how this approach works on mapping out signaling propagation perturbed by local ligand binding/unbinding and how to choose the time points for subtraction.

      Analogies can be helpful in understanding the nonequilibrium simulations, some aspects of which are not immediately obvious. One could perhaps think of these nonequilibrium simulations as analogous to striking a bell to see how it rings. The bus stop analogy suggested by the referee is intriguing, and we develop it here.

      In this case, when ‘getting on the bus’ (beginning the simulation), we do not know where the bus is going (i.e. we only knew that we were starting at the allosteric site, so the only thing that we know is the place where we board the bus) or the route it would take to get there. The bus is not travelling on a straight road, and the destination is unknown. We could wend our way slowly by standard equilibrium MD, but we would only reach the first or second stop on the route in the time available, and we would still not know where the bus was going. We would never find out where the bus is going: it takes too long. The nonequilibrium approach is a magic bus! In this approach, as the bus meanders close to its starting point, we suddenly replace the driver. The new driver puts her or his foot on the accelerator and immediate sets off for a new destination, heading away fast from the starting point. The driver is guided by the roads available. The bus can only drive on the road network, i.e. its progress is defined by its physical environment and the available directions of travel. So, while she/he may drive at an unsafe speed, the bus should stay on the road. It’s possible that it will take a short cut or indeed take a wrong turn or enter a dead-end street. But overall, doing this ‘driver replacement’ hundreds of times, on average the bus should follow the right route and go much faster along it. So, it might be a terrifying journey,but we should get to the destination faster! It might not reach the final destination, depending how long we let it go on, but we should pass several of the bus stops along the correct route. We can test how likely the route is by averaging over hundreds of crazy new bus drivers. A well-defined route implies a well designed network. The bus can take any of the roads available to it on the network, and the route taken by the bus may be unpredictable (if it was obvious, we would not need all these crazy drivers!). In other words, the response to a perturbation is non-linear. In terms of the final destination, specifically here in TEM-1 and KPC-2,the omega loop, the 3-4 loop, the hinge region are known to be involved in substrate binding and catalysis. We observe the signal reaching these structural elements, so we can say with confidence that the perturbation is communicated to distant, catalytically important parts of the enzyme. So, in terms of the bus analogy, we show that starting in the distant hills, the crazy bus drivers actually end up in the capital city. The simulations identify the capital city as the actual destination. And the fact that the crazy drivers tend to follow the same route allows us to say that we have identified the bus route to the capital, and the important points along the route.

      Another question is whether tracing the dynamics of Calpha alone is enough. As we have seen from the network analysis papers, Calpha sometimes missed some paths or could overemphasize others. The Center of the mass of residue has been proposed to be a better indicator of protein allostery. Authors may wish to clarify the particular choice of Calpah in this study.

      This is an interesting question. We have found in our previous analyses of nicotinic acetylcholine receptors and other systems that analysing the C-alphas allows the identification of pathways of signal transduction in nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (Oliveira et al. Structure 1171-1183. e3 (2019)) and went on to show that these pathways were common across different receptor subtypes (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2019, 141, 51, 19953–19958 (2019)). Obviously, all residues in the protein are represented equally when analysing C-alphas. Thus, analysing the C-alphas allows direct comparison of closely related proteins with different sequences, and identification and analysis of the pathway in the framework of the protein backbone. Here, of course, we are interested in whether these C-alpha pathways identify positions of sequence variation that affect function, and the results indicate that indeed they do. There is also the practical advantage of analysing C-alpha behaviour that their motions are less subject to noise and converge more rapidly than e.g. analysing sidechains. Other features could be chosen to trace signal pathways, such as the centre of mass of residues. However, choosing more flexible parts to track signal propagation would also have an impact on speed of convergence (i.e. number of trajectories required): more simulations would be required to achieve convergence. Therefore, as in previous work on other proteins, we chose C-alpha atoms to study signal propagation here.

      The order of events associated with signal propagation is computed by directly comparing the positions of individual C-alpha atoms at equivalent points in time (namely after 0, 50, 500, 1000, 3000 and 5000 ps of simulation) for every pair of unperturbed equilibrium ligand-bound and perturbed nonequilibrium apo simulation. The C-alpha positional deviation is a simple way to directly identify the conformational changes induced by ligand annihilation and their evolution over the 5 ns of simulation. Due to statistics collected over the large number of simulations, we can be sure of the statistical significance of the structural changes identified. The conformational changes extracted from the nonequilibrium simulations reflect the (statistically significant) structural response of the system to the perturbation. These changes propagate over time from the allosteric site to the active site, demonstrating a direct connection between them. Due to the very short timescale of the nonequilibrium simulations (5 ns), the observed conformational rearrangements do not represent the complete mechanism of conformational change, but rather reflect its first steps.

      In Figure 5, the authors seem to use Pearson correlation to compute dynamic cross-correlation maps. Mutual information (M)I or linear MI have advantages over Pearson correlations, as has been discussed in the dynamical network analysis literature.

      The reviewer is indeed correct; the DCCMs were calculated based on the Pearson’s correlation. We have tested and validated this approach over the last 15 years, with results reproduced experimentally by a number of our collaborators for over 10 different enzyme systems, including cyclophilin A, dihydrofolate reductase, ribonuclease, APE1 and Rev1 DNA binding enzymes (Biochemistry 43, no. 33 (2004): 10605-10618; Nature 438, no. 7064 (2005): 117-121; Biochemistry 58, no. 37 (2019): 3861-3868; PLoS Biol 9, no. 11 (2011): e1001193; Structure 26, no. 3 (2018): 426-436; Nucleic acids research 48, no. 13 (2020): 7345-7355; Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117, no. 41 (2020): 25494-25504). The reviewer’s suggestion is an interesting one, and we would be happy to investigate it in future studies. Mutual information analyses offer useful features. Based on our experience, we expect the results to be qualitatively similar and not likely to change the conclusions described in this manuscript.

    1. Note: This rebuttal was posted by the corresponding author to Review Commons. Content has not been altered except for formatting.

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      Reply to the reviewers

      We thank Review Commons and its three reviewers for your supportive and insightful responses to our manuscript. Below, we provide detailed responses to the reviewers’ individual comments and how we plan to address them during the revision.

      Reviewer #1: **Major comments:**

      The manuscript is very well written. The data is clearly presented. The methods are explained in sufficient detail with a few exceptions mentioned below, and statistical analysis are adequate. There are some concerns and suggestions about the experimental design and data presentation.

      - Drug treatments. It is not clear whether the cells were previously grown on charcoal-stripped serum before hormone treatments. From methods, it seems they were grown in 5% FBS and directly treated with the hormones. Also, what "hormone-free medium" mean? Is it charcoal stripped Serum or not Serum at all?

      For all experiments, the cells were grown in medium containing 5% FBS. Throughout the manuscript, “hormone-free” refers to medium containing 5% FBS with no dexamethasone added. Technically, this medium is not hormone-free as FBS contains low levels of cortisol. However, the levels of cortisol from the FBS in our medium seems insufficient to elicit a transcriptional response or DNA binding by GR based on experiments comparing charcoal stripped and medium containing regular 5% FBS. However, we acknowledge that it should be made clear to the reader that growth conditions technically were not hormone-free. We will make sure to include this information in both the methods and results section of a revised manuscript. In addition, we will state explicitly that our naiive cells are those that have not been exposed to a high dose of hormone.

      Replicates for these data sets? The ATAC and Chip-Seq should have at least 2. The concordance of the ATAC-seq and Chip-seq replicates should be described and shown in supplemental figures.

      The ChIP-seq peaks for GR are the intersect of two biological replicates. This is described in the Methods section (page 7). For the ATAC data, we used two biological replicates for the vehicle treated cells and treated two different hormones (dexamethasone and cortisol) as replicates. In a revised manuscript, we will add a supplemental figure to show the concordance between the replicates.

      Fig1A - The ATAC-seq HM should be clustered to show which peaks in opening/closing and unchanged peaks also have called GR chip peaks. Showing browser shots as in Fig1B is cherry picking data and can be put in a supplementary figure as an example. This is a main point of emphasis of the manuscript so show the data. The atac peaks that do overlap with GR chip peaks should be sorted by GR peak intensity. The QPCR is then only needed to confirm the quantitative changes.

      This is a good idea. As suggested by this reviewer (and also in response to a comment by one of the other reviewers), we will revise this figure panel to make the overlap between GR binding and opening and closing sites more obvious. Here are the numbers:

      A549 cells:

      opening sites: 49%

      closing: 10%

      nonchanging: 18%

      U2OS cells:

      opening: 54%

      closing: 0.2%

      nonchanging: 7%

      Regarding the use of browser shots, obviously these are cherry picked examples, however in our opinion they serve a purpose beyond illustrating examples of individual loci that open or close as they also give the reader an idea of the quality of the ATAC-seq data.

      To show both the ATAC sites and H3K27ac sites are specific to hormone treatment, a random set of 15K peaks not in this peak set also should be shown in HMs and should not change with the treatments. Why does the H3K27ac go down in the 6768 non changing sites with dex?

      The proposed group of control peaks is essentially what we included as “non-changing” peaks. For the revision, we will refine this group and compare the H3K27ac signal between GR-occupied and non-occupied groups. Regarding reduced H3K27ac signal upon Dex treatment at non-changing sites: Notably, this comparison is based on a single ChIP-seq replicate. In our experience, ChIP-seq experiments show quite some variability between biological replicates, which limits our ability to compare signal levels quantitatively. Thus, the difference could simply reflect a difference in ChIP efficiency between the treated and untreated cells. Alternatively, it could be that there is a general redistribution of H3K27ac signal towards GR-occupied opening sites. To pin down which of these explanations is valid, we would need to perform additional experiments, e.g. using spike-ins. However, this is beyond what we can do at the moment and therefore, we will instead revise the text to make sure that the interpretation of these results is somewhat speculative.

      The D & E parts of Fig1 can then be eliminated to become parts of Fig1A. Its not clear in the text that the HMs in Fig1 are all sorted in the same way.

      We will revise figure 1 as requested. In our initial submission, the data was always sorted by signal intensity of the feature shown. We will revise this and sort by ATAC-signal and keep a consistent sorting order for other features shown (and stratify each group into GR-occupied or not).

      - Fig. 1b (and d). The ChIP data is from 3h-hormone treatment while the ATAC-seq data is from a 20h hormone treatment. It seems a bit misleading to directly compare GR occupancy with the state of the chromatin at different time windows. Shouldn't the authors show their ATAC-seq 4h treatment data (shown in Fig S1) here instead?

      We will revise the figures as suggested to show the same time point for ChIP and ATAC-seq data.

      - Fig. 1f. The authors state "downregulated genes only show a modest enrichment of GR peaks". However, there is a significant enrichment of GR-peaks in repressive genes compared to non-regulated genes. It would be interesting to see how some of these peaks look in a browser shot. While the general conclusion "transcriptional repression, in general, does not require nearby GR binding", seems valid, the observation that many GR peaks appear directly bound to nearby repressed genes ought to be more emphatically recognized in the text.

      This is a fair point and was also raised by the other reviewers. During the revision, we will make textual changes to acknowledge that GR binding is enriched near repressed genes, albeit less so than for activated genes. In addition, we will include genome browser shots of genes with nearby peaks that are repressed by GR.

      - Concept of naïve cells (Fig. 3A). If cells are normally grown in serum-containing media, which is known to have some level of steroids, can the cells described here as "Basal expression" be truly free of a primed state? In the first part of the experimental design (+/- 4h hormone), which type of media is present here? Is it 5% FBS? A concern is that the authors may require the assumption that the (4h + 24h) period a is sufficient to erase all memory of the cells, which is exactly what they are trying to test.

      See our response to the first major comment above.

      It would be interesting to do a time course of the hormone-free period of the washout to determine the memory of the chromatin environment that results in the enhanced transcriptional response instead of just 24 and 48 hrs in A549 cells.

      We agree that that would be interesting but this is something that we cannot include for now.

      Fig 5A appears to show H3K27ac overlaying H3K27me marks near the promoter of ZBTB16 and at the GR sites within the gene locus with no reduction in H3K27me levels. This seems counterintuitive and should be explained or addressed especially since the authors use quantitative comparisons of H3K27ac levels with and without treatment in other figures.

      A trivial explanation for the overlaying H3K27ac and H3K27me3 marks at the ZBTB16 locus is that the ChIP results represent a population average. From our single-cell FISH experiments, we found that only a subset of cells activates ZBTB16 expression upon hormone treatment. Thus, a potential explanation is that the cells of the population that respond are responsible for the H3K27ac signal whereas the non-responders are decorated with H3K27me3. We will include this information in a revised discussion.

      Showing the changes of ZBTB16 upon 2nd stimulation via FISH is not terribly surprising and is even the most expected reason for higher RNA levels. Why does it only occur at that gene is a better question and is touched on in the discussion. It is more likely that this gene has a very low level of pre-hormone transcription compared to FKBP5 (see Fig 3e and the FISH images). ZBTB16 is in the lower 3rd of basemean RNA levels of GR responsive genes according to the RNAseq data. Selection of 1 or 2 other genes with similar basemean levels of RNA (from the RNA-Seq data) would make the data more

      When compared to FKBP5, ZBTB16 indeed has very low levels of pre-hormone expression. However, this is unlikely to explain the observed “memory” for ZBTB16 given that there are other genes with similarly low pre-hormone levels that do not show more robust responses upon repeated hormone exposure (see Fig. 3B,D). For the FISH experiments, we decided to include a non-primed gene (FKBP5 as control). We agree that adding additional control genes with comparable basemean levels would be informative. For example, this would tell us if a response of only a subset of cells in the population to hormone is specific to ZBTB16. Based on single cell studies by others (PMID: 32170217), most GR target genes show a response in only a subset of cells indicating that this is unlikely a unique feature of ZBTB16 explaining the priming observed. Rather than performing additional experiments, we will revise the discussion to acknowledge the difference in basemean and the potential role of cell-to-cell variability in explaining the observed “memory” for the ZBTB16 gene.

      **Minor comments:**

      - In the Intro (paragraph two), the authors explain the different mechanisms by which GR might repress genes. One alternative the authors appear to have missed is the possibility of direct binding to GREs while, for example, recruiting a selective corepressor such as GRIP1 (Syed et al., 2020). There are many recent critics to the notion that transrepression via tethering is responsible for GR repressive actions at all (Escoter-Torres et al., 2020; Hudson et al., 2018; Weikum et al., 2017).

      We are aware of these studies and agree that they should be included when listing the possible mechanisms by which GR can repress genes. We will revise the text accordingly.

      - When the authors introduce the concept of tethering to AP-1, they go way back to the first description of tethering. However, one of the references (Ref 20) actually goes against the tethering model as they did not detect protein-protein interactions between AP-1 and GR, and also, they conclude that repression requires the DNA-binding domain.

      We will pick a more appropriate reference indicative of tethering as a mechanism by which GR might repress genes.

      -Figure 2. The authors state "This suggests that the few sites with persistent opening are likely a simple consequence of an incomplete hormone washout and associated residual GR binding". The authors should check the subcellular distribution of GR after their washout protocol. If the washout is not completed, GR should still be in the nuclear compartment.

      The careful phrasing here was to include the possibility that GR might bind DNA even when hormone is completely washed out. However, a more likely explanation is that the washout is incomplete. The residual GR binding we find in our ChIP assays shows us that a subset of GR is indeed still chromatin-bound which implies that some GR is still in the nuclear compartment.

      - The first part of the manuscript (Repression through "squelching") seems a bit disconnected from the rest of the results (reversibility in accessibility). The abstract is structured in a way that this disconnection seems much less obvious. Perhaps the authors could try to present their squelching part in the middle of the manuscript, following the flow of the abstract? This is just a suggestion.

      When revising the manuscript, we will see if implementiung this suggestion is feasible.

      - Figures have CAPS panel letters (A,B,C, etc) while the text calls for lower case letter (a,b,c...)

      We will fix this as part of the revision. Reviewer #2: **Major Comments**

      We agree that long-term and repeated GC treatment would be very interesting to study and would yield insights that are more likely to be relevant to, for example, emerging GC-resistance during therapeutic use. We are aware of the limitations of our study and will make sure that these are acknowledged in the revised manuscript and we will point out the speculative nature of translating our findings to an in-vivo setting.

      2a.) The authors show several heatmaps to indicate changes in accessibility, H3K27ac and P300 upon Dex treatment as well as GR binding patterns in Fig. 1 and S1. Those are sorted by decreasing signal strength (I assume). To make those results more comparable, I suggest to sort them all in the same way (e.g. by descending ATAC-Seq signal or fold-change).

      A similar suggestion was made by reviewer 1. We agree that using the same sort order for the datasets makes it easier to link the different types of data we generated. We will present the data with a consistent sorting order and stratified by GR-occupied or not when we revise the manuscript.

      2b.) In line with a.), it is unclear to the reader if those sides opening /closing are the same sides showing increased/decreased H3K27ac or P300 occupancy and if those sides bind GR. Integrating this data together with mRNA e.g as correlation plots would strengthen the author's argument that accessibility, H3K27ac and mRNA changes are indeed correlated. What about the GR binding sites that do not change accessibility or H3K27ac? What makes those different? ** Therefore, the statement "Furthermore, closing peaks, which show GC-induced loss of H3K27ac levels and lack GR occupancy (Fig. S1c-f), were enriched near repressed genes" on page 10 as well as the statement "suggesting that transcriptional repression by GR does not require nearby GR binding." in the abstract and discussion cannot be made from how the data is presented.

      The first issue raised will be addressed by using the same sort order across different types of data. It might also shed light on features associated with GR binding sites that do not change accessibility or H3K27ac. Once we implement the revised sorting order, we will evaluate if the statements mentioned are indeed supported by the data.

      2c.) Several recent studies have shown that GR's effect on gene expression and chromatin modification at enhancers might be locus-/context-specific ("tethering", competition, composite DNA binding) and/or recruitment of different co-regulators (see Sacta et al. 2018 (doi: 10.7554/eLife.34864), Gupte et al. 2013 (doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1309898110) and many more). Defining the GR-bound or opening/closing sides in terms of changing H3K27ac (or having H3K27ac or not) more closely would help to link those to gene expression changes e.g. in violin plots. Furthermore, the authors could include a motif analysis to see if the different enhancer behaviours can be explained by differences in the GR motif sequence or co-occurring motifs. Thereby more closely defining the mechanism of chromatin closure a sites that lack GR binding e.g. by displacement of other transcription factors as described for p65 in macrophages (Oh et al. 2017 (doi.org/10.1016/j.immuni.2017.07.012)). In general a more detailed analysis of the data is required before the authors could state "Instead, our data support a 'squelching model' whereby repression is driven by a redistribution of cofactors away from enhancers near repressed genes that become less accessible upon GC treatment yet lack GR occupancy." on page 10. The results might also be explained by competitive transcription factor binding, tethering or selective co-regulator recruitment (e.g. HDACs).

      We will include a motif analysis comparing opening, closing and non-changing sites (stratified into GR-occupied or not) in a revised version of the manuscript. In addition, we will further investigate the redistribution of p300 upon Dex-treatment e.g. to test the correlation between p300 loss at closing sites lacking GR occupancy and transcriptional repression. We agree that the “squelching model” is just one of several explanations for repression and will provide a more comprehensive list of possible explanations beyond squelching as part of the revision.

      We will discuss the difference in receptor levels between the cell lines, the different number of genomic GR binding sites and its possible implication in the observed residual binding after wash-out in U2OS-GR cells as suggested.

      We agree that the coverage plots do not take the fraction of binding sites with signal into account. However, by also showing the heat maps, this information is also available to the reader. In our opinion, the coverage plots provide a straight-forward way to compare the signal for the different categories of peaks. The violin plots are an interesting alternative way to present the data, which also captures the diversity in the signal within each group. We will add violin plots to the supplementary data as requested.

      We see your point. However, based on the ATAC-signal (Fig. 5D) the changes in nucleosomal occupancy upon GC treatment are the same for naiive and primed cells and revert to their base-line level after hormone withdrawal. This indicates that these loci have comparable nucleosome occupancy after wash-out. Yet, the levels for these histone modifications do not differ between primed and naiive cells indicating that these histone marks do not “mark” the promoter of primed genes after wash-out.

      We are reluctant to put p-values on every chart, especially for experiments with few replicates. Importantly, we always plot the values for each individual data point, so the reader can gage if they differ between conditions. We will add p-values for figure 4 to test (support) our claim that ZBTB16 is primed whereas other GR target genes are not.

      A similar suggestion was brought up by reviewer #1, here is the response we gave to this comment: When compared to FKBP5, ZBTB16 indeed has very low levels of pre-hormone expression. However, this is unlikely to explain the observed “memory” for ZBTB16 given that there are other genes with similarly low pre-hormone levels that do not show more robust responses upon repeated hormone exposure (see Fig. 3B,D). For the FISH experiments, we decided to include a non-primed gene (FKBP5 as control). We agree that adding additional control genes with comparable basemean levels would be informative. For example, this would tell us if a response of only a subset of cells in the population to hormone is specific to ZBTB16. Based on single cell studies by others (PMID: 32170217), most GR target genes show a response in only a subset of cells indicating that this is unlikely a unique feature of ZBTB16 explaining the priming observed. Rather than performing additional experiments, we will revise the discussion to acknowledge the difference in basemean and the potential role of cell-to-cell variability in explaining the observed “memory” for the ZBTB16 gene.

      The fact that we do not observe elevated expression of other genes upon repeated expression could be due to the relatively short length of the hormone treatment, 4 hours, which was chosen to enrich for direct target genes of GR. These four hours might be insufficient for transcription, translation and ultimately gene regulation by the ZBTB16 protein. We have not looked at ZBTB16 protein levels.

      **Minor Comments**

      We will include this information in a revised version of the manuscript.

      We will add the requested peak-centric view. Based on a previous study (PMID: 29385519), we expect that binding is a poor predictor of gene regulation of nearby genes, especially for repressed genes.

      In our analysis, we looked at opening and closing peaks independently. If a peak is in the vicinity of multiple genes, it will only be assigned to the closest one. Thus, genes that have both and opening and a closing peak in the 50kb window will be included in both the analysis of closing sites and opening sites. We have not looked at clusters of binding sites, but agree that this would be interesting to see if the combinatorial action of multiple peaks makes regulation of the gene more likely. We will look into this during the revision process.

      1. The authors claim on p10 that "We could validate several examples of opening and closing sites and noticed that opening sites are often GR-occupied whereas closing sites are not occupied by GR". As most of the ChIP-Seq experiments were performed on formaldehyde-only fixed cells, the authors might miss "tethered" sides, which are mostly linked to gene repression. You might rephrase this part to most closing sites lack direct DNA binding.

      Even though several studies indicate that tethered binding can be captured using formaldehyde-only fixed cells (e.g. PMID: 32619221, PMID: 15879558), we agree that the ChIP-assay might have blind spots, for instance for tethered binding, and will revise our statements as suggested.

      This might be related to comment #4 given that P300 is brought to the DNA by other transcription factors whereas H3K27ac is directly DNA-bound which likely influences the cross-linking efficiency. By resorting the heat-maps, we will be able to determine the overlap between p300 recruitment and changes in H3K27ac levels (the other main enzyme that deposits this mark is CREBBP (a.k.a. CBP)).

      We will include this information in a revised version of the manuscript.

      We have not looked into this but a previous study by the Reddy lab (PMID: 22801371) has investigated binding sites in A549 cells that are occupied at very low Dex concentrations. They found that this is not driven by a specific GR motif but rather by the presence of binding sites for other transcription factors and chromatin accessibility.

      This data for the GILZ gene is shown in Figure S2C. When we revise the manuscript we will add this information to main figures 1 and 2 as suggested.

      This is shown in figure S3C and shows that expression levels of certain genes (ZBTB16 and FKBP5 but not GILZ) stay high after Dex washout (but not cortisol wash-out) consistent with persistent GR binding at a subset of GR-occupied loci for the experiments using Dex.

      For both S2C and S3C, cells were treated for 4h with Dex before the wash-out. For the ZBTB16 and FKBP5 genes, the persistent GR binding after wash-out is accompanied by a preserved Dex response after wash-out. For GILZ, GR binding at one of the peaks near the GILZ gene is also preserved, yet the expression of this gene reverses to its pre-treatment levels after wash-out. A possible explanation is that the residual binding at the GILZ gene is observed for only one of several nearby GR peaks. Previous studies, where we deleted GR binding sites near the GILZ gene, have shown that the combined action of multiple GR-occupied regions is needed for robust induction of this gene (PMID: 29385519).

      A trivial explanation for the overlaying H3K27ac and H3K27me3 marks at the ZBTB16 locus is that the ChIP data represents a population average. From our single-cell FISH experiments, we found that only a subset of cells activates ZBTB16expression upon hormone treatment so a potential explanation is that the cells of the population that respond are responsible for the H3K27ac signal whereas the non-responders are decorated with H3K27me3. We will include this information in a revised discussion. On a single histone, H3K27me3 and H3K27ac are mutually exclusive. However, given that a nucleosome has 2 copies of histone H3, both modifications can in principle co-exist.

      We’re guessing here, but we assume the reviewer refers to the potentially slightly higher H3K27me3 levels upon Dex treatment for ChIP-seq whereas the qPCR indicates that the levels do not change? The change seen in the ChIP-seq experiment is marginal and based on a single experiment. In contrast, the qPCR data shows the results from three biological replicates and therefore is probably a more reliable source of information.

      We will include this information in a revised version of the manuscript.

      Cancer cell lines often have variable karyotypes and our FISH data suggests that the ZBTB16 locus is present in more than 2 copies in some of the A549 cells. Here’s the info from the ATCC website describing the karyotype of A549 cells: …” This is a hypotriploid human cell line with the modal chromosome number of 66, occurring in 24% of cells. Cells with 64 (22%), 65, and 67 chromosome counts also occurred at relatively high frequencies; the rate with higher ploidies was low at 0.4%.....”.

      Upon quick inspection, we find that GR target genes are typically not marked by H3K27me3, however ZBTB16 does not appear to be the only one. When we revise the manuscript, we will look more systematically at the link between gene regulation by GR and genes marked by H3K27me3 to determine how “special” the presence of this mark is, which will also inform us about the likelihood that it is linked to the transcriptional memory observed for the ZBTB16 gene.

      We are not sure if ZBTB16 regulation by GR is tissue independent. However, in contrast to most GR target genes that are regulated in a cell-type-specific manner, ZBTB16 is regulated in both cell lines we examined and has also been reported to be a GR target gene in other cell types e.g. in macrophages (PMID: 30809020).

      Reviewer #3 **Major Comments:**

      For sure the washout time matters and we do not doubt that the persistent changes observed upon shorter wash-out by the Hager lab are real. One of the reasons we chose the 24h period was to see if the changes observed by Lightman and Hager might persist for extended periods of time as suggested by Zaret and Yamamoto. Our findings suggest that this is not the case and that the majority of GR-induced changes are short-lived. Perhaps future studies can shed light on how long changes persist. However, given the slow dissociation between GR and Dex, we expect that it might be hard to dissect if persistent changes are indeed persisting in the absence of GR binding or reflect an incomplete hormone wash-out.

      The objective of this study was to find out if persistent changes as observed in Ref33 are the exception or the rule not to test if the original observation is correct (importantly, another cell line was used in Ref33 which makes a 1:1 comparison impossible to begin with). We believe that we have convincingly shown that, for the cell lines we assayed, persistent changes are rare if occurring at al. Given that no convincing persistent changes were observed after a 24h washout, we think that it is very unlikely that such changes would be observable after even longer wash-out periods. We do not intend to include experiments using longer wash-out but will revise the discussion to emphasize that the lack of persistent changes we found might be specific to the cell lines we chose for our studies.

      We agree that adding this percentage is a good idea as this would allow for a more quantitative comparison between the different groups. Here are the numbers:

      A549 cells:

      opening sites: 49%

      closing: 10%

      nonchanging: 18%

      U2OS cells:

      opening: 54%

      closing: 0.2%

      nonchanging: 7%

      We will include this information in a revised version of the manuscript.

      For the ATAC-seq experiments, we treated the dex-treated and cort-treated experiments as replicates to find candidate regions with persistent chromatin changes. For the ATAC-seq data, a site is 'persistent' if called (by MACS2, e.g. DEX vs EtOH) upon treatment and then again 24h after washout (DEX washout vs EtOH washout). For the ATAC-qPCR experiments, we performed 4 biological replicates and will perform a t-test to determine if the small difference we observe at some sites between the EtOH and washout is statistically significant. Given the overlapping error bars and the very small difference, don’t expect the difference to be significant even for these most promising candidates from our genome-wide analysis.

      Indeed we did not find a mechanistic explanation for the ZBTB16-specific memory. Possible explanations are discussion in the following section of the results (page 14-15): “… Mirroring what we say in terms of chromatin accessibility, transcriptional responses also seem universally reversable with no indication of priming-related changes in the transcriptional response to a repeated exposure to GC for any gene with the exception of ZBTB16. Although several changes in the chromatin state occurred at the ZBTB16 locus, none of these changes persisted after hormone washout arguing against a role in transcriptional memory at this locus (Fig. 5). Similarly, the increased long-range contact frequency between the ZBTB16 promoter region and a GR-occupied enhancer does not persist after washout (Fig. 5e). Notably, our RNA FISH data showed that ZBTB16 is only transcribed in a subset of cells, hence, it is possible that persistent epigenetic changes occurring at the ZBTB16 locus also only occur in a small subset of cells and could thus be masked by bulk methods such as ChIP-seq or ATAC-seq. Another mechanism underlying the priming of the ZBTB16 gene could be a persistent global decompaction of the chromatin as was shown for the FKBP5 locus upon GR activation [35]. Likewise, sustained chromosomal rearrangements, which we may not capture by 4C-seq, could occur at the ZBTB16 locus and affect the transcriptional response to a subsequent GC exposure. Furthermore, prolonged exposure to GCs (several days) can induce stable DNA demethylation as was shown for the tyrosine aminotransferase (Tat) gene [71]. The demethylation persisted for weeks after washout and after the priming, activation of the Tat gene was both faster and more robust when cells were exposed to GCs again [71]. Interestingly, long-term (2 weeks) exposure to GCs in trabecular meshwork cells induces demethylation of the ZBTB16 locus raising the possibility that it may be involved in priming of the ZBTB16 gene [72]. However, it should be noted that our treatment time (4 hours) is much shorter. Finally, enhanced ZBTB16 activation upon a second hormone exposure might be the result of a changed protein composition in the cytoplasm following the first hormone treatment. In this scenario, increased levels of a cofactor produced in response to the first GC treatment would still be present at higher levels and facilitate a more robust activation of ZBTB16 upon a subsequent hormone exposure. Although several studies have reported gene-specific cofactor requirements [73], the 14 fact that we only observe priming for the ZBTB16 gene would make this an extreme case where only a single gene is affected by changes in cofactor levels……”.

      **Minor Comments**

      We will include a motif analysis for opening and closing sites in a revised version of the manuscript.

      We will revise the label in a revised version of the manuscript as suggested.

      We actually prefer the MA plots as they also provide information regarding the basemean counts for regulated genes. This allows one, for example, to see that other GR-regulated genes with similar basemean counts do not show a “memory” suggesting that the low expression level for ZBTB16 likely does not explain the observed priming.

      We will include this information in a revised version of the figure.

    1. The difference today is that the landscapeswithin which species would move in response toclimate change have been highly modified byhuman activity through deforestation, agricultur-al conversion, wetland drainage and the like.

      It is extremely saddening to think that humans are not only destroying species at an alarming rate due to the list provided by the reading, but also in climate change. Climate change has been talked about for a very long time. And many big businesses seem to ignore it in hopes that it will go away, and things won't have to change. The problem with this is that it seems like nothing is going to dramatically change until it starts effecting humans. As it has with some of the fires and other natural disasters that may occur.

      As anyone would naturally move when their current living situation is uncomfortable these animals are trying to do the same, but can't because we're already in there way.

      The only way things are going to change is if people are educated about what is going on. This "climate change isn't real" stuff needs to stop, and people in higher power need to put regulations on everyday life or else this will only continue. The entire world needs to work together as a whole to fight what is coming our way.

      If the glaciers completely melt in the 15 years stated earlier in the chapter, will we be able to stop what has happened. Usually positive feedback loops are non reversible. For example Pregnancy is a positive feedback loop, and isn't complete until birth. As Glaciers moved they created significant biodiversity in plant life as they carried seeds and other things with them. And it seems as these glaciers are leaving us the biodiversity in many cases is leaving which feels ironic in a way. And it is all caused by humans.

    1. Author Response:

      Reviewer 1:

      In the study by Buus et al., the authors set out to address an important need to understand how oligo-conjugated antibodies should be optimally utilized in droplet-based scRNA-seq studies. These techniques, often referred to as CITE-seq, complement techniques such as flow cytometry and mass cytometry yet also further extend them by the ability to jointly measure intra-cellular RNA-based cell states together with antibody-based measurements. As is the case with flow cytometry, manufacturers provide staining recommendations, yet encourage users to titrate antibodies on their specific samples in order to derive a final staining panel. Based on the ability to stain with hundreds of antibodies jointly, few studies to date have assessed how the antibodies present in these pre-made staining panels respond to a standard titration curve. In order to address this point, this study tests two dilution factors, staining volume, cell count, and tissue of origin to understand the relationships between signal and background for a commercially available antibody panel. They arrive at the general recommendation that these panels could be improved, grouping various antibodies into distinct categories.

      This study is of general interest to the scRNA-seq and CITE-seq communities as it draws attention to this important aspect of CITE-seq panel design. However, it would stand to be substantially improved by not only providing suggestions but also testing at least one, if not more, of their suggestions from Supplementary Table 2, and preferably performing experiments using more technical replicates or biological replicates. As it stands now, the study is largely based on one PBMC and one lung sample, that were stained once with each manipulation as far as can be gathered from the Methods.

      We appreciate the reviewer’s insight into the methodology and enthusiasm for the study.

      We do want to clarify that the study does not use a “pre-made staining panel” from commercial vendor, but rather a cocktail of individual antibodies available from a commercial vendor (with emphasis on epitopes relevant to immunology and cancer research). We have also clarified this in the text of the manuscript.

      We hope that the added analysis, our point by point response to the issues raised by the reviewer, and inclusion of new CITE-seq data from the panel with adjusted concentrations to alleviates the main concerns of the reviewer.

      1) Given the title is improving oligo-conjugated antibody… it would be important to functionally test one of the suggestions. We would suggest a full titration curve of selected antibodies, perhaps one from each of the categories, but if cost is a concern at least two or three antibodies, to identify how titration impacts antibodies, and especially those in categories labeled as in need of improvement. Relatedly, if the idea is that if antibodies (such as gD-TCR) do not have a cognate receptor leading to general background spread, does spiking in a cell that is a known positive in increasing ratios remedy this issue by acting as a target for the antibodies? Does adding extra washes help to remedy these issues of background?

      These are excellent points. Full titration curves have previously been published showing that oligo-conjugated antibodies respond to titration, and in that regard behave similar to fluorophore-conjugated antibodies assayed by flow cytometry (see Stoeckius et al. 2018. Genome Biology; Fig. 3A-D). Our study does not aim to identify the optimal concentration of individual antibodies in isolation but strives to provide the optimal signal-to-noise ratio for each antibody in a cocktail while taking sequencing requirements into account - this is why we don’t focus on full titration curves and saturation kinetics for each antibody/epitope. If we use all antibodies at their highest signal-to-noise ratios, this would drastically increase sequencing requirements of the library as highly expressed markers would use the vast majority of the total sequencing reads. As such, we aimed to get “sufficient” signal-to-noise while keeping the sequencing allocated to each marker balanced.

      Furthermore, as our results show, background signal can be largely attributed to free-floating antibodies in the solution, using high concentrations for all markers in one or more condition would increase the background in all conditions if these were multiplexed into the same droplet segregation. This phenomenon would likely obscure the positive signals and possibly titration response at lower concentrations (similar to what we see for category A antibodies). To avoid this, if full titration curves should be meaningful, each condition should be run in its own droplet segregation making such titration efforts prohibitively costly. We have elaborated on this in the discussion of the revised manuscript.

      We agree that it would greatly improve the study to include results from our panel with adjusted concentrations. In the revised manuscript, we have made efforts to address this by making a comparison between the sample stained with the pre-titration (DF1) concentrations and a sample stained with concentrations that have adjusted based on their assigned categories (from Table 1). We believe that this new data convincingly demonstrates improvements both of the individual antibody signals and at the level of the increased sequencing balance (see new Fig. 5). While the adjusted concentrations could still benefit from further improvements, we show that at similar sequencing depths, the adjusted concentrations provide a more balanced sequencing output and exhibit a 57 % increase in the median positive signal and a 43 % reduction in the median background signal for the 52 antibodies in our panel. The benefit of the adjusted concentration was particularly remarkable for CD86 which went from having 76.5 % to 12.6 % of UMIs assigned to background signal and thus yielded comparable positive signal while using 4.8 fold less UMIs (new Fig. 5G).

      Spiking in cells that express the cognate antigen is an interesting idea. However, as the spiked in cells would be included in all the downstream processes including sequencing of mRNA and other modalities, it would be quite costly to spike-in cells that are not of biological interest – only to decrease background of one or a few antibodies.

      While the results presented in the manuscript do not address this directly, our data strongly suggest that adding extra washing would help reduce free-floating antibodies in the solution captured in the gel-bead emulsions responsible for some of the observed background signal (as can be assayed by the non-cell-containing droplets). For such a test to make sense, the staining conditions should be identical for two samples that are differentially washed (including the exact same cell composition) and would require fully separate droplet segregations (i.e. utilization of separate 10x lanes) which would make it a very costly experiment solely to test the washing effect. However, we have done preliminary tests using short (150bp) cDNA amplicon spiked into different tubes or plates containing ~750x103 PBMCs to determine washing efficiency by qPCR. Here we assayed how increasing the washing volume from 200µl (96-well) to 1.5mL or 50mL for two washes reduced the detection of the spiked-in amplicon in the supernatant as compared to an unwashed sample. While short cDNA amplicons may not behave identical to oligo-conjugated antibodies, they simulate background signal stemming from free-floating antibodies and thus can be used to evaluate different washing conditions for a given set-up. As expected, using higher washing volumes does indeed greatly reduce the amount of amplicon (simulating free-floating “background” antibodies) detected in the resulting suspension. (https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Terkild/CITE-seq_optimization/master/figures/review_washing_test.png)

      2) Another way of improving these panels is through reducing the costs spent on both staining but perhaps more importantly the sequencing-based readouts. Several times in the manuscript (at line 77 for example or line 277) it is alluded to that the background signal of antibodies can make up a substantial cost of sequencing these libraries. However, no formal data on cost is presented, which would be important to formalize the author's points. It would be important to provide cost calculations and recommendations on sequencing depth of ADT libraries based on variation of staining concentration. Relatedly, in the methods, sequencing platform and read depth for ADT libraries was not discussed, nor is the RNA-seq quality control metrics provided other than a mention of ~5,000 reads/cell targeted. This is important to report in all transcriptomic studies, and especially a methods development study.

      Thank you for pointing out the very sparse description of choice of sequencing method and RNA-seq quality controls. We have included additional metrics in the materials and methods and included a new Suppl. Fig. S1 showing number of detected genes as well as UMI counts within the mRNA and ADT modalities in the revised manuscript. We agree that reducing sequencing cost (without reducing biological information) is a major reason for optimizing staining with oligo-conjugated antibodies. We have now added a section in which we elaborate on the potential cost saving, and other benefits of titration of antibody panels and provide some examples from our datasets. Actual savings of optimization of these panels will be very dependent on a given setup, starting concentrations and the depth of sequencing that the particular research questions (and budget) warrant.

      Due to the 10-1000 fold higher numbers of proteins as compared to coding mRNA [16], ADT libraries have high library complexity (unique UMI content) and are rarely sequenced near saturation. Thus, either sequencing deeper or squandering fewer reads on a handful of antibodies, will result in an increased signal from other antibodies in the panel. We found that by simply reducing the concentration of the five antibodies used at 10 µg/mL, we gained 17 % more reads for the remaining antibodies. Consequently, assuming we are satisfied with the magnitude of signal we got from all other antibodies using the starting concentration, this directly translates to a 17 % reduction in sequencing costs.

      In terms of sequencing depth, we are not comfortable giving very broad recommendations. This is due to the fact that sequencing requirements will be very different depending on the composition of the antibody panel as well as the cell type distribution (epitope abundance) (as has been previously noted in Mair et al. 2020 Cell Rep.). If the antibody panel contains only antibodies targeting epitopes that are largely present on a small subset of cells (such as CD56 or CD8 for PBMCs) it would require fewer reads per marker per total cell count than markers that are broadly expressed (such as HLA-ABC or CD45 for PBMCs). However, in a different sample composition (for instance a tissue with few leukocytes) these same antibodies would require fewer reads per cell whereas other epitopes may be more abundant.

      We want to also stress, that aside from cost savings, an optimized balanced panel with low background will yield improved resolution compared to a non-optimized panel. Fortunately, CITE-seq and related methods are very flexible in this regard as you can start by shallow sequencing and then “top-up” the sequencing depth to an optimal level based on the actual data in subsequent sequencing runs (for instance together with the next batch of samples).

      3) One of the powerful elements of joint multi-modal profiling, as mentioned in the title, is to be able to measure protein and RNA from a single cell. This study does not formally look at correlation of protein and RNA levels, and whether a decrease in concentration of antibody either improves or diminishes this correlation. This would be important to test within this study to ensure that decreasing antibody levels does not then adversely affect the power of correlating protein with RNA, and whether it may even improve it.

      We appreciate the reviewer’s suggestion – this is a great idea. Unfortunately, such correlations are notoriously hard to do for scRNA-seq data due to the sparsity of the RNA measurements (which contains high frequency of 0 UMI counts). This is, in part, due to low reverse transcriptase efficiency, and also due to the fact that most proteins have 10-1000 fold more copies than the mRNA transcripts that encode them (Marguerat et al. 2012 Cell). This is exacerbated in our study by the fact that we only shallowly sequenced RNA modality (~4000 reads/cell). Consequently, we see a very high number of cells that despite clustering together within distinct lineage clusters (based on their full transcriptome) and expressing the expected lineage marker surface proteins, do not have readily detectable transcript for the same marker(s). For instance, for all cells that are positive for CD8 at the RNA level, there are at least as many that are negative for CD8 RNA while being positive for CD8 ADT. Importantly, these additional CD8+ cells are still located within clusters consistent with a CD8+ phenotype (see below): (https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Terkild/CITE-seq_optimization/master/figures/review_CD8_protein_rna_correlation.png)

      As such, due to the sparsity of RNA counts, if ADT signal is diluted too much leading to truly positive cells being called as negative, it may actually increase individual cell correlation between RNA and ADT but mean higher levels of “false negative” cells. Direct correlation between RNA and antibody measurements within each individual cells is further complicated by the presence of non-specific/background signal in protein data that is rarely found in RNA data. This can also be seen in the plot above by the fact that positive cells are defined at a cut-off “7” at the ADT level, and not “0” as is the case for RNA. Thus, while having only a few UMI counts for a given transcript is sufficient to call expression, having a few UMIs from an ADT can easily be attributed to background (particularly in an unoptimized panel).

      Due to these technical limitations, we find it more suitable to correlate “positivity” called by either ADT (gated positive as shown in Suppl. Fig. S2) or mRNA expression (i.e. > 0 UMI counts). While this comparison is less quantitative (does not distinguish “high” from “low” expression) it enables us to show whether reducing antibody concentrations affects ADT signal ability to distinguish positive from negative cells (as compared to GEX), which is at the core of the reviewer’s suggestion. The figure below, demonstrates that four-fold titration reduces the fraction of positive cells by some markers (reduction in the blue+red bars by dilution) whereas other markers are largely unaffected both of which is consistent with the analysis in the manuscript: (https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Terkild/CITE-seq_optimization/master/figures/review_protein_rna_correlations.png)

      In terms of assuring specificity, we have also modified the “titration plots” to show more detailed cell type distribution at each rank (by the “barcode plot” to the right of the “rank plot”) as well as the distribution of UMIs among cell types (by the bar plot above the “barcode plot”) at each condition. Finally, to make these “titration plots” more accessible, we have now included a guide to the different components of the “titration plots” in Fig. 2 of the revised manuscript.

      4) How was the lack of antibody binding determined for Category E? CD56 is frequently detected on NK cells in peripheral blood, CD117 should be detected on mast cells in the lung, and CD127 should be found on T cells, particularly CD8+ T cells. From inspecting Figure 1E, it appears as if all three of these markers are detected on small but consistent cell subsets. As the clusters are only numbered and no supplementary table is provided to help the reader in their interpretation, it is difficult to determine if these represent rare but specific binding, or have not bound with any specificity.

      Thank you pointing this out. In light of this comment, it is obvious that we need to annotate the cell types of the clusters. We have annotated all the fine-grained clusters by cell types and re-worked all relevant panels in Figures 1, 2 and 3 (and all their related supplementary figures) to show more detailed and consistent cell type annotation. We have also added Suppl. Fig. 1C, D to show marker genes for each of the annotated cell types, which together with the re-worked Fig 1E, give the reader a clear description of the cluster identity. We do indeed see some signal for Category E antibodies such as CD56, CD117 and CD127 within the expected clusters. This indicates that the antibodies do work to some extent. However, we also find that the signal for these markers is modest, at best, and not present in some populations where we would have expected them (CD127 should be more pronounced in T cells and we are finding an unexpectedly high frequency of CD56-negative NK cells).

      5) References: At 14 references, the paper overall could benefit from a more comprehensive citation of related literature including flow cytometry and/or CyTOF best practices for antibody staining and dealing with background, and joint RNA and protein measurement from single cells.

      We agree that the reference list of the original manuscript was sparse and may have missed important relevant studies. We have done our best to include additional studies relevant for the optimization and titration of mass cytometry panels and flow cytometry staining and added references to a few newly published joint RNA and protein measurement studies. We have strived to reference all studies directly relevant to the present work and do not want to overlook any appropriate publications that should be referenced and so welcome any suggestions of the reviewers.

      Reviewer 2:

      Recombinant antibodies are the most common and powerful reagents in life science research to identify and study proteins. Yet, every single antibody should always be validated and carefully tested for its relevant application, to ensure constructive and reproductive scientific endeavor. I was thus extremely pleased to review the manuscript of Terkild Buus et al, as it provides a careful assessment of oligo-conjugated antibody signal in CITE-seq. The authors tested four variables (antibody concentration, staining volume, cell numbers and tissue origin) and clearly showed that antibody titration is a crucial step to optimize CITE-seq panel. The authors found that, as a general rule, concentration in the 0.625 and 2.5 µg/mL range provides the best results while recommended concentrations by vendors, 5 to 10 µg/mL range, increase background signal.

      In my opinion, the study is well-performed and may serve as a guideline to accurately validate antibodies for CITE-seq, as a consequence I have only minor comments.

      We are very happy that you appreciate the necessity of our work and that you found it to be a useful resource for improving CITE-seq experiments.

      As stated by the authors, the starting concentration used for each antibody was based on historical experience and assumptions about the abundance of the epitopes. This approach may not be ideal, and the optimal concentration may have been missed. Do the authors think that a proper titration would be an advantage? Maybe this could be discussed in the text.

      We agree that using starting concentrations based on historical experience etc. may not be ideal for a completely objective assessment of how oligo-conjugated antibodies respond to the four-variables test. However, we firmly believe that using informed starting concentrations greatly increases the potential improvement of a panel while keeping costs to a minimum (which has to be a consideration for these expensive methods). With that said, we agree that this approach may not reach the optimal concentration (a definition that is a bit complex in this setting). As mentioned in our reply to reviewer 1, point 1, a previous study has shown a more formal titration response for three antibodies using a broader range of concentrations (Stoeckius et al. 2018. Genome Biology; Fig. 3A-D) and we believe that titration for CITE-seq is as much about balancing the sequencing needs of the full panel as it is about reaching the optimal signal-to-noise for the individual antibodies. We have elaborated on this in the discussion of the revised manuscript.

      The authors showed by testing four variables (see above) that they could define the optimal conditions to reduce background signal and increase sensitivity of antibodies and thus this way improves CITE-seq outcome. Nevertheless, the authors rely on the fact that all antibodies used in their panel are specific for their targeted antigens. I am not asking here to test the specificity of every single antibody used in the study as this would be a colossal amount of work. But I feel that this aspect should be discussed in the manuscript, especially when an "uncommon" antibody is intended to be used in the CITE-seq panel; the specificity of this antibody should be indeed tested prior to its use.

      Thank you for this suggestion. This is indeed an aspect of antibody optimization that we have not touched upon. By using commercially available oligo-conjugated antibody clones that are broadly used, the extensive testing of many of these clones by multiple labs within immunology community (for flow/mass cytometry applications) and based on our personal experience with majority of the clones for flow cytometry applications, we expected that the antibodies in our panel should be specific for their antigen. This is supported by the labelling matching what we would expect to find in PBMCs and lung leukocytes, as well as the correlation between expression of the gene encoding the targeted epitope and antibody binding (see our response to reviewer 1, point 3). We have added a paragraph to the revised manuscript discussing that, particularly when using antibodies for the first time or using clones that are unfamiliar, it is important to assure specificity.

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      Referee #1

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      This is a very interesting and well designed study on mNGS of mosquitoes. The authors demonstrate that they can distill valuable information on the vector species, the source of the blood meals and the microbiome/virome using a simple experimental approach and using single mosquitoes. A highlight of the work is that the paper is very comprehensive with an overwhelming dataset and thoughtful analysis. It is a showcase how sequencing data from a relative compact number of mosquitoes specimens can be used to conduct sophisticated computational analysis leading to meaningful conclusions. The authors make a strong case for the power of mNGS of mosquitoes that may be applicable to other (invertebrate) species. Especially the phylogenetic analysis based on SNP distance without have reference genomes and the grouping of contigs by means of co-occurence in datasets is original. We feel that the work deserves to be published.

      Significance

      We have a number of comments that the authors may consider in further improving the quality of their manuscript:

      What is the impact of this paper?

      I think it is possible that the paper will have a decent impact on the mosquito arbovirus field, because it adequately shows the possibilities that individual mosquito sequencing can bring (e.g. co-occurrence analysis). It may shift the balance to doing more individual mosquito sequencing instead of pools. The paper is also very extensive in the analyses that it does on this very rich data set. Below, some suggestions are given for additional analysis, which should be interpreted as a compliment to the interesting data set acquired. It should however be noted that the ideas and approaches taken are not entirely new. Sequencing individual mosquitoes, co-occurrence analysis and metagenomic sequencing have been done before, although not to this extent and not in this field. Several novel possibilities:

      1. An unbiased way to check if you have the correct mosquito species and the ability to detect subspecies. Using the genetic distance of the transcriptomes they have likely corrected the missed identification in some samples, where these calls had a logical mistake made. The fact that subspecies overlapped with the sites of capture is very interesting and confirms the relevance of looking at the genetic distance also within species.
      2. Blood-meal analysis from sequence data. Here they can get to species level for 10 out of 40 blood-engorged mosquitoes. The idea is interesting, as you would be able to get a lot more information if you can determine blood-meal origin from RNA-seq data (as shown in this paper). However, I feel that in the current paper (and this may be intentional) they do not properly show that RNA-seq is an adequate alternative to DNA sequencing of the blood. To convince me, I would have liked to have these results compared to DNA sequencing and see how much overlap there is. I understand however that the choice was made not to do this, but I do have a small note for the information given now. It was mentioned that 1 contig with an LCA of vertebrates is enough for a 'blood-meal origin' call. I am however left to wonder how reliable is 1 read? Are there really no contigs with an LCA in vertebrates in the non blood-fed mosquitoes? Also, what do we think happened in the mosquitoes that were visibly bloodfed but nothing was found; any speculation?
      3. The study of co-occurrence, although not novel, is a nice addition to the mosquito virome/microbiome determination field. Identifying novel segments and missed segments of viruses is very nice. I do however wonder: did it ever occur that co-occurrence finds a 'linked' fragment that was clearly wrong? Were some post-analyses done to check if the results make sense? It seems, especially because the paper elaborates on examples, that you need some follow-up. This is not problematic, but a nice addition to the paper would be (as is also described below) to mention which segments were added to viral genomes by co-occurrence and if some checks were done to verify these hits.
      4. Being able to say something about differences in viruses within the same mosquito species is super interesting. Pools do not give the possibility to say something about profiles and prevalence and the large size (148 mosquitoes) allows to find interesting correlations.

      What parts do you think are problematic?

      1. We question the validity 'blood-meal calls' as outlined above.
      2. In this study they use % of non-host reads as a measure for the abundance of a pathogen (see e.g. Figure 3). I don't understand this at all... If you have more pathogens, then the amount of non-host reads would have to go up right? It seems to assume that the amount of non-host reads you have is similar in all samples? It becomes even more problematic when the trend is mentioned that having a higher % of non-host reads for Wolbachia is related to a lower % of non-host reads for viruses. This seems to be trivial as the amount of non-host reads goes up with increased Wolbachia infection, and therefore the % of non-host reads for viruses goes down due to the larger denominator. A different number than 'non-host reads' should be taken to normalise the data and say something about abundance. E.g. host reads or spiked RNA?

      What are the most relevant questions you are left with?

      1. I am curious about the limited overlap with Sadeghi et al., 2018, who sequenced so many Culex mosquitoes in California. I would suggest to say a little but more about these discrepancies and their potential causes in the discussion.
      2. What do the authors think are in those 'dark reads'? Is the amount of dark reads the same across the different samples? Similarly, are the 'tetrapoda' reads reduced/absent in mosquitoes with a reference genome available?
      3. In the first part of the results, mention is made to being able to characterize to kingdom level 77% of the 13 million non-host reads (also see comment on non-host reads below). I am however puzzled with the description in the text and supplemental figure 3: which 3 million contigs were not able to be characterized? Where in supplemental figure 3 are they? This is especially puzzling as the main text mentions that 11 million non-host reads are from complete viral genomes, 0.9 million to eukaryotic taxa and 0.7 million to prokaryotic taxa?
      4. There seem to be 131 bars, corresponding to individual mosquitoes, in figure 3? Where are the remaining 17?

      What are your tips (in addition to responses to above questions)?

      1. I think the definition of 'non-host reads' needs to be clearly made and used consistently across the document. At the end of the paragraph 'Comprehensive and quantitative analysis of non-host sequences detected in single mosquitoes' the concept of "...13 million non-host reads..." is introduced. At first glance of supplemental figure 3 it seems that "non-host reads" could also be defined as the 16.7 aligned reads that are left after putative host sequences are removed. Although it is true that the derivation of 13 million is explained in the figure text of supplemental figure 3, it may be easier for the reader (as it cost me some time) to explain this in the main text. In addition, is the definition of 'non-host reads' (corresponding to 13-million reads) corresponding to "classified non-host reads" in the following excerpt: "For every sample, "classified non-host reads" refer to those reads mapping to contigs that pass the above filtering, Hexapoda exclusion, and decontamination steps. "Non-host reads" refers to the classified non-host reads plus the reads passing host filtering which failed to assemble into contigs or assembled into a contig with only two reads."? This caused some confusion.
      2. I believe it would be a valuable addition to add a table for the viruses which includes: 1) How it was determined that the complete genome is there, 2) The percentage overlap for those segments that were identified with blast and 3) Which viruses were already known.
      3. Have the numbers of the caught mosquitoes somewhere written out in the materials and methods.
      4. Pg2 L1-3: "Metagenomic sequencing..... a single assay." Perhaps a bit early for this statement. Would suggest to place it two paragraphs later before:"Here, we analyzed...."
      5. Figure S4 is too pixelated to read. Perhaps due to pdf conversion, but please do check before submission.
    1. System architects: equivalents to architecture and planning for a world of knowledge and data Both government and business need new skills to do this work well. At present the capabilities described in this paper are divided up. Parts sit within data teams; others in knowledge management, product development, research, policy analysis or strategy teams, or in the various professions dotted around government, from economists to statisticians. In governments, for example, the main emphasis of digital teams in recent years has been very much on service design and delivery, not intelligence. This may be one reason why some aspects of government intelligence appear to have declined in recent years – notably the organisation of memory.57 What we need is a skill set analogous to architects. Good architects learn to think in multiple ways – combining engineering, aesthetics, attention to place and politics. Their work necessitates linking awareness of building materials, planning contexts, psychology and design. Architecture sits alongside urban planning which was also created as an integrative discipline, combining awareness of physical design with finance, strategy and law. So we have two very well-developed integrative skills for the material world. But there is very little comparable for the intangibles of data, knowledge and intelligence. What’s needed now is a profession with skills straddling engineering, data and social science – who are adept at understanding, designing and improving intelligent systems that are transparent and self-aware58. Some should also specialise in processes that engage stakeholders in the task of systems mapping and design, and make the most of collective intelligence. As with architecture and urban planning supply and demand need to evolve in tandem, with governments and other funders seeking to recruit ‘systems architects’ or ‘intelligence architects’ while universities put in place new courses to develop them.
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      Reply to the reviewers

      Response to reviewers

      We first thank Review Commons for recruiting such knowledgeable reviewers to comment on our manuscript. We appreciate their diverse set of useful and constructive comments, which should help us improve the manuscript substantially. Please see our response to each reviewer’s comments below.

      Reviewer #1:

      **Summary:** The authors describe a useful modified fluctuation assay that couples conventional mutation rate analysis with mutational spectrum characterization of forward mutations at the S. cerevisiae CAN1 locus. They nicely showed that wild yeast isolates display a wide range of mutation rates with strains AAR and AEQ displaying rates ~10-fold higher than the control lab strain. These two strains also showed a bias for C>A mutations, and were the only strains analyzed that had a mutation spectrum statistically different from the lab control. Together, these data provide a compelling proof-of-principle of the applicability of the modified fluctuation analysis approach described in this manuscript. Overall, the manuscript is very well written, and the work reported in it does represent a valuable contribution to the field. However, two primary shortcomings were identified that can be addressed to strengthen the conclusions prior to publication. Both points described below pertain to the analysis of the possible C>A specific mutator phenotype in strains AAR and AEQ.

      Response:

      We thank the reviewer for this positive response. We have made a plan, detailed below, to address the shortcomings the reviewer has highlighted.

      **Major comments:**

      1. The work presented in the manuscript does suggest that these two haploids are likely to display the C>A mutator phenotype. Yet, the authors fell short of providing a full and unambiguous demonstration that would elevate the significance of their discovery. They could have directly tested the predicted C>A specific mutator phenotype by conducting additional experiments, one of which is relatively simple. Specifically, they could have performed a simple reversion-based mutation assay to validate the reported C>A mutator phenotype displayed by AAR and AEQ. For example, into AAR, AEQ, and a wild type control, the authors could introduce an engineered auxotrophic marker allele (e.g., ura3 mutation) caused by an A to C substitution, which upon mutation back to A restores prototrophic growth in minimal media (ie. reversion from ura3-C to URA3-A). Such specific reversible allele should be relatively easy to integrate into the AAR and AEQ genomes, as well as in the control strain. Based on the authors' prediction, AAR and AEQ should display a very large increase (far higher than 10 fold) in the reversion rate when compared to a control haploid. To demonstrate the specificity of the mutation spectrum, the authors could test the reversion rates of a different engineered allele requiring a reversion mutation in the opposite direction (ie. reversion from ura3-A to URA3-C). If the AAR and AEQ mutator is specific C>A, one would predict that all three strains should have similar mutation rates for a reversion in the A>C direction. This additional genetic work would thoroughly validate the central discovery and would reinforce the usefulness of the method described in the manuscript.

      Alternatively, a conventional mutation accumulation and whole genome re-sequencing experiment with parallel lines of AAR, AEQ and a control strain would also very effectively validate the C>A mutator prediction, and it would also answer the authors' discussion point about specificity to the CAN1 locus. However, it would be more costly and much more time consuming.

      Response:

      We thank the reviewer for these detailed, clear suggestions regarding additional methodology for further validating our results. We appreciate that parallel independent validations always add credibility to unexpected results like the ones presented in our manuscript. We’ve been considering these suggestions seriously, but our concern is that it is much less straightforward to engineer the genomes of these wild yeast than one might expect based on experiments with standard laboratory strains. Unforeseen roadblocks related to the biology of AAR and AEQ could end up making the URA3 reversion assay take even longer than an MA study. As we understand it, the two main concerns that might necessitate this additional undertaking are that either our novel assay for ascertaining mutations in CAN1 doesn’t work properly, or that the mosaic beer strains mutate significantly differently outside CAN1. Below we describe revisions to the text that we think will clearly represent these caveats and the relatively modest uncertainty associated with them.

      To further justify the soundness of our claim that AAR and AEQ have distinctive mutation rates and spectra, we plan to add additional discussion of the validation approaches that are presented in the manuscript to verify the accuracy of our pipeline. Although the ability of fluctuation assays to estimate mutation rates is well established, the identification of the spectra using our next-generation-sequencing-based pipeline is novel, so we used Sanger sequencing to validate the exact de novo mutations it ascertained in a select control strain. Our Sanger sequencing test found our assay to have an undetectably low false positive rate and a false negative rate that was much too low to account for the differences we measured between AAR, AEQ, and the standard lab strains. The fact that we also observed similar mutation spectra from control lab strains used in previous CAN1-based studies further demonstrates the reliability of our method, and it is notable that most natural isolates were measured to have very similar mutation spectra to lab strains (Figure 4 and Supplementary Figure S8-S9). We agree that further validation would be needed to read much into the more subtle differences in mutation rates and spectra that we saw hints of between other strains, and for that reason, we focused this paper on the differences that well exceed what we measured to be our measurement pipeline’s margin of error.

      It is true that the genome-wide mutation rate might differ somewhat from the mutation rate at the CAN1-locus, but the mutation spectrum at the CAN1 locus measured in a previous study (Lang and Murray, 2008) was very similar to the genome-wide mutation spectra obtained from MA studies (Sharp et al., 2018), with just a small overall increase of mutations with C/G nucleotides (the second to last paragraph on page 17 and Supplementary Figure S13). Moreover, we have avoided making any claims of seeing distinct mutation rates or spectra based on “apples-to-oranges” comparisons between mutation spectra measured at CAN1 and spectra measured across the whole genome.

      We also note that the enrichment of C>A mutations in AEQ and AAR is not only observed from our de novo mutation data in CAN1, but also seen in rare natural polymorphisms genome-wide (Figure 1B, 5A,B). Rare natural polymorphisms are recent mutations that occurred during the history of the strain, and the fact that they disproportionately enrich in C>A mutations in these strains indirectly shows that the C>A enrichment occurs not only at CAN1, as measured in our experiment, but has also been occurring during natural mutation accumulation genome-wide.

      The second concern is in regard to the relatively extensive conclusions drawn about the possible evolutionary significance of the possible C>A mutator in AAR and AEQ. The authors should be more cautious and conservative in the proposed interpretation. As the authors note:

      'Three of the four C>A-enriched mosaic beer strains, AAR, AEQ, and SACE_YAG, are all haploid derivatives of the [highly heterozygous] diploid Saccharomyces cerevisiae var diastaticus strain CBS1782, which was isolated in 1952 from super-attenuated beer.'

      From this statement, and because the paper cited provided few details on the isolation of CBS1782, it is presumed that these haploid derivatives were most likely isolated as recombinant spores. Furthermore, it is unclear when this isolation occurred, and for how many generations strains AAR and AEQ have been propagated in a haploid state.

      Herein lies a critical point: AAR and AEQ were recently derived from a diploid background with a "high level of heterozygosity". In a heterozygous diploid context, deleterious point mutations (and any resulting mutator phenotypes) would likely be masked by the presence of wild-type alleles. Now, as haploids, they express a novel genotype (i.e., combination of defective or incompatible parental alleles), which manifests as a mutator phenotype. In this respect, AAR and AEQ appear analogous to the spore derivatives of the incompatible cMLH1-kPMS1 isolate referred to in the manuscript as a notable exception. The analysis of strains harboring incompatible MLH1-PMS1 mutations by Raghavan et al. demonstrated that the heterozygous diploid parents were not themselves mutators, but that haploid spores which had inherited the pair of incompatible alleles displayed mutator phenotype. Collectively, while it can certainly be argued that the strains AAR and AEQ (like the MLH1/PMS1 incompatible strains) are mutators now, this fact alone does not support the conclusion that they have adapted to survive the expression of an extant mutator phenotype. This premise could be tested by analyzing the mutation rates/spectra of four new spores derived from a single tetrad of CBS 1782. Do the four sibling spores display similar or different mutational rates and spectra? If all four spores from a single tetrad exhibit the 10-fold increase in CAN1 mutation rate and the C>A transversion bias, then it can be inferred that the diploid parent is also a mutator in the same manner. Further direct analysis of mutation rates and spectrum in the parent diploid CBS 1782 would complete the work. This finding would be quite significant, and would provide strong evidence that wild strains can in fact tolerate the expression of a chronic mutator allele.

      Response:

      We thank the reviewer for suggesting additional study of the ancestral diploid strain CBS 1782, and we agree this could add a lot to the manuscript, especially given the high level of heterozygosity in the diploid and the link to the previous MLH1-PMS1 incompatibility story. We have obtained a sample of CBS 1782 and plan to knock out its HO locus using CRISPR, perform tetrad dissection of spores freshly derived from the diploid, and then measure mutation rates and spectra in all four segregants derived from a single tetrad (provided that all four spores end up growing). We plan to collect and sequence about 50 mutations to get qualitative results on the mutation rates and spectra of these segregants. We also plan to sequence the whole genome of the strain CBS 1782 and examine polymorphisms together with the 1011 strains to check for any signal of C>A enrichment. We recognize that our pipeline as currently implemented will not let us directly measure the mutation spectrum of the diploid, which is inaccessible to our pipeline given its two functional copies of CAN1 and the recessive nature of canavanine resistance. That being said, the elevation of the C>A fraction in natural polymorphisms found in AAR and AEQ provides evidence for prolonged activity of the mutator phenotype in the wild and/or in the domesticated environment from which CBS 1782 was derived. However, we acknowledge we have limited information about how these haploids were propagated before they were banked.

      **Minor comments:** A final, relatively minor point. That the new haploids AAR and AEQ show distinct mutation rates and spectra opens the door to an interesting line of inquiry, which may help to identify the causative mutator allele in a manner more efficient than searching for missense mutations. It is stated, and it is understandable, that the identification of the possible causal mutations is beyond the scope of the present manuscript. In this spirit, it would be much more appropriate to restrict such considerations to the Discussion section. Specifically, while the authors make a plausible case for OGG1 being a candidate gene responsible for the C>A mutator phenotype, no experimental demonstration was attempted. As such, that text segment should be moved from the Results to the Discussion section.

      Response:

      We agree with the reviewer of lacking genetic evidence on OGG1 in the current manuscript and we will move that section from the results to the discussion. Future work is underway to test and identify the causal loci for the mutator phenotype.

      Reviewer #1 (Significance (Required)): As stated in the summary section above, the manuscript by Jiang et al represents a substantial contribution to the fields of genome stability and genome evolution. The method described is likely to be useful beyond budding yeast. The work will be appreciated by a broad audience of geneticists. The additional work and text modifications proposed above would likely further elevate the impact of this work.

      Response:

      We are very grateful for this generous assessment and we likewise hope our planned revisions will further elevate the paper’s potential impact.

      Reviewer #2:

      Mutation is a fundamental force in organismal evolution, and therefore understanding the evolution of mutational mechanisms are important in evolutionary studies. In this manuscript, the authors used strains of S. cerevisiae as a model system to study the variations of rates and spectra in mutations with bioinformatic and experimental approaches. First, the authors analyzed the polymorphism data from 1011 strains by PCA analysis and show the variations in spectra. Second, the authors used fluctuation test combined with deep sequencing of the resistance gene to identify mutation rates and spectra in 18 strains, which show ~10-fold mutation rate variations and increased C-to-A mutations in two strains.

      For the second part, the experimental procedures and statistical analysis are mostly solid. For the first part, as what authors said in the introduction, polymorphism is not equal to the mutation spectra. I think the authors did a good job by being cautious in the wording and having no over-inference after the analysis. It is thus inevitable that the conclusion of this part sounds mostly descriptive. The overall writing is very clear. I will recommend the publication in field-specific journals.

      Response:

      We thank the reviewer for these positive comments. We will address each minor point below.

      **Minor comments:** P9 - It is very hard to not wonder how the 16 strains were picked in the fluctuation tests. Some comments on that will be appreciated. E.g., was that informed by the results of Fig 1?

      Response:

      We actually did not pick strains based on the results of Figure 1, one reason being that the CAN1 reporter method only works on haploid strains with a canavanine sensitivity phenotype. We also restricted our analysis to strains without known aneuploidies to maximize our ability to accurately measure the spectra of the strains’ polymorphisms. When possible, given these constraints, we included at least two randomly selected strains from each clade of the 1011 collection whenever possible. These constraints are currently explained on the second to last paragraph on page 9, and will be explained in more detail in revision.

      P17- In the paragraph "natural selection might contribute ..." , is there any example of "certain mutation types are more often beneficial than others"?

      Response:

      One example of this is that transitions are more often synonymous than transversions are (Freeland and Hurst, 1998), and mutations that create or destroy CpG sites are more likely to alter gene regulation than other mutation types are (in species other than yeast where CpGs are methylated). We recognize that these effects are likely not large, which is one reason we don’t think natural selection is a great explanation for mutation spectrum difference among groups.We will mention these examples explicitly in the revised text.

      P20 - Extra ')' in the sentence "Adjacent indels were merged if their frequencies differed by less than 10%)."

      Response:

      We will fix this in revision.

      In the discussion, it might be good to add a paragraph to compare the rate and spectra reported here and the ones found by MA and then NGS approach(e.g., Zhu et al. 2014).

      Response:

      We’ll be sure to add a reference to the Zhu et al. (2014) spectrum in the discussion, extending our existing comparison of mutation spectra previously reported using CAN1 (Lang and Murray, 2008) and the MA approach (Sharp et al., 2018) (currently discussed on the second to last paragraph on page 17, Supplementary Figure S13). Our CAN1 method also obtains results that are consistent with the Lang et al 2008 study on the same control strain (the last paragraph on page 11).

      Reviewer #2 (Significance (Required)): The significance of this manuscript will be relatively specific to evolutionary biologists and geneticists, especially those who use yeasts as a model system. For example, I expect the variation of mutation rates and spectra found in this manuscript will impact the following population-genetic analysis in this collection of 1011 strains and motivate more studies on the molecular machineries which affect mutation rates and spectra.

      In addition, in terms of methodological novelty, adding a novel step of reporter-gene sequencing is a reasonable way to get some information on mutation spectra as it is less labor-intensive than NGS of MAs. Other statistical or experimental procedures in this manuscript mostly follow the approaches which have been developed in previous literature and thus show not much novelty.

      Response:

      We thank the reviewer for this positive assessment. Since evolutionary biology, population genetics, and model organism genetics are three of eLife’s major focus areas, we are hoping to communicate our results to this journal’s broad audience rather than restrict ourselves to a journal focusing too narrowly on just one of these focus areas.

      Reviewer #3:

      **Summary** The authors show that certain yeast strains have altered mutation rates/bias. The study is well motivated, genetic variation in mutation rates are not easily uncovered, and capitalizes on yeast and a high-throughput mutation rate/bias method that validates findings of C>A bias from yeast polymorphism data. The results are solid and clearly presented and I have no major concerns.

      Response:

      We are very grateful for this positive response. Please find our response to each minor comment below.

      **Major comments** None

      **Minor comments** Should have comma: "In addition, environmental ..."

      Response:

      We will fix this in revision.

      Using S. paradoxus to classify derived vs ancestral alleles may not work as well as allele frequency. A 1/100 rare variant is 100x more likely derived than common variant. But with S. paradoxus divergence of say 5%, 5% polymorphic sites are misclassified or NA. Of course, since you used both, this is not a concern. But the number of variants included/excluded in each analysis should be reported. Also, I was a bit surprised that the rare variants are more noisy since most variants are rare.

      Response:

      We agree that the heuristic of classifying rare alleles as derived will do the right thing the majority of the time, but this could potentially create artifactual differences between the mutation spectra of different populations because the exact ratio of rare derived alleles to common derived alleles depends on the population’s demographic history and true site frequency spectrum. If two populations had the same mutation spectrum but very different proportions of variants that are polarized incorrectly, this could create the appearance of a mutation spectrum difference where none exists. In the revision, we will be sure to report the total number of variants filtered because of the variation present in S. paradoxus.

      The reviewer is right to point out that rare variants are generally more abundant than common variants, but this pattern is much more pronounced in a species like humans that has undergone recent population expansion than it appears to be in S. cerevisiae, which appears to have a higher proportion of older, shared variation. We hope this clarifies why the rare variant mutation spectrum PCA appears noisier than the plot made from variation across more frequency categories.

      In regards to variation in mutation rate based on canavanine resistanct. There is a caveat that some strains may be more canavanine resistant - due to differences in transporter abundanced or some other aspect of metabolism. Thus, the same mutation would survive and grow (barely) in one strain background, but not another. This caveat is very unlikely to have much of an impact but it would be worth discussing.

      Response:

      Thanks for pointing this out. We also considered the possibility that our mutation rate estimates could be confounded by slight differences in canavanine resistance between strains, and will address this point in the discussion.

      The explanation for synonymous mutations is hitchhikers or errors. However, they could also disrupt translation, here's one possibility PMC4552401.

      Response:

      Thanks for pointing this out. We will expand our statement on the possible significance of synonymous mutations to include modification of transcription and translation efficiency.

      Are there CAN allele differences between strains? If there are some, it might be worth mentioning why you do/don't think this influences the mutation rate. E.g. CGG is one step from stop but CGT is not.

      Response:

      The reviewer makes a good point that there are segregating differences among these strains in the sequence of CAN1. We plan to add an analysis where we calculate the number of opportunities for missense mutations and nonsense in each strain, as a function of its CAN1 sequence, to put a bound on the amount that these differences could affect our estimates of mutation rates in each strain.

      For the allele counts in Figure 5B. 2 indicates a variant is present in one strain so there are only 9 mutations present in AAR and not found in ANY other strain or just not found in the four listed? Likewise AAR has 36 for count 4, meaning that there are 36 variants present in AAR and one other strain, where other strains are just the 4 shown in the table, or other strains being any of the 1011?

      Response:

      The allele count in Figure 5B represents the number of times the derived allele is present in the whole population. In this case, the whole population refers to the 1011 strains minus 336 strains that are so closely related to other strains in the panel that they are effectively duplicates. An allele of count 2 might be homozygous in AAR and absent from all other strains, or present as one heterozygous copy in AAR as well as one heterozygous copy in another strain. We will explain this more clearly in the revised manuscript.

      "To our knowledge, this is one of the first" This is an odd way to put it and could be rephrased. As it stand you are either the first and not knowledgeable or knowledgeable and not the first.

      Response:

      Thanks. We will revise this to state that to our knowledge, we are the first to report such a discovery.

      "humans, great apes, .." Could you put the citations in the discussion too. I was a little surprised there was no mention of C>A bias as it relates to studies in bacteria and cancer, where there has been a lot of work on mutational spectra. A comment on this literature or whether the C>A biases are not found elsewhere would be nice.

      Response:

      We will add citations and discussion of bacteria and cancer in the revised manuscript. The reviewer is right to point out that C>A mutations do come up in cancer signatures, for example in familial adenomatous polyposis disorders where excision repair of 8-oxoguanine is compromised.

      Reviewer #3 (Significance (Required)):

      I am an evolutionary geneticist with expertise in genomics and bioinformatics. In addition to reviewing papers I also regularly handle papers as an editor. The manuscript provides rare insight into population variation in mutation rates. While differences in mutational biases are well known between species and in some cases within a species, we typically don't know what causes this biases. Environmental factors are often thought to be involved; this work clearly shows that genetic (mutator strains) exist and impact polymorphism in yeast. The manuscript does a nice job in the introduction of explaining the background on mutation rate research and motivation for the work. It also clear explains the advantage of an experimental highthroughput mutation rate/spectra approach. Thus, I believe this new angle on a long-standing problem will be of interest to the community of evolutionary geneticists outside of yeast researchers.

      Response:

      We appreciate this very generous assessment, thank you!

      Reference

      Freeland, S. J. and Hurst, L. D. (1998) ‘The genetic code is one in a million’, Journal of molecular evolution, 47(3), pp. 238–248.

      Lang, G. I. and Murray, A. W. (2008) ‘Estimating the Per-Base-Pair Mutation Rate in the Yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae’, Genetics, 178(1), pp. 67–82.

      Sharp, N. P. et al. (2018) ‘The genome-wide rate and spectrum of spontaneous mutations differ between haploid and diploid yeast’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 115(22), pp. E5046–E5055.

      Zhu, Y. O. et al. (2014) ‘Precise estimates of mutation rate and spectrum in yeast’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 111(22), pp. E2310–8.

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      Referee #3

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      Summary

      The authors show that certain yeast strains have altered mutation rates/bias. The study is well motivated, genetic variation in mutation rates are not easily uncovered, and capitalizes on yeast and a high-throughput mutation rate/bias method that validates findings of C>A bias from yeast polymorphism data. The results are solid and clearly presented and I have no major concerns.

      Major comments

      None

      Minor comments

      Should have comma: "In addition, environmental ..."

      Using S. paradoxus to classify derived vs ancestral alleles may not work as well as allele frequency. A 1/100 rare variant is 100x more likely derived than common variant. But with S. paradoxus divergence of say 5%, 5% polymorphic sites are misclassified or NA. Of course, since you used both, this is not a concern. But the number of variants included/excluded in each analysis should be reported. Also, I was a bit surprised that the rare variants are more noisy since most variants are rare.

      In regards to variation in mutation rate based on canavanine resistanct. There is a caveat that some strains may be more canavanine resistant - due to differences in transporter abundanced or some other aspect of metabolism. Thus, the same mutation would survive and grow (barely) in one strain background, but not another. This caveat is very unlikely to have much of an impact but it would be worth discussing.

      The explanation for synonymous mutations is hitchhikers or errors. However, they could also disrupt translation, here's one possibility PMC4552401.

      Are there CAN allele differences between strains? If there are some, it might be worth mentioning why you do/don't think this influences the mutation rate. E.g. CGG is one step from stop but CGT is not.

      For the allele counts in Figure 5B. 2 indicates a variant is present in one strain so there are only 9 mutations present in AAR and not found in ANY other strain or just not found in the four listed? Likewise AAR has 36 for count 4, meaning that there are 36 variants present in AAR and one other strain, where other strains are just the 4 shown in the table, or other strains being any of the 1011?

      "To our knowledge, this is one of the first" This is an odd way to put it and could be rephrased. As it stand you are either the first and not knowledgeable or knowledgeable and not the first.

      "humans, great apes, .." Could you put the citations in the discussion too. I was a little surprised there was no mention of C>A bias as it relates to studies in bacteria and cancer, where there has been a lot of work on mutational spectra. A comment on this literature or whether the C>A biases are not found elsewhere would be nice.

      Significance

      I am an evolutionary geneticist with expertise in genomics and bioinformatics. In addition to reviewing papers I also regularly handle papers as an editor. The manuscript provides rare insight into population variation in mutation rates. While differences in mutational biases are well known between species and in some cases within a species, we typically don't know what causes this biases. Environmental factors are often thought to be involved; this work clearly shows that genetic (mutator strains) exist and impact polymorphism in yeast. The manuscript does a nice job in the introduction of explaining the background on mutation rate research and motivation for the work. It also clear explains the advantage of an experimental highthroughput mutation rate/spectra approach. Thus, I believe this new angle on a long-standing problem will be of interest to the community of evolutionary geneticists outside of yeast researchers.

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      Reply to the reviewers

      Answers to the reviewers’ comments

      We deeply appreciate the reviewers for their thoughtful, critical and constructive comments, which have undoubtedly provided us with valuable opportunities to improve our manuscript.

      Reviewer #1 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      Extravasation of lymphocytes from HEV in the lymph nodes is mediated by the interaction between lymphocyte L-selectin and PNAd-carrying sulfated sugars expressed by HEVs. Multiple steps of lymphocyte migration interacting with ECs at the luminal side of HEVs have been studied intensively; however, post-luminal migration steps are unclear. In this study, using intravital confocal microscopy of peripheral lymph nodes (pLNs), the authors found that GlcNAc6ST1 deficiency, required for sulfation of PNAd, delays trans-fibroblastic reticular cell (FRC) migration of lymphocytes, and hot spots of trans-HEV EC migration and trans-FRC migration. Interestingly, hot spots of trans-FRC migration are often associated with dendritic cells (DCs). Thus, the authors concluded that FRCs delicately regulate the transmigration of T and B cells across the HEV wall, which could be mediated by perivascular DCs.

      **Main comments**

      1. This study focused on pLNs, which are quite different from mesenteric lymph nodes (mLNs) in many ways. The authors should include mLNs in their study to make the general statement with regard to the T/B cell entry into lymph nodes. In addition, it will be more significant if this study includes challenged pLNs.

      We thank the reviewer for raising the important point. We agree that mesenteric lymph nodes are quite different from peripheral lymph node that this study focuses on. Therefore, we specified the popliteal or peripheral lymph node in the revised manuscript as follows.

      In the Abstract (page 2), “… Herein, we performed intravital imaging to investigate post-luminal T and B cell migration in popliteal lymph node, consisting of trans-EC migration, crawling in the perivascular channel (a narrow space between ECs and FRCs) and trans-FRC migration. … These results suggest that HEV ECs and FRCs with perivascular DCs delicately regulate T and B cell entry into peripheral lymph nodes.”

      In the Introduction (page 4), “Herein, we clearly visualized the multiple steps of post-luminal T and B cell migration in popliteal lymph node, including trans-EC migration, intra-PVC crawling and trans-FRC migration, using intravital confocal microscopy and fluorescent labelling of ECs and FRCs with different colours.

      In the Discussion (page 21), “… These results imply that pericyte-like FRCs, the second cellular barrier of HEVs, regulate the entry of T and B cells to maintain peripheral lymph node homeostasis more precisely and restrictively than we previously thought.”

      In addition, we discussed the difference in lymphocyte migration across HEVs between peripheral lymph node, mesenteric lymph node, and peyer’s patches in the Discussion of the revised manuscript. We also discussed inflamed lymph nodes in the Discussion as follows.

      In the Discussion (page 20), “… Although this work focused on peripheral lymph node, the other lymphoid organs have different lymphocyte homing efficiency61 due to organ-specific gene expression on HEVs62. B cells home better to mesenteric lymph nodes and peyer’s patches than peripheral lymph nodes61 by CD22-binding glycans expressed preferentially on the HEVs of mesenteric lymph nodes and peyer’s patches62.

      Inflamed peripheral lymph node become larger by recruiting more lymphocytes and even L-selectin-negative leukocytes that are excluded in the steady state63,64. Inflamed HEV ECs show different gene expression, such as downregulation of GLYCAM1 and GlcNAc6ST-160. In addition, inflamed HEV integrity may be loosen due to markedly increased leukocyte influx although the HEV FRCs can prevent bleeding by interacting with platelet CLEC-248. CD11c+ DCs are associated with inflamed HEV EC proliferation that is functionally associated with increased leukocyte entry65. The stepwise migration of lymphocyte across inflamed HEVs and their hot spots with perivascular CD11+ DCs will be interesting topic for future study.”

      The finding that GlcNAc6ST1 deficiency delays lymphocyte trans-FRC migration but not trans-HEV EC migration is surprising. However, the reason this occurs is neither shown nor discussed. Is GlcNAc6ST1 also expressed in FRCs? Or does GlcNAc6ST1 expression on HEV license lymphocytes to transmigrate across FRCs?

      This is valid point to be addressed. GlcNAc6ST-1 is predominantly involved in PNAd expression on the abluminal side rather than on the luminal side. Therefore, our results that GlcNAc6ST-1 deficiency increased the time required for trans-FRC migration but not that for trans-EC migration, could be attributable to deficiency of GlcNAc6ST-1-synthesizing L-selectin ligands in the abluminal side of HEV.

      In addition to PNAd expression in the luminal and abluminal sides of endothelial cells in HEV, PNAd expression has been observed in reticular network close to HEV as following figures. We believe that PNAds are expressed in FRCs close to HEV and can affect lymphocyte migration such as trans-FRC migration and parenchymal migration. By looking at the data (Table S1, Rodda et al., Immunity 2008), GlcNAc6ST-1 (Chst2) is expressed in T-cell-zone reticular cells while GlcNAc6ST-2 (Chst4) is absent. Therefore, it is presumable that FRC-expressed GlcNAc6ST1 may regulate trans-FRC migration in some extent.

      Figures. PNAD expression on HEVs (arrows) and reticular network (arrow heads) close to the HEVs

      We included these points in the Discussion of the revised manuscript (page 15) as follows.

      “… GlcNAc6ST-1 is predominantly involved in PNAd expression on the abluminal side rather than on the luminal side, although GlcNAc6ST-1 deficiency also modestly affects the luminal migration of lymphocytes by increasing the rolling velocity9. GlcNAc6ST-1 deficiency increased the time required for trans-FRC migration but not that for trans-EC migration. This could be attributable to deficiency of GlcNAc6ST-1-synthesizing L-selectin ligands in the abluminal side of HEV. In addition to the abluminal side of HEV endothelial cells, FRCs also express GlcNAc6ST-1, but not GlcNAc6ST-227, implying that FRC-expressed GlcNAc6ST-1 may regulate trans-FRC migration in some extent. … Thus, PNAds expressed at the endothelial junction and on the abluminal side of HEVs facilitate the efficient transmigration of lymphocytes across the HEV wall but do not slow transmigration in the perivascular region. GlcNAc6ST-1 deficiency and MECA79 antibody also decreased the parenchymal B and T cell velocities immediately after extravasation, respectively, probably because of blockade of parenchymal expression of PNAd in close proximity to HEV6,21,28.”

      Because of the adoptive transfusion experiment, the actual number of transmigrating lymphocytes in Fig. 3F is underestimated.

      We agree with the reviewer’s comment. We corrected the y-axis label in Fig. 3F from ‘average number of cells transmigrating at one site’ to ‘average number of labeled cells transmigrating at one site.’

      Whether DCs covering FRCs have a role for lymphocyte trans-migration is not shown.

      We leaved this work as future research and discussed about the potential mechanisms in the Discussion (page 17-18) that the DC may regulate lymphocyte entering by interacting FRC with LTβR or CLEC-2 signaling. We also included ‘Martinez et al Cell Rep 2019 (ref.51)’ in the discussion of the revised manuscript (page 18). In addition, we also discussed about better characterization of the CD11c+ DC in the Discussion of the revised manuscript (page 19) as follows.

      In the Discussion (page 18), “The podoplanin of FRCs also controls FRC contractility49,50 and ECM production51 by interacting with the CLEC-2 of DCs in inflamed lymph nodes. In the steady state, resident DCs in lymph nodes express CLEC-252. Thus, it is conceivable that CLEC-2+ resident DCs may control the contractility of FRCs and remodel ECM surrounding HEVs to facilitate the trans-FRC migration of T and B cells. Thus, the CLEC-2/podoplanin signalling may represent a key molecular mechanism underlying our discovery that trans-FRC migration hot spots preferentially occur at FRCs covered by CD11c+ DCs.”

      In the Discussion (page 19), “… In addition, better characterization of the CD11c+ DCs located in the hot spots of HEVs is required to differentiate them from the other CD11c+ DCs observed in the non-hot-spot regions of HEVs. Some T-cell-zone resident macrophages can also express CD11c54. Imaging of a triple-transgenic mouse with Zbtb46-cre;tdTomato and CD11b-GFP will be able to differentiate 3 types of DCs and macrophages potentially associated with the hot spots: Zbtb46+CD11b- cDC1, Zbtb46+CD11b+ cDC2, and Zbtb46-CD11b+ macrophage54,55.”

      In Fig. 1, time required for trans HEV EC migration and trans-FRC migration of T cells is shorter than that of B cells; however, this finding is not observed in Fig. 2C and E.

      Although the statistical comparison between T and B cells are not shown in Fig. 2C-F and S5., there are actually significant difference between T and B cells, which are similar results as Fig. 1 except for the dwell time in PVC. P values between T and B cells in wildtype mice are 0.0003, In the Result (page 6), “… The mean velocity of T cells (5.3 ± 1.7 μm/min) was significantly higher than that of B cells (4.1 ± 1.4 μm/min) during intra-PVC migration (Fig. 1E), while the dwell time and total path length in the PVC were not significantly different between T and B cells (Fig. 1, H and I). Similar results were obtained when both cells were imaged simultaneously, except that B cells had significant longer dwell time than T cells (Fig. 2C-F and Fig. S5). Interestingly, more than half of the T and B cells crawled from 50 μm to 350 μm inside the PVC (Fig. 1I), …”

      In the legend of Fig. 2, “… P values between T and B cells in wild-type mice were 0.0003 (C), …”

      In the legend of Fig. S5, “… P values between T and B cells in wild-type mice were 0.0240 (A), 0.3614 (B), 0.7518 (C) and 0.1337 (D). …”

      **Minor comments**

      1. Please provide evidence for GlcNAc6ST1 deficiency in HEV and surrounding tissues.

      Previous studies (Uchimura et al., JBC 2004, Nat. Immunol. 2005; ref9 and 10, respectively, in the manuscript) confirmed systemic deficiency of GlcNAc6ST-1 in peripheral lymph nodes of the GlcNAc6ST-1 KO mice.

      Images for delayed trans-FRC migration in GlcNAc6ST1 KO mice relative to WT are not convincing (Fig. 2G and H).

      We think the reason why the images look unconvincing is probably because it is not easy to quickly determine the images corresponding to the trans-FRC migration in the image sequence. To make the transmigration images easier to recognize, we added arrow heads indicating the transmigration site in Fig. 2G and 2H, and Fig. S4 as follows.

      Provide actual time periods required for Fig. 3F and G. Lack of isotype control IgG experiment in Fig. S3.

      We added the time periods (3 hours) in the figure legend as follows.

      “… (F) Average numbers of labeled T and B cells transmigrating at one site for 3 hours. (G) Ratio of hot spots to total transmigration sites for 3 hours. …”

      The purpose of Fig. S3 was to confirm that the anti-ER-TR7 antibody injection for labeling FRC do not alter normal T cell motility, rather than to confirm the function of ER-TR7. Therefore, we used non-injected group as control rather than control antibody injection group.

      Line 12 on page 11, "the ratio of hot spots to the total “observed” transmigration sites..." is not appropriate. The ratio must be calculated by hot spots to the total "potential" transmigration sites, although it is challenging to find total potential sites.

      We corrected the expression from ‘the total observed transmigration sites’ to ‘the total potential transmigration sites’.

      Please correct typos of angiomoduin to angiomodulin (page 16), ET-TR7 to ER-TR7 (page 17), Anti-CD3 to anti-CD3 (page 22), half the dose to half dose (page 22), the Multiple step to the multiple step (page 23).

      We thank the reviewer for finding those errors. We corrected them and performed proofreading repeatedly to correct typos and grammatic errors.

      Please provide an additional explanation of why actin-DsRed in HEVs is more strongly expressed than surrounding tissues such as FRCs in Fig. 1 although actin-DsRed should be expressed in all cell types in mice.

      We were also surprised when we found that HEV ECs expressed red fluorescence more strongly compared to surrounding tissues. Although the other cells such as FRCs and endogenous lymphocytes also express DsRed under control of a promotor gene, beta-actin, we believe that HEV ECs express more strongly, which is sufficient to image only HEV-EC by adjusting an image contrast. We revised the explanation of this point in the Methods (page 21) as follows.

      “HEV ECs of actin-DsRed mouse popliteal lymph node expressed red fluorescence much stronger than the surrounding stromal cells and endogenous lymphocytes, which was sufficient to image only HEV ECs by adjusting an image contrast (Fig. 1, A and B).”

      Reviewer #1 (Significance (Required)):

      The study focused on lymphocytes post extravasation of HEV, which is an understudied question, using intravital imaging. The in vivo imaging study was deliberately and beautifully performed, and the finding is insightful for understanding lymphocyte trafficking in lymph nodes. However, additional experimental should be performed to address some weaknesses listed in our comments.

      Reviewer #2 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      The present study by K. Choe meticulously monitored the stepwise transmigration behavior of T cells and B cells, respectively, through the high endothelial venules of the mouse popliteal lymph node using the laser scanning confocal microscopy. In particular, the study focused on the post-luminal migration of T and B cells and reported the following. (1) Mice deficient in GlcNAc6ST-1 which is necessary for PNAd expression on the abluminal side of HEV showed significantly reduced abluminal migration of both T and B cells, (2) the footpad injection of the ER-TR7 antibody did not affect T cell transmigration across HEVs but marginally increased the parenchymal T cell velocity when compared with injection of control antibody, (3) T cells and B cells tended to share FRC migration hot spots but this was not the case with trans-EC migration hot spot, (4) the trans-FRC migration was observed at the FRCs closely associated with CD11c+ dendritic cells in HEV.

      While the present study is obviously the product of very meticulous and time-consuming work, it basically describes only a phenomenology, just reporting the lymphocyte behavior within and outside lymph node HEVs, without sufficiently analyzing the mechanistic aspect of the individual event they observed. The only antibody blocking experiments they performed to obtain mechanistic insights was by the use of commercially available monoclonal antibodies, all of which unfortunately contained a preservative, sodium azide, which potently blocks lymphocyte migration in vivo (Freitas AA & Bognacki J, Immunol 36:247, 1979). Therefore, the results of these antibody blocking experiments cannot be taken at face value.

      We thank the reviewer for raising the important point. Freitas et al used pre-treated lymphocytes with sodium azide in vitro for 1 hour while we injected the antibody into the footpad of recipient mouse 3 hours before lymphocyte injection via tail vein and imaging. Sodium azide might be highly diluted in vivo condition. In addition, Fig. S3 shows no significant difference in T cell migration in HEV between anti-ER-TR7 antibody-injected and non-injected groups although the anti-ER-TR7 antibody also contains sodium azide. We believe that the effect of sodium azide on our convincing results of the PNAd-blocking antibody compared to the control antibody (Fig. S8) may be insignificant. The potential side effect of sodium azide was mentioned in the Methods of the revised manuscript (page 22) as follows.

      “All antibodies we used contains sodium azide that has potential side effects on lymphocyte migration in lymph node57. However, Fig. S3 shows no significant difference in T cell migration in HEV between anti-ER-TR7-injected and non-injected groups.”

      Reviewer #2 (Significance (Required)):

      Real time imaging experiments were performed very carefully. However, as mentioned above, authors used sodium azide-containing antibodies for blocking experiments, and hence, these experiments cannot be interpreted properly.

      Reviewer #3 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      This study presents a detailed investigation of T and B cell entry into lymph nodes (LN) via HEV. Substantial high quality intravital imaging is used to examine trans-EC and trans-FRC migration and define the role of PNAds in this process. The authors find that T and B cells use 'hot spots' to cross EC and FRC barriers, which supports prior similar observations by others. They also show that where T and B cells cross EC and FRC layers can differ, with regions of shared trans-FRC migration but more distinct EC crossing sites. This may relate to differences in the structure of these cellular layers, but provides novel insight into the mechanisms of cell entry into LNs via HEV. Assessment of the dependence on PNAd using antibodies or GlcNAc6ST-1 KO mice revealed perivascular and parenchymal cell behavior is also influenced by these signals. Lastly, examination of DCs that sit on the perivascular FRCs suggested that cells may prefer to cross at sites co-localized by DCs, although the reasons for this are not explored.

      This is a well performed study, with high quality imaging data and analysis. The results are convincing, with sufficient numbers of mice and adequate statistical analysis. There are a number of minor grammatical errors throughout the text, which should be easy to fix.

      We thank the reviewer for the positive evaluation. We carefully performed proofreading repeatedly to correct typos and grammatical errors.

      Reviewer #3 (Significance (Required)):

      Although 'hot spots' have been proposed by others, this detailed analysis provides new knowledge of how lymphocytes can cross the HEV and FRC barriers to enter LNs. This is an important study to advance our understanding of cell recruitment to lymph nodes. The role of perivascular and parenchymal PNAd signals observed here should also be of interest to immunologists to help define the signals required for immune cell motility in tissues.

      Reviewer #4 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      The authors have used a combination of intravital confocal imaging and transgenic models to study the migration of T and B cells through the HEVs. They move on from Moscacci et al. and Park et al., studies on lymphocyte migration. This study focuses on visualization and molecular mechanism of post-trans-EC migration, including the intra-PVC and trans-FRC migration of T and B cells in HEVs. They have been able to show how lymphocytes migrate through the HEV into the parenchyma. Using the GlcNAc6sT-1 (catalyst for sulfation of PNAds) KO model (and MECA control for PNAds blocking) they identify the role of L-selectin/PNAd for lymphocyte transmigration. The identification of hot spots of T and B cell transmigration in HEVs is novel and extremely interesting for the field however the data shown is not entirely convincing in their current form. The hot spots were defined as areas where the lymphocytes migrate through the HEV epithelial cells and pericyte (FRC) regions. These are areas where migration was greatly shared T and B cells. Using the CD11c-YFP mouse model they identified CD11c+ cells in proximity to the FRCs located at the migration hotspots which can drive further speculation regarding the mechanism by which these areas of the HEVs are more permissive.

      **Major comments**

      1) Intravital imaging of T and B cell transmigration across HEVS composed of ECs and FRCs

      • Figure 1: The authors mention that they performed similar experiments for B cells. Authors should show comparative data for T cells and B cells.

      • Panel S1B should be provided for both T and B cells in figure 1.

      We added the image sequence of B cell migration and the panels (Fig S1B of previous manuscript) showing intra-PVC segments of T or B cells in Fig. 1C of the revised manuscript as follows.

      2) T and B cells preferentially share hotspots for trans-FRC migration not EC-migration

      • Figure 4: This data is important to the storyline but as presented it is difficult to understand. Results are overstated in the text however it is difficult to see where these conclusions come from based on the figure. In Figure 4B the authors should show percentages on the Venn diagram or remove it entirely. In Figure 4C the authors should add labels to their y-axis and separate the data in order to assist with the storyline and convince of the presence of hot spots.

      We agree with the reviewer’s opinion. We removed the Venn diagram, separated the Fig. 4C into 4B and 4C, and added y-axis labels in the figures. In addition, we revised the figure legends and the text in the Results to make it easier to understand as follows.

      In the figure legend, “…(B-C) The round and diamond symbols represent predicted and observed values, respectively, for the percentage of T cell hot spots in B cell hot spots (B), for the percentage of B cell hot spots in T cell hot spots (C). …”

      In the Results (page12), “Simultaneously imaging T and B cells showed that some T and B cells transmigrated across FRCs at the same site (Fig. 4A and Movie S8). To investigate whether T and B cells share their hot spots preferentially or accidentally, we compared the percentage of T cell hot spots in total B cell hot spots (diamond symbols in Fig. 4B) with its predicted value that is the possibility of accidently sharing T and B cell hot spots (round symbols in Fig. 4B). The predicted value can be calculated as the percentage of T cell hot spots in total transmigration sites. To note, the percentage of hot spots in total sites for trans-FRC migration was higher than that for trans-EC migration (Fig. 3G and round symbols in Fig. 4B) maybe because the number of trans-FRC migration sites was less than that of trans-EC migration sites. It implies that the possibility of accidently sharing T and B cell hot spots for trans-FRC migration is higher than that for trans-EC migration. However, surprisingly, the percentage of T cell hot spots in B cell hot spots was significantly higher than its predicted value of accidently sharing hot spots for trans-FRC migration (Fig. 4B). Similarly, the percentage of B cell hot spots in T cell hot spots was also significantly higher than its predicted value for trans-FRC migration (Fig. 4C). These results imply that T and B cells preferentially share trans-FRC migration hot spots beyond the prediction for accidently sharing. However, there were no significant differences between observed and predicted values for trans-EC migration (Fig. 4B and 4C), which implies T and B cells just accidently share their trans-EC migration hot spots.”

      3) T and B cells prefer to transmigrate across FRCs covered by perivascular CD11c+ DCs

      • DCs drive changes to FRC phenotype and contractility. The interaction between CLEC-2 (on DCs and platelets) is important for driving permeability of the HEVs. The authors use the CD11c-YFP mouse model in Figure 5 (and the supporting figures) to show the proximity of the CD11c+ cells and FRCs. Data from Baratin et al., (Immunity, 2017) suggest that CD11c+ cells in the parenchyma are also T cell zone macrophages (TZMs) that were previously characterized as DCs. Macrophages have previously been shown important for perivascular transmigration of neutrophils during bacterial skin infection (Abtin et al.2014- Nat Immun). CD11c-YFP alone does not show the cells proximal to FRCs are DCs so the authors should try to stain them with CLEC-2 or use the CLEC9a-cre mouse model to better characterise these cells.

      We thank the reviewer for raising important point. We agree that the perivascular CD11c+ cells could be T-cell-zone macrophages (TZMs). Better characterization of the CD11c+ cells located in the hot spots of HEVs is required to determine if they are DCs or macrophages, and also to differentiate them from the other CD11c+ cells observed in the non-hot-spot regions of the HEVs. To differentiate DCs from TZMs, Zbtb46-GFP mouse can be used for imaging because Zbtb46-GFP are highly expressed in conventional DCs (cDCs) but not monocytes, macrophages, or other lymphoid or myeloid lineages (Satpathy et al, JEM 2012). However, endothelial cells also express Zbtb46-GFP. To visualize only DCs in HEVs, we need to make a chimeric mouse by adoptive transfer of Zbtb46-GFP bone-marrow cells into irradiated wild-type mouse. Furthermore, using a triple transgenic mouse with Zbtb46-cre;tdTomato and CD11b-GFP will be able to differentiate 3 types of DCs and TZMs potentially associated with the hot spots: Zbtb46+CD11b- cDC1 (red), Zbtb46+CD11b+ cDC2 (yellow), and Zbtb46-CD11b+ macrophage (green). However, since generation or obtaining of those transgenic mice models including CLEC9a-cre mouse will take long time, we will leave this work as future research and discussed this point in the Discussion of the revised manuscript as follows. In addition, we think that it will be difficult to differentiate the CLEC2 of perivascular DCs from that of platelets by in vivo labeling by injection of anti-CLEC2 antibody conjugated with a fluorescent dye because the CLEC2 of platelets maintains HEV integrity with interacting of FRC podoplanin (Herzog et al, Nature 2013).

      In the Discussion (page 19), “… In addition, better characterization of the CD11c+ DCs located in the hot spots of HEVs is required to differentiate them from the other CD11c+ DCs observed in the non-hot-spot regions of HEVs. Some T-cell-zone resident macrophages can also express CD11c54. Imaging of a triple-transgenic mouse with Zbtb46-cre;tdTomato and CD11b-GFP will be able to differentiate 3 types of DCs and macrophages potentially associated with the hot spots: Zbtb46+CD11b- cDC1 (red), Zbtb46+CD11b+ cDC2 (yellow), and Zbtb46-CD11b+ macrophage (green)54,55.”

      **Minor comments**

      1) Intravital imaging of T and B cell transmigration across HEVS composed of ECs and FRCs

      • The velocity differences observed could be due to location of HEV in the parenchyma. Furthermore, FRC plasticity can cause differences in secretion of chemokine gradients based on the location of cells and their niche (Rhoda et al., Immunity 2018). HEVs regulation of lymphocyte entry can be influenced by their niche (Veerman et al., Cell Reports 2019). The authors should comment on the HEV position relative to B cell areas.

      We included this point with the references (Rhoda et al, immunity 2018, ref 27; Veerman et al., Cell Rep. 2019, ref 60) in the Discussion of the revised manuscript (page 19-20) as follows.

      “Compared to T cell, B cells took a longer time to pass EC and FRC layers in HEV and had lower velocity in PVC and parenchyma just after extravasation. Furthermore, the adhesion rate of B cells to HEV EC in luminal side is lower than that of T cells5. These could be attributed to lower expression of L-selectin and CCR7 on B cells than T cells18,59. The difference in homing efficiency between T and B cells may vary depending on the HEV location due to the heterogeneous expression of chemokines and integrins on HEV EC and surrounding FRCs in peripheral lymph node27,60. The HEVs imaged in this work were located around 40-70 μm depth from the capsule where might be close to B cell follicles. B cell homing efficiency in the deeper paracortical T cell zone could be different from our data probably due to less CXCL13 that is chemoattractant for B cells highly expressed in follicles. …”

      • Images shown in Fig1A is the same as Fig S1A/B. I presume this is an error.

      Fig. 1A and Fig. S1A correspond to a 20-um-thick maximum intensity projection and single z-frame without projection, respectively. To avoid the confusion, we changed Fig.1A to the single z-frame (Fig S1A) and remove the 20-um thick maximum projection.

      • Figure S3: Data for Ab treated appears to be identical to what is shown for T cells in Fig 1. I presume this is an error and the correct control will be shown.

      We used the data of Fig. 1D-1I as the Ab-injected group in Fig. S3. We are sorry for the lack of clear explanation about this. We included the explanation in the figure legend as follows.

      In the legend of Fig. S3, “(A-E) There is no significant difference between antibody-injected group (Ab) and non-injected group (Non) in T cell migration from trans-EC migration to trans-FRC migration. Non-injected means that no substance is injected into a footpad of mouse. We used the data of Fig. 1D-1I as the antibody-injected group. …”

      2) Non-redundant role of L-selectin/PNAd interactions in post-luminal migration of T and B cells in HEV

      • Could the authors clarify the number of mice used for this analysis (same applies to figure 1)

      In the legends of Fig. 1-2, S6 and S8, there is the number of mice we used. In Fig. 1, “Four and 3 mice were used for the analysis of T and B cells, respectively.” In Fig. 2, “Four mice were analysed for each group.” In Fig. S6, “Three mice were analysed for each group.” In Fig. S8, “Five and 4 mice were analysed for the control Ab and MECA79 groups, respectively.”

      In addition, we added the number of mice in the legend of Fig. S7. In Fig. S7, “The images are representative of 4 popliteal lymph nodes of 2 mice and 2 popliteal lymph nodes of a mouse for MECA79 and control IgM antibody, respectively.”

      • Figure S6: further to percentages of T cell populations the authors should also provide the number of T cells (CD4, CD8, CM and naive) for both wildtype and KO.

      We included the analyzed cell number by FACS in Fig. S6 and revised the figure legend as follows.

      In the Fig. S6, “… (B) Analyzed cell numbers by FACS for 3 control and 3 KO mice. (C) Percentage of each type of T cells in DsRed+ T cells. No difference in the percentage of homing central memory, Naïve CD4 and CD8 T cells between wild-type and KO mice. …”

      **Methods** for the flow cytometry analysis could the details of how samples were processed (or reference) be provided.

      We added the details in the Methods (page 24) as follows.

      “Popliteal and inguinal lymph nodes were harvested and single-cell suspensions were prepared by mechanical dissociation on a cell strainer (RPMI-1640 with 10% FBS). Cell suspensions were centrifuged at 300g for 5 min. Erythrocytes in lymph nodes were lysed with ACK lysis buffer for 5 min at RT. Cell suspensions were washed and filtered through 40um filters. Non-specific staining was reduced by using Fc receptor block (anti-CD16/CD32). Cells were incubated for 30 min with varying combinations of the following fluorophore-conjugated monoclonal antibodies: anti-CD3e (clone 145-2C11, BD pharmigen), anti-CD4 (clone GK1.5, BD Pharmingen), anti-CD8 (clone 53-6.7, eBioscience), anti-CD44 (clone IM7, Biolegend) and anti-CD62L (clone MEL-14, eBioscience) antibodies (diluted at a ratio of 1:200) in FACS buffer (5% bovine serum in PBS). After several washes, cells were analyzed by FACS Canto II (BD Biosciences) and the acquired data were further evaluated by using FlowJo software (Treestar).

      **References:** The discussion covers key references in the field, but more recent studies should be included. Some examples have been suggested in the comments sections. Key references missing that can help discussion/interpretation of the data include: 1) Veerman et al 2019, Cell reports. The data in that paper shows the heterogeneity of the HEV and different regulation of genes that control lymphocyte entry. This can also be linked to the comments above regarding section 1 and 2. 2) Rhodda et al 2018, Immunity that focuses on niche-associated heterogeneity of lymph node stromal cells. The authors should also include Webster et al., 2006, JEM which describes the role of DCs in regulating vascular growth in the lymph node.

      We thank the reviewer for suggesting good references to discuss. We included the references #1 and #2 in the revised manuscript as we responded to the minor comment #1. We also cited Webster et al., JEM 2006 (as ref 65) in the Discussion of the revised manuscript (page 20) as follows.

      “Inflamed peripheral lymph node become larger by recruiting more lymphocytes and even L-selectin-negative leukocytes that are excluded in the steady state63,64. Inflamed HEV ECs show different gene expression, such as downregulation of GLYCAM1 and GlcNAc6ST-160. In addition, inflamed HEV integrity may be loosen due to markedly increased leukocyte influx although the HEV FRCs can prevent bleeding by interacting with platelet CLEC-248. CD11c+ DCs are associated with inflamed HEV EC proliferation that is functionally associated with increased leukocyte entry65. The stepwise migration of lymphocyte across inflamed HEVs and their hot spots with perivascular CD11+ DCs will be interesting topic for future study.”

      Reviewer #4 (Significance (Required)):

      This paper asks important questions and can make a significant contribution to the field if all revisions are addressed. The authors identified PNAd as an important factor for T cell migration. Further to previous studies in the field suggesting non-random transmigration sites. The authors used intra-vital confocal imaging to identify how lymphocytes cross the epithelial cells and FRCs of the HEVs to migrate to the parenchyma. The authors identify hotspots used by lymphocytes to transmigrate. Finally, the authors show that CD11c+ cells are proximal to FRCs hotspots and might have a role in driving lymphocyte transmigration.

      Audience: Lymphocyte/immune cell biology, stomal immunology, FRC and lymph node inflammation. My expertise: Stomal immunology, immunology, innate immunity

    1. Soil means “we hope something will grow here.”

      I do agree that soil communicates a sense of hope or opportunity for new growth, but it has a second connotation that I think is more thematically aligned with this essay. Soil may also be understood as an aggregate of decomposed material. These two perspective are obviously related, but it is interesting how the "soil" here is discussed independently of the "land" mentioned earlier in the essay.

    1. Beneficial educational outcomes are also supported byAstin’s (1984)theory of involvement, which suggests that students learn more when they are moreinvolved in both the academic and social aspects of the school experience.

      This comment is really making me think: I feel that we have done so much to move the academic/learning components of schooling online, but it doesn't seem that we have done nearly as much to move the social components of the campus experience online (like campus clubs, social events, etc.). I wonder what the effect would be of having a large, open chatroom (if feasible) on a college's website; one that would sort of simulate or compensate for the types of socializing that students would typically do with one another "in the halls" in between their classes. I recall asking other students for help with things (like navigating the campus and whatnot) in between classes, but now in an online environment, I typically have to locate and fill out a form or send a formal email to get anything answered. There may be a lot of lost opportunities to make friends/acquaintances this way, since all online communications seem more "high stake" and formal in current e-learning environments (for example, most my communications with my classmates are associated with or tied to my grades right now).

    1. ‘If we tend to think of guns...as instruments that aredeliberately used to hurt others, rather than as objects ofsport and enjoyment, the mere presence of a gun...may

      This is true, however it is the person holding the gun; it is not the gun itself.

    Annotators

    1. ‘Mr Wrayburn,’ proceeded the boy, ‘we not only know this that I have charged upon you, but we know more. It has not yet come to my sister’s knowledge that we have found it out, but we have. We had a plan, Mr Headstone and I, for my sister’s education, and for its being advised and overlooked by Mr Headstone, who is a much more competent authority, whatever you may pretend to think, as you smoke, than you could produce, if you tried. Then, what do we find? What do we find, Mr Lightwood? Why, we find that my sister is already being taught, without our knowing it. We find that while my sister gives an unwilling and cold ear to our schemes for her advantage—I, her brother, and Mr Headstone, the most competent authority, as his certificates would easily prove, that could be produced—she is wilfully and willingly profiting by other schemes. Ay, and taking pains, too, for I know what such pains are. And so does Mr Headstone! Well! Somebody pays for this, is a thought that naturally occurs to us; who pays? We apply ourselves to find out, Mr Lightwood, and we find that your friend, this Mr Eugene Wrayburn, here, pays. Then I ask him what right has he to do it, and what does he mean by it, and how comes he to be taking such a liberty without my consent, when I am raising myself in the scale of society by my own exertions and Mr Headstone’s aid, and have no right to have any darkness cast upon my prospects, or any imputation upon my respectability, through my sister?’

      Charley's main grievance seems to be that his sister hasn't consulted him in this. As though he views himself as being very knowledgeable now that he's had schooling, and now he should be the one to be in charge of everything, or as though he sees himself as his sister's superior now. I can also see this as him being protective of his sister, since Wrayburn's intentions are unknown, but because Dickens characterizes this speech as "boyish" and "selfish," I'm more inclined to see Charley as proud than protective.

    1. Note: This rebuttal was posted by the corresponding author to Review Commons. Content has not been altered except for formatting.

      Learn more at Review Commons


      Reply to the reviewers

      We thank both reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions. We propose to address these as described below.

      Reviewer 1

      **Major points:**

      Point 1

      1. A logical question comes up and I do not think the authors addressed, in a human body what happens to the extracted drugs after loading on HDLs? This requires some mentioning in the discussion.

      1. This is indeed a good question. We have now added in the discussion what may happen to the HDL-extracted drugs in a whole organism. It reads as follows: The likely fate of HDL-extracted drugs in humans is that they are carried to the liver by HDLs. Scavenger receptors such as SR-BI expressed by hepatocytes can then bind HDLs carrying the extracted drugs allowing the drugs to be taken up by the cells. In hepatocytes, the drugs may be inactivated and excreted in the bile (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cld.2016.08.001, https://doi.org/10.1161/CIRCRESAHA.119.312617). Point 2

      2. Is the effect specific to the fully mature HDL molecule or do apo-lipoproteins that compose HDLs have similar effects?

      1. This is an interesting question. Apo-AI is the characteristic and most abundant apolipoprotein found in HDLs. It is however not trivial to compare the activities of ApoAI and HDLs because of the difficulty of producing large amounts of ApoAI. In the present paper, the lowest concentration of HDLs that induces drug efflux is 0.125 mM. As there are about 3 molecules of Apo-AI per HDL molecule, we should use 0.375 (3 x 0.125) mM Apo-AI to see if the Apo-AI content of these HDLs can mediate or mimic the drug efflux capacity of the lipoproteins. About 100 mg of recombinant Apo-AI would be required to make 10 ml of a ~0.3 mM Apo-AI cell culture solution. This is an enormous task requiring substantial time and money investment. We are therefore not in a position to perform this experiment that would be of interest but which is not central for supporting the main message of our manuscript. Point 3

      2. What are non-SERCA-mediated effects of TG?

      1. The SERCA-independent toxic effects of TG have been shown to be a consequence of mitochondrial dysfunction resulting from the ability of TG to induce mitochondrial permeability transition (DOI: 10.1046/j.1432-1327.1999.00724.x). This is now mentioned in the discussion. Point 4

      2. Why don't HDLs protect cells from low dose TG despite its removal?

      1. Our data indicate indeed that HDLs do not affect the ability of TG to inhibit SERCA and the low ER stress response that ensues. This can be explained by the fact that very low concentrations of TG inhibit SERCA in an irreversible manner (Ki values of 0.2, 1.3, and 12 nM for SERCA1b, SERCA2b, and SERCA3a, respectively) (DOI:https://doi.org/10.1074/jbc.M510978200). Hence, even though HDLs can remove a substantial amount of TG from cells, the concentration of TG that remains in cells is presumably still sufficient to fully inhibits the SERCA pumps. This explanation is now included in the discussion. Point 5

      Line 144. No information on the siRNA was given (refer to the materials section to guide the reader).

      The siPOOLs we have used correspond, for each targeted gene, to a pool of 30 optimally-designed proprietary siRNAs from Biotech. The company does not disclose the sequences of these siRNAs.

      Minor comments:

      Point 6

      1. There needs to be an abbreviation section. Make sure that you only abbreviate the terms that are used more than once in the text.

      1. An abbreviation list is now provided. Point 7

      2. Lines 104, 277, 283 and anywhere else: use TG instead of thapsigargin.

      1. Thank you for noting this. This has now been done. Point 8

      2. Line 262: you don't have to redefine SERCA.

      1. Done Point 9

      2. I suggest adding structures of the used drugs.

      1. The structures of the drugs used in this work are now presented in Figure S9. Point 10

      2. I suggest using a table for the RT-PCR primers. Protein Direction Number Sequence Description NCBI entryh-SERCA2 Fwd #1612 5'ATG GGG CTC CAA CGA GTT AC nucleotides 648-667 of human SERCA2, variant a NM_001681.4

      1. Thank you for this suggestion that we have now followed and that indeed facilitates the reading of the RT-PCR method section. Point 11

      2. Line 93: DMEM (Gibco; ref 61965-059;) the lot number is missing.

      1. The lot number is now indicated. Point 12

      2. Line 102: 500'000 (and all other thousand numbers) the apostrophe's place is strange.

      1. We have now removed the apostrophe in numbers. Point 13

      2. Line 381: cholesterol carriers.

      1. This typo has now been corrected Reviewer #2 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      **Major concerns**

      Point 14

        1. Figure 2, The authors should perform western blot to evaluate the protein expression levels (not only mRNA levels by Q-PCR)
      1. We have performed these experiments in the past in MIN6 cells (Pétremand et al. Diabetes 2012 May; 61(5): 1100-1111; Figure 2). This earlier work showed that HDLs reduce the induction of TG-induced ER stress markers at the protein (CHOP and BiP) and functionality (IRE1 activity on XBP1 splicing). We will repeat these experiments in DLD1 cells as per the reviewer’s suggestion. Point 15.
      1. Could the authors evaluate whether HDL treatment reduces the amount of SERCA (mRNA/protein) in their cells? The loss of SERCA could explain the reduced accumulation of the BODIPY-TG in the cell?

      We would argue that it is unlikely that a reduction in SERCA expression from cells has any significant impact on TG cell loading as the cell-associated drug is certainly in vast excess compared to the number of SERCA molecules in cells. We will nevertheless perform the requested experiment using DLD-1 cells and assess whether HDLs modulate their SERCA2 expression.

      Point 16.

      1. To generalize their observation, It would have been interesting to test more lipophilic/hydrophilic drugs to quantitatively validate that HDLs are selective of lipophilic drugs.

      We will test 2 new lipophilic (letermovir and lumefantrine) and 2 new hydrophilic drugs (levetiracetam and cefepime) for their ability to be extracted by HDLs (experiment set-up as in Figure 4).

      Point 17.

      1. The ABC transporter part in this manuscript has to be improved with the down-regulation of extinction of ABCA1 and ABCG1 to determine in a comprehensive manner the effect of these transporters in the pro-survival role of HDL.

      We will invalidate the genes encoding ABCA1, ABCB1, ABCG1, and ABCG2 using the CRISPR/Cas9 technology and test the ability of the invalidated cells to promote efflux of thapsigargin to HDLs (experiment set-up as in Figure 6) and to protect them from the drug (experiment set-up as in Figure 6). The choice of the cell lines to be used for the invalidation depends on what ABC transporters they express. No single cell line expresses all four ABC transporters to high levels. The following cell lines will be used because, according to the literature or to the Human Protein Atlas (https://www.proteinatlas.org/), they display strong expression of the indicated transporters: for ABCA1: HCT116; for ABCB1: HEK293T; for ABCG1 and ABCG2: MCF7. For consistency with the experiments already performed in the manuscript, the invalidation will also be performed in the DLD1 cell line.

      **Minor point:** Point 18.

        1. ABCB1 blot in figure 7B is not convincing and should be improved.
      1. We will redo this WB to improve the quality of the blot.
    1. SciScore for 10.1101/2020.10.31.20220608: (What is this?)

      Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

      Table 1: Rigor

      <table><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Institutional Review Board Statement</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">IACUC: The animal study was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of Universidad de Chile, under protocol number 20370–VET–UCH, Biosafety Committee of Facultad de Ciencias Veterinarias y Pecuarias, Universidad de Chile under protocol number 161 and the human study was reviewed and approved under protocol 16-066 Scientific Ethical Committee on Health Sciences of Pontifical Universidad Católica de Chile.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Randomization</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Sequences were aligned to a set of reference SARS-CoV-2 sequences including all Chilean sequences submitted to GISAID(20) (n=167), sequences with highest similarity deposited on GenBank identified using BLAST(21) (n=337), and a total of 1000 sequences randomly selected from the GISAID repository using FastaUtils package in R(22).</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Blinding</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Cell cultures with no CPE were frozen, thawed, and subjected to three blind passages with inoculation of fresh Vero E6 cell cultures with the lysates as described above.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Power Analysis</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Sex as a biological variable</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">On May 2020 a COVID-19 diagnosis was confirmed by SARS-CoV-2 rtRT-PCR for the humans in the studied household – a male of around 30 years old and a female of around 60 years old.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Cell Line Authentication</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr></table>

      Table 2: Resources

      <table><tr><th style="min-width:100px;text-align:center; padding-top:4px;" colspan="2">Antibodies</th></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;text=align:center">Sentences</td><td style="min-width:100px;text-align:center">Resources</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;vertical-align:top;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Serological testing: Serum samples were tested via a commercial ELISA test for SARS-CoV-2 antibody detection, the ID SCREEN® SARS-COV-2 Double Antigen Multi Species(18) (IDVET, Grabels, FRANCE).</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray"><div style="margin-bottom:8px"><div>SARS-CoV-2</div><div>suggested: None</div></div></td></tr><tr><th style="min-width:100px;text-align:center; padding-top:4px;" colspan="2">Experimental Models: Cell Lines</th></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;text=align:center">Sentences</td><td style="min-width:100px;text-align:center">Resources</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;vertical-align:top;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Cell cultures with no CPE were frozen, thawed, and subjected to three blind passages with inoculation of fresh Vero E6 cell cultures with the lysates as described above.</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray"><div style="margin-bottom:8px"><div>Vero E6</div><div>suggested: RRID:CVCL_XD71)</div></div></td></tr><tr><th style="min-width:100px;text-align:center; padding-top:4px;" colspan="2">Software and Algorithms</th></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;text=align:center">Sentences</td><td style="min-width:100px;text-align:center">Resources</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;vertical-align:top;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Sequences were aligned to a set of reference SARS-CoV-2 sequences including all Chilean sequences submitted to GISAID(20) (n=167), sequences with highest similarity deposited on GenBank identified using BLAST(21) (n=337), and a total of 1000 sequences randomly selected from the GISAID repository using FastaUtils package in R(22).</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray"><div style="margin-bottom:8px"><div>FastaUtils</div><div>suggested: None</div></div></td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;vertical-align:top;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">The sequences were aligned using MAFFT v7.402 using CIPRESS computational resources(23).</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray"><div style="margin-bottom:8px"><div>MAFFT</div><div>suggested: (MAFFT, RRID:SCR_011811)</div></div></td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;vertical-align:top;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">The aligned sequences were visualized in AliView v1.26(24).</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray"><div style="margin-bottom:8px"><div>AliView</div><div>suggested: (AliView, RRID:SCR_002780)</div></div></td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;vertical-align:top;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">The phylogenetic tree was visualized using Figtree.</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray"><div style="margin-bottom:8px"><div>Figtree</div><div>suggested: (FigTree, RRID:SCR_008515)</div></div></td></tr></table>

      Results from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your data.


      Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
      The viral RNA in samples may indirectly denote SARS-CoV-2 viral excretion and can serve, with limitations, as a proxy for active viral replication. Indeed, SARS- CoV-2 antibodies detected by ELISA confirmed the infection in cat 2. Our household study thus provides preliminary guidance for managing the care and quarantine of cats in households in which SARS-CoV-2 is present. The results, particularly the similarity of genome sequences depicted in the phylogenetic analysis, strongly support the idea that SARS-CoV-2 can be transmitted between humans and cats living in the same household. It is suspected that the humans were infected following exposure to SARS-CoV-2-positive neighbors days before. We think it likely that cat 1 was the first infected of the three cats because this animal had closer contact than the other two cats with human 1 (male), sharing his bed. This is supported by our observation that viral RNA from human 1 and the cats had identical sequences whereas the female human’s viral RNA differed by two polymorphisms. Transmission between humans and cats in the same household accords with the literature on viral infections in animals. Several animal species are permissive for virus infection and replication in the upper respiratory tract(1) and it has been suggested that the species barrier of SARS-CoV-2 might be weak since the ACE2 host receptor may allow virus attachment even after some amino acid changes(28). SARS-CoV-2 can be transmitted to animals by direct or...

      Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.


      Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.


      Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.


      Results from rtransparent:
      • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
      • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
      • No protocol registration statement was detected.

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      About SciScore

      SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

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    1. SciScore for 10.1101/2020.04.28.20083154: (What is this?)

      Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

      Table 1: Rigor

      NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.

      Table 2: Resources

      No key resources detected.


      Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).


      Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
      Using this approach, we could: There are a number of limitations to our approach. The smaller the hospital, the less predictable the outcome will be. With time, the characteristics of the population of patients who show up to the ER may change and the pandemic management by the governing organizations would evolve. One can think, for example, that systematic testing would provide early diagnostics and impact the performance of the health system as shown by the statistics of countries who were early adopters of that strategy. Due to the heterogeneity of the patient population and disease patterns that depend heavily on patient characteristics, our next step in improving this model would be to include patients’ medical history listed in the electronic medical record. Above all, any model of workflow especially during a pandemic should be aware of the Human Factor. Staff can get sick or burnout during a pandemic and there should be a number of strategies to compute that risk and enter this into the constraints imposed on the health care system [4, 11, 12, 21]. Further, human behavior and decision process changes under stress: it can be for economical or psychological reasons. The future of computational models in digital health during a pandemic crisis should extensively include sociological and economical modeling components in the matter.

      Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.


      Results from Barzooka: We found bar graphs of continuous data. We recommend replacing bar graphs with more informative graphics, as many different datasets can lead to the same bar graph. The actual data may suggest different conclusions from the summary statistics. For more information, please see Weissgerber et al (2015).


      Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.


      Results from rtransparent:
      • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
      • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
      • No protocol registration statement was detected.

      <footer>

      About SciScore

      SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

      </footer>

    1. SciScore for 10.1101/2020.08.29.20184242: (What is this?)

      Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

      Table 1: Rigor

      <table><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Institutional Review Board Statement</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">IRB: The study was reviewed and approved by the CoviDOMINGO core group and approved by the Ethic Committee of the coordinating center and by each participating center (Mexico: COMINVETICA-30072020-CEI0100120160207; Colombia: PE-CEI-FT-06; Perù: N° 42-IETSI-ESSALUD-2020; Costa Rica: CEC-HNN-243-2020).</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Randomization</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Blinding</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Power Analysis</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Sex as a biological variable</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr></table>

      Table 2: Resources

      <table><tr><th style="min-width:100px;text-align:center; padding-top:4px;" colspan="2">Software and Algorithms</th></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;text=align:center">Sentences</td><td style="min-width:100px;text-align:center">Resources</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;vertical-align:top;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Data were collected on Excel spreadsheets completed by each collaborator and sent to two study core group members via email (DB and OYAM), without including personal or identifiable data.</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray"><div style="margin-bottom:8px"><div>Excel</div><div>suggested: None</div></div></td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;vertical-align:top;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Statistical analyses: Data were analyzed using SPSS (SPSS, Chicago, IL).</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray"><div style="margin-bottom:8px"><div>SPSS</div><div>suggested: (SPSS, RRID:SCR_002865)</div></div></td></tr></table>

      Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).


      Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
      Our study has some limitations to address. The main limitation of this study relates to the variables collected. As happened during a multinational European study, this one was performed during the Latin American peak with clinicians struggling in the front-line, usually with limited human resources to dedicate extra time for clinical research. For example, detailed blood tests were not collected. However, at this time of the pandemic enough laboratory data on pediatric COVID-19 have been published and we think that a first, large, multinational picture of SARS-CoV-2 infection in Latin American children was more important than smaller, more detailed studies. Also, the different centers may have used different decision rules to perform SARS-CoV-2 test in children. Another limitation concerns MIS-C cases. Since MIS-C is a clinical diagnosis with no confirmatory test, and that the CDC case definition is broad, some cases may have been misdiagnosed and, therefore, the real MIS-C cases being lower or higher. For example, some severe cases of acute COVID-19 may overlap with MIS-C. Also, some details about MIS-C were not included in our data collection, including the possible skin, renal and neurological involvement during MIS-C. Despite these limitations, this study provides the most comprehensive overview on COVID-19 in South American children to date. In conclusion, our study adds new data about the Latin American face of the pediatric SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, describing a generally ...

      Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.


      Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.


      Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.


      Results from rtransparent:
      • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
      • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
      • No protocol registration statement was detected.

      <footer>

      About SciScore

      SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

      </footer>

    1. SciScore for 10.1101/2020.03.02.20030007: (What is this?)

      Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

      Table 1: Rigor

      NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.

      Table 2: Resources

      No key resources detected.


      Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).


      Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
      4.1 Limitations: Our results are somewhat limited by the assumptions we have made to produce a tractable problem. We assume that behavior responds immediately to changes in interventions. In reality, behavior may change prior to an intervention being implemented. Additionally adherence may drop as the intervention continues, and some adherence to the intervention may remain even once the intervention is removed. The assumption that the individuals are largely homogeneous may lead to pessimistic predictions of when the herd immunity threshold is reached. In the presence of significant population heterogeneity, there is evidence suggesting that the herd immunity threshold would be reached earlier, and the epidemic could proceed significantly faster [16, 7]. Our qualitative predictions remain robust, but the timings would need to move sooner. We must think critically about what constitutes a one-shot intervention. Whether an intervention can be maintained may depend on context. Early estimates of case fatality rate (not to be confused with infection fatality rate) of COVID-19 ranged from 0.7% in China outside of Hubei province to around 2% in much of the world, to around 5.8% in Wuhan [35]. These estimates were affected by the proportion of cases identified (leading to uncertainty in the denominator), and whether the health system was over capacity (which would increase the death rate leading to uncertainty in the numerator). True infection fatality rates appear to lie between 0...

      Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.


      Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.


      Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.


      Results from rtransparent:
      • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
      • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
      • No protocol registration statement was detected.

      <footer>

      About SciScore

      SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

      </footer>

    1. SciScore for 10.1101/2020.03.13.20035485: (What is this?)

      Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

      Table 1: Rigor

      NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.

      Table 2: Resources

      No key resources detected.


      Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).


      Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
      Additionally, keeping the coefficient β at such low level requires stringent limitation of personal contacts, while the time to the peak of the epidemic would be about 7 months. One of potential consequences of exceeding the healthcare system capacity is the increase of case fatality rate due to the lack of necessary medical equipment. We think that the more realistic scenarios are these in which the contact rate varies over time. In early phase of the epidemic, the contact rate may be reduced only by forcing people to stay at home; in the latter phase, when the number of daily cases exceeds a threshold, people isolate themselves to reduce the risk. In such scenario the number of daily new cases reaches peak proportional to an assumed “fear” threshold and then slowly decreases due to the decreasing fraction of susceptible individuals. Such scenario seems more realistic and, although devastating for both the economy and social life, grants time to develop and administer vaccine. Historical data on 1918–1919 H1N1 influenza pandemic suggest also that this “fear” threshold may not be constant in time, because people suffering from prolonged quarantine may tend to accept higher risk. When this “negligence” effect is included, one may obtain trajectories for which fast growth is followed by a plateau and then relatively fast decrease of daily cases. A bit surprisingly, this scenario, although not resulting from centrally imposed preventive policies, may be the most plausible non-co...

      Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.


      Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.


      Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.


      Results from rtransparent:
      • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
      • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
      • No protocol registration statement was detected.

      <footer>

      About SciScore

      SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

      </footer>

    1. SciScore for 10.1101/2020.08.26.20181644: (What is this?)

      Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

      Table 1: Rigor

      NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.

      Table 2: Resources

      <table><tr><th style="min-width:100px;text-align:center; padding-top:4px;" colspan="2">Software and Algorithms</th></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;text=align:center">Sentences</td><td style="min-width:100px;text-align:center">Resources</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;vertical-align:top;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">We collected eleven county level Census variables from the 2000 Census (https://www.census.gov) and the 2010 5-year American Community Surveys (https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs/): proportion of residents older than 65, proportion of residents aged 15-44, proportion of residents aged 45-64, proportion of Hispanic residents, proportion of Black residents, median household income, median home value, proportion of residents in poverty, proportion of residents with a high school diploma, population density, and proportion of residents that own their house.</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray"><div style="margin-bottom:8px"><div>https://www.census.gov</div><div>suggested: (U.S. Census Bureau, RRID:SCR_011587)</div></div></td></tr></table>

      Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).


      Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
      We acknowledge that this study has several limitations. This is an ecological study with aggregated data on county level. Ecological designs should not be used to make inferences about individual risks even though they are valid for hypothesis-generating purposes. Publicly available COVID-19 outcome data was only available at county level, while COVID-19 incidence and mortality, and sociodemographic characteristics likely vary at a smaller spatial scale. (Villeneuve and Goldberg 2020) COVID-19 events are not independent and likely cluster over time and space which may have resulted in biased effect estimates. (Villeneuve and Goldberg 2020) Although we adjusted for several important confounders, such as days since first COVID-19 case reported and days since stay-at-home order, it is possible that there is residual confounding by these factors. Days since stay-at-home order is based on the start date of the issuance of the order. However, in several states the stay-at-home order was ended/relaxed in (the end of) April or May (earlier than June 7). Further, there are other state-level physical distance closures (e.g. day cares, K-12 schools, gyms) that we did not take into account. As additional adjustment for days since non-essential business closure and days since nursing home visitor ban did not affect our associations, we do not think that adjustments for additional closures would greatly impact our findings. We also note that physical distance closures and face coverings re...

      Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.


      Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.


      Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.


      Results from rtransparent:
      • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
      • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
      • No protocol registration statement was detected.

      <footer>

      About SciScore

      SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

      </footer>

    1. SciScore for 10.1101/2020.05.26.20112946: (What is this?)

      Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

      Table 1: Rigor

      <table><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Institutional Review Board Statement</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Randomization</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Blinding</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Power Analysis</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;margin-right:1em; border-right:1px solid lightgray; border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">Sex as a biological variable</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">not detected.</td></tr></table>

      Table 2: Resources

      No key resources detected.


      Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).


      Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
      The limitation of our approach, on which we are working, concerns three main areas: i) our model is essentially deterministic, and as such it does not consider sudden stochastic perturbations affecting political decisions (e.g. announcement by EU); ii) our model is at single country scale, which we think it is an accurate modeling for this phase of the Covid-19 pandemics, but for a longer period of time a multi-state version of our models could be important; iii) we did not explore possible interplays between the epidemics time-scale and the disease time-scale It is worth to note that in the increasingly growing field of behavioural epidemiology of infectious diseases (BEID) (Funk et al 2011, d’Onofrio et al 2012, Manfredi and d’Onofrio 2013, Wang et al 2016) the government actions modulating the citizen behaviour during an epidemics are considered in an elementary way. Indeed, in BEID the emphasis was up to know given to the modeling of the citizens’s behaviour. Here, at the best of our knowledge, we introduce an explicit and ’disease dynamics-dependent’ modelling of the government behaviour via a game-theoretic approach. Under this light, we may say that our work uses theoretical arguments of BEID to suggest the harmful health impact that has potentially been caused by mean political behaviour during the pre-lockdown phase. This mean behaviour is apparent from the public political debate occurred in many European before epidemic events forced the lockdown. All this, despite...

      Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.


      Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.


      Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.


      Results from rtransparent:
      • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
      • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
      • No protocol registration statement was detected.

      <footer>

      About SciScore

      SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

      </footer>

    1. SciScore for 10.1101/2020.06.29.20142307: (What is this?)

      Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

      Table 1: Rigor

      NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.

      Table 2: Resources

      No key resources detected.


      Results from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your code and data.


      Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
      Our study has few limitations, it’s difficult to compute the exposure when it comes to weather conditions as many people are inside their houses due to lockdown and would avoid outdoor exposure. We also think that we have a very short period of observational data and with more data, findings may fluctuate to other sides. Overall we tried to put forth an exhaustive search for causal relationships between weather conditions and new cases of covid19 based on the available literature on causal time-series analysis and these findings asserts that we didn’t have causal association between temperature and humidity with new cases of covid19.

      Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.


      Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.


      Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.


      Results from rtransparent:
      • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
      • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
      • No protocol registration statement was detected.

      <footer>

      About SciScore

      SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

      </footer>

    1. SciScore for 10.1101/2020.07.21.20158014: (What is this?)

      Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

      Table 1: Rigor

      NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.

      Table 2: Resources

      No key resources detected.


      Results from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your code and data.


      Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
      Our study comes with a number of limitations. First, we did not have access to line lists of patients and used aggregated data of SARS-CoV-2 cases. Compared to the numbers communicated by the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH), cantons typically report somewhat higher numbers of hospitalized and deceased patients. For example, FOPH communicated only 1,640 deaths [1], while the cantonal data reported 1,860 deaths by 10 May 2020. The discrepancies may result from missing or delayed patient records that cannot be linked in the line lists at FOPH. Second, we opted for a maximum likelihood framework and fixed a number of model parameters, such as hospitalization periods, to values that were informed by the literature. While our model can accurately describe the changes in hospitalized patients and ICU occupancy, the calculated CIs can be overly narrow for some parameters. Third, we described the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Switzerland overall and did not consider cantonal differences in the transmission dynamics as in Lemaitre et al. [11]. We think that this simplification is justified for the purpose of our study but acknowledge that cantonal differences in the epidemic trajectories were arguably important for the timing of the implementation of NPIs at the federal level. Fourth, we did not stratify the population by sex and age and cannot provide age-specific infection attack rates [24]. Fifth, we assumed a fixed IFR of 0.75% [11], which is in the range of estimates for Swi...

      Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.


      Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.


      Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.


      Results from rtransparent:
      • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
      • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
      • No protocol registration statement was detected.

      <footer>

      About SciScore

      SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

      </footer>

    1. SciScore for 10.1101/2020.10.04.20206680: (What is this?)

      Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

      Table 1: Rigor

      NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.

      Table 2: Resources

      <table><tr><th style="min-width:100px;text-align:center; padding-top:4px;" colspan="2">Software and Algorithms</th></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;text=align:center">Sentences</td><td style="min-width:100px;text-align:center">Resources</td></tr><tr><td style="min-width:100px;vertical-align:top;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray">We developed a model in Microsoft Excel to calculate the total number of PCR tests required, by university community size, for an effective testing-based campus opening strategy over a 32-week (two semesters) time horizon (September 2020-May 2021).</td><td style="min-width:100px;border-bottom:1px solid lightgray"><div style="margin-bottom:8px"><div>Microsoft Excel</div><div>suggested: (Microsoft Excel, RRID:SCR_016137)</div></div></td></tr></table>

      Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).


      Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
      Our study has several limitations. First, we did not include the additional costs (including tests and personnel) related to contact tracing. While this may affect the point estimates of annual testing costs, it is unlikely to vary by testing strategy. Second, we assumed low PCR and serological test result misclassification, and did not consider potential cost or epidemic implications of PCR false negatives18 (owing either to sampling collection, specimen handling, storage condition problems or low viral load) or antibody false positive19 (such that people think they are immune when they are not) especially for larger size universities under the condition of high SARS-CoV-2 prevalence/incidence 20, which may incorrectly inflate the estimated prevalence and cumulative incidence. On the other hand, as we consider frequent screening for PCR (e.g at least once a week for majority students in campus regardless of symptoms), this may result in a number of false positive cases (and associated costs for contact tracing) for larger universities under the condition of low SARS-CoV-2 prevalence/incidence 21. The overall utility of screening strategies may differ, however, by prevalence of disease among the population and the potential associated costs of false positives and negatives.22 Third, we assumed that the immune response remains throughout the entire school year (32 weeks). If duration of immune response is shorter than the whole school year (e.g. 16-20 weeks)23 and antibodies c...

      Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.


      Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.


      Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.


      Results from rtransparent:
      • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
      • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
      • No protocol registration statement was detected.

      <footer>

      About SciScore

      SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

      </footer>

    1. Which Sounds Are the Most Annoying to Humans?{"@type":"NewsArticle","@context":"http://schema.org","url":"https://gizmodo.com/which-sounds-are-the-most-annoying-to-humans-1846098655","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Daniel Kolitz"}],"headline":"Which Sounds Are the Most Annoying to Humans?","description":"Earlier this month, a kind of chirping, rainforest-y sound sprung up in my apartment. It came from my roommate’s room. At first, I took it for a video game, but then realized the sound materialized even when my roommate was asleep. For days, I wondered about this. At any point I could’ve asked him what the deal was, but I kept on forgetting—the sound was just annoying enough to be notable but not annoying enough to do something about. When I did remember to ask him, during one of the sound’s occasional disappearances, he had no idea what I was talking about. ","dateline":"01/25/2021 at 08:00","datePublished":"2021-01-25T08:00:00-05:00","dateModified":"2021-01-25T08:00:01-05:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","url":"https://gizmodo.com/which-sounds-are-the-most-annoying-to-humans-1846098655"},"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","height":675,"width":1200,"url":"https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/c_fill,f_auto,fl_progressive,g_center,h_675,pg_1,q_80,w_1200/ysfrxb7ougwtr6l0v3ds.png","thumbnail":{"@type":"ImageObject","height":180,"width":320,"url":"https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/c_fill,f_auto,fl_progressive,g_center,h_180,pg_1,q_80,w_320/ysfrxb7ougwtr6l0v3ds.png"}},"articleBody":"Earlier this month, a kind of chirping, rainforest-y sound sprung up in my apartment. It came from my roommate’s room. At first, I took it for a video game, but then realized the sound materialized even when my roommate was asleep. For days, I wondered about this. At any point I could’ve asked him what the deal was, but I kept on forgetting—the sound was just annoying enough to be notable but not annoying enough to do something about. When I did remember to ask him, during one of the sound’s occasional disappearances, he had no idea what I was talking about. \n\nThe sound to that point had been a subconscious irritant—by the time I noticed it, I could never say how long it had been going for. But after that exchange, and the sanity-questioning it entailed, roughly half my brain was looking out for the sound’s return. When it did finally reemerge, I burst without knocking into my roommate’s room. “That,” I said. “Oh,” he replied. “The radiator?”\n\nIt was, in fact, the radiator. He hadn’t noticed it.\n\nThis is all to say that, when we are speaking about sounds, “annoying” is a subjective criteria. But there must be, one figures, some consensus on the subject. For this week’s Giz Asks we reached out to a number of sound-experts to find out what that might be.\n\nDr. Tjeerd Andringa\n\nAssociate professor Auditory Cognition, University of Groningen\n\nThe sound of vomiting: elicits a visceral response. The first steps of auditory processing are in the brainstem close to the “disgust” center that is activated when we swallow(ed) something toxic and which activates the muscles to expel it.\n\nIt’s actually pretty simple. In the evolution of vertebrates, the first vertebrate was basically a long tube with on one side the mouth and on the other side the anus. And the only thing that it really had to do was to open its mouth, accept something as food and then digest in that tube. The tube was basically a little garden with all kinds of bacteria. It should not make a real mistake because then it would poison the garden and poison itself. So it was very important for that early vertebrate to make the proper decisions — what to swallow, what not to swallow. That is the reason why all our senses are around the mouth. We taste, we smell, we hear, we see — all around the mouth — so we can make the best decisions of what to eat.\n\nAll the sensors came together at the top of the neural tube. That is our brain stem. That is the level where all the information is processed at the most basic level. That leads to a situation that if you have no time to process the signal in full or to use your higher mental faculties, then you fall back to the lowest form of processing that we have, which is that physiological, low-level form of processing. This is always active in the background, and it has to be overruled by higher levels of processing. But it is always the first response that we get because it’s the quickest. \n\nPretty much all the other sounds are sounds that are relevant to higher cognition. So the scraping of fingernails on the chalkboard probably also has a visceral component, but it’s much further away from our basic responses than vomiting. A baby crying does not make sense for all mammals; it only makes sense for mammals that have babies that actually cry. This is a higher level, more advanced type of processing. And it must be very strong, but it is not as deeply encoded in our body as the response to vomiting. \n\n“The sound of vomiting: elicits a visceral response. The first steps of auditory processing are in the brainstem close to the ‘disgust’ center that is activated when we swallow(ed) something toxic and which activates the muscles to expel it.”\n\nTrevor Cox\n\nProfessor, Acoustic Engineering, University of Salford\n\nPeople’s responses to sounds are learned; what’s most annoying to any given person can be highly individualized, and is intimately connected to circumstance. In general, though, the most annoying sounds are those that get in the way of whatever you’re trying to do. With everyone working at home right now, a neighbor’s DIY drilling might be the most annoying sound.\n\nWhat can heighten annoyance is a lack of control. When your neighbors are throwing a party, the noise is annoying not only because it prevents you from sleeping but because you have no idea when it’s going to end. If you knew in advance when the party might end, the sound would likely be less disruptive.\n\n“People’s responses to sounds are learned; what’s most annoying to any given person can be highly individualized, and is intimately connected to circumstance.”\n\nFlorian Hollerweger\n\nAssistant Professor, Audio Arts and Acoustics, Columbia College Chicago\n\nThe most annoying sound for a human, as we all know, is the sound of chalkboard scraping. It’s terrible! Precisely why that is so remains a bit of a mystery and—I kid you not—the subject of ongoing psychoacoustic research. Even thinking about it (the sound, not the research) makes me cringe. Anecdotal evidence also suggests that the Covid-19 pandemic has brought back to the forefront many traditional contenders for the title of “most annoying sound.” Depending on your living circumstances, the sounds of your otherwise respected neighbors or housemates, for example, may well be much more annoying to you now than they were nine months ago.\n\nThe “most annoying sound for a human” is a surprisingly evasive concept that depends not only on who the human in question is, but also on that person’s circumstances and emotional state. If you think about it, this is a trivial truth only in a superficial sense. Rather, I think of it as a beautiful testimony to the raw emotional power that sound commands over us—not only on the negative end of the spectrum, but also with regards to that most beautiful of sounds: music. Many of the above truisms apply just as well to music—its dependence on the listener’s personal preferences or aversions, stage in life, current emotions, etc. In other words, the same strong reliance on context explains both the “ugliest” as well as the “prettiest” sounds. In my mind this shows that these are really just two manifestations of a larger underlying natural beauty, which we humans can become a part of and nurture (through music, for example), but which ultimately exceeds the value judgements that we can’t quite seem to be able to do without.\n\nA large part of my creative practice and research unfolds in the realm of experimental music and sound art. From this experience I can assert that one human’s “most annoying sound” may well form the basis of another’s most precious music. Perhaps once a Covid-19 vaccine is widely available, you might want to attend an experimental music concert near you, to see which of these two groups you belong to... or whether there is room in between. British composer Trevor Wishart, for example, created a stunningly complex and highly recommended piece of music entitled “Imago” from a single clink of two glasses.\n\n“The ‘most annoying sound for a human’ is a surprisingly evasive concept that depends not only on who the human in question is, but also on that person’s circumstances and emotional state.”\n\nSteven J. Orfield\n\n\nFounder of Orfield Laboratories which provides multi-sensory design, research and testing in architecture, product development and forensics\n\nIn 1990, I moved my perceptual laboratory into the former Sound 80 Studios. Sound 80 was a client of mine for acoustic and lighting consulting, and in 1975, in collaboration with 3M who had just invented multi-track digital recording, they became the World’s First Digital Recording Studio, as recognized by Guinness World Records in 2006. During their time as a client of mine, I sat in that last American album recording of Cat Stevens, Izatso. \n\nI bought the studio to move my company but also to deal with a health issue.\n\nI had just gone through surgery to get an artificial valve, as I was born with a defective aortic valve. I had read the acoustic studies in the medical journals about the noise levels, but when I woke up from surgery, I found that the valve was much louder than claimed in the academic studies. So as I went back to my lab, I measured the sound with an accelerometer (vibration transducer), and with a 1” precision microphone, and I recorded each. Then I did a listening experiment to listen to my heart valve with one ear and the recordings with the other. I spent hours equalizing the sound so that the recording was a close facsimile of what I heard.\n\nThen I did a Stevens Threshold test to see how loud it was. This was done by playing a pink noise track until it was so loud that I couldn’t hear the valve, and then playing the pink noise again from loud to soft until I could hear it. Those two extremes established the threshold for my hearing of my valve.\n\nWhile it was claimed to be about 30 dBA, it was actually able to be perceived into the low 80 dBA range, about 16 times as loud as claimed, and it sounded like I had been implanted with an old mechanical clock.\n\nI went back and reviewed the journal literature again and found out that most of the measurement procedures used by the industry were incorrect, and most of the equipment used was not used correctly. It took me two years to learn to sleep after sleep hypnosis, sleep medicines and special pillows and fans. I was so frustrated that I invited all the American heart valve companies to join me in a conference at my Lab, so that I could show the levels of mistakes they all made, and so that they could start to work on the terribly annoying sound. In 1993, for the first and only time they ever met together the entire industry came to my lab and listened to what heart valve noise really sounded like. They were all shocked and concerned, and many were in violation of FDA requirements because they had been claiming quiet valves.\n\nThis meeting caused new research on porcine (pig) valved to extend the valve life from 5 years to 20 years, and now most implants get a bio-prosthetic valve, that can be implanted through an artery and can be repaired in the same way. I hope that my work with them was helpful in causing a reconsideration of heart valves across the entire industry. It also lead to a Medical article in the Wall Street Journal, where their editor explained to me that many ‘facts’ that he was told in interviews with doctors were false, as they were very defensive about discussing medical problems.\n\nDo you have a burning question for Giz Asks? Email us at tipbox@gizmodo.com. \n\nAdditional reporting by Marina Galperina.\n\n","articleSection":"Giz Asks","keywords":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","@context":"http://schema.org","name":"Gizmodo","url":"https://gizmodo.com","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://x.kinja-static.com/assets/images/logos/amp/logo-gizmodo-amp.png"},"sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/gizmodo","https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxFmw3IUMDUC1Hh7qDjtjZQ","https://twitter.com/gizmodo","https://instagram.com/gizmodo"]},"video":[]}

      人类最受不了哪些声音?

  3. Feb 2021
    1. I think both these answers are off the mark. The first focuses too narrowly on what we owe people based on legal rules and formal citizenship. The other answer focuses too broadly, on what we owe people qua human beings. We need a perspective that is in between, that adequately responds to the phenomenon of illegal immigration and adequately reflects the complexity of moral thought. There may be important ethical distinctions, for example, among the following groups: U.S. citizens who lack health insurance, undocumented workers who lack health insurance in spite of working full time, medical visitors who fly to the United States as tourists in order to obtain care at public hospitals, foreign citizens who work abroad for subcontractors of American firms, and foreign citizens who live in impoverished countries. I believe that we-U.S. citizens-have ethical duties in all of these situations, but I see important differences in what these duties demand and how they are to be explained.

      Some Americans believe that illegal immigrants don't qualify or should not be offered the same healthcare services as U.S. citizens; others might say it is our duty and it is morally right to take care of people no matter what their legal situation id.The writer is trying to dictate each aspect and to come up with a perspective that is somewhat pleasing to both parties.

    1. For branching out a separate path in an activity, use the Path() macro. It’s a convenient, simple way to declare alternative routes

      Seems like this would be a very common need: once you switch to a custom failure track, you want it to stay on that track until the end!!!

      The problem is that in a Railway, everything automatically has 2 outputs. But we really only need one (which is exactly what Path gives us). And you end up fighting the defaults when there are the automatic 2 outputs, because you have to remember to explicitly/verbosely redirect all of those outputs or they may end up going somewhere you don't want them to go.

      The default behavior of everything going to the next defined step is not helpful for doing that, and in fact is quite frustrating because you don't want unrelated steps to accidentally end up on one of the tasks in your custom failure track.

      And you can't use fail for custom-track steps becase that breaks magnetic_to for some reason.

      I was finding myself very in need of something like this, and was about to write my own DSL, but then I discovered this. I still think it needs a better DSL than this, but at least they provided a way to do this. Much needed.

      For this example, I might write something like this:

      step :decide_type, Output(Activity::Left, :credit_card) => Track(:with_credit_card)
      
      # Create the track, which would automatically create an implicit End with the same id.
      Track(:with_credit_card) do
          step :authorize
          step :charge
      end
      

      I guess that's not much different than theirs. Main improvement is it avoids ugly need to specify end_id/end_task.

      But that wouldn't actually be enough either in this example, because you would actually want to have a failure track there and a path doesn't have one ... so it sounds like Subprocess and a new self-contained ProcessCreditCard Railway would be the best solution for this particular example... Subprocess is the ultimate in flexibility and gives us all the flexibility we need)


      But what if you had a path that you needed to direct to from 2 different tasks' outputs?

      Example: I came up with this, but it takes a lot of effort to keep my custom path/track hidden/"isolated" and prevent other tasks from automatically/implicitly going into those steps:

      class Example::ValidationErrorTrack < Trailblazer::Activity::Railway
        step :validate_model, Output(:failure) => Track(:validation_error)
        step :save,           Output(:failure) => Track(:validation_error)
      
        # Can't use fail here or the magnetic_to won't work and  Track(:validation_error) won't work
        step :log_validation_error, magnetic_to: :validation_error,
          Output(:success) => End(:validation_error), 
          Output(:failure) => End(:validation_error) 
      end
      
      puts Trailblazer::Developer.render o
      Reloading...
      
      #<Start/:default>
       {Trailblazer::Activity::Right} => #<Trailblazer::Activity::TaskBuilder::Task user_proc=validate_model>
      #<Trailblazer::Activity::TaskBuilder::Task user_proc=validate_model>
       {Trailblazer::Activity::Left} => #<Trailblazer::Activity::TaskBuilder::Task user_proc=log_validation_error>
       {Trailblazer::Activity::Right} => #<Trailblazer::Activity::TaskBuilder::Task user_proc=save>
      #<Trailblazer::Activity::TaskBuilder::Task user_proc=save>
       {Trailblazer::Activity::Left} => #<Trailblazer::Activity::TaskBuilder::Task user_proc=log_validation_error>
       {Trailblazer::Activity::Right} => #<End/:success>
      #<Trailblazer::Activity::TaskBuilder::Task user_proc=log_validation_error>
       {Trailblazer::Activity::Left} => #<End/:validation_error>
       {Trailblazer::Activity::Right} => #<End/:validation_error>
      #<End/:success>
      
      #<End/:validation_error>
      
      #<End/:failure>
      

      Now attempt to do it with Path... Does the Path() have an ID we can reference? Or maybe we just keep a reference to the object and use it directly in 2 different places?

      class Example::ValidationErrorTrack::VPathHelper1 < Trailblazer::Activity::Railway
         validation_error_path = Path(end_id: "End.validation_error", end_task: End(:validation_error)) do
          step :log_validation_error
        end
        step :validate_model, Output(:failure) => validation_error_path
        step :save,           Output(:failure) => validation_error_path
      end
      
      o=Example::ValidationErrorTrack::VPathHelper1; puts Trailblazer::Developer.render o
      Reloading...
      
      #<Start/:default>
       {Trailblazer::Activity::Right} => #<Trailblazer::Activity::TaskBuilder::Task user_proc=validate_model>
      #<Trailblazer::Activity::TaskBuilder::Task user_proc=validate_model>
       {Trailblazer::Activity::Left} => #<Trailblazer::Activity::TaskBuilder::Task user_proc=log_validation_error>
       {Trailblazer::Activity::Right} => #<Trailblazer::Activity::TaskBuilder::Task user_proc=save>
      #<Trailblazer::Activity::TaskBuilder::Task user_proc=log_validation_error>
       {Trailblazer::Activity::Right} => #<End/:validation_error>
      #<Trailblazer::Activity::TaskBuilder::Task user_proc=save>
       {Trailblazer::Activity::Left} => #<Trailblazer::Activity::TaskBuilder::Task user_proc=log_validation_error>
       {Trailblazer::Activity::Right} => #<End/:success>
      #<End/:success>
      
      #<End/:validation_error>
      
      #<End/:failure>
      

      It's just too bad that:

      • there's not a Railway helper in case you want multiple outputs, though we could probably create one pretty easily using Path as our template
      • we can't "inline" a separate Railway acitivity (Subprocess "nests" it rather than "inlines")
    1. EM fungi known from indi-vidual ranges may be lost as these insular forests experience morefrequent and more intense wildfires

      There may be species loss due to specialization, which I don't think we can know the effects of. But it has been shown that species diversity actually supports plant health.

    Annotators

    1. Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes. It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city's white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative.In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self purification; and direct action. We have gone through all these steps in Birmingham. There can be no gainsaying the fact that racial injustice engulfs this community. Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of brutality is widely known. Negroes have experienced grossly unjust treatment in the courts. There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any other city in the nation. These are the hard, brutal facts of the case. On the basis of these conditions, Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the latter consistently refused to engage in good faith negotiation.Then, last September, came the opportunity to talk with leaders of Birmingham's economic community. In the course of the negotiations, certain promises were made by the merchants--for example, to remove the stores' humiliating racial signs. On the basis of these promises, the Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and the leaders of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights agreed to a moratorium on all demonstrations. As the weeks and months went by, we realized that we were the victims of a broken promise. A few signs, briefly removed, returned; the others remained. As in so many past experiences, our hopes had been blasted, and the shadow of deep disappointment settled upon us. We had no alternative except to prepare for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and the national community. Mindful of the difficulties involved, we decided to undertake a process of self purification. We began a series of workshops on nonviolence, and we repeatedly asked ourselves: "Are you able to accept blows without retaliating?" "Are you able to endure the ordeal of jail?" We decided to schedule our direct action program for the Easter season, realizing that except for Christmas, this is the main shopping period of the year. Knowing that a strong economic-withdrawal program would be the by product of direct action, we felt that this would be the best time to bring pressure to bear on the merchants for the needed change.Then it occurred to us that Birmingham's mayoral election was coming up in March, and we speedily decided to postpone action until after election day. When we discovered that the Commissioner of Public Safety, Eugene "Bull" Connor, had piled up enough votes to be in the run off, we decided again to postpone action until the day after the run off so that the demonstrations could not be used to cloud the issues. Like many others, we waited to see Mr. Connor defeated, and to this end we endured postponement after postponement. Having aided in this community need, we felt that our direct action program could be delayed no longer.You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue.One of the basic points in your statement is that the action that I and my associates have taken in Birmingham is untimely. Some have asked: "Why didn't you give the new city administration time to act?" The only answer that I can give to this query is that the new Birmingham administration must be prodded about as much as the outgoing one, before it will act. We are sadly mistaken if we feel that the election of Albert Boutwell as mayor will bring the millennium to Birmingham. While Mr. Boutwell is a much more gentle person than Mr. Connor, they are both segregationists, dedicated to maintenance of the status quo. I have hope that Mr. Boutwell will be reasonable enough to see the futility of massive resistance to desegregation. But he will not see this without pressure from devotees of civil rights. My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied."We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?"; when you take a cross county drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" and "colored"; when your first name becomes "nigger," your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and your wife and mother are never given the respected title "Mrs."; when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tiptoe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and are plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness"--then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into the abyss of despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience. You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all."Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an "I it" relationship for an "I thou" relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and sinful. Paul Tillich has said that sin is separation. Is not segregation an existential expression of man's tragic separation, his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? Thus it is that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong.Let us consider a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal. Let me give another explanation. A law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority that, as a result of being denied the right to vote, had no part in enacting or devising the law. Who can say that the legislature of Alabama which set up that state's segregation laws was democratically elected? Throughout Alabama all sorts of devious methods are used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters, and there are some counties in which, even though Negroes constitute a majority of the population, not a single Negro is registered. Can any law enacted under such circumstances be considered democratically structured?Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For instance, I have been arrested on a charge of parading without a permit. Now, there is nothing wrong in having an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade. But such an ordinance becomes unjust when it is used to maintain segregation and to deny citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest.I hope you are able to see the distinction I am trying to point out. In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist. That would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was evidenced sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar, on the ground that a higher moral law was at stake. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks rather than submit to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire. To a degree, academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience. In our own nation, the Boston Tea Party represented a massive act of civil disobedience.We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was "illegal." It was "illegal" to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler's Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country's antireligious laws.I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.In your statement you assert that our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they precipitate violence. But is this a logical assertion? Isn't this like condemning a robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil act of robbery? Isn't this like condemning Socrates because his unswerving commitment to truth and his philosophical inquiries precipitated the act by the misguided populace in which they made him drink hemlock? Isn't this like condemning Jesus because his unique God consciousness and never ceasing devotion to God's will precipitated the evil act of crucifixion? We must come to see that, as the federal courts have consistently affirmed, it is wrong to urge an individual to cease his efforts to gain his basic constitutional rights because the quest may precipitate violence. Society must protect the robbed and punish the robber. I had also hoped that the white moderate would reject the myth concerning time in relation to the struggle for freedom. I have just received a letter from a white brother in Texas. He writes: "All Christians know that the colored people will receive equal rights eventually, but it is possible that you are in too great a religious hurry. It has taken Christianity almost two thousand years to accomplish what it has. The teachings of Christ take time to come to earth." Such an attitude stems from a tragic misconception of time, from the strangely irrational notion that there is something in the very flow of time that will inevitably cure all ills. Actually, time itself is neutral; it can be used either destructively or constructively. More and more I feel that the people of ill will have used time much more effectively than have the people of good will. We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people. Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it comes through the tireless efforts of men willing to be co workers with God, and without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must use time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right. Now is the time to make real the promise of democracy and transform our pending national elegy into a creative psalm of brotherhood. Now is the time to lift our national policy from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of human dignity.You speak of our activity in Birmingham as extreme. At first I was rather disappointed that fellow clergymen would see my nonviolent efforts as those of an extremist. I began thinking about the fact that I stand in the middle of two opposing forces in the Negro community. One is a force of complacency, made up in part of Negroes who, as a result of long years of oppression, are so drained of self respect and a sense of "somebodiness" that they have adjusted to segregation; and in part of a few middle-class Negroes who, because of a degree of academic and economic security and because in some ways they profit by segregation, have become insensitive to the problems of the masses. The other force is one of bitterness and hatred, and it comes perilously close to advocating violence. It is expressed in the various black nationalist groups that are springing up across the nation, the largest and best known being Elijah Muhammad's Muslim movement. Nourished by the Negro's frustration over the continued existence of racial discrimination, this movement is made up of people who have lost faith in America, who have absolutely repudiated Christianity, and who have concluded that the white man is an incorrigible "devil."I have tried to stand between these two forces, saying that we need emulate neither the "do nothingism" of the complacent nor the hatred and despair of the black nationalist. For there is the more excellent way of love and nonviolent protest. I am grateful to God that, through the influence of the Negro church, the way of nonviolence became an integral part of our struggle. If this philosophy had not emerged, by now many streets of the South would, I am convinced, be flowing with blood. And I am further convinced that if our white brothers dismiss as "rabble rousers" and "outside agitators" those of us who employ nonviolent direct action, and if they refuse to support our nonviolent efforts, millions of Negroes will, out of frustration and despair, seek solace and security in black nationalist ideologies--a development that would inevitably lead to a frightening racial nightmare.Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself, and that is what has happened to the American Negro. Something within has reminded him of his birthright of freedom, and something without has reminded him that it can be gained. Consciously or unconsciously, he has been caught up by the Zeitgeist, and with his black brothers of Africa and his brown and yellow brothers of Asia, South America and the Caribbean, the United States Negro is moving with a sense of great urgency toward the promised land of racial justice. If one recognizes this vital urge that has engulfed the Negro community, one should readily understand why public demonstrations are taking place. The Negro has many pent up resentments and latent frustrations, and he must release them. So let him march; let him make prayer pilgrimages to the city hall; let him go on freedom rides -and try to understand why he must do so. If his repressed emotions are not released in nonviolent ways, they will seek expression through violence; this is not a threat but a fact of history. So I have not said to my people: "Get rid of your discontent." Rather, I have tried to say that this normal and healthy discontent can be channeled into the creative outlet of nonviolent direct action. And now this approach is being termed extremist. But though I was initially disappointed at being categorized as an extremist, as I continued to think about the matter I gradually gained a measure of satisfaction from the label. Was not Jesus an extremist for love: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." Was not Amos an extremist for justice: "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever flowing stream." Was not Paul an extremist for the Christian gospel: "I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus." Was not Martin Luther an extremist: "Here I stand; I cannot do otherwise, so help me God." And John Bunyan: "I will stay in jail to the end of my days before I make a butchery of my conscience." And Abraham Lincoln: "This nation cannot survive half slave and half free." And Thomas Jefferson: "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal . . ." So the question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for hate or for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice or for the extension of justice? In that dramatic scene on Calvary's hill three men were crucified. We must never forget that all three were crucified for the same crime--the crime of extremism. Two were extremists for immorality, and thus fell below their environment. The other, Jesus Christ, was an extremist for love, truth and goodness, and thereby rose above his environment. Perhaps the South, the nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.I had hoped that the white moderate would see this need. Perhaps I was too optimistic; perhaps I expected too much. I suppose I should have realized that few members of the oppressor race can understand the deep groans and passionate yearnings of the oppressed race, and still fewer have the vision to see that injustice must be rooted out by strong, persistent and determined action. I am thankful, however, that some of our white brothers in the South have grasped the meaning of this social revolution and committed themselves to it. They are still all too few in quantity, but they are big in quality. Some -such as Ralph McGill, Lillian Smith, Harry Golden, James McBride Dabbs, Ann Braden and Sarah Patton Boyle--have written about our struggle in eloquent and prophetic terms. Others have marched with us down nameless streets of the South. They have languished in filthy, roach infested jails, suffering the abuse and brutality of policemen who view them as "dirty nigger-lovers." Unlike so many of their moderate brothers and sisters, they have recognized the urgency of the moment and sensed the need for powerful "action" antidotes to combat the disease of segregation. Let me take note of my other major disappointment. I have been so greatly disappointed with the white church and its leadership. Of course, there are some notable exceptions. I am not unmindful of the fact that each of you has taken some significant stands on this issue. I commend you, Reverend Stallings, for your Christian stand on this past Sunday, in welcoming Negroes to your worship service on a nonsegregated basis. I commend the Catholic leaders of this state for integrating Spring Hill College several years ago.But despite these notable exceptions, I must honestly reiterate that I have been disappointed with the church. I do not say this as one of those negative critics who can always find something wrong with the church. I say this as a minister of the gospel, who loves the church; who was nurtured in its bosom; who has been sustained by its spiritual blessings and who will remain true to it as long as the cord of life shall lengthen.When I was suddenly catapulted into the leadership of the bus protest in Montgomery, Alabama, a few years ago, I felt we would be supported by the white church. I felt that the white ministers, priests and rabbis of the South would be among our strongest allies. Instead, some have been outright opponents, refusing to understand the freedom movement and misrepresenting its leaders; all too many others have been more cautious than courageous and have remained silent behind the anesthetizing security of stained glass windows.In spite of my shattered dreams, I came to Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership of this community would see the justice of our cause and, with deep moral concern, would serve as the channel through which our just grievances could reach the power structure. I had hoped that each of you would understand. But again I have been disappointed.I have heard numerous southern religious leaders admonish their worshipers to comply with a desegregation decision because it is the law, but I have longed to hear white ministers declare: "Follow this decree because integration is morally right and because the Negro is your brother." In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churchmen stand on the sideline and mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard many ministers say: "Those are social issues, with which the gospel has no real concern." And I have watched many churches commit themselves to a completely other worldly religion which makes a strange, un-Biblical distinction between body and soul, between the sacred and the secular.I have traveled the length and breadth of Alabama, Mississippi and all the other southern states. On sweltering summer days and crisp autumn mornings I have looked at the South's beautiful churches with their lofty spires pointing heavenward. I have beheld the impressive outlines of her massive religious education buildings. Over and over I have found myself asking: "What kind of people worship here? Who is their God? Where were their voices when the lips of Governor Barnett dripped with words of interposition and nullification? Where were they when Governor Wallace gave a clarion call for defiance and hatred? Where were their voices of support when bruised and weary Negro men and women decided to rise from the dark dungeons of complacency to the bright hills of creative protest?"Yes, these questions are still in my mind. In deep disappointment I have wept over the laxity of the church. But be assured that my tears have been tears of love. There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love. Yes, I love the church. How could I do otherwise? I am in the rather unique position of being the son, the grandson and the great grandson of preachers. Yes, I see the church as the body of Christ. But, oh! How we have blemished and scarred that body through social neglect and through fear of being nonconformists.There was a time when the church was very powerful--in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. Whenever the early Christians entered a town, the people in power became disturbed and immediately sought to convict the Christians for being "disturbers of the peace" and "outside agitators."' But the Christians pressed on, in the conviction that they were "a colony of heaven," called to obey God rather than man. Small in number, they were big in commitment. They were too God-intoxicated to be "astronomically intimidated." By their effort and example they brought an end to such ancient evils as infanticide and gladiatorial contests. Things are different now. So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church's silent--and often even vocal--sanction of things as they are.But the judgment of God is upon the church as never before. If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century. Every day I meet young people whose disappointment with the church has turned into outright disgust.Perhaps I have once again been too optimistic. Is organized religion too inextricably bound to the status quo to save our nation and the world? Perhaps I must turn my faith to the inner spiritual church, the church within the church, as the true ekklesia and the hope of the world. But again I am thankful to God that some noble souls from the ranks of organized religion have broken loose from the paralyzing chains of conformity and joined us as active partners in the struggle for freedom. They have left their secure congregations and walked the streets of Albany, Georgia, with us. They have gone down the highways of the South on tortuous rides for freedom. Yes, they have gone to jail with us. Some have been dismissed from their churches, have lost the support of their bishops and fellow ministers. But they have acted in the faith that right defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. Their witness has been the spiritual salt that has preserved the true meaning of the gospel in these troubled times. They have carved a tunnel of hope through the dark mountain of disappointment. I hope the church as a whole will meet the challenge of this decisive hour. But even if the church does not come to the aid of justice, I have no despair about the future. I have no fear about the outcome of our struggle in Birmingham, even if our motives are at present misunderstood. We will reach the goal of freedom in Birmingham and all over the nation, because the goal of America is freedom. Abused and scorned though we may be, our destiny is tied up with America's destiny. Before the pilgrims landed at Plymouth, we were here. Before the pen of Jefferson etched the majestic words of the Declaration of Independence across the pages of history, we were here. For more than two centuries our forebears labored in this country without wages; they made cotton king; they built the homes of their masters while suffering gross injustice and shameful humiliation -and yet out of a bottomless vitality they continued to thrive and develop. If the inexpressible cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail. We will win our freedom because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands. Before closing I feel impelled to mention one other point in your statement that has troubled me profoundly. You warmly commended the Birmingham police force for keeping "order" and "preventing violence." I doubt that you would have so warmly commended the police force if you had seen its dogs sinking their teeth into unarmed, nonviolent Negroes. I doubt that you would so quickly commend the policemen if you were to observe their ugly and inhumane treatment of Negroes here in the city jail; if you were to watch them push and curse old Negro women and young Negro girls; if you were to see them slap and kick old Negro men and young boys; if you were to observe them, as they did on two occasions, refuse to give us food because we wanted to sing our grace together. I cannot join you in your praise of the Birmingham police department.It is true that the police have exercised a degree of discipline in handling the demonstrators. In this sense they have conducted themselves rather "nonviolently" in public. But for what purpose? To preserve the evil system of segregation. Over the past few years I have consistently preached that nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. I have tried to make clear that it is wrong to use immoral means to attain moral ends. But now I must affirm that it is just as wrong, or perhaps even more so, to use moral means to preserve immoral ends. Perhaps Mr. Connor and his policemen have been rather nonviolent in public, as was Chief Pritchett in Albany, Georgia, but they have used the moral means of nonviolence to maintain the immoral end of racial injustice. As T. S. Eliot has said: "The last temptation is the greatest treason: To do the right deed for the wrong reason."I wish you had commended the Negro sit inners and demonstrators of Birmingham for their sublime courage, their willingness to suffer and their amazing discipline in the midst of great provocation. One day the South will recognize its real heroes. They will be the James Merediths, with the noble sense of purpose that enables them to face jeering and hostile mobs, and with the agonizing loneliness that characterizes the life of the pioneer. They will be old, oppressed, battered Negro women, symbolized in a seventy two year old woman in Montgomery, Alabama, who rose up with a sense of dignity and with her people decided not to ride segregated buses, and who responded with ungrammatical profundity to one who inquired about her weariness: "My feets is tired, but my soul is at rest." They will be the young high school and college students, the young ministers of the gospel and a host of their elders, courageously and nonviolently sitting in at lunch counters and willingly going to jail for conscience' sake. One day the South will know that when these disinherited children of God sat down at lunch counters, they were in reality standing up for what is best in the American dream and for the most sacred values in our Judaeo Christian heritage, thereby bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in their formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

      Content

    1. ‘Movies about the future tendto be about the future of movies’, and sf cinema‘often turns out tobe...thefictional orfictive science of the cinema itself, the future featsit may achieve scanned in line with the technical feat that conceivesthem right now and before our eyes’(159).

      This could be true not only for cinema, but I guess every other medium of entertainment. James Cameron truly popularized spectacle in its best form every decade that he decided to make films. Through this change, we were able to ogle at every bit of improvement and attention in detail thus proving to us that cinema has truly been innovated. I'd like to think the same for television (now that we are literally watching big budget shows on TV). It can be said for comic books as well. Many might disagree with me on this but I think comic books depicting futures are about the futures of how we perceive text and images on a page, it expands our visual bank in the the art of information.

    1. especially logging

      So for logging- my family owns a lot of land and we were required to log it by the town in order to manage the density of the forest in order to let new species of trees grow and develop.

      I know they are referencing large scale logging, but is it directly targeting the issue of clearing land? Just wondering as it always made me nervous that we had to log some of our land! (It is still very much dense and diverse, just less dense than before). Couldn't help but think of the little squirrels and birds and owls that may have been residing in the trees logged!! :(

    1. Finally, true dialogue cannot exist unless the dialoguers engage in critical thinking

      I chose to annotate this passage because I think it highlights the importance of the critical thinking we are all taking part in throughout this course, and as Santa Clara students. If explaining this to someone other than myself, I would emphasize the fact that in order to have a truly meaningful and engaging dialogue, participants need to be able to think critically, and consider viewpoints or possibilities that they may not personally identify with. To me, this connected to a section from chapter 4 of Are Prisons Obsolete, where Davis points out that for affluent white women, acts of "insanity" are pinpointed to mental or emotional disorders; whereas for poor or Black women, they are criminalized. In order to reach a conclusion or observation such as this, there is a good amount of critical thinking required.

    1. Most go through extensive therapy to cope with their newly-altered perspective on life. Some no longer feel welcome in the Deaf community or choose to leave it. Some have trouble relating to old friends. 

      After reading this article, I'm so surprised how people outside of the deaf community view them as a disability but in reality, deaf people don't look at themselves as people who are disabled. Instead, they appreciate that they are deaf and learn to live with it. Clinicians think that disabled people need solutions to their disabilities but why don't we understand that some people are happy with being disabled. "Fixing their disability" may be doing the individual a disservice than actually helping them.

    1. Think about focusing on objective facts, statements that can be made about the Constitution and the institutions, laws, and processes that it created.

      I think nowadays we tend to get caught up in so many different interpretations of what something, such as the Constitution, is supposed to mean or how things are supposed to be done. The problem being that many people can come up with their own ideas that may reflect differently from others, meaning that it isn't always so black and white because there can different scenarios where something might not apply because even though the law says one thing, context still matters.

    1. I think you will see them at all mass food production facilities and in novel settings first," he told TechRepublic. "Then you may start to see them in restaurants and grocery stores. The final destination is in your kitchen as a domestic appliance. The purpose of this technology is to make lives easier. To achieve that, we will need to advance the technology, make food delivery easy and simple, and reduce costs. That may take quite a while."

      Where will it start according to this person?

    1. We exceeded it. This year, global poverty is going to fall to 12 percent.

      This is such an incredibly encouraging statistic! I’m honestly a bit surprised I have never heard about this success before, although I think what surprises me even more is that the baseline in 1990 was a whopping 36%! Looking at some more recent statistics, it appears the rate dropped to 9.2% in 2017. According to a report from The World Bank, however, 2020 may have caused our first regression in several years. While this press release was written in October and the information shared is merely speculative, they believe that the pandemic may cause as may as 1.4% of the world population to sink backward into extreme poverty.

      Here is the press report: https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2020/10/07/covid-19-to-add-as-many-as-150-million-extreme-poor-by-2021

    2. Do you think the world is going to be a better place next year? In the next decade? Can we end hunger, achieve gender equality, halt climate change, all in the next 15 years?

      It took 20 Presidencies, from Abraham Lincoln to Lydon B. Johnson, for civil equality within the United States to be substantive. Yet, to date, as a country we still find ourselves stuck in a continuous loop of domestic turmoil and racial disparities. Therefore, the United Nations goal of 15 years and tackling 17 various issues that plague every country is lofty at best. Unfortunately, irrespective of how democratic a country may be, the issue of political ideology arises in everything.

    3. Do you think the world is going to be a better place next year? In the next decade? Can we end hunger, achieve gender equality, halt climate change, all in the next 15 years?

      I do not believe that the world will be a better place any time soon. Although we can spend more money to feed more people, we can only spend so much money without hurting ourselves. When it comes to equality, I feel like people are so divided that we will prevent ourselves from progressing past a certain point because it is impossible to get every single person to agree and accept changes in society. I highly doubt that climate change will ever "Halt" since we have no control over countries like China and Russia that may not care about it as much as others, along with the fact that this requires every country involved to agree in making changes that will benefit the countries involved while still reaching the goal.

    4. Do you think the world is going to be a better place next year? In the next decade? Can we end hunger, achieve gender equality, halt climate change, all in the next 15 years?

      The world is constantly changing, sometimes for the better, and sometimes for the worse. Making the world a better place is definitely an attainable goal, but I seriously doubt that this goal will be achieved in the next year, decade, or even century. Our world today has a colossal amount of things that need to be changed in order to improve it. Some goals are a little easier, like ending world hunger, but completely halting climate change or attaining world peace are tasks that sound much easier than they really are. In addition, I believe that as soon as one of the problems are solved, like stopping world hunger, then a new problem will arise, like food shortages or wars over which countries need food more. I may be a pessimist, but there are too many problems that need to be fixed and not enough time to do so.

    5. Also, while some of the goals are pretty specific — end hunger — others are a lot vaguer — promote peaceful and tolerant societies.

      Would focusing more on the specific goals rather than the vaguer goals be easier? Would the specific goals have more of a set plan to follow than of a vague goal? I would think a more specific goal would be less time consuming to set a plan than if it was a vague goal. This would be because perhaps there are less elements and questions to be asked when determining how to promote peaceful and tolerant societies than to end world hunger (specific). When promoting peaceful and tolerant societies becomes a goal to achieve, a lot of questions need to be answered or evaluated to structure this peaceful and tolerant society within the existing society/community. In answering the question "what will make a peaceful and tolerant society?" Your answer may be different from your fellow classmates or even family members, as customs and beliefs vary. So what about specific goals? In this case, ending world hunger. I would take a guess that maybe these goals are less complicated to evaluate because of research and numbers we can utilize to support our claims when trying to figure out a solution. In the end, I would ask which goals are easier or should be prioritized in order to sufficiently create this better world for everyone?

    6. And that, then, I think, is to provide a point of focus for people to start demanding action and start demanding progress

      I agree with msewilam about the global reports not motivating many citizens to take action, instead they are more interested in the events that affect them. That is why I believe stricter environment laws will make people take this matter more seriously. If we create environmental laws that affect us individually, we may be more inclined to do the right thing in order to not have to suffer the consequences, such as large fines and imprisonment. Clearly as msewilam stated, we do not take other countries reports (that we have today) seriously, so how would the report cards be any different? These report cards do not affect us individually, so I cannot see an improvement this will cause on our planet.

    7. underperforming on social progress, relative to their wealth. Russia has lots of natural resource wealth, but lots of social problems. China has boomed economically, but hasn’t made much headway on human rights or environmental issues. India has a space program and millions of people without toilets. Now, on the other hand, we have countries that are over-performing on social progress relative to their GDP. Costa Rica has prioritized education, health and environmental sustainability, and as a result, it’s achieving a very high level of social progress, despite only having a rather modest GDP. And Costa Rica’s not alone. From poor countries like Rwanda to richer countries like New Zealand, we see that it’s possible to get lots of social progress, even if your GDP is not so great.

      It is very hard to measure the success of a country and this quote proves such.There are countries that seem to do well economically but have a huge divide in social class, there are countries where there is little divide among social class but also little freedom. I think that a good balance among these factors measures success. I think we are spending money in ways that may make us look good but cause harm to the public, a country may appear to be wonderful to an elitist which causes them to make misinformed decisions.

    8. What do we have to get to achieve the Global Goals?

      We need to start looking at it as "us" not "you" or "them" we are all in this together. Some people may think just a simple bottle being thrown out the window may do no harm. What is the problem? It's little. Okay well, there are so many people around the world thinking the exact same thing. One simple bottle turns into millions of bottles that are slowly destroying the earth. If one person doesn't like where they live don't take everyone down with you.

    9. three fundamental questions

      These 3 questions really make me reflect on the world and where we are as a whole. It is often forgotten that we aren't the only ones in the world. We go to school and/or work, coming home to see many of the smallest luxuries we may not even think are that special. Every time I drink water or eat food I don't think about the kids in India who are starving. When I go to school I don't think about the women in societies who have been kept away from education. When I go to the doctors I don't think about the families who don't have enough money leaving them sick and ill, knowing there is a medication that can help them. While thinking about these things, I want to see changes in the world, but how can I when I see food, water, education, and healthcare as nothing while people around the world see it as their only means of survival.

    1. Note: This rebuttal was posted by the corresponding author to Review Commons. Content has not been altered except for formatting.

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      Reply to the reviewers

      Reviewer response

      We thank the reviews for the careful reviews, and were delighted to see that they assessed both the quality and significance of the work so highlty.

      Reviewer #1 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      The authors investigated the cross-neutralization capacity of serum antibodies to past and future 229E coronaviruses using 229E spikes isolated from five time points and sera from two different periods (1985-1995 and 2020). They demonstrated a general pattern of asymmetric cross-neutralization, with sera cross-reactive to historical but not future strains. Using chimeras, the authors showed this pattern was mostly driven by antibodies to the evolving RBD. The rate of change in the neutralization titer, a possible measure of antigenic evolution, was estimated to be on par with that of flu B viruses. Interesting differences in individuals' cross-neutralization capacity were observed. The main take-away is that reinfection with 229E is enabled by antigenic escape, not "weak" immunity after infection (as proposed by others).

      Thanks for the excellent summary of the paper. We agree with it, although we would note that our work does not exclude “weak immunity” as a possible compounding explanation for re-infection in addition to the antigenic evolution we demonstrate.

      **Major comments:**

      The key conclusions are convincing and justified by the data. The work is clearly presented and presented with sufficient detail for reproducibility. Characteristically and laudably, the authors have made all the code and data publicly available on GitHub.

      Thanks for the favorable summary.

      **Minor comments:**

      p 3: Perhaps it is clearer to write that 229E has been identified/isolated in humans for >50 y? Or do you really mean to imply (by contrast with "circulated") that NL63 emerged very recently?

      This is a good suggestion. We really do not know how long either CoV-229E or CoV-NL63 have been circulating humans, only that CoV-229E was first isolated >50 years ago whereas CoV-NL63 was first identified only in 2003. It is possible both viruses have been circulating for longer than that. We have made the suggested change to clarify.

      p 3: An important citation for the antigenic implications of the ladder-like phylogeny AND phylogenetic clustering by date is the classic paper introducing phylodynamics by Grenfell et al. (2004, Science).

      Thanks for pointing out this citation; we have added it.

      p 4: I might not be like all readers, but I prefer to see a bit in the main text about the source of sera for this kind of study. (I wonder about age, if donors are healthy, etc.)

      This is a good question, and we have expanded on it in both the main text and the methods. Briefly, the sera were all from apparently healthy individuals, and no information about recent respiratory virus infections were available. We have provided the age of the serum donor (at the time of serum collection) above the title of each plot showing person-specific neutralization data.

      p 4: "Our reason for focusing..." stops short. Is the idea that these are probably people who were recently infected?

      This is a good question, and we have elaborated in the revised text. We don’t have any direct information on whether the individuals had recent infections, although that seems plausible. More pragmatically, we reasoned that sera that had reasonably high initial titers would provide better dynamic range to see how titers changed as the virus evolved given our assay has a lower limit of detection.

      p 5: Probably my biggest suggestion for the paper is that it mention another relevant study. In 1980, Anne Underwood demonstrated similar asymmetric cross-immunity among early strains of H3N2 (but using rabbits, not human sera), finding that antibodies raised to one strain reacted more strongly by HAI to past strains than to later strains (doi: 10.1128/IAI.27.2.397-404.1980). This relates to the significance of the paper (next section).

      Thanks, this is a good and relevant citation, and we have added it when we discuss the possible asymmetry of antigenic change with respect to time.

      Obviously, there are citations to update throughout due to the booming SARS-CoV-2 literature.

      We have updated the other citations to keep pace with the fast-changing literature!

      Reviewer #1 (Significance (Required)):

      This study, if anything, undersells itself. Obviously it is a huge contribution to our understanding of how a seasonal coronavirus that bears important phenotypic resemblance to SARS-CoV-2 evolves, but I think it is also providing a foundational piece of evidence--a mechanism--of how rapid viral turnover (by antigenic evolution) occurs. There is no reason to think this should be limited to the coronaviruses, and I suspect the evidence here will go a long way to unifying the evolutionary and epidemiological dynamics of fast-evolving viruses.

      Thanks for the praise of the manuscript. Indeed, we were surprised to find that no similarly designed studies have been done even for influenza virus, and so are now interested in expanding our future work to do that as we fully agree it could provide insight more broadly.

      Asymmetric competition is nearly an ecological requirement for one strain to successfully invade and displace another. It is thought (unsure how widely?) that flu evolves antigenically, with new strains eventually displacing old ones, by mutating at key epitopes in ways that the immune system does not immediately pick up. That is, immune memory is biased to recall responses to conserved epitopes, which on average are probably less neutralizing. This will induce competition between mutant and resident viruses, but it would be symmetric, since infection with either would induce responses to conserved epitopes on the other. But if on infection with the mutant, immune memory sometimes reuses (boosts) antibody responses to target the mutated epitopes, those recycled antibodies might be less effective against the mutant, making the competition asymmetric.

      What this paper and Underwood (1980) suggest is that we can get this asymmetric, antibody-mediated competition fairly easily and without extensive memory. Underwood showed this more powerfully in rabbits, but in this paper too we see an indirect suggestion of asymmetry in relatively inexperienced children (Fig. 3). Mutants (future strains) successfully invade when they can trigger presumably recalled antibodies that are more harmful to the resident (soon historical) strain than the mutant. If this is so easy to do, as judged by the extensive data here, then it could be common.

      I've gone off on a theoretical limb here, but the paper is still important without these considerations. This work will be of interest to evolutionary biologists, epidemiologists, vaccinologists, and everyone else wondering what SARS-CoV-2 will do next and how immunity to antigenically variable pathogens works.

      We completely agree with the ideas mentioned above, and appreciate having it put in this nice context, particularly alongside the Underwood paper (with which we were not previously familiar). That said, we believe that the small number of recent children sera samples in the current study preclude us from drawing strong conclusions about the asymmetry--as the reviewer says, our data provides an indirect suggestion too. So overall we have not tried to expand this angle here because as the reviewer says, the paper is still important without these considerations. However, we are actively working to see if we can design a similar study with more children sera in the future to separately address the questions about asymmetry.

      Reviewer #2 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      An important question in coronavirology is what governs their ability to seemingly reinfect people regularly (within 2 or 3 years). While waning protective immunity has been proposed and is of current concern for SARS CoV-2, the role of antigenic drift driven by escape from neutralizing antibodies has not been well characterized. The authors have attempted to look at this through examining historical Spike proteins from HCoV-229E over a period of 30-odd years. The authors show that 229E evolves along a linear trajectory consistent with yearly selection by pre-existing immunity. Taking representative spike proteins from different time points into pseudovirus neut assays, they find that older spike proteins are less sensitive to neut by more recent sera. Conversely, spike proteins from prior to the birth of an individual display markedly less sensitivity to neut that those prevalent during the persons lifetime. Sequence analysis of the spike shows variation accruing in both N-termina regions and the RBD, parts of spike predominantly targeted by nABs. Lastly producing early spikes with chimeric RBDs from late viruses enhances the sensitivity to more recent sera.

      This is a potentially important MS that addresses a pertinent question that is of wide interest for the CoV2 pandemic. While it is limited in addressing the relative contribution of antigenic escape vs waning Ab titers because of the nature of the sample, the MS makes a strong case for Spike evolution being driven by antigenic escape.

      Thanks for the summary. We agree that our paper does not really address waning immunity because we don’t have sequential serum samples from the same individual. However, it does clearly show that antigenic evolution is important independent of waning immunity, because all of the experiments (e.g., Figure 2 and 3) show the same serum sample tested against newer spikes, and neutralization titers definitely decrease as the spike evolves. The reviewer is correct that this doesn’t rule out the possibility of waning immunity as a separate phenomenon, and we have been sure to emphasize that in the revised text.

      Reviewer #2 (Significance (Required)):

      While the Figs 1-3 are clear, the data in Fig 4 is somewhat preliminary. In all likelihood many people are making neutralizing antibodies both against RBD and the N-terminal region and the relative proportion probably underlies the variability in the data in Fig 4B. I think the MS would benefit from the following:

      A comparison of NTD vs RBD vs NTD/RBD chimeras in Fig 4B to give a fuller picture of antigenic escape with statistical support.

      The reviewer is correct that our manuscript does not provide a decisive answer on the relative role of NTD versus RBD targeting antibodies, although the data in Fig. 4B clearly show that RBD antibodies are important for many individuals as simply changing the RBD to that of newer viruses recapitulates the full spike antigenic evolution without any changes in the NTD or elsewhere (e.g., subject SD87_2 or SD85_3 in Fig 4B). However, for some other individuals NTD antibodies may play a role.

      In general, full dissection of the role of RBD versus NTD antibodies is beyond the scope of our study (and in some cases not even possible with the available volumes of the older serum). In any case, the major point of our study—the first experimental demonstration that seasonal coronaviruses undergo antigenic evolution—does not depend on dissecting the relative roles of RBD and NTD antibodies. We have therefore added new text explaining that we cannot fully parse the relative role of antibodies to these domains beyond knowing that RBD antibodies play n important role. We have added text to emphasize that antibodies to other regions including the NTD could also be important.

      A figure to map the polymorphic residues in Fig 4A onto the 229E spike structure to visualise their position and special relatedness, with perhaps a comparison with the latest knowledge of SASR CoV-2 epitopes.

      We agree that visualizing the variable sites on the structure is useful and have added such a visualization as a new panel in Figure 4. This allows us to more clearly show the clustering of variability in the RBD and NTD. This clustering of mutations in those regions is consistent with what is currently being seen with the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants with mutations in those regions of spike. However, given the divergence between SARS-CoV-2 and CoV-229E, we are not able to do a more fine-grained comparison of epitope sites as many important sites in the RBD and NTD do not have a clear one-to-one alignment (for instance, the RBD’s don’t even bind the same receptor).

      Additional discussion to reflect the new SARS CoV-2 variants and their potential selection by escape in the light of the authors data.

      We have updated the manuscript to describe the new SARS-CoV-2 variants (which mostly emerged after submission of our original manuscript) and how this emerging antigenic evolution of SARS-CoV-2 is consistent with what we saw in CoV-229E.

    1. When data of any sort are placed in storage, they are filed alphabetically or numerically, and information is found (when it is) by tracing it down from subclass to subclass.

      This is not exactly true, and I believe it was not true at the time, of how libraries arrange information, Dewey

    2. Our ineptitude in getting at the record is largely caused by the artificiality of systems of indexing.

      I wonder if these remarks are previous to the standard library arrangement that we use today.

    3. It is readily possible to construct a machine which will manipulate premises in accordance with formal logic, simply by the clever use of relay circuits. Put a set of premises into such a device and turn the crank, and it will readily pass out conclusion after conclusion, all in accordance with logical law, and with no more slips than would be expected of a keyboard adding machine.

      And yet, this is what most programmers fail to do.

    4. One can now picture a future investigator in his laboratory. His hands are free, and he is not anchored. As he moves about and observes, he photographs and comments. Time is automatically recorded to tie the two records together. If he goes into the field, he may be connected by radio to his recorder. As he ponders over his notes in the evening, he again talks his comments into the record. His typed record, as well as his photographs, may both be in miniature, so that he projects them for examination.

      This is one of the most important aspects of the essay. Noting that he is continuously talking about the work of a scientist, he stresses the act of recording, of looking at reality. This is radically different from what Ahrens claims in his book "How to take Smart Notes", in which there is not a single hint to the fact that you must look through the window and not just into previous works.

    5. the users of advanced methods of manipulating data are a very small part of the population. There are, however, machines for solving differential equations—and functional and integral equations, for that matter. There are many special machines, such as the harmonic synthesizer which predicts the tides. There will be many more, appearing certainly first in the hands of the scientist and in small numbers.

      This is a very valid argument in the context of the essay. He is not only exploring validity of technical developments, but the commercial viability. Mass production lower costs, but if not many people care about something, it will not be mass produced. However, machines to perform operations few people care about exist. Therefore...

      This is the inverse of the story of the GPU, but very relatable to the space industry.

    1. He took a deep breath. And sinking back into his chair he placed an ankle over a knee and began to light a cheap cigar. I almost asked him where the rolled cigarette was. I couldn't even laugh; it was too chilling. 'Nothing lasts long enough to make any sense,' I said. I said it without conviction.

      76 After his "speech", Phillip lays back in his chair and leaves the narrator in a state where he can't even laugh, even though we have seen him to do so in situations that have much less comedy than this one. This shows that Phillip's words really affected him, because his words represent the narrator's point of view to some extent. Here, he doesn't seem as disinterested as usual since the topic actually meant something to him. Than, he answers with the words:"Nothing lasts long enough to make any sense". This show his view of the world as a whole. Especially in his home country, nothing lasts forever and he has grown accustomed to that. I assume that's why he usually tries to seem to disinterested in everything - because he doesn't think that it will last long enough to be worth a while analyzing it. However, is that really true or just a way of thinking that the narrator has created by which he doesn't pay attention to things that may even be important simply because "nothing lasts long enough to make any sense"?

    2. He took off his coat slowly. He unbuttoned his shirtsleeves and folded them back up to his upper arms. As I watched him come for me, in the instant his fist swung, Julia'S face, transfixed by the spikes of a blinding white light, flared inside my mind. Inside the bench. Inside the room. Anaesthetising my soul. An eternity later, when he could no longer find any spot on my body to hurt and I was still conscious but dead to every blow he could think of, the door opened and the white officers came in. They took one look at me and dragged him off.

      73 The beginning of this segment of the story(right after the "..." on the previous page left me a little bit puzzled on what actually is going on and why the narrator is getting beaten. I assume that he is being interrogated so that he can call out names that are part of something I am not certain of. During a mere moment he sees Julia's face, therefore she may be what they are looking for. Why does he picture her? Is there something unspoken between them that he remembers in such a moment or is it simply because he feels affection towards her. Either way, he doesn't say a single thing and gets beaten to the point where there isn't a single spot on his body that isn't hurt. That makes me question what his actual motives are. Throughout the story, we have seen that he isn't exactly sticking to the culture of his home country, and strays further away in his ambition to gain more knowledge. Having that in mind, what makes him take such a beating for it? Maybe it is because of certain people, like Julia, or the narrator may simply be more attached to his homeland than what he makes it seem. Still, I believe I am unaware of his actual motives.

    3. I woke up in some bed

      Something I think we forget is the particularity of Immaculate’s situation. She got kicked out of her father’s house (a pastor who does not accept her), she has a kid which she has to take care of, she has no special education or well-paid occupation (or at least they are not mentioned) and she is basically stuck with her baby daddy Peter who is sexually, verbally, and physically abusive. Her need for intimacy and gentleness may have been why she got on with the protagonist in the first place, but they can sleep only outside in “some bed” because there isn’t any other option. Immaculate is as close as being homeless at that point, all lies on Peter’s rage and decision whether he is satisfied with his abuse and wishes to kick her out or if he would like to keep her and his child, “she was just a red stain…” (p.14) .

    4. fat

      This may seem like a silly observation, but Marechera mentions the word "fat" twice in this passage. There's an obvious connection to the title "House of Hunger", which we still don't know whether it should be interpreted as a physical place or a state of mind. In this context, there is an obvious negative connotation to the word "fat" and is connected to the white people in the region as well. I think this is done in order to juxtapose the lifestyle of the white and black people, but also to give the reader a better understanding of the hatred between the two groups. This is starting to form as a theme of the novella. (p.81)

    5. I sat beneath the tall msasa tree whose branches scrape the corrugated iron roofs. I was trying not to think about where I was going. I didn't feel bitter. I was glad things had happened the way they had; I couldn't have stayed on in that House of Hunger where every morsel of sanity was snatched from you the way some kinds of bird snatch food from the very mouths of babes.

      The author may have been using monotonous sentense structure in order to build up suspence before introducing a central concept, in that case the title of the novel - The House of Hunger. As it can be seen, the sentence where this happens is preceeded by several relatively short ones: I sat..., I was..., I didn't..., I was... and immediately after we get the one begining with I couldn't... where the phrase House of Hunger is used for the first time in the novel (apart from the title) (11). The next sentence is also the first in the sequence to not begin with an I.

    1. In this sense Bloom is right: one cannot be against luxury. I would only add that one also can’t be for it. To choose and enjoy excess is something all humans, given the opportunity, will try to do.

      I don't think someone should even be against luxuries, if we are speaking of luxuries by how Khan defines it. Even though certain luxuries may be unnecessary, such as a 23,000 dollar hermes bag, it is after all bringing a positive feeling to a human, whether it be satisfaction or gratitude.

    1. In the highest class, I replied,—among those goods which he who would be happy desires both for their own sake and for the sake of their results. Then the many are of another mind; they think that justice is to be reckoned in the troublesome class, among goods which are to be pursued for the sake of rewards and of reputation, but in themselves are disagreeable and rather to be avoided.

      This goes back to our discussion in class about how we all interpret justice in different ways. One may see justice as something good and happy while another person may see it as a punishment because they did something wrong. An example would be how many Black Lives Mater protests are used seek protest for a victim against police brutality. That justice that that victim receives is good, however it's not good for the police or the person who committed the crime because they are getting punished for it.

    1. All the examples that Bloom discusses involve what we might call positive contagion—an object gains value because of its link to a beloved individual, history, or brand. This positive glow rescues a seemingly offensive behavior: contrary to what we might at first think, spending exorbitant amounts on a watch is not selfish or self-absorbed but rather can be understood as benign and even virtuous. Those who spend on luxuries are not “irrational, wasteful, . . . evil”—rather, they appropriately take pleasure by rationally considering the joy that we all find in a cherished object’s history

      In this paragraph, it is apparent that Gelman to some extent heavily believes in Paul Bloom's perspective and importance on history as the desired reason for luxury goods, inferring the value of story linked to objects. However, I would not go as far as Gelman, suggesting that spending enormous amounts of money on these goods are some how virtues. That being said, with the right circumstances, such as purchasing a luxury item so that it may be accessible for others to view (i.e. a museum), then the idea of being virtuous might be more accurately used to describe. This does on the other hand bring into question to what extent do we consider this act as a personal desire as the buyer themselves might be purchasing an item believing it is their responsibility and contribution to the world, however this creates a grey area as it does not allow us to fully evaluate what purchasing an item for personal use and desire to said individual means for them or what persuades them into making that decision, whether it being to give off a wealthy persona or truly for their own love of the history.

    1. Note: This rebuttal was posted by the corresponding author to Review Commons. Content has not been altered except for formatting.

      Learn more at Review Commons


      Reply to the reviewers

      We thank all three reviewers for their very useful and constructive comments. Below is our point-by-point response.

      Reviewer #1 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      The manuscript by Viais R et al describes a novel role for augmin complex in apoptosis prevention during brain development. Augmin complex recruits g TuRC to microtubule lattices to nucleate microtubule branches. The authors show how -in its absence- neural progenitors have elevated p53 activity and apoptotic rate, with severe consequences on overall brain development. In particular, augmin-deleted neural progenitors display spindle abnormalities and mitotic delay, which induce DNA damage accountable for p53-induced apoptosis.

      One point that I personally found very interesting is the role of augmin-dependent MT nucleation depletion in interphase. The authors mention (line 152) that at stage E13.5, besides the number of neurons being reduced, a few neurons were misplaced in the apical region, indicating a role for augmin-driven MT nucleation in cell migration. Moreover, the authors showed that p53 genetic deletion in the Haus6 cKO rescues the apoptosis phenotype but not the tissue disorganisation, suggesting that augmin-dependent microtubule might play a role in tissue polarity. While this is well presented in the discussion, the title in line 268 narrowly refers to mitotic augmin roles. I would like here to see the authors referring to putative roles for augmin-mediated MT nucleation in interphase, by toning down the title in line 268.

      We note that severe loss of tissue integrity is evident in the p53 KO background. In this background cells are allowed to repeatedly undergo defective cell divisions with aberrant chromosome segregation, producing increasingly abnormal daughter cells that may eventually fail to support epithelial integrity. Regarding possible neuronal migration defects, this has been previously observed in a study by the Hoogenraad group (Cunha-Ferreira et al., Cell Reports, 2018, 24, 791–800) and this is mentioned in our discussion. To account for the possibility that augmin may have roles beyond mitosis, we have changed the heading to a more neutral statement, not specifically referring to proliferation/mitosis:Loss of augmin in p53 KO brains disrupts neuroepithelium integrity”.

      Overall, the text is well written and flows easily. Figures are clear and legends provide sufficient information on experimental conditions, number of replicates and scale bars. I noticed that, although the number of repeats is specified, the number of cells scored per experiment is not always included. In my comments below I highlight cases where this missing information should be added.

      **Specific points:**

      1. In the Cep63 KO (Marjanovic et al, 2015) and the CenpJ KO mice (Insolera et al, 2014), as well as other recently published papers (e.g. Phan TP et al, EMBO Journal, 2020) part of the phenotypical characterisation of the KO mice displays pictures of the overall brain dissected from the mice. Could the author show these images?

      The main difference between the cited studies (including our own on the role of CEP63 in brain development) and our current study is that in the previous studies brains are microcephalic but essentially intact, whereas in our current study brain development was aborted and accompanied by cell death and severe tissue disruption. As a result, these brains are very fragile and difficult/impossible to isolate. An additional challenge is the fact that brain disruption occurs at a very early developmental stage (before E13.5), where dissection is more difficult than at later stages. Indeed, we note that all the brains presented in the above cited studies were from later embryonic stages or newborn/adult mice. Therefore, instead of dissecting brains, we decided to present encephalic coronal and sagittal sections as shown in Fig. 1c, d, e, Fig. S1c, and Fig. 3b, e to show the overall impact of Haus6 cKO and Haus6 cKO p53 KO on embryonic brain morphology at E13.5 and E17.5.

      Fig2d: do the insets correspond to higher magnification images? What is the zoom factor? I could not find it in the legend.

      The zoom factor is 1.4 - we have added this information to the figure legend.

      Fig2E,I and K graphs: how many cells were quantified here over how many experiments? I could not find information in the figure legend.

      We have added the information regarding the number of embryos and counted cells to the figure legends.

      The impact of Haus6 on mitotic spindle needs further clarification:

      o Fig2F: here, the authors show quantification for abnormal and multipolar spindle together. Later on, the abnormal spindle phenotype is no longer discussed (Fig4). I was wondering what is the individual contribution of abnormal and multipolar spindle, separately. Which one of the two is more frequent? Could the authors explain in the text how they define an abnormal spindle? Is it the lack of MT with the condensed chromosome area?

      We agree that our previous classification was somewhat confusing. The spindle defects in Haus6 cKO cells are directly linked to the spindle pole fragmentation phenotype shown in Fig. 2d, e. Association of spindle microtubules with these scattered PCM fragments causes spindles to appear overall disorganized. In some cases, multiple smaller asters are present, which is what we had termed “multipolar”. However, this does not always involve multipolar DNA configurations, which we separately quantify in Fig. 4. To avoid confusion, we now classify spindle morphologies based on tubulin staining simply as “normal” (bipolar configuration, two robust and focused asters) or “disorganized” (lack of bipolar configuration, in some cases multiple smaller asters). We have included a better description of this classification (lines 202-205).

      o Could it be that augmin deletion induce an instability in MTs within the mitotic spindle, leading to the "empty" or with very few MTs spindles? Or could it be that more cold-sensitive MTs are affected by fixation? What is the percentage of the spindle with no MT in control?

      It is possible that augmin-deficient spindles are less well-preserved during fixation due to compromised spindle microtubule stability. Indeed, in tissue culture cells augmin deficient spindle microtubules are more cold-sensitive than controls (Zhu et al., 2008, JCB, 183, 835-848). To address this we will determine the percentage of mitotic control and Haus6 cKO cells lacking microtubule staining.

      o Did the authors quantify anaphase/telophase phenotypes as they did in Fig4f?

      Yes, this quantification was already included in Fig. 4j, where we compared abnormal chromosome configurations between Haus6 cKO and Haus6 cKO p53 KO.

      o How do authors explain PCM fragmentation here? Could this phenotype be due to an initial cytokinesis defect which led the cells to accumulate extra centrosomes? Or could this maybe be a product of aberrant PCM maturation/centrosome duplication? Could the authors add here a line to discuss the possible origin of pole fragmentation?

      The PCM fragmentation phenotype has previously been described after augmin RNAi in cultured cells (Lawo et al., 2009, Curr Biol, 19, 816-826). We refer to this result in the discussion and we have added the above reference, to emphasize this point. The authors showed that this phenotype does not involve amplification of centriole number, but is caused by an imbalance in microtubule-dependent forces acting on the PCM and leading to its fragmentation. Thus, the extra poles were formed by acentriolar PCM fragments. We will clarify this issue by quantifying centriole numbers in mitotic cells (when centriole duplication is complete) in control and Haus6 cKO brains. We expect that this will confirm the data previously obtained in cell lines showing that in most cells the fragmented poles are not due to extra centrioles (see also below).

      Apart from the PCM fragmentation phenotype that does not alter centriole number, previous work in cultured cells also described cytokinesis defects. Failed cytokinesis would indeed lead to increased centriole number. However, it would also increase DNA content, which would be visible by an increase in the size of interphase nuclei (which we observed in Haus6 cKO p53 KO cells and quantified in Fig. 4J) and a larger size of mitotic figures. We now refer to the possibility of cytokinesis defects and cite previous work in lines 272-274. In case we observe cells with increased centriole number, which we will quantify for the revised version of the manuscript (see above), we will also determine if this corelates with an increased size of the corresponding mitotic figures. If so, this would be consistent with failed cytokinesis as cause of extra centrosomes.

      Fig 4 Did the authors quantify centrosome fragmentation and abnormal spindle here? As they characterised them for the Haus6 cKO mouse, it would be preferable to maintain the same characterisation for the Haus6 cKO p53KO.

      We will quantify pole fragmentation and spindle defects also in Haus6 cKO p53 KO as shown for Haus6 cKO in Fig. 2.

      Fig4c and d: how many replicates were done to obtain these graphs? I think the authors forgot to add this information in the figure legend.

      This information has been included in the figure legend.

      Fig4f,g, I and J: how many cells were counted per experiment? I appreciate the authors writing the n of experiments performed.

      We have added this information to the figure legend.

      Fig5d: how many cells were counted per experiment?

      We have added this information to the figure legend.

      Reviewer #1 (Significance (Required)):

      While it was already known that mitotic delay affects the neuronal progenitor pool through activation of p53-dependent apoptosis (Pilaz L-J, Neuron 2016; Mitchell-Dick A, Dev Neurosci 2020), and that this can be triggered by depletion of centrosomal proteins as Cenpj and Cep63, the role of surface-dependent microtubule nucleation was not identified so far. Some insights come from a Haus6-KO mouse model which dies during blastocyst stage after several aberrant mitosis (Watanabe S, Cell Reports, 2016). In parallel, McKinley KL et al showed that Haus8 depletion in human cells (RPE1cells) triggered p53-dependent G1 arrest following mitotic defects (McKinley KL, Developmental Cell, 2017). Building on the Hause6 KO mouse and human cell line data, here Viais R et al discover a novel role for the augmin-mediated MT nucleation in neural progenitor growth and brain development in vivo, through prevention of p53-induced apoptosis.

      Specifically, Viais R et al show that:

      1. Surface-dependent microtubule nucleation depletion severely impacts brain development, disrupting partly or completely forebrain domains and cerebellum;
      2. Surface-dependent microtubule nucleation depletion induce spindle abnormalities, resulting in mitotic delay in apical progenitors;
      3. Mitotic delay results in DNA breaks, p53 activation and p53-induced apoptosis.

        This is a tidy, well-executed study with good quality data. These findings propose a novel mechanism that results essential for neural progenitor and overall brain development.

        In my opinion, a large audience will benefit from these discoveries: from developmental biologists to cell biologists focused on microtubule dynamics, cell cycle, differentiation, stem cells and cell polarity.

      Key works describing my area of expertise: microtubule dynamics, centrosome function, cell cycle regulation and cell polarity.

      Reviewer #2 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      Viais, Lüders and colleagues here present an analysis of augmin's roles in neural stem cell development. They describe a dramatic impact of the conditional ablation of Haus6 on embryonic brain development in the mouse, with mitotic problems that lead to greatly-increased levels of apoptosis. The rescue of this apoptosis by mutation of the gene that encodes p53 did not restore brain development, which was still aberrant, due to mitotic errors.

      The paper is clearly written, with well-designed and controlled experiments. Its conclusions are well supported by the data presented. I have few comments on the technical aspects of the work- it appears very solid to me.

      **Specific comments**

      1. Clearer explanation of the mouse strains used should be provided. The section describing the generation of the Haus6 conditional on p.5 should specify that this is the same as was already published in the 2016 Watanabe paper (this is in the Materials and Methods, but this should be more clearly specified. More specific details of the p53 knockout mice from Jackson should be included in the Materials and Methods.

      We have included additional information describing the generation of the Haus6 cKO mice in the main text (line 137-140). It is not exactly the same as described in the Watanabe et al. paper. The previously published strain (Watanabe et al., 2016, Cell Reports, 15, 54-60) contained a floxed Haus6 cKO allele with a flanking neomycin cassette. For the current study the neomycin cassette was removed. Details are described in the method section and also shown in Fig. S1a. Specific information regarding the p53 KO strain has been added to the method section.

      Figure 1a contains minimal information on the Haus6 locus. More detail should be included for information, if this Figure is to remain (although reference to the targeting details in the original description would be sufficient). It is unclear what the timeline diagram is to convey and it should be improved or deleted. A similar comment applies for the details in Figure 3a, although the colour scheme for the different genotypes is useful.

      More detailed information on the Haus6 locus is shown in the schematic of Fig. S1a and in the referenced study (Watanabe et al., 2016, Cell Reports, 15, 54-60). Since the targeting of Haus6 exon1 was previously described, we feel that including this information as a supplementary figure and referring to the previous study is appropriate.

      Regarding the schematics in Fig. 1a and Fig. 3a, we have improved these. The timeline shows the time points of Cre expression and of obtaining embryos for analysis.

      The important PCR controls in Figure S1b have an unexplained 1000 bp band that appears only in the floxed heterozygote. It would be helpful if the authors explained this in the relevant Figure legend.

      This band is an artifact and represents heteroduplexes of floxed (1080 bp) and wild type (530 bp) DNA strands due to extended regions of complementary. We have explained this in the figure legend.

      Assuming the putative centrosome 'clusters' in Figure 6c are similar to the fragmented structures seen in thalamus in Figure 2d, a different description should be used to avoid confusion with multiple centrosomes, which is not a phenotype here. It is not clear how the loss of centrosomes from the ventricular surface was scored, whether it was based on total gamma-tubulin signal or individual centrosomes; how fragmented poles would affect that is unclear, so the legend and relevant details should clarify this point.

      The fragmented spindle poles shown in Fig. 2d are different from the centrosome clusters in Fig. 6c. The fragmented poles are fragments of PCM rather than extra centrosomes. Fragmentation is specific to mitosis, involving forces exerted by spindle microtubules (Lawo et al., 2009, Curr Biol, 19, 816-826). In contrast, the centrosome clusters that we observed in Haus6 cKO p53 KO apical progenitors represent centrosomes from multiple cells in interphase, most likely as part of apical membrane patches that have delaminated form the ventricular surface. In the intact epithelium of controls these centrosomes line the ventricular surface. To avoid confusion, we now indicate in the text and legend that these centrosome clusters involve interphase cells.

      Phospho-histone H2AX should be referred to as a marker of activation of the DNA damage response, rather than DNA repair.

      We have changed the text accordingly.

      **Minor points**

      i. Figure 1b should include a scale bar.

      We have added the scale bar.

      ii. The labelling of Figure 1f should be revised.

      The labels have been fixed.

      iii. Figure 2k is not labelled in this Figure.

      This has been fixed.

      iv. Scale bars should be included in the blow-ups in Figure 6c.

      We have added the scale bars.

      Reviewer #2 (Significance (Required)):

      While it is striking that they see complete disruption of brain development, rather than microcephaly, arguably the mechanistic novelty of the findings is moderate, in that the impacts of Haus6 deficiency on mitotic spindle assembly are well established. The authors only allude to potential additional and novel activities of augmin (in neural progenitors, potentially) that might explain this possibly-unexpected outcome of this study. The topic is likely to be of interest to people in the field of mitosis, genome stability and brain development.

      My expertise is cell biology/ mitosis, less so on murine brain development.

      Reviewer #3 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      Jens Lüders &Co demonstrates the essential role of Augmin-mediated MT is critical for proper brain development in mice. The most striking point is that even p53 is eliminated, the microcephaly phenotypes of Haus6 KOs were not rescued. This could mean that the Augmin-mediated MT process is critical to cellular functions that are independent of p53. The authors claim that there are increased DNA damage and excessive mitotic errors. In these aspects, the current work is fascinating. Nevertheless, what causes massive damage to the neural epithelial tissues in the double mutant is not well explained or examined. Few questions appear in mind before I go into the detail. Are these animals still harbor functional centrosomes and their numerical status?

      This is an important point that was also raised by the other reviewers. Based on previous work in cells lines (Lawo et al., 2009, Curr Biol, 19, 816-826), we do not expect that loss of augmin directly impairs centrosomes. Indeed, the authors showed that centriole number was unaffected. The only centrosome defect that the authors observed was fragmentation of the PCM during mitosis, but this was shown to be due to imbalanced forces exerted by spindle microtubules: fragmentation could be rescued by microtubule depolymerization or depletion of the cortical microtubule tethering factor NUMA (Lawo et al., 2009, Curr Biol, 19, 816-826). That being said, we will examine this issue also in our mouse model by staining and counting of centrioles in mitotic apical progenitors of control and Haus6 cKO embryos.

      The microcephaly part of the introduction needs some more work. In particular, the authors need to explain apical progenitors' depletion, possibly the correct mechanisms in causing microcephaly. By saying cortical progenitors, it becomes vague. Indeed, there would also be cortical progenitors depleted. But, the fundamental mechanisms are the depletion of apical progenitors lined up at VZ's lumen. Two works in this connection generated brain tissues from microcephaly patients carrying mutations in CenpJ and CDK5RAP2 (Gabriel and Lancaster et al). Authors should cite their work and relate their findings to mouse brain data.

      We have introduced text changes in the introduction to indicate the specific role of apical progenitor depletion in microcephaly and the differences in the underlying mechanism between mouse and human organoid models (line 63; lines 86-92). In this context we also cite the Gabriel et al. and Lancaster et al. studies.

      -What makes me worry is, looking at figure 1E, there is pretty much no brain, and of course, authors have analyzed what is left over. How could one distinguish reduced PAX6 area and TUJ1 area is due to the gross defects in brain development. Clearly, Haus6 KO causes a severe defect in brain development. Thus, deriving a conclusion from the damaged brain can be misleading. One way to circumvent this problem is to perform 2D experiments with isolated cell types (let us say NPCs and testing if they can spontaneous differentiate).

      We note that overall brain structures are only lost by E17.5, but brain structures (albeit defective) are still present at E13.5. Indeed, all of our quantifications were done at E13.5 or earlier stages. That being said, we understand the concern that quantifications in defective brain structures may be misleading. However, 2D cultures, for which cells are removed from their tissue context, may have similar issues. For this reason, we plan to provide two different type of analyses. We will measure PAX6 and TUJ1 layers in brains from embryos at E.11.5, since the relevant tissues will be less damaged at this earlier stage. In addition, we will use BrdU injection prior to fixation of embryos. Proliferating apical progenitors will incorporate the label during S phase and subsequently we will determine the relative amounts of BrdU-positive cell types (apical progenitors vs neurons) in control and Haus6 cKO brains. Tissue damage will have less impact in this short-term labelling experiment.

      Figure 2: A nice illustration that Hau6 KO animals harbor many mitotic figures. The quantifications lack how many slices and how many cells were analyzed. Simply n=4 does not say much. 4 animals were considered but how many cells/slices would help identify mitotic cells/animals' distribution. A simple bar diagram does not tell a lot.

      We have added this information to the figure legend.

      As a minor point, how did the authors unambiguously scored prometaphase cells and other mitotic figures? Representative figures will help. Besides, what is the meaning of many prometaphase cells? At least a discussion would help.

      This is a good suggestion and we will provide examples of the mitotic figures that we scored. We now explain the meaning of the increase in prometaphase cells in the description of this result (lines 178-180).

      Can the authors probe centrosomes (not by using gamma-tubulin) and relate their presence or absence to p53 upregulation? This is an important point because a complete loss of centrosome is known to trigger p53 upregulation. This may be different in Haus6 KO. This could mean (i.e, centrosomes are normal in numbers or increase in numbers), p53 upregulation is regardless of centrosomes loss.

      Indeed, we believe that p53 upregulation in Haus6-deficient brains is not caused by loss of centrosomes. Instead, our data suggest, as explained in the discussion, that mitotic delay caused by augmin deficiency is sufficient for p53 upregulation. We will further support this conclusion by counting centrioles in mitotic cells. At this point of the cell cycle centriole duplication is complete and we expect to observe largely normal centriole numbers. In some cells we may observe increased numbers due to cytokinesis failure (see response to reviewer #1).

      I have a hard time to ascertain how the authors scored interphase cells that enriched with p53. Some representative images with identity markers will help.

      Scoring p53-positive interphase cells is relatively straightforward since the p53 signal is nuclear and not observed in mitotic apical progenitors. We have included a magnified region of the tissue shown in Fig. 2j, displaying PAX6/p53-positive nuclei of individual cells.

      Looking at the p53 status in Haus6 KO animals, it is intriguing that p53 upregulation is not unique to centrosome loss. At this point, it becomes essential to thoroughly analyze the centrosome status to cross-check if Haus6 loss abrogates centrosomes; if so, how much.

      Since centrosome number is linked to centriole number, we will address this point by quantifying centriole numbers in mitotic apical progenitors (see above).

      Double KO could subside the cell death, but not tissue growth is impressive. So what is going on there? Is there a premature differentiation that leads to NPCs depletion? I believe the authors should generate 2D experiments with cells derived from these double KO animals compared to Haus6 KO and test if there is a premature differentiation that can lead to malformation of the forebrain. Here staining for the forebrain progenitor markers will additionally help (Perhaps FOXG1).

      As explained in response to reviewer #1, we prefer to analyse this issue in vivo rather than in cells that are removed from their native tissue context, which may affect cell fate decisions. To address whether cells prematurely differentiate, we will use injection of BrdU (incorporated by proliferating apical progenitors) prior to fixation, followed by staining for cell type-specific markers. If there is premature differentiation, this should be visible as an increase in BrdU-positive post-mitotic cells.

      Looking at Figure 6, it becomes clear that the double KOs have severe issues in maintaining the apical progenitors suggesting that they undergo premature differentiation before attaining a sufficient pool of NPCs. Testing this will bridge the paper between descriptive findings to mechanisms.

      This point relates to the reviewer’s previous point: do Haus6 cKO p53 KO apical progenitors prematurely differentiate? We believe that cell loss, tissue disruption, and aborted development may also be explained without premature differentiation. In the absence of p53, repeated abnormal mitoses and the resulting increasingly severe chromosomal aberrations including DNA damage (Fig. 5) may produce cells that eventually won’t be able to proliferate and function properly. However, we will test premature differentiation by BrdU injection and staining with appropriate markers as explained above.

      The discussion section is excellent, but it should add some human relevance. In particular, are there p53 dependent cell deaths that have been described in human tissues. In my opinion, it seems specific in the mouse brain. The discussion can also have statements about why the human brain is so sensitive even for mild mutations. I am not sure if those human mutations can cause similar defects in the mouse brain. Most of the mice based studies have been focusing on eliminating complete genes of interest.

      We have included a section in the discussion to relate our findings to human brain development and the differences with results obtained in mouse models regarding the role of apoptosis (lines 386-391).

      Reviewer #3 (Significance (Required)):

      Overall, this is a very well done work but requires some more experiments for mechanisms understanding. Addressing those will make the paper fit to get published.

    1. All of this is a great forest. Inside the forest is thechild. The forest is beautiful, fascinating, green, andfull of hopes; there are no paths. Although it isn’teasy, we have to make our own paths, as teachersand children and families, in the forest. Sometimeswe find ourselves together within the forest, some-times we may get lost from each other, sometimeswe’ll greet each other from far away across the forest;but it’s living together in this forest that is important.And this living together is not easy

      I LOVE this quote. It's such a beautiful way to think about the ecosystem of our schools. Thinking about the idea that it's OK to not always understand, to feel alone, to let children go and explore, as it is also true for us to move through classrooms and the school society with grace and curiosity.

    1. . Species may actlike the rivets in an airplane wing, the loss of eachunnoticed until a catastrophic threshold is passed

      I really like this metaphor. I also found the paragraph before it breaking down the nuances of the keystone species concept to be interesting. I think it is important not to put too much emphasis on one species being keystone, because every organism does its part in a functioning ecosystem.

      If there are species that are not "typical" keystone species but actually turn out to be, how can scientists more accurately measure what a keystone species is? In any event, I think this is a great case for biodiversity: since there is so much we don't know, it is best to preserve as much as possible, even those organisms with seemingly "weak" effects.

    1. If pleasure is triggered by the physical properties of what we are looking at or touching, then it shouldn’t matter what we think it is. But it does matter.

      Although this argument is valid, I think it only applies to limited items such as clothing. With clothing, you can really tel with the feel of a material whether it's high brand or not. However, if it was an expensive watch vs. a normal watch, though there may be differences such as weight, how big is the difference between their physical properties such as feel?

    1. Note: This rebuttal was posted by the corresponding author to Review Commons. Content has not been altered except for formatting.

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      Reply to the reviewers

      We would like to thank the editors and the four reviewers for their careful consideration of our manuscript. We are very grateful for their positive appreciation of our work and we believe that their suggestions, which have been included in the preliminary revised version of the manuscript whenever possible, have greatly improved the quality of the paper and have helped us deepen our understanding of the results.

      We were happy to note that all the reviewers found value in our work, as stated in their general comments: “This is certainly a useful contribution to our understanding of neuronal V-ATPase functions in vivo” (…)” (Reviewer 1) – “Dulac et al report the very interesting discovery of a previously uncharacterized neuronal specific regulator of the V-ATPase. (…) The experiments are very well performed, the data presented very convincing and the paper is well written.” (Reviewer 2) – “The discovery of a neuronal specific regulator of the V-ATPase is very interesting (…) The work is therefore of great interest to researchers working on synaptic function in general and on synaptic vesicle biology in particular.” (Reviewer 3) – “The authors have used well-designed experiments to convince the localization and function of VhaAC45L in synaptic vesicle acidification.” (Reviewer 4).

      In their remarks, the reviewers suggested additional experiments that could be done to improve our understanding of the role of this new V-ATPase regulator, as well as several minor issues. We have addressed all their comments in our answers below, in which the full text of the reviews is included in blue type, and the responses in black. The line numbers refer to the revised version of the manuscript.

      Reviewer #1

      Dulac et al. present a first in vivo characterization of the 'accessory' v-ATPase subunit vhaAC45L in Drosophila. The key findings are localization and association of the protein with v-ATPase complexes at synapses and a functional requirement based on lethality and reduced synaptic function. This is certainly a useful contribution to our understanding of neuronal v-ATPase functions in vivo. The main weakness of the study is a lack of depth. The study focuses on localization, co-IP of associated proteins, an analysis of acidification and reduced synaptic function in fly larvae, thus providing a baseline for mechanistic study. However, the mechanism of vhaAC45L is not addressed in this short report. How does is vhaAC45L function different from its homolog vhaAC45? Is it required for v-ATPase assembly? Is it required to localize the full v-ATPase complex (or just V0) to the synapse? Is the defect really due to partial loading of synaptic vesicles or does loss of vhaAC45L also affect endosomal and lysosomal function at synapses? The work as is certainly represents a publishable contribution without answering any of these questions - more as an invite for the community to study the role of vhaAC45L; however, I feel this is a bit of a missed opportunity to put the function of a new potential regulator of specific synaptic v-ATPase functions in the context of the most basic functions obvious in this field.

      My main concerns are:

      1. clearly, vhaAC45L is required for SOME function of v-ATPase in neurons - but it remains entirely unclear which one. It is not even clear what compartments are affected. Reduced quantal size of single vesicle exocytosis events can be a direct or indirect consequence of problems in SV biogenesis and recycling.

      Is exo- /endocytosis unaffected? (FM1-43 uptake!).

      We agree that alterations in the synaptic vesicle release/recycling cycle could indeed contribute to the locomotion defect, in addition to the acidification impairment observed in VhaAC45L knockdown larvae. As suggested by the reviewer, we plan to carry out FM-dye assays to measure endocytosis and exocytosis at the neuromuscular junction of control versus VhaAC45L-KD animals. If successful, a new figure will be added to the final version of the paper.

      What compartments are affected? (markers for synaptic vesicles versus lysosomal compartments!).

      Finding out whether VhaAC45L is specifically involved in the acidification of synaptic vesicles, or if it also plays a similar role in other synaptic organelles, in particular lysosomes, would be very interesting indeed. However, we found that it was technically difficult to address this issue in the Drosophila nervous system. A good way would be to check whether the lysosomal pH is affected by VhaAC45L knockdown, as it is the case for synaptic vesicles.

      Unfortunately, because lysosomes are not abundant in neurons, lysosome-specific pH-sensitive probes such as Lysotracker do not yield detectable signals at Drosophila larval synapses. So, whether VhaAC45L is specific for synaptic vesicles or involved in the regulation of V-ATPase activity in all neuronal compartments reminas an open question for now.

      1. molecular function: is vhaAC45L required for v-ATPase assembly? (IP/Pull-downs of v- ATPase complexes in the presence or absence of vhaAC45L with other subunits!).

      In accordance with the reviewer, we are also very much eager to learn more about the precise molecular function of VhaAC45L, and in particular whether it is required or not for assembly of the V-ATPase complex. Pull-downs of V-ATPase proteins in controls versus VhaAC45L-KD could be used to address this question, but this would require a large quantity of antibodies directed against subunits of the V0 and V1 domains, respectively. Unfortunately, there are no such antibodies commercially available against Drosophila V-ATPase proteins. We have tried several antibodies that recognize V-ATPase subunits from other species and were predicted to react against Drosophila homologs, but with no success. The only V-ATPase antibodies currently at our disposal were samples generously sent to us by other laboratories in insufficient quantities for carrying out such experiments. To our regret, therefore, we were not able to answer this question until now because of the lack of appropriate tools.

      1. vha100 was proposed in Drosophila to function on synaptic vesicles and the lysosomal pathway, but, if I remember correctly, here quantal size was normal. I am missing a comparison between the two.

      We thank the reviewer for this comment. A comparison with previously published results on subunit Vha100-1 has now been added (lines 458-469) in the discussion related to this topic in the revised manuscript.

      1. The V5 knock-in is used both as a mutant as well as a tool to analyze protein localization. This is likely okay, but a little concern of course has to be that by creating a mutant protein through stop codon deletion its subcellular localization, turnover, etc. are not normal. Similarly, anti-V5 co-IPs will isolate proteins bound to the mutant variant of vhaAC45L. Minimally, IPs or pull- downs using other members of the V0 complex should be done to understand the role of vhaAC45L in direct comparison with vhaAC45 on complex assembly and possibly targeting to the synapse (or ideally targeting to specific compartments).

      It is indeed a legitimate concern to question the physiological relevance of results obtained by studying V5-tagged VhaAC45L. However, the V5 tag is very small (14 amino acids) and we fused it in place of the stop codon to keep intact the whole sequence of the protein. In addition, we found that the V5 knock-in flies are viable and fertile as homozygous. Given that the null mutants, as well as strong RNAi knockdowns, are lethal at early developmental stage, this suggests that the V5 knock-in has limited negative effects, if any, on VhaAC45L function. This led us to believe that at least a good portion of the V5-tagged protein might be targeted to the right subcellular compartment, and associate to its physiological partners.

      Significance:

      There is significance to the reporting of an accessory v-ATPase subunit required for SOME function of the v-ATPase in neurons. There is some lack of significance in the absence of basic mechanistic insight as to what vhaAC45L does to the v-ATPase in neurons.

      We agree that we did not elucidate here the precise molecular mechanisms by which VhaAC45L contributes to synaptic vesicle acidification. It is rather an initial description of a novel neuronal protein that appears to be essential for proper synaptic functioning, and we provide consistent evidence that its function requires specific interaction with the V-ATPase complex, and in particular with three subunits that reproducibly co-immunoprecipitated with VhaAC45L (namely Vha1C39-1, Vha100-1 and ATP6AP2). Please note that it took many years and many papers before the molecular mechanisms of action of comparable accessory subunits, such as ATP6AP1/AC45 or ATP6AP2, was better understood, and it is still nowadays a matter of investigation. It is therefore very demanding to expect that we describe the exact function of the previously uncharacterized VhaAC45L at all levels in a single first paper.

      Reviewer #2

      In this study and using Drosophila melanogaster as a model system, Dulac et al report the very interesting discovery of a previously uncharacterized neuronal specific regulator of the V-ATPase called VhaAC45L. They combine genetics, IHC, Mass spec and ephys to unravel the expression pattern and function of this protein. They find that it is required to acidify synaptic vesicles in glutamatergic neurons of the Drosophila larval neuromuscular junction, for appropriate synaptic transmission and for larval locomotion. The experiments are very well performed, the data presented very convincing and the paper is well written. Nonetheless, a few additional pieces of evidence and some level of expanded analysis would strengthen the conclusions and increase the depth of the work.

      Major comments:

      1. Figure 1F: the while the localization to the presynaptic terminal is convincing, where exactly the protein is localized to is not studied. The imaging in these experiments could use increased resolution and concomitantly colocalization studies with more specific synaptic vesicle markers.

      We agree that it would be very good to show this additional result. However, confocal microscopy does not provide sufficient resolution to localize the protein at the membrane of individual synaptic vesicles. Another way would be to see if VhaAC45L immunostaining co- localizes with domains enriched in synaptic vesicle markers, but these organelles are rather ubiquitously distributed in the synaptic boutons at the Drosophila neuromuscular junction. To correctly perform this experiment, we would have to do immuno-electron microscopy, a technique we do not master in our laboratory and that we did not plan to implement for the present work.

      1. Figure 3B-G: these experiments should be complemented by a rescue experiment, ideally of the null mutant using a UAS construct and a pan neuronal driver, or - if such animals are viable to the third larval instar stage - a glutamatergic driver. If possible, it would also be good to study the NMJ phenotype of the null mutant rescued to viability using a neuronal driver that does not express in motor neurons (e.g. Chat-G4).

      Although a rescue experiment could potentially add a further evidence that Vha45ACL deficiency is responsible for the synaptic vesicle acidification defect described in Figure 3, we don’t think that it is a requisite here because we obtained similar results by knocking down the gene using two different RNAis. As described in the manuscript, the pan-neuronal expression of Vha45ACL could rescue the embryonic lethality of the null mutant, so it would be theoretically possible to check the acidity level of synaptic vesicles at the neuromuscular junction of the recued larvae. However, this would involve making rather complex genetic constructions to express VMAT-pHluorin in motor neurons in rescued mutant background. In addition, the conclusions we could draw from such experiment would be limited by the lack of comparison. Indeed, in Figure 3 the defect was observed in knockdown context, and the same experiment could not be performed in knockout larvae due to the early lethality. If we could measure the acidity level of rescued null mutants, we would not have any comparison point besides the knockdown experiments. As knockout and knockdown are not likely to produce identical phenotype (especially in terms of magnitude of effect), the ideal would be to compare the rescued phenotype to the null mutant expressing VhaAC45L in all neurons except motoneurons, as suggested by the reviewer. However, such genotype would certainly not be viable, since we observed that expression of VhaAC45L RNAis with a stronger motoneurons driver (D42-Gal4) was sufficient to induce lethality at early developmental stage.

      1. Figure 5: the authors focus on quantal size which measures the postsynaptic response to spontaneous release from the presynaptic terminal. However, it is unclear how this directly relates to the locomotor deficit beyond signaling potential deficits in vesicle loading or fusion. It would be more convincing to also study evoked release, and expand the analysis of presynaptic properties (number of events, amplitude, frequency).

      We fully agree with this comment shared by Reviewers 2 and 3 related to the electrophysiology experiments. Note that these experiments have been carried out in collaboration with another laboratory located in another city. The Covid-19 situation during the past year has prevented, and is still complicating, movements between labs, preventing us from going further with the electrophysiology analyses of VhaAC45L KD. If the situation in the near future allows it, we would very much like to add a more extensive electrophysiological analysis, including in particular the study of evoked release. In the revised manuscript, we have nevertheless completed Figure 5 by adding representative distributions of spontaneous mEPSP amplitudes in control and VhaAC45L knockdown larvae, as well as the results of new analyses showing lack of effects the KD on the mean EPSP frequency.

      1. General: showing some level of genetic interaction with V-ATPase subunits in at least some of the assays would be welcome.

      We are definitely in accordance with the reviewer on that point, but we think that this would involve a lot of work and be beyond the scope of the present initial description. Here we show by proteomic analyses that at least 12 proteins co-precipitate and so potentially interact with VhaAC45L, three of them being previously identified constitutive or accessory V-ATPase subunits. In our opinion, studying the interactions between VhaAC45L and these proteins through genetic and molecular studies will be the subject of future works. As stated by Reviewer 2 in the Referees cross commenting below: “further biochemical analysis is interesting but probably beyond the scope of this initial description and would take too much time”. We fully agree with this statement.

      Minor comments:

      Some of the images, especially those in Figure 3, should be larger for ease of visualization.

      As requested, the images of Figure 3 have been enlarged.

      Significance

      The discovery of a neuronal specific regulator of the V-ATPase is very interesting. To my knowledge it is the first description of a neuronal specific V-ATPase related protein since the description of Vha100-1 by Hiesinger and colleagues in 2005. The work is therefore of great interest to researchers working on synaptic function in general and on synaptic vesicle biology in particular.

      We are grateful to the reviewer for his very positive assessment of our work.

      I note that I do not have in depth expertise in electrophysiology, although I am sufficiently familiar with basic NMJ physiology experiments to render the opinions stated above.

      Reviewer #3

      In this study, Dulac and colleagues investigated roles of VhaAC45-like gene, which codes one of the V-ATPase accessory proteins in Drosophila, in synaptic transmission. First, they demonstrated that VhaZC45L transcripts are expressed selectively in neurons and that the gene products are addressed to synaptic areas. Second, they showed that VhaAC45L is co- immunoprecipitated with some subunits of V-ATPases, which is consistent with bio-informatics predictions. They further demonstrated that VhaAC45L-knockdown (KD) resulted in defects in synaptic vesicle acidification as well as a reduction in quantal size of glutamate, indicating that VhaAC45L play a key role in regulating neurotransmitter release by modulating the driving force for transmitter uptake. Last, not least, they demonstrated that VhaAC45L-KD in motoneurons attenuated larvae locomotor performance, indicating its physiological relevance. Overall, this study is rigorously executed and nicely presented, and adds one more component of the V- ATPase that is responsible for neurotransmitter uptake into synaptic vesicles. However, since this study simply confirmed an established notion from other species such as yeast and mammals that AC45 is one of the accessory proteins of the V-ATPase complex, a conceptual novelty beyond the previous knowledge is relatively poor in its present form. Thus, this reviewer would suggest several issues as following to improve the comprehensiveness as well as novelty of the current manuscript.

      1. The reason why the authors focused on VhaAC45-'like' is somewhat obscure, and therefore should be explained. How different VhaAC45 and VhaAC45L are in terms of amino acid sequences, tissue distributions, and KO phenotypes. It seems more comprehensive if the authors provide some experimental evidence on VhaAC45; e.g. whether it is also expressed in neurons or not (Fig. 1), and, if VhaAC45 is neuronal, whether it can rescue the phenotypes of VhaAC45L- KD to certain degree (Figs 4 & 5).

      Following the reviewer’s request, we have added a sequence alignment of VhaAC45 and VhaAC45L, as well as a graph showing tissue distributions of both genes in Supplementary Figure 1 of the revised manuscript. To our knowledge, there is no published functional study of VhaAC45 in Drosophila, so we can only make assumptions derived from studies on predicted homologs in evolutionarily distant species. For that reason, it is difficult to compare VhaAC45 to VhaAC45L, as it would first require an entire new study of VhaAC45 function in flies. Since our interest is to study neuronal physiology, we focused on VhaAC45L because compelling evidence indicates that this subunit is specific to the nervous system, as described in our manuscript, rather than on VhaAC45 which seems to be expressed in all tissues. In addition, homologs of VhaAC45L have never been functionally characterized to date in any species, making it very interesting to study this new protein in a genetically tractable organism.

      1. What is the mechanism of Ac45 in regulating V-ATPase activity? In mammals, it has been suggested that Ac45 is essential for proper sorting of the V-ATPase to the destined organelles (e.g. Jansen et al., Mol. Biol. Cell., 2010; Jansen et al., BBA, 2008). In this context, it should be examined whether VhaAC45L-KD would affect the synaptic localization of other V-ATPase subunits.

      We thank the reviewer for pointing out these very interesting references. We have indeed tried to determine the relative abundance of two other V-ATPase subunits at the larval neuromuscular junction in control and VhaAC45L knockdown contexts. However, because the tested subunits are not specific to neurons, and are expressed at relatively low levels in synapses, it was not possible for us to properly separate the synaptic signal from the background immunostaining in surrounding muscles. This unfortunately prevented us from performing an accurate and reliable quantification.

      1. Given that a rodent brain SV contains a few copies of the V-ATPase on average (Takamori et al., 2006, and some newer papers by others), it is interesting that >80% reduction of Ac45 showed moderate effects on quantal size. If SVs under study also contains 1 or 2 V-ATPase per SV, there must be some SVs lacking VhAC45L upon KD. In this context, it is interesting to see how VhaAC-KD (RNAi1~3) affect the frequencies of minis.

      The reviewer’s valuable comment prompted us to undertake new analyses on our electrophysiological recordings. We have now added in Figure 5E graphs showing the mean EPSP frequency for larvae expressing VhAC45L RNAi1 and RNAi2, which are the ones that were used in the quantal analysis. Both of these RNAi apparently decreased the frequency compared to controls, but this difference was not statistically significant. As detailed in the Discussion (line 458-469), this may suggest that VhaAC45L does not influence the abundance of the V-ATPase complex at nerve terminals, but rather its efficiency.

      1. In general, decrease in mini amplitudes is accounted for by changes in postsynaptic sensitivity for neurotransmitters. Although acidification deficits would support that decrease in quantal size is due to the decrease in the driving force for glutamate uptake, it should be examined whether the postsynaptic receptor fields are not affected by VhaAC45L-KD by recording postsynaptic response upon application of non-saturable concentrations of glutamate.

      Testing for potential postsynaptic receptor field alteration by glutamate application would be an interesting experiment indeed, but, as we believe, not a critical control for the present manuscript. Because we expressed RNAis presynaptically, any modification in the postsynaptic receptor field would have to be an indirect consequence of VhaAC45L downregulation in motoneurons, and so, likely to be related to the synaptic vesicle acidification defect. It would not change, therefore, our conclusion that VhaAC45L deficiency in motoneurons induces a decrease in quantal size. Because electrophysiology experiments were carried out in collaboration with another laboratory located in another city, the current sanitary context has so far prevented us from performing this test (please refer to our answer to comment 3 of Reviewer 2 for more details).

      1. Related to 4, it is also interesting to see if evoked responses are also attenuated as a result of VhaAC45L-KD, which is more physiologically relevant for locomotor activity phenotype than minis.

      We also agree with this comment, shared by Reviewer 2, to which we already responded above in our answer to comment 3 of Reviewer 2.

      Minor points:

      1. Quantal size of glutamate is not affected by reduced expression of DVGLUT (Daniels et al., Neuron, 2006), which highly contrasts with VhaAC45L, expression of which defines quantal size. Distinct regulation of quantal size by the transporter and the V-ATPase subunit should be discussed.

      As suggested by the reviewer, a discussion of this point has been added (lines 458-469). and Daniels et al. 2006 is now cited in the revised manuscript.

      1. For electrophysiological experiments, respective sample traces should be shown in Figure 5.

      Quantal size is not directly visible in sample traces, so we added instead representative distributions of spontaneous mEPSP amplitudes in control and VhaAC45L knockdown larvae in the new Figure 5C.

      1. <![endif]>Only RNAi1 and RNAi2 lines were examined for SV pH estimation and mini analysis. The results from RNAi3 should be presented, or at least mentioned in the text.

      These experiments were performed using two different RNAi constructs to ensure that similar effects were observed and to exclude the possibility of potential off-targets. Knocking down VhaAC45L in neurons with RNAi1 and 2 was lethal at pupal stages, suggesting that they give similar levels of inactivation. RNAi3 systematically induced lighter phenotypes, producing viable adults, which led us to believe it had a lower efficiency. Because the results on synaptic vesicle acidification and electrophysiology were very consistent with RNAi1 and RNAi2, we considered that it was not necessary to repeat the experiment with RNAi3.

      Significance

      As mentioned above, as it stands, the authors merely confirmed the pre-existing bioinformatic knowledge on one of the AC45 homologues in Drosophila. The audience of The EMBO Journal might be interested in how different/similar VhaAC45 and VhaAC45-like are, and their functional relevance. In particular, is VhaAC45 also mandatory for the V-ATPase functioning in neurons? Adding some basic information of VhaAC45, e.g. tissue distribution, KO phenotypes, and ability to rescue the VhaAC45-like-KD phenotypes, will certainly improve the comprehensiveness of this study, and capture audience's attention.

      As mentioned in our response to point 1 of the reviewer above, we have added more data comparing the structure and distribution of VhaAC45 and VhaAC45L in the revised manuscript. VhaAC45 appears to be ubiquitously expressed whereas VhaAC45L is neuron-specific.

      Comparing VhaAC45 to VhaAC45L would require a completely new study of VhaAC45 function, because it has never been done before in Drosophila to our knowledge. This would require repeating all the experiments with this other gene, probably involving two more years of work, and would make for a much longer and very different manuscript. It is understandable that this cannot be envisaged. Because homologs of VhaAC45L have never been functionally characterized to date in any species, we considered that it was worth studying this new protein on its own.

      Reviewer #4

      We have reviewed "A specific regulator of neuronal V-ATPase in Drosophila melanogaster." by Dulac et al. The authors have identified VhaAC45L as a regulator of neuronal V-ATPase in Drosophila melanogaster. The authors have utilized multiple techniques to determine the localization of VhaAC45L in neurons and specifically in the synapse. The use of multiple approaches including determining RNA levels in different regions of the fly, and using CRISPR- Cas9 technique to insert V5 tag, makes a very convincing argument about the synapse-specific expression of VhaAC45L.

      The combined use of co-immunoprecipitation technique and LC/MS to show that VhaAC45L co- precipitated with V-ATPase complex subunits is convincing that VhaAC45L is a subunit of V- ATPase. To determine the role of VhaAC45L in acidification of synaptic vesicles the authors have utilized pHluorins in combination with multiple RNAi lines. The authors have used a well- designed experiment to prove that VhaAC45L regulates acidification of the synaptic vesicles.

      Further, larval locomotion and quantal size determination using VhaAC45LRNAi which is known to be altered due to pH gradient of synaptic vesicles shows the functional role of VhaAC45L in synaptic vesicle acidification.

      Minor comments:

      1. For all graphs, please remove gridlines to make data points more visible.

      We found that gridlines can be helpful for the readers to assess approximate values on the graphs. So, we have not removed them but rather changed the colour to a light grey so it does not affect any more visibility. We have also placed the points over the error bars in all the graphs, so they become more apparent.

      1. Line 120-123: Authors indicate the VhaAC45LRNAi induced lethal phenotype when expressed in glutamatergic and cholinergic drivers but the figure is missing. Please indicate as "data not shown" if not included in Figure.

      This mention has been added in the manuscript (line 125).

      1. A diagram summarizing the role of VhaAC45L in V-ATPase enzymatic complex and specific role is recommended.

      We believe that it is too early in this first report to draw an accurate diagram summarizing the role of this new protein in the V-ATPase complex.

      Significance

      V-ATPase play a crucial role at the synapse by being responsible for acidification of the synaptic vesicles and identification of a synaptic vesicle specific regulator of V-ATPase is important to understand the complex regulation of synapse function. The authors have used well-designed experiments to convince the localization and function of VhaAC45L in synaptic vesicle acidification.

      We thank the reviewer for his very positive appreciation of our work.

      Referees cross commenting

      (Written by Reviewer 2)

      There seems to be overall consensus among the reviewers on 3 issues:

      1. A somewhat more precise understanding of the role of vhaAC45L in the synaptic vesicle cycle through better localization studies and some classic assays (like FM dye uptake).

      —See our answers to comments 1 of Reviewer 1 and Reviewer 2.

      1. A little more characterization of the transmission defects (e.g. studying evoked responses) would be welcome.

      —See our answers comment 3 of Reviewer 2.

      1. Ascertaining the validity of the alleles with rescue experiments, perhaps in the V5 mutant background to allow localization analysis in a rescued background.

      —See our answers to comment 2 of Reviewer 2.

      I think further biochemical analysis is interesting but probably beyond the scope of this initial description and would take too much time.

      We fully agree with this statement.

      The minor issues are easy to address

      We have addressed all of them in the preliminary revised version of the manuscript.

    1. Note: This rebuttal was posted by the corresponding author to Review Commons. Content has not been altered except for formatting.

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      Reply to the reviewers

      Reviewer 1

      We would like to thank you for the comments concerning our manuscript. We responded to each question, as described below. All the authors feel that our manuscript has been much improved by your comments.

      Minor comments:

      Q1. Fig 1 any male vs female mice differences in ATF6b expression?

      Response. We performed qPCR using several tissues from male and felame WT mice, and confirmed no significant differences in Atf6b mRNA levels between male and female mice. We put this result in Figure S1 C.

      Q2. Fig 2C. Please show molecular weight markers on blots

      Response. We put molecular weight markers in Fig.2C, as you suggested.

      Q3. Fig 2C. what are the doublet bands on calnexin?

      Response. Calnexin is sometimes shown as double bands in tissues such as kidney, liver and heart by western blotting (Zeng et al., PLoS One. 2009 Aug 26;4(8):e6787). Although the mechanism is unknown, it could be due to the post-translational modification such as phosphorylation (Wong et al, J Biol Chem. 1998 Jul 3;273(27):17227-35) or partial degradation although proteinase inhibitors are added in the lysis buffer. To my knowledge, alternative splicing is not likely to be the case.

      Q4. Fig 3. what are the ERSE sequences? several different binding sites are reported in literature.

      Response. We put the ERSE sequence in Materials and Methods and in the Figure legends for Figure 3 as “CCAATN9CCACG (Yoshida et al., 1998)”.,

      Q5. p8. What is meant by 5' Atf6b lacks 10 and 11?

      Response We corrected to “Atf6b transcript, which lacks exon 10 and 11, in these mice”.

      Discussion: Please clarify if anti-ATF6-beta antibodies were available for these studies.

      Response. We tried different anti-ATF6β antibodies to detect endogenous ATF6β in culture neurons by western blot. We successfully observed both full-length and N-terminal fragment (the active form) using the one from Biolegend (#853202) (Figure 1E in the new version). We replaced the result with FLAG antibody in HEK293T cells in the old version.

      Discussion: It is puzzling that ATF6a induces calreticulin more potently than ATF6b, but the calreticulin defect is selectively dependent on ATF6b. Could authors speculate on this paradox? It would be interesting to expand on differences between ATF6a and ATF6b function and phenotypes in Discussion in mouse and in people.

      Response. In Discussion, we added sentences regarding a bit puzzling role for ATF6β in CRT expression in the CNS, as below. “All the data from RNA-sequence to the promoter analysis suggested that CRT expression was ATF6β-dependent in primary hippocampal neurons. However, overexpression of ATF6α and ATF6β both enhanced CRT promoter activity…”

      And we proposed a new scenario as below,

      “These results may raise a scenario that, in the CNS, expression of molecular chaperones in the ER is generally governed by ATF6α as previously described (Yamamoto et al., 2007) and that ATF6β functions as a booster if their levels are too low. However, expression of CRT is somewhat governed by ATF6β, and ATF6α functions as a booster. The underlying mechanism for this scenario is not clear yet, but neurons may require a high level of CRT expression even under normal condition, as described in Table S2, which may lead to the development of a unique biological system to constitutively produce CRT in neurons. Further studies are required to clarify the molecular basis how this unique system is constructed and regulated.”

      Reviewer 2

      We would like to thank you for the comments concerning our manuscript. We responded to each question, as described below. All the authors feel that our manuscript has been much improved by your comments.

      Major comments:

      Q1. The post-translational processing of ATF6beta must be demonstrated in hippocampal neurons and not in HEK293T cells in Figure 1E. The authors conclude on Page 6, line 18 that "these results suggest that ATF6beta functions in neurons" but it is not obvious how expression in HEK293T cells contributes to this conclusion in any way.

      Response. We performed western blot with different anti-ATF6β antibodies to detect endogenous ATF6β in culture neurons. We successfully observed both full-length and N-terminal fragment (the active form) from the one from Biolegend (#853202). We therefore replaced the result in HEK293T cells with the one in the hippocampal neurons (Figure 1E in new version).

      Q2. The hippocampal neurons are affected by the loss of ATF6β, even though the mice are not exposed to tunicamycin. Could the authors present evidence that there is physiological ER stress in hippocampal neurons? If not, why is ATF6beta required.

      Response Evidence suggests that neuronal activities including excitatory signals can cause physiological ER stress and induce the UPR at the distal dendrites in the hippocampal neurons (Murakami et al., Neuroscience. 2007 Apr 25;146(1):1-8, Saito et al., J Neurochem. 2018 Jan;144(1):35-49). Among the UPR branches, Ire1-XBP1 pathway has been reported to play an important role in this dendritic UPR and expression of BDNF in cell soma (Saito et al., 2018). Although the present study focuses on the role of ATF6β in the pathological ER stress which causes neuronal death, we believe that it will be intriguing to analyze its role of ATF6β in the physiological ER stress and in the local UPR machinery in neurons.

      Q3. In Figure 3, is there a specific reason why the authors do not mutate the ERSEs in the mouse CRT reporter, pCC1 and instead opt to analyze the huCRT reporter? Given that all the other observations in the manuscript are in mouse calreticulin, it is important to show that the ERSEs in the mouse calreticulin promoter are also regulated in an ATF6beta-dependent manner. Similar to the huCRT reporter, it is also crucial to examine if ATF6beta can regulate the mouse CRT promoter. This would provide an explanation for why calreticulin expression is not completely abolished in ATF6beta mutants.

      Response We added the data of the deletion mutant of mouse CRT promoter, pCC3, which has only 415bp, but still keeps both ERSE1 and 2 in it. pCC3 showed similar promoter activity to pCC1 (Figure 3 B) and huCRT (wt) (Figure 3 C) in both of WT and Atf6b-/- neurons. Because pCC5, which has 260bp but does not have ERSEs in it, lost completely CRT promoter activity (Waser et al., 1997), it is most likely that mouse and human CRT promoters are regulated in a similar manner via ERSEs.

      Q4. In Figure 5A and B, the density of Tubulin staining varies from panel to panel, and is much lower in ATF6beta mutants treated with Tg/Tm. Presumably this is because of cell death but this should be clarified in the main text. Additionally, it is unclear if the EthD-1 staining is nuclear localized. It would help if single channel images for Hoechst and EthD-1 were provided to visualize this.

      Response In Figure 5A and B, we added the statement for the reduction of Calcein-AM (A) and βIII tubulin (B) in the main text. We also added single channel images for Hoechst and EthD-1 in Figure S4 to confirm the nuclear localization of EthD-1.

      Q5. The literature reports that BAPTA-AM treatment itself could cause ER stress (e.g. PMID: 12531184). Here, the authors report the opposite effect. How could the authors reconcile the difference? The effects of BAPTA-AM and 2-APB must individually be examined in Figure 6C and not just in combination with Tm.

      Response. We added the data that BAPTA-AM and 2-APB alone did not cause neuronal death at the concentrations used in this study in Figure S6 B and in the main text.

      Q6. The authors allude to "impairment of Ca2+ homeostasis in ATF6beta mutants" in Page 13 Line 2, but do not show any direct evidence in support of it. While treatment with BAPTA-AM and 2-APB is a start in that direction, it certainly does not demonstrate that under homeostatic conditions in vivo or in vitro there is any change in calcium flux in ATF6beta hippocampal neurons. To make the case that there is indeed perturbation of Ca2+ in ATF6beta mutant hippocampal neurons, the authors need to examine calcium flux and measure calcium indicators and how they are affected when ER stress is induced in these mutant cells.

      Response We added the data that the Ca2+ store in the ER was reduced and Ca2+ concentration in the cytosol increased in Atf6b-/- neurons both under normal and ER stress conditions in Figure 4C.

      Q7. The effect of 2-APB and salubrinal alone on hippocampal neurons need to be examined in Figure 9B-D to eliminate the possibility that these drugs are not enhancing cell survival under normal conditions in a parallel manner.

      Response We added the data that 2-APB and salubrinal alone did not cause neuronal death in the hippocampus in our model in Figure S8 C.

      Q8. The rationale for the examination of Fos, Fosb and Bdnf is poorly described (page 14, line 13) and the conclusions from this line of experimentation are rather weak. The results from Figure 9 to some extent serve to confirm in vivo the data seen in Figure 6C but by no means provide a mechanism for why ATF6beta mutants have perturbed calcium homeostasis (page 14, line 22).

      Response We agreed with your comments that the examination of Fos, Fosb and Bdnf is relatively weak. We, therefore, moved these data to supplementary information (Figure S8 A and B).

      Minor comments:

      Q1. Page 8, line 3: Their rationale for why ATF6beta 5'UTR sequences are seen in their RNA seq data is not clearly explained. This must be rewritten for clarity.

      Response In Atf6b-/- mice, exon 10 and 11 were deleted by homologous recombination. Therefore, 5’ part of Atf6b gene including exon 1-9 can be transcribed. We added the statement in Results, as below.

      “this may be due to the presence of the 5’ Atf6b transcript with exon 1-9 in these mice, in which exon 10 and 11 were deleted by homologous recombination.”

      Q2. Page 8, line 5, the authors write that besides Atf6β , CRT was the only UPR-regulated gene downregulated in Atf6β mutant mice. The authors need to state how they defined "UPR-regulated genes". There must be a list, which the authors do not cite.**

      Response. To avoid the possible confusion, we changed the term “UPR-regulated genes” to “ER stress-responsive genes”.

      Q3. Page 9, line 10: A reference is required for ERSEs.

      Response We added the reference for ERSEs, as you suggested.

      Q4. Page 10, line 6: The authors say "ATF6beta specifically induces CRT promoter activity". This is a confusing statement because "induction" is in response to stress, but the context here is homeostatic regulation since there is ostensibly no stress being induced. This distinction should be made and corrected here and throughout the manuscript.

      Response To avoid the confusion, we changed the sentence to “ATF6β specifically enhances CRT promoter activity”.

      Q5. Page 10, line 16: The use of "latter" here is confusing and it would help to restructure this sentence for clarity.

      Response To avoid the confusion, we changed the phrase to “under control condition and after stimulation with Tg (Figure 4A upper row) or Tm (Figure 4A lower row)

      Q6. Figure 9A is missing Y-axis labels.

      Response We changed Figure 9A (Figure S8 A in new version) and Figure Legends to clarify what each axis indicates.

      Reviewer 3

      We would like to thank you for the comments concerning our manuscript. We responded to each question, as described below. All the authors feel that our manuscript has been much improved by your comments.

      Major comments

      Comment #1. The authors show that overexpression of either Atf6a or Atf6b both increase Crt expression in Atf6b knockout cells. While it is clear that deletion of Atf6a does not basally reduce Crt levels, the overexpression experiment does lead to a question as to how Atf6b can specifically be involved in regulating Crt expression. In the discussion, the authors seem to propose that homo- and hetero-dimerization of ATf6a and Atf6b are required for the basal expression of Crt and that Atf6b serves as a 'booster' of ER chaperone expression. They explicitly state that "Atf6a and Atf6b are required to induce CRT expression". However, it remains unclear to me why in this case would Atf6a deletion not impair Crt expression? The authors address this by invoking a mechanism whereby hippocampal neurons are more reliant on Atf6b for Crt expression, but this doesn't really make sense to me. Ultimately, this point underscores the lack of clear mechanistic basis to explain how Atf6b selectively regulates Crt in the hippocampus. This needs to be better resolved through more experimentation. For example, a ChIP experiment monitoring the binding of ATF6b and ATF6a to the Crt promoter in hippocampal and control cells would go a long way towards addressing this issue.**

      Response. In Discussion, we first made the point clearer that CRT expression is ATF6β-dependent, while those of other molecular chaperones in the ER are ATF6α-dependent. Then, we raised a scenario that, in the CNS, expression of molecular chaperones in the ER is generally governed by ATF6α as previously described (Yamamoto et al., 2007) and ATF6β functions as a booster if their levels are too low. However, expression of CRT is somewhat governed by ATF6β, and ATF6α functions as a booster. We also wrote the limitation of the current study and requirement of the further study to clarify the molecular basis of the unique system to ensure CRT expression in neurons.

      Comment #2. The importance of ATF6b for protecting against insults needs to be better described. For example, the authors should show that overexpression of ATF6b protects against ER stress induced neuronal toxicity in cell culture and in vivo kainate induced neuronal toxicity. Similarly, the authors should evaluate how overexpression of ATF6a protects against these insults to better define the specific dependence of hippocampal neurons on ATF6b. The authors do show that overexpression of ATF6b can rescue the reduced Crt observed in Atf6b-deleted neurons, but the protection should similarly be demonstrated.**

      Response. We performed rescuing experiments to see both of ATF6β and ATF6α overexpression improve cell viability of Atf6b-/- neurons under ER stress. Interesting. ATF6β, but not ATF6α, rescued Atf6b-/- neurons. In Discussion, we raised the possible reasons as below.

      “The lack of rescuing effect of ATF6α may be due to the fact that this molecule enhances the expression of different genes including cell death-related molecule CHOP in addition to molecular chaperons in the ER (Yoshida et al., 2000).”

      Comment #3. Similar to #2, the authors should show that the potential for ATF6b (and ATF6a) overexpression to protect against different insults is impaired in Crt+/- neurons. The authors demonstrate that Crt-depletion increases sensitivity to toxic insults. This would go a long way to demonstrate the importance of the proposed ATF6b-CRT signaling axis in regulating neuronal survival in response to pathologic insults.**

      Response. Unfortunately, right now, the breeding of Calr+/- mice is not in good condition. Although we are increasing the number of mice used for breeding, we have to wait pregnancies to get embryos for isolating neurons from hippocampus. Once we get enough number of mice, we would try the rescuing experiment of Calr+/- hippocampal neurons with ATF6β and ATF6α. However, we also think rescuing experiments of Atf6b-/- neurons by ATF6β, ATF6α, and CRT may be enough in this paper.

      Comment #4. When reporting the RNAseq data, the authors should use the q-value (i.e., FDR) instead of the p-value. This will likely affect the number of genes reported in Table 1, but it is the appropriate statistical test for this type of data.**

      Response. As you suggested, we replace Table1 with a new list which was filtered with the q-value. However, some important and consistent information were obtained from the list filtered with the p-value, we keep it as Table S1 in the supplementary information.

    1. swirl around the issue of how the rapidly shifting, link-driven reading experience typical in online spaces may be shaping our abil-ity to think linearly, or to pay attention to long narratives, or to fol-low complex, multilevel logical arguments

      It's an interesting paradox, attempting to analyze our decreased faculties for qualitative analysis using our apparently decreased faculties for qualitative analysis. Our brains certainly adapt to the environment they're in. Perhaps if the deluge of information, and "the facts', as the author later notes, is causing us to lose compatibility with previous thought patterns such as multifaceted arguments, we need to find a way to leverage the new ways we make decisions. The cyber-ethnography he mentions is a good step to analyzing cultures that exist only in expressions of thought.

    1. UW faculty are committed to supporting students and upholding the University's non-discrimination policy. Under Title IX, discrimination based upon sex and gender is prohibited. If you experience an incident of sex- or gender-based discrimination, we encourage you to report it. While you may talk to a faculty member, understand that as a "Responsible Employee" of the University, the faculty member MUST report information you share about the incident to the university's Title IX Coordinator (you may choose whether you or anyone involved is identified by name). If you would like to speak with someone who may be able to afford you privacy or confidentiality, there are people who can meet with you. Faculty can help direct you or you may find info about UW policy and resources at http://www.uwyo.edu/reportit (Links to an external site.). You do not have to go through the experience alone. Assistance and resources are available, and you are not required to make a formal complaint or participate in an investigation to access them. However, please be aware that I have some reporting requirements that are part of my job requirements at UW. For example, if you inform me of an issue of sexual harassment, sexual assault, or discrimination I will keep the information as private as I can, but I am required to bring it to the attention of the institution's Title IX Coordinator. If you would like to talk to those offices directly, you can contact Equal Opportunity Report and Response (Bureau of Mines Room 319, 766-5200, report-it@uwyo.edu, www.uwyo.edu/reportit (Links to an external site.)). Additionally, you can also report incidents or complaints to the UW Police Department. You can also get support at the STOP Violence program (stopviolence@uwyo.edu, www.uwyo.edu/stop (Links to an external site.), 766-3296) or SAFE Project (www.safeproject.org (Links to an external site.), campus@safeproject.org, 766-3434, 24-Hour hotline: 745-3556). Another common example is if you are struggling with an issue that may be traumatic or unusual stress. I will likely inform the Dean of Students Office or Counseling Center. If you would like to reach out directly to them for assistance, you can contact them by going to www.uwyo.edu/dos/uwyocares (Links to an external site.). Finally, know that if, for some reason, our interaction involves a disruptive behavior or potential violation of policy, I inform the Dean of Students, even when you and I may have reached an informal resolution to the incident. The purpose of this is to keep the Dean apprised of any behaviors and what was done to resolve them.

      Including all of this may be unnecessary in this specific part of the syllabus. With solid headlines, bold, and links this part can be reduced and the focus can be on the course materials more! I think deleting this takes out some important information we all want students to know, but they are likely seeing these links in every syllabus. This is a tough topic because we all know when we see these links we do not go to them often times, and then we sometimes regret it later or after the fact. In this case, I would still recommend providing solid links and emphasizing in a short sentence that students should check them out.

    1. Giggling is sometimes better than answering.

      Even though people may giggle when they feel uncomfortable, we usually think of giggling as a positive reaction. Therefore, giggling may be better than speaking at times.

    1. Reviewer #3 (Public Review):

      The manuscript of Anchimiuk and colleagues investigates the mechanism of translocation of Bacillus subtilis SMC-ScpAB, a well characterized bacterial condensin. First, the authors use several SMC constructs where the coil-coiled region has been extended and /or the hinge exchanged and test what are the effects on growth and on the organization of the chromosome. They find highly altered conformations for most of the mutants. Particularly, these altered SMCs are unable to bridge two arms in the presence of the naturally-occurring parS sequences. Interestingly, they are partially able to restore arm pairing if a single parS sequence is provided.

      Next, the authors used Chipseq to compare the binding pattern of wildtype SMC and SMC-CC425 (a mutant with an extended coil coiled region and a different hinge). They observe that the binding of wt-SMC is only midly affected by removal of most parS sequences, whilst that of the mutant is highly affected. In time-lapse experiments where ParB is depleted and then re-expressed, the authors show that in a strain with a single parS wt-SMC loads in the origin region and then redistributes over the chromosome while the mutant can only partially achieve redistribution and to a large extent remains concentrated on the origin region.

      The authors then use wt-SMC and investigate how the conformation of the chromosome changes with two different parS sites located in different positions. They observe that each parS site is able to produce arm-pairing. They observe a decrease in the strength of arm pairing when both parS sites are present.

      Finally, the authors increase the expression level of wt-SMC, and observe decreased levels of arm-pairing in the presence of all the naturally-occurring parS sites. More normal levels of arm-pairing are observed when only one parS is present, despite the higher wt-SMC levels. When two parS sites are introduced, more complex structures appear in the contact map.

      These observations are new, interesting and intriguing. However, there are multiple possible interpretations, models and mechanism that are not discerned by the data presently presented in the manuscript.

      At times, there seem to be inconsistencies in their interpretation of results, and at times the models proposed do not seem well supported by data.

      Finally, the presentation of previous models and results from the literature could be improved.

      Major issues:

      In Fig. 1 the authors make several mutant SMC constructs with larger or shorter arms and different hinges and use Hi-C to explore the changes in 3D chromosome organization. Is it not clear to me why the arc is still visible in the mutants, nor what happens to the overall organization of the chromosome in the mutants? Is chromosome choreography normal?

      In Fig. 1C the authors show that strains with parS-359 only display a secondary diagonal and conclude "chromosome arm alignment was comparable to wild-type". A quantification of the degree of pairing for each mutant normalized by the wild-type is necessary to evaluate the degree of pairing and its dependence on genomic distance to the origin.

      In Fig. 2, the authors use HiC and chip-seq to quantify the effects of changes in SMC arm length on chromosome organization and SMC genomic distributions. It would be important to verify that the expression levels of these SMC mutants are the same as wt, as as they show in Fig. 4 changes in protein levels can change also 3D chromosome organization.

      In Fig. 2C, what is the distribution of SMC at t0? Showing this result would support their claim that SMC can load in absence of ParB.

      In Fig. 2C it is claimed that SMC-CC425 moves at a slower rate than WT. Can the authors provide a quantification?

      In Fig. 2, the authors focused on one of the mutants with longer SMC arms (CC425) and performed HiC and Chip-seq in time-lapse after induction of ParB in a ParB-depleted culture. These experiments clearly establish that SMC-CC425 can redistribute from the origin and can achieve arm pairing but to a lesser extent than the WT. The authors speculate that a slower translocation rate and/or a faster dissociation rate explain the experiments. However, other possibilities exist: for instance that the mutant SMC is defective at passing through road-blocks (highly expressed genomic regions, e.g rRNA sites) or at managing collisions with RNAP/ DNAP/ other SMCs, it makes different higher-order complexes than wt-SMC, etc. This could could be due to the change in the length of the SMC, or to the use of a hinge/coiled-coil region different from that of the wt-SMC. Thus, I am not convinced that the text explores all the possible models or that the data shown discerns between any of them.

      In Fig. 3B, the authors show that use of two parS-opt sites at -304kb and -9kb lead to the formation of two secondary diagonals. They argue that these can be rationalized in terms of the diagonals formed by the strains harboring single parS-opt (either -9kb or -304kb). However, I cannot see how these can happen at the same time! If a cells makes arm pairing from -9kb then it cannot make it from -304kb right? I do not understand either how the authors can conclude from these experiments that ParS may act as unloading sites for SMC. Again, the authors are speculating over mechanisms that are not really tested.

      If parS sites triggered the unloading of SMCs, then one would assume that ~5-6 natural parS sites in the origin region are unloading the SMC complexes loaded at other parS sites? This makes little sense to me, or there is something I clearly do not understand in their explanations.

      In their text, the authors explain that "A small but noticeable fraction of SMC complexes however managed to translocate towards and beyond other parS sites apparently mostly unhindered". I am confused as to where is the evidence supporting this statement. I do not think the ensemble Hi-C experiments provided in Fig. 3 can provide conclusive evidence for this.

      The authors often hypothesize on a mechanism, but then assume this mechanism is correct. For instance, the disruption in the secondary diagonals in Fig. 3B when experiments are performed with two parS sites are initially hypothesized to be due to roadblocks (e.g with highly transcribed regions) or to collisions between SMCs loaded at different parS sites. These possibilities cannot be discerned from their data. However, the authors then assume that collisions is what is going on (e.g. paragraph in lines 274-284). I think they should provide evidence on what is producing the changes in the secondary diagonals in mutants with two ParS sites.

      Why is the ChIP-seq profile for a strain with all the natural parS sites and for a strain with only parS-9kb the same? even with the same peaks at the same locations? Does this mean that SMC peaks do not require the presence of parS? But, then SMCs do not load equally well in all naturally occurring parS sites? This is then in contradiction to their assumption that parS cannot be selectively loaded?

      Do we really know that it is a single SMC ring that is responsible for translocation? The authors assume so in their models and interpretations, but if it were not the case it could drastically modify the mechanisms proposed. For instance, SMC may be able to load on a ParS site without pairing arms (i.e. only one dsDNA strand going through the SMC ring).

      In Fig. 2C-D it is shown that a large fraction of wildtype SMC and SMC-CC425 accumulate at the origin region at early time points (Fig. 2C) however this does not seem to lead to an increased Hi-C signal in the origin region (compare early time points to the final t60). Also, despite small amounts of wt-SMC in the chromosome at the latter time points, the intensity of the secondary diagonal is very strong. Why is this? These results would be consistent with many SMCs loading at the origin region but only a fraction of them being responsible for arm-pairing. Is this not in contradiction to their assumption that SMCs pair two dsDNA arms when they load?

      The authors state that: "If SMC-CC425 indeed fails to juxtapose chromosome arms due to over-enrichment in the replication origin region, collisions may be rare in wild-type cells because of a high chromosome residence time and a limited pool of soluble SMC complexes, resulting in a small flux of SMC onto the chromosome. If so, artificially increasing the flux of SMC should lead to defects in chromosome organization with multiple parS sites but not with a single parS site (assuming that most SMC is loaded at parS sites)". However, this assumption seems inconsistent with their results in Fig. 2 that show that the peaks of SMC do not change upon removal of most parS sites.

      I am a bit confused about the interpretation of the results in Fig. 4D. The authors talk about 'loop contacts' and point to the secondary diagonal (yellow ellipses). But these are not loop contacts, but rather contacts between arms that have surpassed the two parS sequences, right? Also, it is not clear what they mean by paired-loop contacts (red ellipse). Do they mean contacts between the two loops originating at parS-359 and parS-334? If this where the case, then it means SMCs are bridging more than two dsDNA segments? Or that there are multimers of SMC linking together? Or that and SMC can circle one arm from one loop and another from the other...? But in this case, how can it load? For me it is very unclear what these experiments really mean. The explanations provided by the authors seem again highly hypothetical.

    1. Reviewer #3 (Public Review):

      This is a well written and elegant study from a collaboration of groups carrying out models based on high resolution imaging. I think the study also serves as a prime example for where modeling and simulation bring added value in the sense that the insights revealed in the study would not likely be gained through other methods.

      1) As the authors point out, clinical studies have revealed that the fibrotic burden in ESUS patients is similar to those with aFib. The question is why then, do so few ESUS patients exhibit clinically detectable arrhythmias with long-term monitoring. The authors hypothesize and their data support the notion that while the substrate is prime for pro-arrhythmia in ESUS patients, a lack of triggering events may explain the differences between the two groups.

      2) I think the authors could go further in describing why this is surprising. Generally, severe fibrosis is thought to potentially serve as a means or mechanism for pro-arrhythmic triggers. This is because damage to cardiac tissue typically results in calcium dysregulation. When calcium overload occurs in isolated fibrotic tissue areas, or depolarization of the resting membrane potential due to localized ischemia allows for ectopic peacemaking, we might expect that the diseased/fibrotic tissue is itself the source of arrhythmia generation. I think the novel finding here is that this notion may be a simplification, and the sources of arrhythmia generation may be more complex and may need to come from outside the areas of fibrosis. I think this is a big deal.

    1. I believe this is what made MacPaint so exciting to 11 year-old me: it expanded the range of thoughts I could think. As a practical matter, this expressed itself as an expansion in the range of visual images I could create. In general, what makes an interface transformational is when it introduces new elements of cognition that enable new modes of thought. More concretely, such an interface makes it easy to have insights or make discoveries that were formerly difficult or impossible. At the highest level, it will enable discoveries (or other forms of creativity) that go beyond all previous human achievement. Alan Kay has asked*:* Alan Kay, What is a Dynabook? (2013). “what is the carrying capacity for ideas of the computer?” Similarly, we may ask: what is the carrying capacity for discovery of the computer?

      我相信这就是 MacPaint 令 11 岁的我大为兴奋的原因:它扩大了我的思考范围。在此,它扩大了我所能创造的视觉图像的范围。一般而言,界面拥有转变能力的原因在于它引入了新的认知元素,从而实现新的思维模式。具体而言,这样的界面使得从前难以获得的深刻洞见变得容易获得。甚至,它将使你的探索(或其他形式的创造力)超越所有前人。 艾伦凯曾问道“计算机承载创意的能力究竟如何?”同样地,我们可能会问:“计算机的承载发现的能力究竟如何?”

    1. innovative learning in situ provides a progressing basis for improvements in designer practices, which informs how they can relate to future work, and might, in that sense, contribute to shifts in professional identity and practical wisdom over time.

      This has me wondering, how often should IDs update their work? We have talked a lot about the process, but not about a time frame. Innovative learning makes me think of something that should be revisited and revised often, specially in the realm of education and technology. If I think of it outside of this realm, and it is something a company budgets for, it may not be revisited for many years. Is that effective?

    2. This means, for example, that while traditional approaches may sometimes be totally rejected in favor of innovations, they may also, at times, be seen as having potentials that allow them to be repurposed into new resources that facilitate new practices, even if in limited circumstances

      I think this is important to remember- just because something new comes up does not me we need to abandon everything else we have used and learned. We can reuse practices and ideas with a new spin.

    1. We, therefore, pledge to do all that we can, knowing we’ll fail on occasion, to restore compassion to the center of our lives (at least in this course and during this semester) and attempt to engage with our colleagues in this course with compassion. This means we will work to think first of others, their benefit, their well-being, and their learning, knowing that others are compassionately working for our benefit. We will strive to see our interdependence and interconnectedness, and labor for one another.

      By learning the importance of compassion, we have to start contributing it into our everyday lives in order to make it a habit. Trusting that others will show compassion and putting faith into them may let us not be afraid to connect and interact. By showing compassion you should listen to your peers and think of their feelings as you think of yours. Think before you contribute and how it can affect another’s feelings. After showing compassion, trust can form and the ability of being able to depend on each other, without the fear of being judged. Compassion can create a comfortable environment. With a comfortable environment, we can gain information from one another, create friendships and trust. This may promote knowledge for everyone and the ability of dependence for others.

    2. The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical, and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves.

      I do not believe that compassion has anything to do with religious aspects rather than the person themselves. Traditions may have something to do with them but I have first hand seen people who believe in nothing or do not have any religious beliefs have the most caring and kind hearts filled with compassion. It is very ethical to think that others would want to be treated the same way they treat others but alas we live in a society where that is very rare. Compassion depends on the person, the time, and the place.

    3. Take responsibility for the effects of your words and actions on others, even when your intentions were not to cause them harm

      I think this is something we forget a lot of times when talking or typing. That the message we want to relay may not be the one received. And it is better to understand that this sometimes happens and that it's okay. Because I feel like when people do understand that miscommunication can happen, they are less likely to recognize and/or apologize for a statement that may have been received as offensive.

    1. Note: This rebuttal was posted by the corresponding author to Review Commons. Content has not been altered except for formatting.

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      Reply to the reviewers

      RESPONSE TO REVIEWERS

      We thank Review Commons and its three reviewers. Reviewers 2 and 3 provide detailed comments, which we address individually. Reviewer 1, however, gives a general critique of how we have approached asking how genome architecture affects the extent of evolution and the details of evolutionary trajectories. Our interpretation of their comments is that our approach and the one that they advocate represent two philosophically different, but complementary, views about how to study evolution in the laboratory. We begin by discussing this difference and then proceed to a point by point response to the three reviews.

      Reviewer 1

      Philosophical differences with Reviewer 1

      We interpret Reviewer 1’s comments as endorsing a formal, quantitative study of evolution that aims to explain the factors that control the rate at which fitness increases during experimental evolution. This approach derives from classical population genetics and aims to use a mixture of theory and experiment to uncover general principles that would allow rates of evolution and evolutionary trajectories, expressed as population fitness over time, to be predicted from quantitative parameters, such population sizes, mutation rates, distributions of the fitness effects of mutations (including their degree of dominance in diploids), and global descriptions of either general (e.g. diminishing returns) or allele-specific epistasis.

      This approach aims to predict how the average fitness trajectory should be affected by variations in these parameters and describe the variation, at the level of fitness, in the outcomes in a set of parallel experiments. This is an important approach and have previously used it to investigate how the strength of selection influences the advantage of mutators (Thompson, Desai, & Murray, 2006) and to produce and test theory that predicts how mutation rate and population size control the rate of evolution (Desai, Fisher, & Murray, 2007). Like every approach to evolution, this one has limitations: 1) if it doesn’t identify mutations or investigate phenotype other than fitness, it cannot reveal the biological and biochemical basis of adaptation or report on how variations in population genetic parameters (population size, haploids versus diploids, etc.) influence which genes acquire adaptive mutations, and 2) if the details of experiments (e.g. whether populations are clonal or contain standing variation, or which phenotypes are being selected for) have strong effects on the population genetic parameters, these must be measured before theoretical or empirical relationships could be used to predict the mean and variance of fitness trajectories produced by a given selection. A variety of evidence suggests that the second limitation is real. Examples include the absence of a universal finding that diploid populations evolve more slowly than haploids (discussed on Lines 437-442), even within the same experimental organism, and the finding that diminishing returns epistasis applies well to domesticated yeast evolving in a variety of laboratory environments (e. g. papers from the Desai lab, starting with (Kryazhimskiy, Rice, Jerison, & Desai, 2014) but not to the evolutionary repair experiments that we have conducted (Fumasoni & Murray, 2020; Hsieh, Makrantoni, Robertson, Marston, & Murray, 2020; Laan, Koschwanez, & Murray, 2015).

      The second approach to experimental evolution, which we, as molecular geneticists and cell biologists, predominantly take, is to follow the molecular and cell biological details of how organisms adapt to selective pressure. We subject organisms to defined selective forces, identify candidate causative mutations, test them by reconstructing the evolved mutations, individually and in combination, and perform additional experiments to ask how these mutations are increasing fitness. Because these experiments are performed on model organisms and often address phenotypes that have been studied by classical and molecular genetics, we can often say a good deal about the cell biological and biochemical mechanisms that increase fitness and this work can complement and extend what we know from classical and molecular genetics.

      The current manuscript and its predecessor are examples of finding causative mutations and asking how they improve fitness, with the first paper (Fumasoni & Murray, 2020) demonstrating how mutations in three functional modules could overcome most of the fitness cost of removing an important but non-essential protein and the current paper asking how alterations in genome architecture and dynamics (diploidy and eliminating double-strand break-dependent recombination) affect the extent to which populations increase in fitness and which genes and functional modules acquire mutations as they do so.

      By definition, such experiments are anecdotal: they report on how particular genotypes and genome architectures respond to particular selection pressures. Any individual set of experiments can produce conclusions about the effects of variables, such a population size, mutation rate, and genome architecture, on the mutations that increased fitness in response to the specific selection, but they can do more than lead to speculation and inference about what would happen in other experiments: speculation from the results of a single project and inferences from the combined results of multiple projects. Our interpretation is that the evolutionary repair experiments that we have performed, which have perturbed budding, DNA replication, and the linkage between sister chromatids do indeed lead to a common set of inferences: most of the selected mutations reduce or eliminate the function of genes, the interactions between the selected mutations are primarily additive, and the mutations cluster in a few functional modules.

      We believe that the population and molecular genetic approaches to experimental evolution are complementary and that a full understanding of evolution will require combining both of them. We think this will be especially true as we try to use the findings from laboratory studies to improve our understanding of evolution outside the lab, which takes place over longer periods, in more temporally and spatially variable environments, and is subject to variation in multiple population genetic and biological parameters.

      Reviewer #1 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)): In their previous work the authors examined adaptation in response to replication stress in haploid yeast, via experimental evolution of batch cultures followed by sequencing. Here they extend this approach to include diploid and recombination-deficient strains to explore the role of genome architecture in evolution under replication stress. On the whole, a common set of functional modules are found to evolve under all genetic architectures. The authors discuss the molecular details of adaptation and use their findings to speculate on the determinants of adaptation rate.

      **SECTION A - Evidence, reproducibility and clarity** Experimental evolution can reveal adaptive pathways, but there are some challenges when applying this approach to compare genetic backgrounds or environments. They key challenge is that adaptation potentially depends on both the rate of mutation and the nature of selection. Distinct adaptation patterns between groups could therefore reflect differential mutation, selection, or both. The authors allude to this dichotomy but have very limited data to address it. The closest effort is engineering putatively-adaptive variants into all genetic background including those where they did not arise; the fact that such variants remain beneficial suggests they did not arise in certain backgrounds because of a lower mutation rate, but this is a difficult issue to tackle quantitatively.

      We agree, wholeheartedly, that adaptation depends on the combination of mutation rates and the nature of selection and our goal was to ask how the molecular nature of adaptation depends on genome architecture when three different architectures are subjected to the same selection: constitutive replication stress caused by removing an important component of replisome. We used a haploid strain as a baseline and compared it to two other strains chosen to influence either the effect of mutations (a diploid, where fully recessive mutations that were beneficial in the haploid would become neutral) or the rate of mutations (a recombination-defective strain that would be unable to use ectopic recombination to amplify segments of the genome). In both cases, we expected to see effects that are closer to qualitative than quantitative: the absence of fully recessive mutations in evolved diploids and absence of segmental amplification in the recombination-deficient haploid. We see both effects and they then allow us to ask two other questions: 1) does influencing the effect of a class of mutation (diploids) or preventing a class of mutation (recombination defect) have a major effect on the rate of evolution, and 2) do these differences affect which modules adaptive mutations occur in. As far as we can tell, the answer is no to both questions. We use “as far as we can tell” because our experiments do have limitations. First, the recombination-defective strain has a higher point mutation rate making it impossible to tell how much this elevation, rather than any other factor, accounts for it showing a greater fitness increase than the recombination-proficient haploid. Unfortunately, to our knowledge, it’s impossible to abolish recombination without affecting mutation rates. Second, we only experimentally tested a subset of the inferred causative mutations meaning that for many genes, our assertion that they are adaptive is a statistical inference and their assignment to a particular functional module is based on prior literature rather than our own experiments. In response to this criticism, we have now rephrased some of our sentences (see below).

      From mutation accumulation experiments, where the influence of selection is minimized, there is evidence that genetic architecture affects the rate and spectrum of spontaneous mutations. In this experiment, the allele used to eliminate recombination, rad52, will also increase the mutation rate generally. The diploid strain is also likely to have a distinct mutational profile--as a null expectation diploids should have twice the mutation rate of haploids. Recent evidence indicates the mutation rate difference between haploid and diploid yeast might be less than two-fold, but that there are additional differences in the mutation spectrum, including rates of structural change. The context for this study is therefore three genetic architectures likely to differ in multiple dimensions of their mutation profiles, but mutation rates are not measured directly.

      The reviewer is correct that we did not explicitly measure mutation rates, although the frequency of synonymous mutations (Figure 3-S1B) is a proxy for the point mutation rate as long as the majority of these mutations are assumed to be neutral. By this measure, the mutation rates for ctf4∆ haploids and ct4∆/ctf4∆ diploids, expressed per haploid genome, are close to each other (1.94 for haploids and 1.37 for diploids) but different enough to return p = 0.044 by Welch’s test, whereas the mutation rate for the recombination-deficient, ctf4∆ rad52∆ haploid is 4 to 5-fold higher (7.03). In contrast, we can infer that the ctf4∆ rad52∆ strain has much lower rates of segmental aneuploidy produced by recombination: we see only one such event in this strain in contrast to 16 in the ctf4∆ haploid and 44 in the ctf4∆/ctf4∆ diploid (Supplementary table 4), even though the amplification of the cohesin loader gene, SCC2, confers similar benefits in all three strains.

      The nature of selection on haploids and diploids is expected to differ because of dominance, but ploidy-specific selection is also possible. The authors discuss how recessive beneficial alleles may be less available to diploids, though this can be offset by relatively rapid loss of heterozygosity. However, diploids should also incur more mutations, all else being equal. The rate of beneficial mutation, as opposed to the rate of mutation generally, will depend on the mutational "target size" of fitness, and the authors findings recapitulate other literature (particularly regarding "compensatory" adaptation) that points to faster adaptation in genotypes with lower starting fitness.

      We agree with the reviewer and tried to make the point that which mutations are fixed is primarily determined by the product of the rate at which they occur and the benefit which they confer (lines 193-196). Evidence in budding yeast suggests that in diploid cells, removing one copy of most genes fails to produce a measurable fitness benefit (Deutschbauer et al., 2005), suggesting that losing one copy of many genesis purely recessive. If this was always the case, it would be very hard for such heterozygous, loss-of-function mutations to contribute to evolution in diploids: a mutation that inactivates one copy of a gene would have to rise to high enough frequency by genetic drift that homozygosis of this mutation mitotic recombination would have a significant probability. Instead we find that heterozygous mutations in some genes (inactivation of RAD9, what are likely to be hypomorphic mutations in SLD5) but not others (inactivation of IXR1) confer benefits in diploids that allow their frequency to rise much more rapidly by selection than they would by drift, allowing them to reach frequencies at which mitotic recombination becomes probable.

      There is ample literature on the above topics, particularly discussions of the evolutionary advantages of haploidy versus diploidy. While adaptation to replication stress provides a novel starting point for this investigation, much of the manuscript is devoted to long-standing questions that are not specific to replication stress. Unfortunately, the data the authors collected is not sufficient to shed light on these questions, because mutation and selection cannot be effectively distinguished. The Discussion states that "We find that the genes that acquire adaptive mutations, the frequency at which they are mutated, and the frequency at which these mutations are selected all differ between architectures but that mutations that confer strong benefits always lie in the same three modules" (line 379), but it is not clear that these statements are all supported by the data.

      The reviewer makes two points: we fail to make a significant contribution to long-standing questions about the evolutionary genetics of adaptation and the we make statements that are not supported by our data. On the first we disagree: unlike much of the previous work which compares the effects of mutation rates and population sizes on the rates of evolution, we sequence genomes, identify putative causative mutations, verify that they increase fitness, and test, by reconstruction, how their contribution to fitness is affected by fully characterized genome architectures. We know of no comparable work and we believe that this is a useful contribution to understanding evolution. In addition, some of the literature, for example the discussion of haploidy versus diploidy, has failed to reach a universal conclusion. On the second point, we realized that the statement that the reviewer quotes is stronger than it should be since we do not show “that mutations that confer strong benefits always lie in the same three modules”. What we do show is that mutations in all three modules are found in all three genome architectures (Figure 5), and that combining one mutation from each module (using mutations in genes that are found in that architecture) can reproduce the observed fitness increase in each architecture (Figure 6 B), but the reviewer is correct that we have not demonstrated that every clone from every population has an adaptive mutation in all three modules. We have therefore modified the quoted sentence as follows (altered wording underlined)

      "We find that the genes that acquire adaptive mutations, the frequency at which they are mutated, and the frequency at which these mutations are selected all differ between architectures but that mutations conferring strong benefits can occur in all three modules in each architecture" (Lines 405-408)

      Focusing on the more novel aspect of their experiment-the presence of replication stress-would arguably be a better approach. On this topic the authors have some interesting observations and speculation, but clear predictions are lacking. The introduction section could be redesigned to explicitly state why genome architecture might affect adaptation in response to replication stress in particular, rather than (or in addition to) adaptation generally. If there were no differences in mutation, does the nature of Ctf4 lead to predictions that the molecular basis of compensatory adaptation should differ among genome architectures? Without such predictions it will be difficult for readers to know whether the observation that different genome architectures follow similar adaptive paths is surprising or not.

      We believe that following this suggestion would diminish the paper. We set out to ask how genome architecture affected adaptation to the strong fitness defect produced by removing an important component of an essential process, DNA replication. We chose replication stress as an example of cell biological damage that cells would have to repair with the hope that the results would give general clues about evolutionary repair, rather than hoping that the experiment would inform us about how replication stress altered the types of mutation (e. g. point mutations versus segmental amplification) that were selected As we point out at the beginning of our response, we recognize that the result of any one such experiment must be anecdotal and any attempt to generalize must be described as speculation if it refers only to this one experiment, or inference if it refers to this experiment and other published work. In those cases where we discuss the effect of genome architecture on evolutionary trajectories, we can draw conclusions that apply to our own experiments, but can only speculate on adaptation to different selections. In others, where we see commonalities between our experiments and previous work on evolutionary repair (cite Review), we can make inferences about evolution to adapt to removing important proteins and speculate about other forms of selection. We have revised the discussion to make it clear where we conclude, where we speculate, and where we infer. We suspect that our finding that genome architecture has a larger effect on which genes acquire adaptive mutations than it does on which modules these mutations alter will generalize to other evolutionary repair experiments and may be true even more broadly.

      We deliberately did not make predictions about the effect of genome architecture on the rate at which population fitness increased or the mechanism of adaptation to replication stress because we believed that our ignorance and the diverging results of previous experiments was sufficient to make both exercises worthless. After the fact, we interpret our results to suggest that mutations that reduce the activity of components, such as Sld5, that are stably associated with replication forks should be semi-dominant, but we were not nearly smart enough to make such a specific prediction before the experiment began!

      **Minor comments:** Shifts in ploidy from diploid to haploid are less common than the reverse change, so the observation of such a shift (Fig. 1) should be discussed in more detail.

      We now mention that haploids becoming diploids is more common than the reverse transformation and point out that genome sequencing reveals that these strains are true haploids rather than aneuploids.

      “One diploid population (EVO14) gave rise to a population with a haploid genome content, suggesting a possible haploidization event during evolution. Sequencing revealed no aneuploidies as a potential explanation of this phenomenon. While diploidization has been recurrently observed during experimental evolution with budding yeast (Aleeza C. Gerstein & Otto, 2011; Aleeza C Gerstein, Chun, Grant, & Otto, 2006; Harari, Ram, Rappoport, Hadany, & Kupiec, 2018; Venkataram et al., 2016), reports of spontaneous haploidization events have been instead scarce. Given the difficulties introduced by the change of ploidy over the 1000 generations, we have excluded EVO14 from all our analyses.” (Lines 122-128)

      We believe that the most likely mechanism is that the strain sporulated to produce haploids that were fitter than their diploid parent, but because this event occurred in only one out of eight populations and the proposed explanation is pure speculation we have not included in the revised manuscript.

      Line 88 typo 'stains'.

      Fixed. Thank you.

      Reviewer #1 (Significance (Required)): **SECTION B - Significance** The novel aspect of this study is the combination of replication stress and genome architecture, but here the significance is limited by a lack of clear predictions on how these factors might interact. On the other hand, much of the manuscript is devoted to why adaptation might vary among genome architectures in general, but this long-standing and important question is not particularly well resolved by this experimental approach, which can't disentangle mutation and selection.

      Our belief is that quantitatively predicting how selection will change fitness is nearly impossible because we lack the detailed knowledge of population genetic parameters that apply to our experiments. Prediction is even harder if the goal is to identify which genes will fix adaptive mutations and understand how these mutations alter cellular phenotypes to increase fitness. Thus our approach is almost entirely empirical: we do experiments that alter interesting variables, collect data, and do our best to interpret them and suggest how the conclusions of individual experiments might generalize.

      The authors highlight the dichotomy when discussing the evolution of ploidy: "We suggest that... genome architecture affects two aspects of the mutations that produce adaptation: the frequency at which they occur and the selective advantage they confer" (line 399), but presenting this as a novel inference does not appropriately acknowledge prior research and discussion of these ideas; several relevant papers are cited by the authors in other contexts. It may be possible to recast these findings as a test of the role of genome architecture in adaptation generally, but the authors should clarify the limitations of experimental evolution and more fully consider the theory and data outlined in previous research. In particular, few studies can claim to directly compare mutation rates between genome architectures, and it is not obvious that the present study is an example of such.

      We have the disadvantage that the reviewer doesn’t identify the literature we fail to cite. To us the argument the reviewer quotes is self-evident. As we mention above, our goal was not to test either general or detailed predictions and the level at which we analyzed our experiment, especially demonstrating that mutations were causal and reconstructing them individually and in combination, is missing from previous work. Finally measuring mutation rates is supremely difficult: you either need good ways of following all possible forms of mutation, quantitatively and without selection, or you resort to selecting mutations with a particular phenotype and molecularly characterizing them, knowing that these assays may well give different ratios of the rates of different types of mutation at different loci. We do make and report one measure of mutation rate, the rate of synonymous mutation in protein coding genes, which we discuss above.

      Reviewer expertise: Evoutionary genetics; experimental evolution; mutation.

      Reviewer #2 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)): **Summary** This manuscript investigates the effect of an organism's genotype (or, as the authors call it, an organism's 'genome architecture') on evolutionary trajectories. For this, the authors use Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains that experience some form of replication stress due to specific gene deletions, and that further differ in ploidy and/or the type of gene(s) deleted. They find the same three functional modules (DNA replication, DNA damage checkpoint, sister chromatid cohesion) are affected across the 3 different genotypes tested; although the specific genes that are mutated varies. **Major comments** This is a solid and exceptionally eloquent paper, comprising a large body of work that is in general well presented. That said, I do have some suggestions and questions. At several points in the manuscript, the authors should perhaps be more careful in their wording and avoid to overgeneralize data without providing additional evidence for these claims.

      We thank the reviewer for their constructive review and address their request for more careful wording below.

      • Some key points of the study are not entirely clear to me; possibly because the study builds upon a previous study that was recently published in eLife. Anyhow, I think it would be useful to clarify the following points a bit more:

        • Why exactly was ctf4∆ chosen as a model for replication stress? What is the evidence that ctf4∆ is a good model for replication stress? Without including some evidence for this, it is unclear how well the findings in this study really can be generalized to replication stress (which is what the authors do now).

      We described the reasons for choosing CTF4 deletion to mimic DNA replication stress in our previous eLife paper, to which we refer at. Nevertheless, the reviewer is right in asking us not to assume that the reader will have read our previous work. Briefly: DNA replication stress is a term that is loosely defined as the combination of the defects in DNA metabolism and the cellular response to these defects in cells whose replication has been substantially perturbed (Macheret & Halazonetis, 2015). Established methods in the field to induce DNA replication stress consist of either pharmacological treatments or genetic perturbation. Pharmacological treatments include hydroxyurea, which target the ribonucleotide reductase and hence stalls forks as a result of dNTP depletion (Crabbé et al., 2010), or aphidicolin, which directly inhibits polymerases α, ε and δ (Vesela, Chroma, Turi, & Mistrik, 2017b; Wilhelm et al., 2019). For genetic perturbation, the conditional depletion of replicative polymerases (Zheng, Zhang, Wu, Mieczkowski, & Petes, 2016) is frequently used. These methods are incompatible with experimental evolution, as cells can mutate the targets of replication inhibitors or alter the expression of genes that have been reduced in expression or activity. Removing an important but non-essential component of the replication machinery avoids these problems. We chose CTF4 deletion as a manipulation that affected the coordination of events at the replication fork: in the absence of Ctf4, the polα-primase complex is no longer physically bound to the replicative helicase, and thus the polymerase’s abundance at the replisome decreases (Tanaka et al., 2009). This manipulation achieves the same effects as polymerase depletion and replisome stalling, producing a constitutive DNA replication stress that can only be overcome by mutations in other genes. Multiple studies have shown that ctf4**D cells display replication intermediates commonly associated to DNA replication stress, such as the accumulation of ssDNA gaps and reversed forks (Abe et al., 2018; Fumasoni, Zwicky, Vanoli, Lopes, & Branzei, 2015), fork stalling (Fumasoni & Murray, 2020), checkpoint activation (Poli et al., 2012; Tanaka et al., 2009) and altered chromosome metabolism (Kouprina et al., 1992).

      We now justify our choice of deleting CTF4 at line 74:

      “DNA replication stress is often induced with drugs or by reducing the level of DNA polymerases (Crabbé et al., 2010; Vesela, Chroma, Turi, & Mistrik, 2017a; Wilhelm et al., 2019; Zheng et al., 2016). To avoid evolving drug resistance or increased polymerase expression, which would rapidly overcome DNA replication stress,** we deleted the CTF4 gene, which encodes a non-essential subunit of the DNA replication machinery (the replisome) (Kouprina NYu, Pashina, Nikolaishwili, Tsouladze, & Larionov, 1988). Ctf4 is a homo-trimer that functions as a structural hub within the replisome (Villa et al., 2016; Yuan et al., 2019) by binding to the replicative DNA helicase, primase (the enzyme that makes the RNA primers that initiate DNA replication), and other accessory factors (Gambus et al., 2009; Samora et al., 2016; Simon et al., 2014; Villa et al., 2016). In the absence of Ctf4, the Pol**a-primase and other lagging strand processing factors are poorly recruited to the replisome (Samora et al., 2016; Tanaka et al., 2009; Villa et al., 2016), causing several characteristic features of DNA replication stress, such as accumulation of single strand DNA (ssDNA) gaps (Abe et al., 2018; Fumasoni et al., 2015), reversed and stalled forks (Fumasoni & Murray, 2020; Fumasoni et al., 2015), cell cycle checkpoint activation (Poli et al., 2012; Tanaka et al., 2009) and altered chromosome metabolism (Hanna, Kroll, Lundblad, & Spencer, 2001; Kouprina et al., 1992). As a consequence of these defects, ctf4**D cells have substantially reduced reproductive fitness (Fumasoni & Murray, 2020).**”

      Would the authors expect to see similar routes of adaptation if a 'genomic architecture' with a less severe/other replication defect would have been used? I realize the last question is perhaps difficult to address without actually doing the experiment (which I am not suggesting the authors should do); I just want to point out that perhaps some data should not be over-generalized.

      We share the reviewer’s interest in asking whether different forms of DNA replication stress would lead to the same results described, and we plan to rigorously investigate this question in a separate paper. We note that the careful comparison between different forms of DNA replication stress has never been made and that authors studying this phenomenon often rely on a single perturbation to induce DNA replication stress (Crabbé et al., 2010; Wilhelm et al., 2019; Zheng et al., 2016). We agree that such a comparison will be useful, but we believe (as indicated by the reviewer) it will require an amount of work that goes beyond the scope of our study. To avoid over-generalization, we are using now using “a form of DNA replication stress” in lines 33, 244, 401, 414 and 461, to make it clear that our conclusions (as opposed to inferences and speculations) are restricted to the response to a single example of replication stress.

      Likewise, why was RAD52 selected as the gene to delete to affect homologous recombination? I understand that it is a key gene, but on the flipside, absence of RAD52 affects multiple cellular pathways and (as the authors also observe in their populations) also results in increased mutation rates which might confound some of the results.

      We aimed to observe the largest deficiency in DNA recombination possible and therefore chose to delete RAD52 because of its many roles in different forms of homologous recombination (Pâques & Haber, 1999) . The choice of other genes, such as RAD51, would have inhibited canonical double strand break (DSB) repair, but allowed other mechanisms that can rescue stalled replication forks (Ait Saada, Lambert, & Carr, 2018), such as break induced replication (BIR) or single strand annealing (SSA) (Ira & Haber, 2002).

      Our position regarding the inevitable increase in mutations rates obtained while working with genome maintenance process has been instead elaborated in response to reviewer #1 above.

      A sentence describing our choice to delete RAD52 has now been included at line 86:

      “…as well as from haploids impaired in homologous recombination due to the deletion of RAD52 (Figure 1A), which encodes a conserved enzyme required for pairing homologous DNA sequences during recombination (Pâques & Haber, 1999). Because Rad52 is involved in different forms of homologous recombination, it’s absence produces the most severe recombination defects and thus allows us to achieve the largest recombination defect achievable with a single gene deletion (Symington, 2002)..”

      Related to the first comment, it is also unclear to me how well the system chosen by the authors is representative of the replication stress experienced by tumor cells (as briefly touched upon in the final section of the discussion). Are some of the homologs key oncogenes that drive carcinogenesis?

      We should have been clearer. Our goal was to argue that the lesions and responses produced by replication stress in tumor cells, such as stalled replication forks and checkpoint activation, were similar to those seen in yeast cells lacking Ctf4. We did not mean to imply removing Ctf4 from yeast cells had the same effects on cell proliferation and survival as inactivating tumor suppressors and activating proto-oncogenes have in mammalian cells. Despite the difference between direct (removing Ctf4) and indirect effects on DNA replication (tumor cells), the replication intermediates (ssDNA, stalled and reversed forks), the cell cycle defects (G2/M delay), the genetic instability (increased mutagenesis and chromosome loss) and chromosome dynamics (late replication zones and chromosome bridges) generated by the absence of Ctf4 are similar to those observed in oncogene-induced DNA replication stress in mammalian cells (Kotsantis, Petermann, & Boulton, 2018). We therefore believe our experiments reveal evolutionary responses to a constitutive DNA replication stress that resembles the replication stress seen in cancer cells. Nevertheless, we agree that the comparison with cancer evolution remains speculative and we therefore avoided mentioning cancer in the title our paper or our conclusions, and only discuss it in a speculative section of the discussion.

      We have modified this section of the discussion as follows (line 554):

      “While generated through a different mechanism (unrestrained proliferation, rather than replisome perturbation), oncogene induced DNA replication stress produces cellular consequences (Kotsantis et al., 2018) which are remarkably similar to those seen in the absence of Ctf4, such as the accumulation of ssDNA, stalled and reversed forks (Abe et al., 2018; Fumasoni & Murray, 2020; Fumasoni et al., 2015), genetic instability (Fumasoni et al., 2015; Hanna et al., 2001; Kouprina et al., 1992) and DNA damage response activation (Poli et al., 2012; Tanaka et al., 2009). Based on these similarities we speculate that evolutionary adaptation to DNA replication stress could reduce its negative effects on cellular fitness and thus assist tumor evolution.”

      The authors should consider rephrasing some sentences regarding the occurrence of adaptive mutations. Sentences such as 'which genes are mutated depends on the selective advantage' (p1; lines 15-16); 'genome architecture controls the frequency at which mutations occur' (p15), "genome architecture controls which genes are mutated" (p1, line 20) makes it sound like the initial occurrence of mutations is not random, whereas in reality, the mutational landscape is the result of the combined effect of occurrence and fitness effect of the mutations, with the later rather than the former likely being the main driver behind the observed patterns.

      We thank the reviewer for asking for more precision in the above sentences, whose proposed changes we now list:

      “Mutations in individual genes are selected at different frequencies in different architectures, but the benefits these mutations confer are similar in all three architectures, and combinations of these mutations reproduce the fitness gains of evolved populations.” (Lines 13-15)

      “Genome architecture influences the distribution of adaptive mutants” (Line 277)

      "genome architecture influences the frequency at which mutations occur, the fitness benefit they confer, and the extent of overall adaptation." (Lines 462-463)

      Some important methodological information is missing or unclear in the manuscript:

      The authors should provide more details on how they decided which clones to select for sequencing. Did they select the biggest colonies; were colonies picked randomly, ...

      This following sentence is now reported in the materials and methods section (Line 603)

      “To capture the within-population genetic variability we selected the clones displaying the largest divergence of phenotypes in terms of resistance to genotoxic agents (methyl-methanesulfonate, hydroxyurea and camptothecin).”

      What is the population size during the evolution experiment?

      We now added the following sentence at line 599:

      “In this regime, the effective population size is calculated as N0 x g where N0 is the size of the population bottleneck at transfer and g is the number of generations achieved during a batch growth cycle and corresponds to approximately to 107 cells.”

      Sequencing of populations and clones: coverage should be mentioned

      The following sentence has now been added at line 616:

      “Clones and populations were sequenced at approximately the following depths: 25-30X for haploid clones, 50-60X for diploid clones, 50-60X for haploid populations and 120-130X for diploid populations.”

      Identification of mutations (p19, line 573): Is this really how the authors defined whether a variant is a mutation? Based on the definition given here, DNA mutations that lead to a synonymous mutation in the protein are not considered as mutations?

      We apologize for this typo. We do identify and consider synonymous mutations as evidenced by Figure 3-S1B. Now the sentence at line 626 correctly reports:

      “A variant that occurs between the ancestor and an evolved strain is labeled as a mutation if it either (1) causes a substitution in a coding sequence or (2) occurs in a regulatory region, defined as the 500 bp upstream and downstream of the coding sequence.”

      Perhaps the information can be found elsewhere, but the source data excel files for mutations is incomplete and should at the very least contain information on the type of mutation (eg. T->A), as well as the location of this mutation in the respective gene.

      Perhaps the reviewer is referring to Supplementary table 2, where we list the number of times a gene has been mutated in different populations (and thus summaries different types of mutations affecting the same gene). The information they request is reported in Supplementary table 1 for all the variants detected in populations and clones sequencing.

      **Minor comments** • While the author already cite several significant papers relevant for their manuscript, some other studies could also be included:

      We thank the reviewer for highlighting these references, which are now cited at line 28

      From the text in the abstract, it is unclear what the three genomic architectures (line 13) exactly are, the authors should consider spelling this out.

      In repose o the reviewer request for clarity we now propose the following change in line 13:

      “We asked how these trajectories depend on a population’s genome architecture by comparing the adaptation of haploids to that diploids and recombination deficient haploids.” (Lines 9-11)

      Can the authors speculate on why a homozygous ctf4D/ctf4D rad52D/rad52D would be lethal, and a haploid not?

      See below

      The authors note that a diploid ctf4D/ctf4D strain is less fit than its haploid counterpart. Why do the authors think this is the case?

      In response to the two previous questions, we now propose the following speculations that we include in the text (Line 97):

      “Diploid cells require twice as many forks as haploids and Ctf4-deficient diploids are thus more likely to have forks that cause severe cell-cycle delays or cell lethality. We speculate that this increased probability explains the more prominent fitness defect displayed by diploid cells. Interestingly, homologs of Ctf4 are absent in prokaryotes, where the primase is physically linked to the replicative helicase (Lu, Ratnakar, Mohanty, & Bastia, 1996) and Ctf4 is essential in the cells of eukaryotes with larger genomes such as chickens (Abe et al., 2018) and humans (Yoshizawa-Sugata & Masai, 2009). Rad52 is likely involved in rescuing stalled replication forks by recombination-dependent mechanisms (Fumasoni et al., 2015; Yeeles, Poli, Marians, & Pasero, 2013). We speculate that the absence of Rad52 increases the duration of these stalls and leads some of them to become double-stranded breaks resulting in cell lethality and explaining the decreased fitness of ctf4D rad52D haploid double mutants. In diploids ctf4D rad52D cells, which have twice as many chromosomes, the number of irreparably stalled fork may be sufficient to kill most of the cells in a population, thus explaining the unviability of the strain.”

      The authors passage their cells for 100 cycles and assume that this corresponds to around 1000 generations for each population. However, the fitness differences between the different starting strains (see also Figure 1B) are likely to cause considerable differences in number of generations between the different strains. Do the authors have more precise measurements of number of generations per population? If not, perhaps it should be noted that some lineages may have undergone more doublings than others, and perhaps also discuss if and how this could influence the results?

      In a batch culture regime, where populations are allowed to reach saturation after each dilution, the number of generations at each passage are dictated by the dilution factor (Van den Bergh, Swings, Fauvart, & Michiels, 2018). A dilution of 1:1000 from a saturated culture will allow for approximately 10 generations before populations reach a new saturated phase. As long as saturation is allowed to occur, this number is independent of the fitness of the cultured strains: Slower-dividing strains will simply employ more time to reach saturation after each dilution. At the beginning of the experiment, we had to dilute the ctf4D rad52**D strains being passaged every 48hrs instead of 24hrs. After generation 50, ctf4D rad52**D strains reached saturation within 24hrs and were then diluted daily. The total count considers the number of passages a culture has undergone, and not the number of days of culture, and thus should guarantee approximately the same number of generations in all three genome architectures.

      Panel A of figure 1A is somewhat confusing; as this seems to indicate that the ctf4∆ was introduced after strains were made, for example, haploid recombination deficient (which is not how these strains were constructed). Perhaps a better way of representing would be to have the indication of DNA replication stress pictured inside the yeast cells.

      We have modified Figure 1A to better represent the way the strains were constructed. For space reasons we have not represented a perturbed fork within each cell, but rather above all of them.

      Legend to Figure 1: is fitness expressed relative to haploid or diploid WT cells for the diploid strains?

      We apologize for having missed this detail in the figure legends. Throughout the figures, haploid and diploid cells were competed against reference strains with the same ploidy. We now add this sentence in Figure 1 and in the materials and methods (line 686).

      Figure 3: to improve readability of this figure, the authors could consider placing the legend of the different symbols (#, *,..) in the figure as well and not just in the figure legend.

      We now include the symbols legend in Figure 3.

      Figure 5 shows Indels, but if I am correct, these mutations are not discussed in the text; nor is it mentioned what the authors used as a cut-off to determine indels (the authors use the term 'small indels' without defining it)? For example, the data shown in Figure 3 and Figure 4 only includes SNPs and not indels (correct?) - but the indels should also be taken into account when investigating which modules are hit.

      Gapped alignments of the relatively long 150 paired-end reads in our data set permits the identification of small indels ranging in size from 1–55 bp using VarScan pileup2indels tool (Koboldt et al., 2012). All small indels (and the respective sequence affected) are listed together with SNPs in Supplementary table 1. Figure 3A, Figure 4 and Figure 5B are representation of ‘gene mutations’ which include both SNPs and small InDels. Large chromosomal Insertion and deletions, not detectable by short read gap alignment are instead identified using the VarScan pileup2copynumber tool (Koboldt et al., 2012), and are represented as amplifications or deletions in Figure 3B and 5C.

      The following sentence has been added to the material and methods at line 629:

      “Gapped alignments of the 150 paired-end reads in our data set permits the identification of small indels ranging in size from 1–55 bp using VarScan pileup2indels tool (Koboldt et al., 2012). All small indels (and the respective sequence affected) are listed together with SNPs in Supplementary table 1.”

      The following definition has been added in Figure legends 3A, 4 and 5A and B.

      “Gene mutations (SNPs and small InDels 1-55bp)”

      Figure 5 mentions: # gene mutations. So these are only the mutations in genes, and not in their up- or downstream regulatory regions?

      We use a broader definition of a gene, not restricted to the open reading frame, and including its regulatory regions. The following definition has been added to figure 5’s legend.

      “Frequency of SNPs and small InDels (1-55bp) affecting genes (Open reading frames and associated regulatory regions).”

      Figure 3-S1: labels of C panels are missing.

      Labels are now included in Figure 3-S1

      Figure 3-S1, panel B: why did the authors focus on synonymous mutations?

      The panel B is commented upon in line 186 and contrasted with panel A to argue that the increased number of mutations detected in ctf4∆ rad52∆ strains is due to a higher mutation rate(which is expected to increase synonymous mutations) instead of an higher number of adaptive mutations (which are less likely to be synonymous) being selected.

      Reviewer #2 (Significance (Required)): This is a solid and clearly written study, comprising a large body of work that is generally well presented and that will be of interest to scientists active in the field of (experimental) evolution and replication. However, many aspects studied in this manuscript have already been studied and reported before; including the recent eLife paper by the same group, as well as studies by other labs that have investigated how genome architecture / genotype affects evolutionary trajectories, the effect of ploidy on evolution, .... Because of this, I do feel that the authors should put their findings more in the context of existing literature context, including a general description of which results are truly novel, which confirm previous findings and which results seem to go against previous reports. This is already so at some points in the text, but I feel this could be done even more.

      We now rephrase the following paragraphs in our discussion to better highlight the main conclusions in contrast to the existing literature:

      “Engineering one mutation in each module into an ancestral strain lacking Ctf4 is enough to produce the evolved fitness increase in all three genomic architectures. Furthermore, engineering mutations in individual genes confer benefits in all three architectures (Fig. 6A) ,even in those where the mutations in these genes was rare, and combining these mutations recapitulated the evolved fitness increase in all three architectures (Fig. 6B). Altogether our results demonstrate the existence of a common pathway for yeast cells to adapt to a form of constitutive DNA replication stress.” (Lines 409-414)

      “Our results thus go against the trend of slower adaptation in diploids as compared to haploids reported by the majority other studies (A. C. Gerstein, Cleathero, Mandegar, & Otto, 2011; Marad, Buskirk, & Lang, 2018; Zeyl, Vanderford, & Carter, 2003). This effect is not limited to populations experiencing DNA replication stress (Figure 2A) but is also present in control wild-type populations (Figure 2B). Our results support the idea that the details of genotypes, selections, and experimental protocols can determine the effect of ploidy on adaptation.” (Lines 437-442)

      “Our results therefore agree with previous reports observing declining adaptability across strains with different initial fitness but largely fail to observe diminishing return epistasis as a potential justification of this phenomenon. Our experiments and two previous evolutionary repair experiments (Hsieh et al., 2020; Laan et al., 2015) both show interactions that are approximately additive between different selected mutations. The reasons for this difference are currently unknown.” (Lines 450-455)

      Additionally, I think the authors should be more careful not to over-generalize their findings, which come from only a few specific genetic manipulations that might not be representative for general replication stress. For example (p15), can the authors really claim that they have unraveled general principles of adaptation to constitutive DNA replication stress? Perhaps a better motivation of the choice of ctf4 as a model mutation for DNA replication stress could also help (see also my earlier comments). A similar comment applies to the molecular mechanisms affecting adaptation in diploid cells - what evidence do the authors have that their findings are not specific to the one specific type of diploid strain they used in their study? Adding a bit more background information or nuance for some of the claims would help tackle this issue.

      We now followed the suggestions made previously by the reviewer to justify our experimental choices better and to use a language that avoids over-generalizations.

      Field of expertise of this reviewer: genetics, evolution, genomics

      Reviewer #3 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)): **Summary:** Here the authors carry out an evolution experiment, propagating replicate populations of the budding yeast with the CTF 4 gene deleted in three different genetic backgrounds: haploid , diploid and recombination deficient (RAD52 deletion). The authors find that the rate of evolution depends on the initial fitness of the different genetic backgrounds which is consistent with a repeated finding of evolution experiments: that beneficial mutations tend to have a smaller fitness effect in high fitness genetic backgrounds. Curiously even though the targets of selection tended to be specific to each of the three different genetic backgrounds, genetic reconstruction experiments showed beneficial mutations convert a fitness increase in all genetics backgrounds. The authors go on to provide a plausible explanation for why each of the three genetic backgrounds are predisposed to certain types of beneficial mutations. Overall, these results provide important context and caveats for an emerging consensus that genetic background determines the rate of evolution, a comprehensive molecular breakdown of adaptation to DNA replication stress and a mechanistic explanation for why different beneficial mutations are favoured in diploids, haploids and recombination deficient strains. This is a well-executed study that is beautifully presented and easy to follow. This will be of great interest to those in the experimental evolution community and the data an excellent resource.

      We thank reviewer #3 for emphasizing that reconstructed mutations are beneficial even in architectures where they were not ultimately detected at the end of the experiment. We have now highlighted this point in our conclusions as a response to the reviewer’s #1 and #2 request for more clarity regarding our novel findings.

      “We find that the genes that acquire adaptive mutations, the frequency at which they are mutated, and the frequency at which these mutations are selected all differ between architectures but that mutations that confer strong benefits can occur in all three modules in each architecture. Engineering one mutation in each module into an ancestral strain lacking Ctf4 is enough to produce the evolved fitness increase in all three genomic architectures. Furthermore, reconstruction of a panel of mutations into all three architectures proved they are adaptive even in architectures where the affected genes were not found significantly mutated by the end of the experiment. Altogether our results demonstrate the existence of a common pathway for yeast cells to adapt to a form of constitutive DNA replication stress.” (Lines 405-414)

      **Major comments:**

      • Are the key conclusions convincing? Yes, the convergent evolution analysis, fitness assays, and genetic reconstructions are sufficient to characterise the genetic causes of adaptation in this experiment, and are of the highest standard. The authors do particularly well to fully recover the fitness increases that evolved with their genetic reconstructions, which imparts a completeness to their understanding of what happened in their evolution experiment.
      • Should the authors qualify some of their claims as preliminary or speculative, or remove them altogether? No, in nearly all cases the authors make reasonable claims. One exception is on L419 in the discussion, where the authors speculate why some mutations do not follow diminishing returns epistasis, but this idea does not really have any basis (no citation or reasons to suggest that DNA repair genes are less connected with other genes in the genome). If the authors cannot support this statement, it should be removed, and instead write that is currently unknown why some individual mutations do not follow the pattern of diminishing returns.

      On reflection, we agree with the reviewer and now state,

      “Our results confirm previous reports observing declining adaptability across strains with different initial fitness but largely fail to observe diminishing return epistasis as a potential justification of this phenomenon. Our experiments and two previous evolutionary repair experiments (Hsieh et al., 2020; Laan et al., 2015) both show interactions that are approximately additive between different selected mutations. The reasons for this difference are currently unknown.

      A hypothesis, which would need experimental validation, could be that the different mutations have different degrees of epistatic interactions with the rest of the genome. Ixr1, whose mutation follows diminishing return epistasis, is a transcription factor that could in principle affect the expression of many other genes implicated in different cellular modules. Sld5, Scc2 and Rad9 instead, whose mutations have the same effect across different genome architectures, having more mechanistic roles in genome maintenance may have strong epistatic interactions only with a restricted number of cellular modules implicated with DNA metabolism.

      • Would additional experiments be essential to support the claims of the paper? No.
        • Are the data and the methods presented in such a way that they can be reproduced? Yes, but some more details are needed for the convergent evolution analysis, see minor comments.
        • Are the experiments adequately replicated and statistical analysis adequate? Yes, but some more statistic reporting in the main text or figure legends would be helpful, for example. L159: Please report the statistical test, test statistic and p value in the text or in the figure legend. Currently significance is indicated, but the methods do not specify the test.

      We apologize for the lack of clarity in the main text. The test used for all fitness analysis was only reported in the materials and methods as follow:

      “The P-values reported in figures are the result of t-tests assuming unequal variances (Welch’s test)”

      We now include the test and the associated p-value in line 184, and write the above sentence in all the relevant figures.

      This should also be done for the GO analysis shown in figure 3A.

      We thank reviewer #3 pointing out this omission. We now include the following section:

      “Gene ontology (GO) enrichment analysis:

      The list of genes with putatively selected mutations (Figure 3A) or homozygous mutations in diploids (Figure 4) were input as ‘multiple proteins’ in the STRING database, which reports on the network of interactions between the input genes (https://string-db.org). The GO term enrichment analysis provided by STRING are reported in Supplementary Table 3 and Supplementary Table 6 respectively. Briefly, the strength of the enrichment is calculated as Log10(O/E), where O is the number of ‘observed’ genes in the provided list (of length N) which belong to the GO-term, and E is the number of ‘expected’ genes we would expect to find matching the GO-term providing a list of the same length N made of randomly picked genes. P-values are computed using a Hypergeometric test and corrected for multiple testing using the Benjamini-Hochberg procedure. The resulting P-values are represented as ‘False discovery rate’ in the supplementary tables and describe the significance of the GO terms enrichment (Franceschini et al., 2013).”

      **Minor comments:**

      • Specific experimental issues that are easily addressable. Not a new experiment, but extra details are required. The authors carried out both clone and whole population sequencing. For their convergent evolution analysis, what is the criteria for a mutation to be included- ie, does it need to be fixed, have attained a certain frequency? This is important- if the criteria were low (say 5%), it would be important to know whether gene A had fixed in 4 populations, while gene B had attained a frequency of 10% in 5 populations. As it stands both would be described as examples of convergent evolution. This can be handled by providing these details in the methods.

      For the population sequencing we disregarded variants found at less than 25% and 35% of the reads in haploid and diploid populations respectively as we observed they were largely the product of alignment errors. All the variants found at frequencies higher than the thresholds indicated were used for the parallel evolution analysis. The frequency at which each individual variant was detected in each population is reported in Supplementary table 1, while the average frequency at which a gene has been found mutated across different populations is reported in Supplementary table 2. The reason why we didn’t solely focus on fixed mutations for our convergent evolution analysis was that from previous work we knew of the existence of clonal interference which kept the frequency of verified adaptive mutations that coexisted in the same population (e.g. ixr1 and sld5) well below 90% (Fumasoni & Murray, 2020).

      For clarity we now add the following sentence in the material and methods:

      “Variants found in less than 25% and 35% of the reads in haploid and diploid populations respectively were discarded, since many of these corresponded to misalignment of repeated regions. For clone sequencing, only variants found in more than 75% of the reads in haploids and 35% of the reads in diploids (to account for heterozygosity) were considered mutations. The frequency of the reads associated with all the variants detected are reported in Supplementary table 1”

      • Are prior studies referenced appropriately? I note that the authors use the term declining adaptability where as other papers use the term diminishing returns epistasis- I am sure the authors have good reasons for their choice of nomenclature but I think it would be helpful for their readers to connect this work to other work by mentioning that declining adaptability is also referred to as diminishing returns.

      We use both terms (for instance in line 446 and line 448) with a different meaning : By ‘declining adaptability’ we refer the phenomenon where more fit strains display lower adaptation rates than less fit ones. By ‘diminishing returns epistasis’ we refer to a possible explanation of such a phenomenon, where adaptive mutations have different fitness effects due to their ‘global’ epistatic interactions with other alleles. It has to be noted that ‘diminishing returns epistasis’ is not the only proposed explanation of the phenomenon of declining adaptability (Couce & Tenaillon, 2015). In our case, we do find evidence of declining adaptability but very limited evidence for diminishing return epistasis (only 1 mutation in 5 has a different fitness effect in different architectures).

      A reference the authors have missed: L419, as well as citing the Desai Lab bioxive paper, they should cite another theory paper that obtained similar conclusions. Lyons, D.M., et al. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-020-01286-y.

      We thank the reviewer for the suggested reference, which is now cited at line 450.

      • Are the text and figures clear and accurate? This paper is beautifully written and easy to follow, a lot of thought has gone into the figures which are aesthetically pleasing and easy to navigate.

        • Do you have suggestions that would help the authors improve the presentation of their data and conclusions? No.

        **Typos**

        L32 "do" should be "to" L95 analyzed L219 are the authors referring to ref 15 here? I think so, but please specify

      We thank the reviewer for carefully finding the typos, which are now all corrected.

      Reviewer #3 (Significance (Required)):

      • Describe the nature and significance of the advance (e.g. conceptual, technical, clinical) for the field. This paper is an important conceptual result and an immediate advance for basic research. The authors have done an outstanding job of showing the potential for the clinical translation of this research, especially regarding cancer biology.
      • Place the work in the context of the existing literature (provide references, where appropriate). This study follows up on and builds upon an earlier paper by these same authors published in E-life in 2020. Conceptually this work is most closely related to work in Michael Desai's, Sergey Kryazhimskiy's, Tim Coopers and Chris Marx's labs work looking at diminishing returns epistasis in yeast, and studies contrasting evolution of haploids and diploids led by Greg Lang's and Sarah Otto's labs.
      • State what audience might be interested in and influenced by the reported findings. This work will be of great interest to the Experimental evolution and molecular evolution communities and also of interest to those who study cancer genomics and DNA replication and repair.
      • Define your field of expertise with a few keywords to help the authors contextualize your point of view. Indicate if there are any parts of the paper that you do not have sufficient expertise to evaluate. Microbial experimental evolution.

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    1. Are the visitors learning anything?’ we asked. He still didn’t understand. Attendance at the museum was high. It looked attractive. It had probably won a prize. Why were we wasting his time?” Are designers also wasting the time of the critics?

      What an interesting story to come full circle on the topic. You would think that museums would be centered around learner growth, the elevation of society and the expansion of understanding. However, just as soon as you make it a potential tourist destination, much of the noble ideas may go right out the window. However, it does seem like an oxymoron to have displays and information that is difficult to read and too complex for the average learner. Maybe this is why many Americans are becoming disinterested with museums?

    2. “What the customer wants, the customer gets”

      I think we have to be careful with the customer is always right mentality as we are trying to raise the bar for learners who may often be seeking entertaining education as seen through various media outlets. If we are to compete on a global stage, we must seek to push people somewhat out of their comfort zones in some situations.

    3. “real world ” it is the client who sets the parameters for what will be characterized as an acceptable product. Our client may place a premium on creative instruction, just as our critics insist, or they may be much more into other aspects of the instruction, such as effectiveness and efficiency

      I don't think I fully realized the role the client plays in exactly the type of ID. I knew they gave parameters but seeing it laid out like this really clarifies that some want engagement while others was effectiveness at the cost of interest sometimes and that is what we are dealing with.

    1. With much angry gesturing, an Italian manager referred to the idea of his Dutch counterpart as “crazy.” The Dutch manager replied. “What do you mean, crazy? I’ve considered all the factors, and I think this is a viable approach. And calm down! We need to analyze this, not get sidetracked by emotional theatrics.” At that point, the Italian walked out of the meeting. In international business dealings, reason and emotion both play a role. Which of these dominates depends upon whether we are affective (readily showing emotions) or emotionally neutral in our approach. Members of neutral cultures do not telegraph their feelings, but keep them carefully controlled and subdued. In cultures with high affect, people show their feelings plainly by laughing, smiling, grimacing, scowling – and sometimes crying, shouting, or walking out of the room. This doesn’t mean that people in neutral cultures are cold or unfeeling. But in the course of normal business activities, neutral cultures are more careful to monitor the amount of emotion they display. Research conducted with people who were upset about something at work, noted that only some cultures supported expressing those feelings openly. Emotional reactions were found to be least acceptable in Japan, Indonesia, the U.K., Norway and the Netherlands – and most accepted in Italy, France, the U.S. and Singapore. It’s easy for people from neutral cultures to sympathize with the Dutch manager and his frustration over trying to reason with “that excitable Italian.” After all, an idea either works or it doesn’t work – and the way to test the validity of an idea is through trial and observation. That just makes sense – doesn’t it? Well, not necessarily to the Italian who felt the issue was deeply personal, and who viewed any “rational argument” as totally irrelevant!

      Our text doesn't give opposing terms for the emotion display rules, but these examples may help you understand the concept better.

    1. Outside some departments of philosophy, however, it is generally not scholars in the humanitieswho overvalue rationality. After all, the idea of reason has not had a very good press among writers, critics, and theorists for some time now—one may think of the doubts about it raised (as E. O. Wilson is aware) by the Roman-tics or of its treatment by Nietzsche or psychoanalytic theory. Nor is it humanists who need to recognize the existence of what Hayles calls “systemic human blind-nesses.” On the contrary, if we have a concept like hubris and a chastened sense of human capacities more generally, it has come largely from poets, humanistic philosophers, and those who study and transmit their views. Humanities scholars these days generally acknowledge—and many of them stress—the continuities between humans and other animals; and, although a strong suspicion of a not well-understood Darwinism remains widespread, most of them, I believe, would acknowledge that our capacities, impulses, and responses reflect, among other things, the evolutionary history of the species.

      Nicely said -- the humanities are not the ones failing in this regard.

    2. A good part of the interest of the actions and productions of other humans may have to do with our experiencing the world, fairly uniquely among machines and animals, as subjects—experiencing it, that is, with what we call consciousness or a sense of self. Hayles, having no doubt heard such observations from digital-resistant humanists, goes to some trouble to expose subjectivity, consciousness, and a sense of self as “illusions.” But the effort is, again I think, misplaced. Recognizing that subjective experiences—one’s own and other peoples’—are, as she terms them, “epiphenomena of underlying material processes” does not make them any less interesting as experiences.17 Nor does it erase the differ-ence that we generally register—perceptually, conceptually, and emotionally— between experiencing beings as such and material processes as such

      This is a nice rejoinder to the effort (and Hayles isn't alone here) to deconstruct human selfhood as singular and singularizing.

    1. Author Response:

      Summary:

      While the work addresses an interesting research question, several shortcomings have been raised by three independent reviewers. A first issue is the lack of theoretical clarity and linkage with prior work, as discussed by Reviewer 1 and Reviewer 2. A second critical set of concerns is raised by all reviewers with the need for several additional analyses to nail down the interpretations proposed by the authors. Reviewer 2 specifically raised concerns regarding the interpretability of activation in auditory cortices, while Reviewer 3 provides insights on the MVPA analysis and suggests the possible use of RSA to clarify the main findings.

      While we respect the editor’s decision, we think that all points raised by Reviewer 1 and Reviewer 3 can be easily addressed through editing of the text and additional analyses. As we describe below, these revisions do not undermine the findings reported in our study – instead, they improve the clarity of the manuscript and further demonstrate that our results are genuine and robust. Furthermore, we believe that points raised by Reviewer 2 are based on misunderstanding. Differences in auditory properties across sound categories in our experiment cannot explain the pattern of results reported. Thus, additional analyses in the auditory cortex, proposed by Reviewer 2, can neither support nor undermine the claims made in our study. Nevertheless, we performed all the analyses suggested by the Reviewer 2.

      We also want to stress that all reviewers find our study timely and interesting for broad readership. Furthermore, Reviewer 1 and Reviewer 3 made a number of positive comments on study methodology. Overall, we believe that there are no doubts regarding the novelty and importance of our study, and that we are able to address all additional methodological concerns raised by the reviewers.

      Reviewer #1:

      Bola and colleagues asked whether the coupling in perception-action systems may be reflected in early representations of the face. The authors used fMRI to assess the responses of the human occipital temporal cortex (FFA in particular) to the presentation of emotional (laughing/crying), non-emotional (yawning/sneezing), speech (Chinese), object and animal sounds of congenitally blind and sighted participants. The authors present a detailed set of independent and direct univariate and multivariate contrasts, which highlight a striking difference of engagement to facial expressions in the OTC of the congenitally blind compared to the sighted participants. The specificity of facial expression sounds in OTC for the congenitally blind is well captured in the final MVPA analysis presented in Fig.5.

      We would like to thank the reviewer for an overall positive assessment of our work.

      -The use of "transparency of mapping" is rather metaphorical and hand-wavy for a non-expert audience. If the issue relates to the notion of compatibility of representational formats, then it should be expressed formally.

      Following the reviewer’s suggestion, we revised the introduction and clarified what we mean by “transparency of mapping”, and how this concept might be related to the compatibility of representations computed in different areas of the brain. As is now extensively explained, we propose that shape features of inanimate objects are directly relevant to our actions. In contrast, a relationship between shape and relevant actions is much less clear in the case of most animate objects. We hypothesized that this inherent difference between the inanimate and the animate domain, combined with evolutionary pressures for quick, accurate, and efficient object-directed responses, resulted in the inanimate vOTC areas being more strongly coupled with the action system, both in terms of manipulability and navigation, than the animate vOTC areas. The stronger coupling is likely to be reflected in the format of vOTC shape representation of inanimate objects being more compatible with the format of representations computed in the action system.

      -The theoretical stance of the authors does not clearly predict why blind individuals should show more precise emotional expressions in FFA as compared to sighted - as the authors start addressing in their Discussion. In the context of the action-perception loop, it is even more surprising considering that the sighted have direct training and visual access to the facial gestures of interlocutors, which they can internalize. Can the authors entertain alternative scenarios such as the need to rely on mental imagery for congenitally blind for instance?

      We agree that our approach does not predict the difference between the blind and the sighted subjects, and we openly discuss this in the discussion: “An unexpected finding in our study is the clear difference in vOTC univariate response to facial expression sounds across the congenitally blind and the sighted group”. We also propose an explanation of this unexpected difference. Specifically, we suggest that the interactions between the action system and the animate areas in the vOTC are relatively weak, even in the case of facial expressions – thus, they can be captured mostly in blind individuals, whose visual areas are known to increase their sensitivity to non-visual stimulation. This explanation can account for this unexpected between-group difference and is consistent with our theoretical proposal.

      The “mental imagery account” can be, in our opinion, divided into two distinct hypotheses. One version of this account would be to assume that the representation of animate entities typically computed in the vOTC (i.e., also in sighted people) can be activated through visual mental imagery (as suggested by several previous studies), and that this would affect our between-group comparisons. In that case, however, we should observe an effect opposite to that obtained in our study – namely, the activation in the vOTC animate areas should be stronger in the sighted subjects, since they, but not the congenitally blind participants, can create visual mental images (as the reviewer pointed out). This is clearly not what we observed. A second version of the mental imagery account would be to assume representational plasticity in the vOTC of blind individuals – that is, to assume that vOTC animate areas in this population switch from representing visually, face-related information to representing motor mental imagery, which presumably they can generate just like sighted individuals. However, such an account does not, on its own, explain why the animate vOTC areas in the congenitally blind participants are more strongly activated than they are in the sighted subjects, who can generate both visual and motor mental imagery. Based on these considerations, we do not think that the mental imagery account provides a sufficient explanation. Nonetheless, it is certainly a factor worth considering, which we add in a revised discussion of the reported results. Similar reasoning can be applied to other accounts which assume that the observed difference between the blind and the sighted group is a result of representational plasticity in this region in the blind group. Such accounts would need to propose a plausible dimension, different than face shape and its relation to the action system, that is captured by the animate vOTC areas in blind individuals. Since the effect we report is independent of auditory, emotional, social or linguistic dimensions present in our stimuli, it is hard to say what this dimension might be.

      We now elaborate on these important points in the Discussion section.

      Reviewer #2:

      The study by Bola and colleagues tested the specific hypothesis that visual shape representations can be reliably activated through different sensory modalities only when they systematically map onto action system computations. To this aim, the authors scanned a group of congenitally blind individuals and a group of sighted controls while subjects listened to multiple sound categories.

      While I find the study of general interest, I think that there are main methodological limitations, which do not allow to support the general claim.

      We would like to thank the reviewer for this assessment. Below, we argue that the results presented in the paper support our claim, and that they cannot be explained by alternative accounts described by the reviewer.

      Main concerns

      1) Auditory stimuli have been equalized to have the same RMS (-20 dB). In my opinion, this is not a sufficient control. As shown in Figure 3 - figure supplement 1, the different sound categories elicited extremely different patterns of response in A1. This is clearly linked to intrinsic sound properties. In my opinion without a precise characterization of sound properties across categories, it is not possible to conclude that the observed effects in face responsive regions (incidentally, as assessed using an atlas and not a localizer) are explained by the different category types. On the stimulus side, authors should at least provide (a) spectrograms and (b) envelope dynamics; in case sound properties would differ across categories all results might have a confound associated to stimuli selection.

      We now present spectrograms and waveforms for sounds used in the study in the Methods section. We did not present this information in the original version of the paper because, in our opinion, it is quite obvious that sounds from different categories will differ in terms of their auditory properties – after all, this is why we can distinguish among human speech, animal sounds or object sounds. Thus, differences in sound properties across conditions are an inherent characteristic of every study comparing sounds from several domains or semantic categories (e.g., human vs. non-human), including our own study. We now clarify this issue in the Methods section of the manuscript.

      Having said that, we believe that differences in acoustic properties across sound categories cannot explain the results in the vOTC, reported in our work. We report that, in blind subjects, the vOTC face areas respond more strongly to sounds of emotional facial expressions and non-emotional facial expressions than to speech sounds, animal sounds and object sounds. These brain areas did not show differential responses to two expression categories or to three other sound categories. To explain this pattern of results, the “acoustic confound account” would need to assume that there is some special auditory property that differentiate both types of expression sounds, but does not differentiate sound categories in any other comparison. Moreover, this account would need to further assume that this is precisely the auditory dimension to which the vOTC face areas are sensitive, while being insensitive to other auditory characteristics, different across the other sound categories (e.g., across object sounds and animal sounds, or expression sounds and speech sounds - as the reviewer pointed out, all categories are acoustically very different, as indicated by the activation of A1). We find this account extremely unlikely. We now comment on these points in the Methods and the Results section.

      2) More on the same point: the authors use the activation of A1 as a further validation of the results in face selective areas. Page 16 line 304 "We observed activation pattern that was the same for the blind and the sighted subjects, and markedly different from the pattern that was observed in the fusiform gyrus in the blind group (see Fig. 1D). This suggests that the effects detected in this region in the blind subjects were not driven by the differences in acoustic characteristics of sounds, as such characteristics are likely to be captured by activation patterns of the primary auditory cortex." It is the opinion of this reader that this control, despite being important, does not support the claim. A1 is certainly a good region to show how basic sound properties are mapped. However, the same type of analysis should be performed in higher auditory areas, as STS. If result patterns would be similar to the FFA region, I guess that the current interpretation of results would not hold.

      As we discuss above, we believe that the explanation of the results observed in the vOTC in terms of “acoustic confound” does not hold, even without any empirical analysis in the auditory cortex. The analysis in A1 was planned to clearly illustrate this point and to support interpretation of potential unexpected pattern of results across sound categories (such an unexpected pattern was not observed).

      However, per reviewer’s request, we performed an ROI analysis also in the STS. Specifically, we chose two ROIs – a broad and bilateral ROI covering the whole STS, and a more constrained ROI covering the right posterior STS (rpSTS), known to be a part of the face processing network and to respond primarily to dynamic aspects of the face shape. As can be seen in Supplementary Materials, the broad STS ROI pattern of responses is markedly different from the one observed in the FFA. Particularly, the magnitude of the STS activation is clearly different for speech sounds, animal sounds, and objects sounds, in both the blind and the sighted group. In the case of the FFA, the activation magnitudes for these three sound categories were indistinguishable. Furthermore, in the blind group, the STS showed stronger activation for emotional facial expression sounds than for non-emotional expression sounds. Again, such a difference was not observed in the FFA (if anything, the FFA showed slightly stronger activation for non-emotional expression sounds in the blind group). The pattern of the rpSTS responses is more similar to the responses observed in the FFA. This is exactly what can be expected based on our hypothesis that the FFA in the blind group is sensitive primarily to dynamic facial reconfigurations, with transparent link between the motoric and visual shape representations. Overall, we think that the pattern of results observed in the auditory cortex is fully in line with our hypothesis – the auditory regions (A1 and STS, defined broadly) show responses that are different than the responses observed in the FFA (one may hypothesize that responses in the auditory regions are driven by low-level auditory features of stimuli to a larger extent); the rpSTS, which is specialized in the processing of dynamic aspects of the face shape, shows the pattern of responses that is more similar to the pattern of responses observed in the FFA. Importantly, the responses in the rpSTS were not different across subject groups. As we describe below, this is the pattern of results that was observed also in MVPA. We now report all the above-described results in the paper.

      3) Linked to the previous point. Given that the authors implemented a MPVA pipeline at the ROI level, it is important to perform the same analysis in both groups, but especially in the blind, in areas such as STS as well as in a control region, engaged by the task (with signal) to check the specificity of the FFA activation.

      Per reviewer’s request, we additionally performed the MVPA in three control regions. Firstly, we performed the analysis in the auditory cortex, defined as A1 and the STS combined. We treated this area as a positive control – particularly, given the acoustic differences between sound categories, we expected to successfully decode all sound categories from the activity of this ROI. Secondly, we performed the analysis in the parahippocampal place area (PPA). We treated the PPA as a negative control – given that this area does not seem to contain much information about animate entities, we did not expect to find effects there for most of our comparisons. Furthermore, as the PPA is the vOTC area bordering the FFA, the negative results in this area would be a proof of spatial specificity of our results. Thirdly, we performed the analysis in the rpSTS – here, we expected to observe the results similar to the ones observed in the FFA, for the reasons provided above. We now present the results of these analyses as supplementary figures.

      We were able to successfully distinguish all sound categories, in both groups, based on the activation of the auditory cortex (all p = 0.001; the lowest value that can be achieved in our permutation analysis). Furthermore, based on the activation of this area, we were able to classify specific facial expressions, specific speech sounds, and the gender of the actor, in contrast to the result from the FFA, where the decoding of facial expressions was the only positive result.

      As expected, the decoding of animate sound categories was generally not successful in the PPA. However, as one might expect, activation of this area allowed us, to some extent, to distinguish object sounds from animate sounds – especially in the blind group. Furthermore, based on the PPA activation, we were not able to classify specific facial expressions, speech sounds, or the gender of the actor. These results confirm that the results reported for the FFA are specific to only certain parts of the brain and even certain parts of the vOTC.

      As can be expected, the results in the rpSTS were the most similar to the results observed in the FFA – while the activation of this region was diagnostic of all categorical distinctions, the more detailed analysis showed that this region represented differences between specific facial expressions, but not between the speech sounds or the gender of actors acting the expressions (the similar pattern of results was observed in both groups). This is the same specificity that the FFA in blind people show.

      Finally, we would like to stress that the difference between results observed in the FFA and the PPA is yet another argument against interpreting the results in the FFA as being driven by auditory properties of stimuli – the issue that we discussed in details above. We do not see the reason why putative acoustic influences on the vOTC responses in the blind group should be present in the FFA, but not in the PPA.

      4) I find the manuscript rather biased with regard to the literature. This is a topic which has been extensively investigated in the past. For instance, the manuscript does not include relevant references for the present context, such as:

      Plaza, P., Renier, L., De Volder, A., & Rauschecker, J. (2015). Seeing faces with your ears activates the left fusiform face area, especially when you're blind. Journal of vision, 15(12), 197-197.

      Kitada, R., Okamoto, Y., Sasaki, A. T., Kochiyama, T., Miyahara, M., Lederman, S. J., & Sadato, N. (2013). Early visual experience and the recognition of basic facial expressions: involvement of the middle temporal and inferior frontal gyri during haptic identification by the early blind. Frontiers in human neuroscience, 7, 7.

      Pietrini, P., Furey, M. L., Ricciardi, E., Gobbini, M. I., Wu, W. H. C., Cohen, L., ... & Haxby, J. V. (2004). Beyond sensory images: Object-based representation in the human ventral pathway. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 101(15), 5658-5663.

      The first reference listed by the reviewer is actually a conference abstract. Thus, we feel that it would be premature to give it comparable weight to peer-reviewed papers. Furthermore, based on the abstract, without the published paper, we cannot assess the robustness of the results and their relevance to our study (particularly, it is unclear whether some effects were observed in the right FFA, and whether a statistically significant difference between blind and sighted subjects was detected).

      In the second reference, the authors did not observe effects in the FFA in the visual version of their experiment with sighted subjects, at the threshold of p < 0.05, corrected for multiple comparisons. In our opinion, this makes the null result of the tactile experiment, reported for the FFA, hard to interpret – thus, while the paper is very interesting in certain contexts, it is not particularly informative when it comes to the question addressed here.

      While the third reference reports interesting results, it does not investigate preference for inanimate objects or animate objects in the vOTC, which is the main topic of our paper (only comparisons vs. rest and between- and within-category correlations are reported). Furthermore, based on that study, we cannot conclude whether effects reported for faces are found in the face areas or in other parts of the vOTC (no analyses in specific vOTC areas were reported).

      These were the reasons why we did not refer to these materials in the previous version of the manuscript. Importantly, none of them compel us to revise our claims, and we refer to a number of other papers, directly relevant to the question we are interested in – that is, the difference between vOTC animate and inanimate areas in sensitivity to non-visual stimulation. Nevertheless, we agree that referring to materials suggested by the reviewer might be informative for non-expert readers – thus, we cite them in the revised version of our paper.

      Reviewer #3:

      Bola and colleagues set out to test the hypothesis that vOT domain specific organization is due to the evolutionary pressure to couple visual representations and downstream computations (e.g., action programs). A prediction of such theory is that cross-modal activations (e.g., response in FFA to face-related sounds) should be detected as a function of the transparency of such coupling (e.g., sounds associated with facial expression > speech).

      To this end, the Authors compared brain activity of 20 congenitally blind and 22 sighted subjects undergoing fMRI while performing a semantic judgment task (i.e., is it produced by a human?) on sounds belonging to 5 different categories (emotional and non-emotional facial expressions, speech, object sounds and animal sounds).The results indicate preferential response to sounds associated with facial expressions (vs. speech or animal/objects sounds) in the fusiform gyrus of blind individuals regardless of the emotional content.

      The issue tackled is relevant and timely for the field, and the method chosen (i.e., clinical model + univariate and multivariate fMRI analyses) well suited to address it. The analyses performed are overall sound and the paper clear and exhaustive.

      We thank the reviewer for this positive assessment.

      1) While I overall understand why the Authors would choose a broader ROI for multivariate (vs. univariate) analyses, I believe it would be appropriate to show both analyses on both ROIs. In particular, the fact that the ROI used for the univariate analyses is right-hemisphere only, while the multivariate one is bilateral should be (at least) discussed.

      We shortly discuss this issue in the Methods section: “The reason behind broader and bilateral ROI definition was that the multivariate analysis relies on dispersed and subthreshold activation and deactivation patterns, which might be well represented also by cross-talk between hemispheres (for example, a certain subcategory might be represented by activation of the right FFA and deactivation of the left analog of this area).”

      Constraining the FFA ROI in the multivariate analysis (i.e., using the same ROI as was used in the univariate analysis) makes the results slightly weaker, in both groups. However, the pattern of results is qualitatively comparable. Slight decrease in statistical power can be expected, for the reasons described in the Methods and cited above:

      Similarly, using broader FFA ROI in the univariate analysis (i.e., using the same ROI as was used in the multivariate analysis) results in qualitatively comparable, but slightly weaker effects in the blind group and no change in sighted subjects (no difference between sound categories). Again, this is expectable – visual studies show that the functional sensitivity to face-related stimuli is weaker in the left counterpart of the FFA than in the right FFA. This is also the case in our data - using broader and bilateral ROI essentially averages a stronger effect in the right FFA and a more subtle effect in the left counterpart of the FFA.

      We now clarify this issue in the Methods section.

      2) The significance of the multivariate results is established testing the cross-validated classification accuracy against chance-level with t-tests. Did these tests consider the hypothetical chance level based on class number? A permutation scheme assessing the null distribution would be advisable. In general, more details should be provided with respect to the multivariate analyses performed, for instance the confusion matrix in Figure 5B is never mentioned in the text.

      Yes, the chance level was calculated in a standard way, by dividing 100 % by the number of conditions/classes included in the analysis (note that all stimulus classes were presented equal number of times). To respond to the reviewer’s comment, we used a permutation approach to recalculate significances of all MVPA analyses reported in the paper (note that the whole-brain univariate analyses are already performed within the permutation framework). To this aim, we reran each analysis 1000 times with condition labels randomized and compared the actual result of this analysis with the null distribution created in this way (see the Methods section for details). We replicated all results reported in the paper. We now report this new analysis in the manuscript, changing the figure legends and the Methods section accordingly.

      The confusion matrix was not mentioned in the text because it is not a separate analysis. As explained in the figure legend, it is just a graphical representation of classifiers performance (i.e., its choices for specific stimulus classes) during the decoding analysis reported in Fig. 5A. To clarify this, we now briefly mention the graph presented in Fig. 5B in the main text.

      3) I wonder whether a representational similarity approach could be useful in better delineating similarity/differences in blind vs. sighted participants sounds representations in vOT. Such analysis could also help further exploring potential graded effects: i.e., sounds associated with facial expression (face related, with salient link to movement) > speech (face related, with less salient link with movement) > animals sounds (non-human face related) > object sounds (not face related at all). The above-mentioned confusion matrix could be the starting point of such investigation.

      We thank the reviewer for this interesting suggestion. In response to this comment, we performed an additional RSA analysis, aimed at investigating graded similarity in the FFA response patterns, across categories used in the experiment. Based on our hypothesis, we created a simple theoretical model assuming that responses to both types of facial expression sounds are the most similar to each other (animate sounds with high shape-action mapping transparency), somewhat similar to speech sounds (animate sounds with weaker shape-action mapping transparency), and the least similar to animal and object sounds (animate sounds with no clear shape-action mapping transparency and inanimate sounds). We observed a significant correlation between this theoretical model and FFA response patterns in the blind group (pFDR = 0.012), but not in the sighted group pFDR = 0.223). We believe that the RSA analysis further supports our visual-shape-to-action mapping conjecture, at least when it comes to blind subjects (see the Discussion section for our interpretation of the observed differences between the blind and the sighted subjects). We describe this new analysis in the revised text.

    1. What would I have? Dead, I have found the true friends of my lifetime still as true as tender and as faithful as when I was alive, and making my memory an incentive to good actions done in my name. Dead, I have found them when they might have slighted my name, and passed greedily over my grave to ease and wealth, lingering by the way, like single-hearted children, to recall their love for me when I was a poor frightened child. Dead, I have heard from the woman who would have been my wife if I had lived, the revolting truth that I should have purchased her, caring nothing for me, as a Sultan buys a slave.

      I found this entire paragraph extremely interesting due to the fact that this is all true. If we were to die, it would be the ultimate test of friendship and love. Being able to see who actually cared, or who did not is kind of horrifying to me. I think I would rather never know, then see some of the people I loved and thought loved me tell the truth of what they really feel, in a sense of cruelty. This would be something insane to watch play out, which is why I felt like this entire quote just needed to be highlighted because imagine being in those shoes. I think that in a way, it is selfish that he did not come back and was able to get the real emotions of everyone because some people wept, and were deeply affected. Yet again, I may feel like this because I would much rather never know, curiosity kills but ignorance is bliss.

    1. "sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others

      This is a description of the White gaze. It is the sense of that our lives are held in the time, space and identity of White folks as the TED talk spoke on. I believe that the double conscionuous can speak on not only does it hold about was white folks think of us and therefore what society thinks of us but rather how we think of ourselves in society. Often I believe that we sub consciously or consciously compare ourselves to the White gaze. As Cisneros spoke in the Video that she felt that she did not belong among other writers or see herself as a writer because her life/identity was not represented any where around her. She was comparing herself to the White master narrative that may can cause doubt in or own success and us as an individual of color.

    1. You can see wildness in the movement of glaciers, or you can track it in star-forming regions in the Orion Nebula. Wildness is everywhere.

      REFLECT: Wilderness = anything we can't control. Humans don't play nice with things we can't control.

      Emerson and Thoreau hint at the effect wildness has on us--the healing effect. I wonder how much of this effect comes down to resigning our ability to control the world around us. That desire to control is probably tiring and burdensome. Satisfaction may come from relinquishing it. It's certainly an Eastern philosophy kind of idea.

      CONNECTION: This makes me think of meditation and how it's gotten really popular with Apps like Calm and Headspace; it's big in the tech world. However, the ironic part is that it's used as a means to be MORE productive to have MORE control, to MASTER your world. If happiness boils down to relinquishing control and simply "being," then mediation has kind of been co-opted.

    1. Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts.

      This is incredibly relevant even today and it made me think about how the world may gain more knowledge but if we repeatedly ignore the facts of what we learn we will stay on this repetitive cycle of ignorance that’s been going on long before this line was ever written.

    1. Note: This rebuttal was posted by the corresponding author to Review Commons. Content has not been altered except for formatting.

      Learn more at Review Commons


      Reply to the reviewers

      Response to Reviewers

      We thank the reviewers for their careful reading of our manuscript and their valuable suggestions and comments. To address the reviewers’ concerns and improve our manuscript, we will complete the additional experiments and further revise the text as described below.


      Reviewer #1 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      **Summary:**

      Provide a short summary of the findings and key conclusions (including methodology and model system(s) where appropriate). Please place your comments about significance in section 2. The authors present an in vivo analysis of pdzd8 (CG10362) and a synthetic ER-mitochondria tether in the regulation of locomotor activity, lifespan, and mitochondrial turnover of Drosophila melanogaster, using basic bioinformatics, RNAi, SPLICS, imaging and microscopies observations (i. e. TEM, SIM), fly lines, and a representative AD fly disease model, etc. The research methodologies were detailed in good order. The model system employed was suitable to address the research topic. The manuscript was written in a clear language and statistical analysis were correctly applied.

      **Major comments:**

      *-Are the key conclusions convincing?*

      Yes. The results/conclusions are logical and provide an overview of Pdzd8 in the regulation of mitochondrial quality control and neuronal homeostasis.

      *-Would additional experiments be essential to support the claims of the paper? Request additional experiments only where necessary for the paper as it is, and do not ask authors to open new lines of experimentation.*

      No. Experiments were generally well performed, and all the data support the conclusions.

      *-Are the suggested experiments realistic in terms of time and resources? It would help if you could add an estimated cost and time investment for substantial experiments.*

      No suggested experiments needed.

      *-Are the data and the methods presented in such a way that they can be reproduced?*

      Yes. The authors have followed proper experimental design and methods have been described in sufficient detail.

      *-Are the experiments adequately replicated and statistical analysis adequate?*

      Yes, they are.

      **Minor comments:**

      *-Specific experimental issues that are easily addressable.*

      No comment.

      *-Are prior studies referenced appropriately?*

      Yes. The relevant literatures have been cited appropriately.

      *-Are the text and figures clear and accurate?*

      1.Please pay attention to the correct spelling of the described protein name (Pdzd8) and gene name (should be in 'italic') throughout the manuscript, i. e. line 36, 98, and 556, etc.

      As this is the first published characterization of the fly homolog of the mammalian Pdzd8 We have decided to name the fly protein pdzd8, using the lower case “p” to distinguish it from the mammalian protein. We have checked and corrected our use of italics for the gene name as noted in track changes.

      2.In figure 1C and its figure legend, please state what the numbers "201" and "195" stand for.

      We have added the text “numbers on bars indicate number of mitochondria analysed” to the figure legend.

      3.Your data needs to be converted the lowercase letter "x" to math symbol "×" when representing times sign, i. e. line 523, 5x, etc.

      Corrected

      *-Do you have suggestions that would help the authors improve the presentation of their data and conclusions?*

      No comment.

      Reviewer #1 (Significance (Required)):

      *-Describe the nature and significance of the advance (e.g. conceptual, technical, clinical) for the field.*

      Discoveries from this study include 1) characterization of the tethering protein Pdzd8 in Drosophila melanogaster, and 2) shed light on a possible way on how to enhance mitochondrial quality control and to help promote healthy aging of neurons by manipulating MERCs.

      *-Place the work in the context of the existing literature (provide references, where appropriate).*

      With this manuscript, the authors present a straightforward but sound piece of scientific research, with the intent to illustrate the consequences of neuronal depletion of pdzd8 in Drosophila melanogaster. Since Pdzd8 plays specific functions in ER-mitochondrial tethering complexes and dysregulations of MERCs are damaging to neurons, this protein represents a good potential target. In this context the characterization of Pdzd8 should represent an interesting starting point. To this purpose, the gene was knockdown and the tether construct was recombinantly produced. The fly lines were then subjected to analysis both at the organismal and at the cellular level.

      *-State what audience might be interested in and influenced by the reported findings.* Audience might include those who are in the field of neuroscience and pharmaceutical, and benefit from an awareness of this research.

      *-Define your field of expertise with a few keywords to help the authors contextualize your point of view. Indicate if there are any parts of the paper that you do not have sufficient expertise to evaluate.*

      Key words in my field of expertise: Ageing, neurodegenerative diseases, Alzheimer's disease, mitophagy, NAD+, neuroprotection. My group is investigating the molecular mechanisms of ageing and age-related neurodegeneration (especially AD) using cross-species model systems, ranging from human brain samples, iPSCs, C. elegans, Drosophila melanogaster, and mice, therefore I have sufficient expertise to evaluate this paper.

      **Referees Cross-commenting**

      To this reviewer the key novelty of this paper was the study of the regulation of the mitochondrial-ER contact sites (MERCs) in life and health. The data indicate that MERCs mediated by the tethering protein pdzd8 play a critical role in the regulation of mitochondrial homeostasis, neuronal function, and lifespan. In a transitional perspective, this reviewer would ask to check whether this mechanism conserves in rodents or not (e.g. to to memory in the AD mice and to run lifespan in mitochondrial toxin condition). This may be to much. But will depend on the standard of the journal. We thank the reviewer for their input, evaluation and interest. We too are keen to know whether this mechanism is conserved and hope to investigate this in our ongoing work including characterizing a mouse mutant, but the current work already represents a substantial investment of resources and a worthy study in its own right as the first description of the in vivo role of pdzd8, so we feel it is beyond the scope of the current work.

      Reviewer #2

      (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      Hewitt et al. describe and characterize for the first time the ortholog of pdzd8 in Drosophila melanogaster. In accordance with pdzd8's previously described function as a member of mitochondrial-ER contact sites (MERCs) the authors show reduced MERCs upon RNAi mediated depletion of pdzd8 via TEM, SIM and a split-GFP based contact site sensor. Pdzd8 depletion results in the increased life span as well as improved locomotor activity in aging flies while increase of MERCs with a synthetic tether accelerates the age-related declines in survival and locomotion. Moreover, pdzd8 depleted flies are more resistant against mitochondrial toxins. The authors correlate these protective effects of pdzd8 knockdown with an increase in mitophagy using a mitophagy sensor and describe a rescue of locomotor defects in an Alzheimer disease fly model by pdzd8 depletion.

      **Major comments:**

      1.The authors quantify the number of MERCs in thin sections of TEM (Fig 1B and C). It would add to the paper if the authors would show a representative reconstruction of the quantified somata, as a 3D reconstruction would visualize ER-Mito contacts more reliable than thin sections.

      We agree that the 3D reconstruction of TEM images would provide a satisfying addition to the current analyses, however such advanced techniques are not readily available. The current samples used to collect these data cannot be used to generate 3D reconstructions. To counter this, we have used three independent methods to analyse the changes in MERCs, all of which show a decrease in MERCs in the flies with less pdzd8 supporting that these observations are reproducible and robust.

      2.The authors quantify MERCs in pdzd8 KD also by SIM (Fig1F, G). However, they quantify the number of MERCs in epidermal cells while they also show SIM images of larval neurons (Fig S1D). For consistency and to support their claim of MERC reduction in neurons, we ask the authors to include the quantification based on larval neurons especially as the authors show that pdzd8 is predominantly expressed in the CNS.

      Unfortunately, the soma of larval neurons have extremely limited cytosol (see fig. S1D) which creates very challenging conditions to discern the spatial separation of ER and mitochondria by light microscopy. While co-localisation of organelle markers in such cells has been reported in the literature, we are extremely concerned that the lack of space within the cytosol renders such analysis unreliable. However, we will attempt to quantify the extent of co-localisation of the ER and mitochondria in these cells. In contrast, epidermal cells are much larger providing greater spatial separation of ER and mitochondria. Notably, we complement the co-localisation analysis of epidermal cells with two additional approaches, TEM analysis and the SPLICS reporter construct, to demonstrate pdzd8-RNAi results in decreased MERCs specifically in neurons.

      3.The authors describe a decreased NMJ volume in Fig 4G. It would improve and complete the functional characterization of pdzd8 in flies if the authors can provide further data whether pdzd8 KD causes a general synaptic defect. Can the authors show morphological synaptic defects in the existing TEM data of the adult brain or provide additional ERG recordings, which would elucidate the functional consequences of pdzd8 depletion in the CNS?

      Our TEM data are not suitable for us to properly analyse defects in synaptic morphology as our images centered around the cell bodies where the organelle morphology was easiest to distinguish and there are very few synapses. While it is not surprising that the knockdown of pdzd8 has some detrimental effects, we chose to focus our efforts on trying to determine the cause of the protective effect on locomotor activity in aged flies rather than to exhaustively characterise the myriad phenomena which may be impacted as a knock-on effect of the disrupted cell biology that we have demonstrated. We hope to further explore the detrimental functional consequences of pdzd8 depletion on such phenomena as neurotransmission in future work.

      1. Hewitt et al. suggest a beneficial effect of increased turnover of mitochondria for healthy aging. To convince readers we would like to ask the following:

      a) This claim is based on their observation of increased mitophagy in pdzd8 depleted flies using one reporter (Fig 5). Can the authors support their data with an alternative method as this is one of the key claims of the manuscript?

      The mitoQC tool is well established in the field and we have found it to perform better but consistent with mito-Keima (Lee et al. 2018 JCB doi: 10.1083/jcb.201801044). We would be happy to consider other assays if the reviewer can suggest an unbiased and established alternative.

      b) An increased turnover of Mitochondria would also suggest that there are more "young" mitochondria present in the pdzd8 KD neurons. Can the authors experimentally address that?

      We understand the reviewer’s point here but due to the continual fission and fusion, as well as piecemeal turnover of mitochondria (see Vincow et al. 2019 Autophagy doi: 10.1080/15548627.2019.1586258), the concept of ‘young’ versus ‘old’ mitochondria is misplaced. The mitochondrial network essentially exists as a milieu of components which are produced and degraded at different rates.

      c)Furthermore, we would like to ask the authors to use also the MERC tether as control in the mitophagy assay. This would allow further conclusions about the role of the mitophagy, its protective effect during aging and the role of MERCs in this process.

      We remind the reviewer that this MERC tether is constructed from an RFP with N- and C-terminal tethering peptides. The presence of this RFP prevents the proper analysis of the mitoQC mCherry signal. However, given the dramatic phenotypes we think that it is unlikely that a decrease in mitophagy alone can explain the detrimental effects of increased tethering.

      1. In Fig6 A,B the authors should include also the pdzd8 KD to support their claim that the rescue of climbing defects correlates with an reduction of MERCs.

      We thank the reviewer for this suggestion and we will perform this experiment.

      Moreover, it would be beneficial for their final conclusion, if the authors could show that increases mitophagy in the background of Ab42 expressing flies.

      We thank the reviewer for this suggestion and we will perform this experiment.

      **Minor comments:**

      1.Can the authors add to the figure legend of Fig 1F how the ER and Mitochondria were labeled?

      We have added the constructs to the figure legend (full genotypes for all figures are given in Table S2).

      2.Error bars should be added in the quantification of MERCs in Fig1C.

      The MERCs are quantified in three brains per genotype but as there were variable numbers of sections suitable for imaging from each brain the total values are combined to give a single percentage.

      3.A reference to Supplementary Fig S1D is missing in the main text.

      This figure is referenced in line 135

      4.Can the authors label the individual genotypes in Fig S3C and 4F?

      Figure labels and legends have been modified to clarify this.

      5.Can the author specify which brain region they imaged in Fig 5C?

      The regions imaged and quantified were chosen for their clear organelle morphology rather than targeting a specific brain region. All images were from the protocerebrum and the methods and figure legends have been updated to note this.

      6.Are the ATP levels normalized to ADP in Fig S3D? Can the authors specify in the figure and figure legend to what ATP was normalized?

      Figure labels and legends have been modified to clarify the ATP levels are normalised to total protein quantification of the samples.

      7.Please sort the supplementary figures in accordance to their reference order in the text.

      We thank the reviewer for checking this. This figure order will be rechecked in the final version as addressing reviewer comments is likely to lead to further changes.

      Reviewer #2 (Significance (Required)):

      The authors present here novel insights about the functional role of a new member of the MERCs, pdzd8, using RNAi mediated depletion and Drosophila melanogaster as a model system. As MERCs receive more attention especially in the context of their potential role in neurological diseases, the author's manuscript will be of high interest to the scientific community. The in vivo model combined with multiple different technical approaches add to the significance of the paper. There are some controls and additional experiments that are required to support the author's main claims and complete the functional characterization of pdzd8 (see major comments).

      Field of expertise: neuroscience, fly genetics, neurodegeneration.

      Reviewer #3

      (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      This manuscript entitled "Decreasing pdzd8-mediated mitochondrial-ER contacts in neurons improves fitness by increasing mitophagy" by Hewitt and collaborators describes the role of the Drosophila ortholog of PDZD8 in ER-mitochondria contacts in neurons and the physiological consequence of pdzd8 loss. The authors show that ER-mitochondria contacts are reduced in fly neurons expressing a pdzd8-RNAi construct. Decreasing pdzd8 expression in neurons was accompanied by a slowed age-associated decline in locomotor activity, and an increased lifespan. In presence of mitochondrial toxins, neurons deficient for pdzd8 were protected. Finally, the authors showed that pdzd8 silencing increased mitophagy in aged neurons, and protected against neurodegeneration in a model of Alzheimer's disease.

      **Major points:**

      1)There are important controls that are missing. RNAi expression often affects off-target genes which could unfortunately modify the observed phenotypes. The authors should verify that a) the phenotypes observed by RNAi-mediated pdzd8 silencing can be rescued by the expression of an RNAi-insensitive pdzd8 construct (the authors should verify the rescue of the most crucial phenotypes described in the manuscript); b) the RNAi-LacZ-line that they use as control in the paper does not behave differently from a WT line, which could be induced by an off-target effect of the RNAi-LacZ (again with the most crucial phenotypes).

      While the Drosophila community is fortunate to have a plethora of readily available tools for interrogating the function of nearly all genes in the genome – tools which form the foundation of most work in Drosophila labs worldwide – the availability is not limitless. In this instance, the transgenic RNAi line generated as a resource for the community comprises a 500 bp hairpin, computed to be the most selective target for that gene. Being a 500 bp sequence it is unrealistic to be able to establish an RNAi-resistant variant that still faithfully functions as normal. Nevertheless, although imperfect we show in Figure S3B that pdzd8-RNAi rescues the climbing defect produced by overexpressing pdzd8, providing evidence the construct is specifically acting on this sequence.

      Similarly, the availability of ‘control’ RNAi reagents is generous but still limited. This LacZ-RNAi line is one of a few well-established controls that has provided a cornerstone reference for a wealth of studies. Nevertheless, we will provide experimental data that aged climbing of nSyb>LacZ-RNAi is highly comparable to several other well-established control genotypes.

      2) Did the author analyzed their EM data in a blinded-way to minimize subjective bias? This type of analysis is complicated by the manual annotation of ultrastructures, which is by nature subjective. For instance, this reviewer would have annotated the two mitochondria in the middle of Fig 1B, right as "Mitochondria with ER contact", as there is a membrane tube present at the interface of these two organelles.

      The EM data were analysed blinded to the genotypes. This is noted in the methods section.

      3) There is a controversy in the field on the role of PDZD8: some papers show its involvement in ER-mitochondria contacts, others in ER-lysosome contacts. The authors should discuss this point in more details. Moreover, the authors should localize the protein in Drosophila neurons; is the protein associated with mitochondria or endo/lysosomes?

      We recognize that there is some debate in the field over the localization and role of PDZD8. However, since there is currently no antibody against the Drosophila protein and the sequence is sufficiently divergent such that antibodies against the mammalian protein will not recognize the fly protein, we are not well-positioned to determine the localization of Drosophila pdzd8. Consequently, we will expand our discussion to reflect the differing views.

      We can offer instead to quantify the localization of mouse PDZD8 in our newly generated NIH-3T3 Pdzd8-Halo knock in line to help resolve the controversy regarding the location(s) and function(s) of mammalian Pdzd8.

      4) The authors should specify in more details how the different quantifications were performed. For instance Fig 1G: how many samples were quantified (i.e. how many flies, and how many neurons); what is compared? Fields-of-view, neurons, flies...?

      Further details have been added to the figure legends 1G (now H), 4I, 5 and Fig S2.

      **Minor point:**

      1)Could the authors show the SIM images Fig1F together with the binarized images.

      These images have been added to Figure 1 and the legend and text updated accordingly.

      2) It is surprising to see that data otherwise similar are represented with so many different types of graph (For instance Fig 5, bar graph, box-plot, violin plot). Why individual data points are not always present on the graphs?

      The graphs will be redrawn using more consistent representations once the data for the revisions has been gathered.

      3) The way that data are presented is sometimes odd: for instance, line 101, the authors wrote "To establish that MERCs were decreased...". This would imply that they knew the result before performing the experiment. And later, line 103 "Accordingly...".

      These sentences have been rephrased “To determine whether MERCs were decreased..” and “These results showed the…”

      Reviewer #3 (Significance (Required)):

      This study about the role of pdzd8 is timely. The functional description of inter-organelle contacts is a hot topic in cell biology. There are several recent reports describing the identification of pdzd8 role in inter-organelle contact formation. This manuscript provides data on the role of pdzd8 in a whole organism and expands our understanding of this protein.

      My expertise: inter-organelle contacts (human cells)

    1. Reviewer #1:

      The manuscript entitled "An evolutionary model identifies the main selective pressures for the evolution of genome-replication profiles" is an examination of the principles shaping evolution of replication origin placement. Overall I found the manuscript to be engaging and interesting, and the topic of general importance. It is quite compelling that with just two parameters, origin efficiency and distance between origins, a good model can be built to describe the dynamics of origin birth and death. While this work on its own is sufficiently important for publication, it would be very interesting to see whether the model can be updated in the future to address whether there are fork-stalling or origin-generating mechanisms that shape evolution of specific inter-origin spaces. This work provides a very good foundation for such efforts.

      I have a few major, general concerns I would like the authors to address.

      If I'm interpreting the methods correctly, it seems the parameters used in these simulations, such as mean birth rate, mean death rate, gamma, and beta, were fit to the data once, and used as point estimates during simulation. If true, I expect the simulations to be yielding estimates of birth and death rates with a much narrower distribution of outcomes than is likely to be realistic given what an appropriate level of confidence in those parameter estimates would be. Could the parameters be fit to data in such a way that we attain an estimate of confidence in the parameter values, from which a distribution could be generated and sampled from during simulation?

      Closely related to my prior concern, I would like the authors to demonstrate the general predictive value of their model on out-of-sample data. Can the model be applied to other data on replication timing? Without such an attempt to demonstrate the model's applicability to out-of-sample prediction, the reader cannot ascertain whether the model is overfit to the Lachancea data from Agier et al, 2018. Also, keeps the parameter estimates here from being overfit to better predict origin birth and death events in closely related branches of the Lachancea tree in Figure S1? Are gamma and beta inferred in a way that accounts for the higher correlation in birth and death events in closer-related branches than in distal branches, or has the fit ignored those correlations?

      The authors state that their model identifies selective pressures. The authors imply, and specifically state in lines 238-242, that increased death rate of origins which happen to be nearby highly efficient origins represents selective pressure against the less efficient origins. It isn't until the discussion that the authors raise the possibility that there may simply be a lack of selective pressure to retain inefficient origins that are near highly efficient origins. In my view, it's more likely that selection for the existence of an inefficient origin is simply lower than the drift barrier, so mutagenesis and drift can passively remove such origins over time without the need to invoke selection against inefficient origins.

      Figure 3 is intended to show that the stall-aversion and interference model performs better at predicting correlations between efficiency of lost origins and their nearest neighbor. I agree, but I do not think Figure 3 presents a strong case for this conclusion. Fig S6 presents stronger evidence to me. While fig 3 does qualitatively suggest that the joint model may predict the correlation between neighboring origin efficiency and origin loss better than the double-stall model alone, it almost appears to me that the model with fork stalling and interference has significantly overestimated the correlation. Is there a quantitative way, perhaps using information criteria, though I admittedly am not sure how one would go about doing that with simulations such as these, to demonstrate that the model with both effects has better predictive value than the one with only fork stalling?

      There are a couple of assumptions of the model that I would like the authors to examine in further detail. First, that origin birth events occur in the middle of an inter-origin space. I am not aware of evidence pointing to this being a good a priori assumption. Can you re-run the simulations, allowing origins to arise at a random site within the inter-origin space into which it is born? Second, is it reasonable to expect origin firing rates to reshuffle to a new value randomly, without any dependence on their prior rate? Perhaps I'm mistaken, but it seems to me that an origin's firing rate should evolve more gradually, and should have a higher probability of sampling from values near its current value than from values very far from its current value.

    1. Ah, the old advertising games... It's kind of hard to explain for new generation of players, but back in the days we had games fully dedicated to certain brands. And they wanted us to pay for them. Don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about games like Zool and Biker Mice from Mars that used to include excessive product placement. Even some Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles games had it. I'm talking about games that were created solely to promote a certain brand. Like Pepsiman, where we played as that weird Pepsi mascot, or Avoid the Noid with the scary bunny-like... creature from Domino's (there was actually another game about him, but it was just a “hack” of somewhat popular Famicom game Kamen no Ninja: Hanamaru). Like I've said, it's kind of hard to explain, but back in the days, kids were less sarcastic, while Ads were... well, a bit more than just Ads.With no Internet, with TV being way more than it's today and with way, WAY less rules applied (because SEGA does what Nintendon't), Ads were more than just that annoying thing that interrupts Rhett and Link on YouTube. Those were almost art on their own. And the perfect scenario for a brand was to create the mascots so cool that everybody would want to buy merchandise with it. I mean, aside from the main product. Like, everybody loves Cap'n Crunch (huge fan here). But would you also pay for a PEZ dispenser with the man? Would you like a T-shirt? That's how it worked back in the days. And with video games starting to recover from large-scale recession of early 80s, when crappy products like Pepsi Invaders almost killed the entire market, we've got ourselves advertising games... that were actually quite good.Believe it, or not, but the games about 7-Up's Spot, Cheetos' Chester Cheetah and even McDonald's Ronald McDonald were actually pretty solid. And sometimes there were even games that tried to achieve more than that. From a fourth generation platformer with kickass soundtrack called Global Gladiators that used to include McDonald's kids Mick and Mack (previously included in the game called MC Kids, which wasn't as good) to a weird 3D action game called Darkened Skye, which featured magic system based on Skittles. Let's just say that advertising games were not as simple as you may think. And this one? Not only it's my most favorite game of the kind, it's, like, one of my most favorite puzzle games... ever. Together with The Incredible Machines, Supaplex and so on. It's that good.First of all, Pushover is a game that was made to promote a popular British snack Quavers (they're so curly!). Quavers are the curly potato puffs and their mascot, Colin Curly... just lost all of them. So, as Colin's ant friend, we need to go down through the ant hill to some caves (because reasons) and get them back. That's pretty much all the background we've got here. Nothing big, nothing really interesting, but... it doesn't matter. Like... at all. The thing is – Pushover is an action puzzle game, the story doesn't really matter in that genre, while gameplay-wise... well, like I've said, this game is totally awesome.Long story short, Pushover is all about the domino effect. You push (hence the title) one block and watch the others falling. Naturally, your goal is to drop all the blocks on level during the limited amount of time. After that, you'll be able to exit the current level and get the password for the next one. Which will be very useful, since the game comes with the whooping 100 levels, some of which will be pretty tricky. Sounds pretty dull, though, can't argue with that. I mean, who cares about domino, right? Pushing blocks on 100 levels... sounds boring, right? But it's not that simple.See, there are ten different types of blocks in this game. All with their own unique properties. And trying to figure out how to drop all blocks on the levels with just a couple of pushes? It's just fun. Very, very fun. So fun that I actually love this game more than Lemmings. And everybody knows just how fun Lemmings game is. Pushover is just... well, it's hard to explain, but it's one of those games, which just “click”. It's one of those games, in which “stars” aligned perfectly. Controls are simple enough, the puzzles are very interesting and tricky (but not too tricky to make you feel bad), the graphics is very cute, the sound has that awesome “Sound Blaster” feeling... Pushover is just one of those games that you can't stop playing. 28 years later? I still can't get enough of it. And it's not just me. Even though the game was ported to quite a lot of systems (there was even SNES version with all Quavers Ads completely removed), there was a fan-made remake released in 2006. Guess, it says something.What we have here is a 100% original (not remade) DOS version (runs through DOSBox), but guess what? No complains here. Even though very often Amiga versions had better music, Pushover was not one of such games (I totally prefer the DOS sound), while all “big three” versions (Amiga, Atari ST and DOS) look almost identical and I'm not a big fan of those “filters” from fan-made remake. I mean... it's pretty cool version and stuff, but... there's nothing like the original.So, yeah. I can't recommend this game enough. Pushover is charming, cute, smart and extremely addicting puzzle game from early nineties. You like games like Lemmings, Bomberman, Wrecking Crew and so on? You should totally check this one out. Like the original Goonies (which also got fan-made remake, by the way), this game is a forgotten gem from the past. It's in my Steam favorites and it'll stay there forever. I love it that much. Dixi.
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font-weight: 300; line-height: 1.1; } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) { .rad-story-body h3.header { font-weight: 100; font-size: 42px; } } .rad-story-body h4.header { font-size: 24px; font-weight: 500; line-height: 1.1; } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) { .rad-story-body h4.header { font-size: 28px; } } .rad-story-body h5.header { font-size: 18px; font-weight: 700; line-height: 1.1; } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) { .rad-story-body h5.header { font-size: 24px; } } .rad-story-body h6.header-label { font-family: "nyt-franklin", arial, helvetica, sans-serif; text-transform: uppercase; letter-spacing: 0.1rem; font-size: 15px; font-weight: 700; } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) { .rad-story-body h6.header-label { font-size: 18px; } } .rad-story-body .rule--story { max-width: 600px; margin-left: 20px; margin-right: 20px; border: none; border-top: 1px solid #e2e2e2; margin-top: 36px; max-width: 300px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; } @media screen and (min-width: 1155px) { .rad-story-body .rule--story { max-width: 630px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 640px) { .rad-story-body .rule--story { margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; } } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) { .rad-story-body .rule--story { margin-top: 45px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 1155px) { .rad-story-body .rule--story { margin-top: 45px; } } .rad-story-body .rule--story + p.paragraph { margin-top: 36px; } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) { .rad-story-body .rule--story + p.paragraph { margin-top: 45px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 1155px) { .rad-story-body .rule--story + p.paragraph { margin-top: 45px; } } .rad-story-body p.paragraph { font-family: "imperial-normal-500", georgia, "times new roman", times, serif; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; font-size: 18px; line-height: 24px; margin-bottom: 12px; } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) { .rad-story-body p.paragraph { font-size: 20px; line-height: 30px; margin-bottom: 15px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 1155px) { .rad-story-body p.paragraph { font-size: 20px; line-height: 30px; margin-bottom: 15px; } } .rad-story-body p.paragraph:last-child { margin-bottom: 36px; } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) { .rad-story-body p.paragraph:last-child { margin-bottom: 45px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 1155px) { .rad-story-body p.paragraph:last-child { margin-bottom: 45px; } } .rad-story-body p.paragraph strong, .rad-story-body p.paragraph b { font-family: "nyt-mag-sans", arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold; font-size: 95%; } .rad-story-body p.paragraph a { color: #326891; position: relative; text-shadow: 3px 1px 0 #ffffff, -3px 1px 0 #ffffff, 0 1px 0 #ffffff; background-image: linear-gradient(to bottom, rgba(50, 104, 145, 0) 50%, rgba(50, 104, 145, 0.4) 50%); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 2px; background-position: 0 calc(100% - 1px); text-decoration: none; } .rad-story-body p.paragraph a:hover { text-shadow: 3px 1px 0 #ffffff, -3px 1px 0 #ffffff, 0 1px 0 #ffffff; text-decoration: none; background-image: linear-gradient(to bottom, rgba(50, 104, 145, 0) 50%, #326891 50%); } .rad-story-body p.paragraph a:active { top: 1px; } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) { .rad-story-body p.paragraph a { background-position: 0 calc(100% - 1px); } .rad-story-body p.paragraph a:hover { text-shadow: 3px 1px 0 #ffffff, -3px 1px 0 #ffffff, 0 1px 0 #ffffff, 4px 1px 0 #ffffff, -4px 1px 0 #ffffff; } } @media screen and (min-width: 1155px) { .rad-story-body p.paragraph a { background-position: 0 calc(100% - 1px); } .rad-story-body p.paragraph a:hover { text-shadow: 3px 2px 0 #ffffff, -3px 2px 0 #ffffff, 0 2px 0 #ffffff, 4px 2px 0 #ffffff, -4px 2px 0 #ffffff; } } .rad-story-body p.paragraph.paragraph-detail { font-family: "nyt-franklin", arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; color: #999999; } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) { .rad-story-body p.paragraph.paragraph-detail { font-size: 16px; } } .rad-story-body p.paragraph.paragraph-summary { font-family: "nyt-franklin", arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) { .rad-story-body p.paragraph.paragraph-summary { font-size: 21px; } } .section-magazine .d-pullquote-wrapper .d-pullquote, .d-pullquote { padding: 0 !important; } .section-magazine .d-pullquote-wrapper .d-pullquote p, .d-pullquote p { text-align: left !important; font-family: "nyt-mag-slab", georgia, "times new roman", times, serif !important; font-size: 32px !important; line-height: 1 !important; } .rad-interactive .rad-interactive-wrapper { border-top: none !important; border-bottom: none !important; } .rad-story-body .dropcap { float: left; display: block; position: relative; font-family: "nyt-mag-slab", georgia, "times new roman", times, serif; font-weight: 200; font-size: 3.2rem; line-height: 1; height: auto; margin-right: 34px; margin-top: 3px; overflow: hidden; } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) { .rad-story-body .dropcap { font-weight: 100; height: auto; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; } } .rad-lead-in { font-family: "nyt-cheltenham-sh", georgia, "times new roman", times, serif; text-transform: uppercase; letter-spacing: 0.05em; font-weight: 600; font-size: 90%; -webkit-font-smoothing: antialiased; text-rendering: optimizeLegibility; -webkit-font-feature-settings: "kern"; -moz-font-feature-settings: "kern"; font-feature-settings: "kern"; } .rad-corrections { max-width: 600px; margin-left: 20px; margin-right: 20px; } @media screen and (min-width: 1155px) { .rad-corrections { max-width: 630px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 640px) { .rad-corrections { margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; } } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) { .rad-corrections { padding: 0; } .rad-corrections:before { width: 100px; } } .rad-corrections p { font-family: "imperial-normal-500", georgia, "times new roman", times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 24px; } .rad-corrections p { font-style: italic; } .rad-corrections h5 { font-size: 15px; font-family: "nyt-franklin", arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: 400; color: #cccccc; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 2em; } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) { .rad-corrections h5 { font-size: 15px; } } .rad-corrections h5 strong { font-weight: bold; color: #000000; padding-right: 10px; } .rad-article-credits, .interactive-credit { max-width: 600px; margin-left: 20px; margin-right: 20px; } @media screen and (min-width: 1155px) { .rad-article-credits, .interactive-credit { max-width: 630px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 640px) { .rad-article-credits, .interactive-credit { margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; } } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) { .rad-article-credits, .interactive-credit { padding: 0; } .rad-article-credits:before, .interactive-credit:before { width: 100px; } } .rad-article-credits p, .interactive-credit p { color: #999999; font-family: "nyt-mag-sans", arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin-bottom: 15px; line-height: 1.3; } .rad-article-credits:before { display: block; content: ' '; width: 100px; height: 1px; background-color: #e2e2e2; margin-top: 20px; margin-bottom: 20px; } .media.audio, .media.photo, .media.video { margin: 0 auto; padding-bottom: 24px; } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) { .media.audio, .media.photo, .media.video { padding-bottom: 30px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 1155px) { .media.audio, .media.photo, .media.video { padding-bottom: 30px; } } .media.audio .rad-media-wrapper, .media.photo .rad-media-wrapper, .media.video .rad-media-wrapper { padding: 0 20px; } .full_bleed.media.audio .rad-media-wrapper, .full_bleed.media.photo .rad-media-wrapper, .full_bleed.media.video .rad-media-wrapper, .jumbo.media.audio .rad-media-wrapper, .jumbo.media.photo .rad-media-wrapper, .jumbo.media.video .rad-media-wrapper { padding: 0; } @media screen and (min-width: 600px) { .media.audio .rad-media-wrapper, .media.photo .rad-media-wrapper, .media.video .rad-media-wrapper { padding: 0; } } .media.audio .image, .media.photo .image, .media.video .image { padding: 0; margin-bottom: 0; overflow: hidden; box-sizing: border-box; } .media.audio.large, .media.photo.large, .media.video.large { max-width: 600px; } @media screen and (min-width: 1155px) { .media.audio.large, .media.photo.large, .media.video.large { max-width: 630px; } } .media.audio.jumbo, .media.photo.jumbo, .media.video.jumbo { max-width: 1070px; } .media.audio.full_bleed, .media.photo.full_bleed, .media.video.full_bleed { max-width: 1400px; } .media.audio.jumbo .rad-caption-wrapper, .media.photo.jumbo .rad-caption-wrapper, .media.video.jumbo .rad-caption-wrapper { padding-left: 20px; padding-right: 20px; margin-left: 0; } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) { .media.audio.jumbo .rad-caption-wrapper, .media.photo.jumbo .rad-caption-wrapper, .media.video.jumbo .rad-caption-wrapper { max-width: 600px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 1155px) { .media.audio.jumbo .rad-caption-wrapper, .media.photo.jumbo .rad-caption-wrapper, .media.video.jumbo .rad-caption-wrapper { padding-left: 0; max-width: 630px; } } .media.audio.full_bleed .rad-caption-wrapper, .media.photo.full_bleed .rad-caption-wrapper, .media.video.full_bleed .rad-caption-wrapper { padding-left: 20px; padding-right: 20px; margin-left: 0; } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) { .media.audio.full_bleed .rad-caption-wrapper, .media.photo.full_bleed .rad-caption-wrapper, .media.video.full_bleed .rad-caption-wrapper { max-width: 600px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 1155px) { .media.audio.full_bleed .rad-caption-wrapper, .media.photo.full_bleed .rad-caption-wrapper, .media.video.full_bleed .rad-caption-wrapper { max-width: 630px; } } .paragraph + .media.audio, .paragraph + .media.photo, .paragraph + .media.video { margin-top: 24px; } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) { .paragraph + .media.audio, .paragraph + .media.photo, .paragraph + .media.video { margin-top: 30px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 1155px) { .paragraph + .media.audio, .paragraph + .media.photo, .paragraph + .media.video { margin-top: 30px; } } .media.audio .rad-caption-wrapper, .media.photo .rad-caption-wrapper, .media.video .rad-caption-wrapper { display: block; margin: 0 auto; padding: 5px 0 0; max-width: 600px; } @media screen and (min-width: 1155px) { .media.audio .rad-caption-wrapper, .media.photo .rad-caption-wrapper, .media.video .rad-caption-wrapper { max-width: 630px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 600px) { .small.media.audio .rad-caption-wrapper, .small.media.photo .rad-caption-wrapper, .small.media.video .rad-caption-wrapper { padding-right: 0; padding-left: 0; } } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) { .full_bleed.media.audio .rad-caption-wrapper, .full_bleed.media.photo .rad-caption-wrapper, .full_bleed.media.video .rad-caption-wrapper, .jumbo.media.audio .rad-caption-wrapper, .jumbo.media.photo .rad-caption-wrapper, .jumbo.media.video .rad-caption-wrapper, .large.media.audio .rad-caption-wrapper, .large.media.photo .rad-caption-wrapper, .large.media.video .rad-caption-wrapper { box-sizing: border-box; } } .media.audio .rad-caption-text, .media.photo .rad-caption-text, .media.video .rad-caption-text { font-family: "nyt-mag-sans", arial, helvetica, sans-serif; color: #666666; font-size: 14px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 8.5px; } .media.audio .rad-credit, .media.photo .rad-credit, .media.video .rad-credit { clear: both; font-family: "nyt-mag-sans", arial, helvetica, sans-serif; color: #999999; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 8.5px; } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) { .media.audio .rad-credit, .media.photo .rad-credit, .media.video .rad-credit { padding: 0; } } .full_bleed.media.audio .rad-credit, .full_bleed.media.photo .rad-credit, .full_bleed.media.video .rad-credit, .jumbo .media.audio .rad-credit, .jumbo .media.photo .rad-credit, .jumbo .media.video .rad-credit { padding-right: 3px; } .image img.rad-lazy { width: 100%; opacity: 0.3; transition: opacity 0.5s; margin-bottom: 0; height: 0; } .image img.rad-lazy.ll-loaded { height: auto; opacity: 1; z-index: 3; position: relative; } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) { .media.video.small .rad-caption-wrapper { box-sizing: border-box; padding-right: 200px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 1155px) { .media.video.jumbo .rad-caption-wrapper { padding-left: 20px; } } .media.photo.small { margin: 0 auto; margin-top: 24px; margin-bottom: 24px; padding: 0; position: relative; } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) { .media.photo.small { margin-top: 30px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 1155px) { .media.photo.small { margin-top: 30px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) { .media.photo.small { margin-bottom: 30px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 1155px) { .media.photo.small { margin-bottom: 30px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 600px) { .media.photo.small { margin: 0 auto; } } @media screen and (min-width: 1005px) { .media.photo.small { max-width: 1070px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 1335px) { .media.photo.small { max-width: 600px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 600px) { .media.photo.small .rad-media-wrapper, .media.photo.small .rad-interactive-wrapper { width: 33.33333333%; position: relative; float: right; margin: 7px 20px 20px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 960px) { .media.photo.small .rad-media-wrapper, .media.photo.small .rad-interactive-wrapper { width: 300px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 1335px) { .media.photo.small .rad-media-wrapper, .media.photo.small .rad-interactive-wrapper { width: 50%; margin: 0 calc(-50% - 2em) 2rem 2rem; } } .rad-diptych { max-width: 1110px; margin-left: 20px; margin-right: 20px; margin-bottom: 0; padding-top: 24px; overflow: hidden; clear: both; } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) { .rad-diptych { padding-top: 30px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 1155px) { .rad-diptych { padding-top: 30px; } } .rad-diptych .media.video .rad-media-wrapper, .rad-diptych .media.photo .rad-media-wrapper { padding: 0; } .rad-diptych .media.photo, .rad-diptych .media.video { max-width: 100%; } .rad-diptych .media.photo .rad-caption-text, .rad-diptych .media.video .rad-caption-text, .rad-diptych .media.photo .rad-credit, .rad-diptych .media.video .rad-credit { padding-left: 0; padding-right: 0; } .rad-diptych .media.video .rad-caption .rad-caption-wrapper, .rad-diptych .media.photo .rad-caption .rad-caption-wrapper { padding: 5px 0 0; max-width: 600px; margin: 0; } @media screen and (min-width: 1155px) { .rad-diptych .media.video .rad-caption .rad-caption-wrapper, .rad-diptych .media.photo .rad-caption .rad-caption-wrapper { max-width: 630px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) { .rad-diptych { margin: 0 auto; margin-top: 24px; } .rad-diptych .media.photo.small, .rad-diptych .media.photo.large, .rad-diptych .media.video.small, .rad-diptych .media.video.large { width: 50%; box-sizing: border-box; float: left; margin: 0; margin-bottom: 36px; padding: 0 10px 0 20px; } .rad-diptych .media.photo.small .rad-media-wrapper, .rad-diptych .media.photo.large .rad-media-wrapper, .rad-diptych .media.video.small .rad-media-wrapper, .rad-diptych .media.video.large .rad-media-wrapper { width: 100% !important; margin: 0 !important; } .rad-diptych .media.photo.small + .photo.small, .rad-diptych .media.photo.large + .photo.small, .rad-diptych .media.video.small + .photo.small, .rad-diptych .media.video.large + .photo.small, .rad-diptych .media.photo.small + .photo.large, .rad-diptych .media.photo.large + .photo.large, .rad-diptych .media.video.small + .photo.large, .rad-diptych .media.video.large + .photo.large, .rad-diptych .media.photo.small + .video.small, .rad-diptych .media.photo.large + .video.small, .rad-diptych .media.video.small + .video.small, .rad-diptych .media.video.large + .video.small, .rad-diptych .media.photo.small + .video.large, .rad-diptych .media.photo.large + .video.large, .rad-diptych .media.video.small + .video.large, .rad-diptych .media.video.large + .video.large { padding-left: 10px; float: right; padding-right: 20px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) and screen and (min-width: 720px) { .rad-diptych { margin-top: 30px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) and screen and (min-width: 1155px) { .rad-diptych { margin-top: 30px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) and screen and (min-width: 720px) { .rad-diptych .media.photo.small, .rad-diptych .media.photo.large, .rad-diptych .media.video.small, .rad-diptych .media.video.large { margin-bottom: 45px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) and screen and (min-width: 1155px) { .rad-diptych .media.photo.small, .rad-diptych .media.photo.large, .rad-diptych .media.video.small, .rad-diptych .media.video.large { margin-bottom: 45px; } } .media.video { margin: 0 auto; padding-bottom: 24px; } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) { .media.video { padding-bottom: 30px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 1155px) { .media.video { padding-bottom: 30px; } } .media.video.small { max-width: 600px; } @media screen and (min-width: 1155px) { .media.video.small { max-width: 630px; } } .media.video.large { max-width: 1070px; } .media.video.jumbo { max-width: 1400px; } .media.video.small .rad-caption-wrapper, .media.video.large .rad-caption-wrapper { max-width: 600px; margin-left: 20px; margin-right: 20px; } @media screen and (min-width: 1155px) { .media.video.small .rad-caption-wrapper, .media.video.large .rad-caption-wrapper { max-width: 630px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 640px) { .media.video.small .rad-caption-wrapper, .media.video.large .rad-caption-wrapper { margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; } } .paragraph + .media.video { margin-top: 24px; } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) { .paragraph + .media.video { margin-top: 30px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 1155px) { .paragraph + .media.video { margin-top: 30px; } } .media.video .rad-credit { display: block; margin-top: 0; padding: 0 3px 0 0; } .rad-spinner { position: absolute; top: 50%; left: 50%; z-index: 2; transform: translate3d(-50%, -50%, 0); } .rad-spinner:after { content: ''; display: block; box-sizing: border-box; width: 40px; height: 40px; border-radius: 100%; border: 5px solid rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.2); border-top-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.5); animation: spin 1s infinite linear; } @keyframes spin { 100% { transform: rotate(360deg); } } .media.audio { float: none; margin: 30px auto; padding: 0; max-width: 600px; margin-left: 20px; margin-right: 20px; } @media screen and (min-width: 1155px) { .media.audio { max-width: 630px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 640px) { .media.audio { margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; } } .media.audio .rad-media-wrapper { padding: 0; } .media.audio.small { max-width: 600px; width: 600px; } @media screen and (min-width: 1155px) { .media.audio.small { max-width: 630px; width: 630px; } } .media.audio.large { width: inherit; } .media.audio.jumbo { max-width: 1400px; width: 1400px; } .media.audio.small .rad-caption-wrapper, .media.audio.large .rad-caption-wrapper { max-width: 600px; margin-left: 20px; margin-right: 20px; } @media screen and (min-width: 1155px) { .media.audio.small .rad-caption-wrapper, .media.audio.large .rad-caption-wrapper { max-width: 630px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 640px) { .media.audio.small .rad-caption-wrapper, .media.audio.large .rad-caption-wrapper { margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; } } .rad-interactive { max-width: 2000px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 2px; margin-top: 24px; position: relative; overflow: hidden; } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) { .rad-interactive { margin-top: 30px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 1155px) { .rad-interactive { margin-top: 30px; } } .rad-interactive .rad-interactive-wrapper { padding: 15px 0; border-top: 1px solid #e2e2e2; border-bottom: 1px solid #e2e2e2; margin-bottom: 24px; } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) { .rad-interactive .rad-interactive-wrapper { margin-bottom: 30px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 1155px) { .rad-interactive .rad-interactive-wrapper { margin-bottom: 30px; } } .rad-interactive.small { overflow: visible; margin: 0 auto; margin-top: 24px; margin-bottom: 24px; padding: 0; position: relative; } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) { .rad-interactive.small { margin-top: 30px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 1155px) { .rad-interactive.small { margin-top: 30px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) { .rad-interactive.small { margin-bottom: 30px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 1155px) { .rad-interactive.small { margin-bottom: 30px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 600px) { .rad-interactive.small { margin: 0 auto; } } @media screen and (min-width: 1005px) { .rad-interactive.small { max-width: 1070px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 1335px) { .rad-interactive.small { max-width: 600px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 600px) { .rad-interactive.small .rad-media-wrapper, .rad-interactive.small .rad-interactive-wrapper { width: 33.33333333%; position: relative; float: right; margin: 7px 20px 20px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 960px) { .rad-interactive.small .rad-media-wrapper, .rad-interactive.small .rad-interactive-wrapper { width: 300px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 1335px) { .rad-interactive.small .rad-media-wrapper, .rad-interactive.small .rad-interactive-wrapper { width: 50%; margin: 0 calc(-50% - 2em) 2rem 2rem; } } .rad-interactive.large { max-width: 600px; } @media screen and (min-width: 1155px) { .rad-interactive.large { max-width: 630px; } } .rad-interactive.jumbo { max-width: 1070px; } .rad-interactive.full_bleed { margin: 0 auto; max-width: 100%; } .rad-interactive.full_bleed .rad-interactive-wrapper { border: none; padding: 0; } .rad-interactive.small, .rad-interactive.large, .rad-interactive.jumbo { padding: 0 20px; } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) { .rad-interactive.small, .rad-interactive.large, .rad-interactive.jumbo { padding: 0; } } .rad-interactive img { margin-bottom: 0; } .rad-interactive .interactive-summary { font-family: "nyt-cheltenham-sh", georgia, "times new roman", times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.4; color: #666666; padding-top: 5px; } .rad-interactive .credit, .rad-interactive .notes, .rad-interactive .source { display: block; padding: 0 3px; margin-top: 5px; margin-bottom: 0; font-family: "nyt-mag-sans", arial, helvetica, sans-serif; color: #999999; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px; margin-bottom: 8.5px; } .rad-interactive + .media.photo { margin-top: 24px; } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) { .rad-interactive + .media.photo { margin-top: 30px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 1155px) { .rad-interactive + .media.photo { margin-top: 30px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) { .rad-interactive + .media.photo { margin-top: 0; } } .rad-series-box { max-width: 600px; margin-left: 20px; margin-right: 20px; padding-top: 48px; } @media screen and (min-width: 1155px) { .rad-series-box { max-width: 630px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 640px) { .rad-series-box { margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; } } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) { .rad-series-box { padding-top: 60px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 1155px) { .rad-series-box { padding-top: 60px; } } .rad-series-box h2 { font-weight: 700; font-family: "nyt-franklin", arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 1.1; margin-bottom: 20px; } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) { .rad-series-box h2 { font-size: 17px; } } .rad-series-links { color: #000000; } .rad-series-links .rad-caption { display: none; } .rad-series-links a { color: #000000; display: table; width: 100%; margin-bottom: 1rem; } .rad-series-links a:hover { text-decoration: none; } .has-no-touch .rad-series-links a:hover h3 { border-bottom: 2px solid #cccccc; text-shadow: 0 2px 0 #fff; } .rad-series-links .promo-info, .rad-series-links .promo-image { display: table-cell; vertical-align: middle; } .rad-series-links .promo-info { padding: 0 0 0 20px; } .rad-series-links h3 { display: inline; font-family: "nyt-cheltenham-sh", georgia, "times new roman", times, serif; font-size: 17px; font-weight: 400; line-height: 1.1; margin-right: 5px; } @media screen and (min-width: 769px) { .rad-series-links h3 { font-family: "nyt-cheltenham", georgia, "times new roman", times, serif; font-size: 21px; line-height: 1.2; } } .rad-series-links .pubdate { display: inline; color: #cccccc; font-family: "nyt-franklin", arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; text-transform: uppercase; letter-spacing: 0.02em; white-space: nowrap; } .rad-series-links .promo-image { width: 33%; margin: 0; padding: 0; } .rad-series-links .promo-image:empty:after { display: block; content: ' '; width: 100%; padding-bottom: 66.667%; } .rad-series-links .media.photo { margin: 0; padding: 0; } .rad-series-links .media.photo .rad-media-wrapper { margin: 0; padding: 0; } #story { opacity: 1; position: relative; transform: none; transition: all 0.45s ease-in-out; } .rad-fade #story { transform: translateY(0); opacity: 0; } .rad-unload #story { transform: translateY(-60px); } #masthead { position: relative; opacity: 1; transform: translateY(0); transition: transform 0.45s ease-in-out; } .rad-fade #masthead { opacity: 0 !important; transform: translateY(0); transition: opacity 0.45s ease-in-out; } .rad-unload #masthead { opacity: 0; transform: translateY(-60px); transition: all 0.45s ease-in-out; } #related-coverage, .viewport-medium #related-coverage { margin-top: 48px; } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) { #related-coverage, .viewport-medium #related-coverage { margin-top: 60px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 1155px) { #related-coverage, .viewport-medium #related-coverage { margin-top: 60px; } } .rad-article + .rad-article { border-top: 2px solid #e2e2e2; transform: translate3d(0, 0, 0); transition: transform 0.4s ease-in; } .rad-article + .rad-article.is-loaded { transform: none; } .rad-article .rad-series-link-wrapper { max-width: 600px; margin-left: 20px; margin-right: 20px; margin-bottom: 5rem; } @media screen and (min-width: 1155px) { .rad-article .rad-series-link-wrapper { max-width: 630px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 640px) { .rad-article .rad-series-link-wrapper { margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; } } .rad-article .rad-series-link { color: #326891; position: relative; text-shadow: 3px 1px 0 #ffffff, -3px 1px 0 #ffffff, 0 1px 0 #ffffff; background-image: linear-gradient(to bottom, rgba(50, 104, 145, 0) 50%, rgba(50, 104, 145, 0.4) 50%); background-repeat: repeat-x; background-size: 2px 2px; background-position: 0 calc(100% - 1px); text-decoration: none; font-family: "nyt-franklin", arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-weight: bold; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 0.4s ease-in; } .rad-article .rad-series-link:hover { text-shadow: 3px 1px 0 #ffffff, -3px 1px 0 #ffffff, 0 1px 0 #ffffff; text-decoration: none; background-image: linear-gradient(to bottom, rgba(50, 104, 145, 0) 50%, #326891 50%); } .rad-article .rad-series-link:active { top: 1px; } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) { .rad-article .rad-series-link { background-position: 0 calc(100% - 1px); } .rad-article .rad-series-link:hover { text-shadow: 3px 1px 0 #ffffff, -3px 1px 0 #ffffff, 0 1px 0 #ffffff, 4px 1px 0 #ffffff, -4px 1px 0 #ffffff; } } @media screen and (min-width: 1155px) { .rad-article .rad-series-link { background-position: 0 calc(100% - 1px); } .rad-article .rad-series-link:hover { text-shadow: 3px 2px 0 #ffffff, -3px 2px 0 #ffffff, 0 2px 0 #ffffff, 4px 2px 0 #ffffff, -4px 2px 0 #ffffff; } } .rad-article.article-active .rad-series-link, .rad-article.article-loading .rad-series-link { opacity: 0; pointer-events: none; } .rad-article.article-active + .rad-article { transform: translate3d(0, 300px, 0); } .rad-article.article-active.is-loaded + .rad-article { transform: translate3d(0, 0, 0); } .rad-article .rad-story-body-inner { transition: all 0.4s ease-in; opacity: 0; max-height: 0; overflow: hidden; } .rad-article.article-active .rad-story-body-inner { opacity: 1; max-height: 100%; } .rad-article .rad-story-body-mask { display: block; margin-top: -150px; width: 100%; height: 150px; background: linear-gradient(to bottom, rgba(255, 255, 255, 0) 0%, rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.5) 10%, #ffffff 100%); opacity: 1; transition: opacity 0.3s ease-in; position: relative; z-index: 10; } .rad-story-body-mask .rad-spinner:after { border-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2); border-top-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.7); height: 30px; width: 30px; border-width: 3px; box-shadow: 0 0 3px #fff; } .rad-story-body-mask .rad-spinner { opacity: 0; transition: opacity 0.4s ease-in; } .article-loading .rad-story-body-mask .rad-spinner { opacity: 1; } .rad-article.article-active .rad-story-body-mask { pointer-events: none; opacity: 0; } .rad-social .sharetool { display: inline-block; } .rad-social .sharetool a { width: 32px; height: 32px; display: inline-block; padding: 0; border-radius: 20px; color: white !important; line-height: 1.2 !important; background-size: contain; background-repeat: no-repeat; } .rad-social .sharetool a .sharetool-text { visibility: hidden; } .rad-social .sharetool a[data-share="twitter"] { background-image: url('data:image/svg+xml;base64,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'); } .rad-social .sharetool a[data-share="twitter"]:hover { background-image: url('data:image/svg+xml;base64,PD94bWwgdmVyc2lvbj0iMS4wIiBlbmNvZGluZz0iVVRGLTgiPz4KPHN2ZyB3aWR0aD0iMzJweCIgaGVpZ2h0PSIzMnB4IiB2aWV3Qm94PSIwIDAgMzIgMzIiIHZlcnNpb249IjEuMSIgeG1sbnM9Imh0dHA6Ly93d3cudzMub3JnLzIwMDAvc3ZnIiB4bWxuczp4bGluaz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMTk5OS94bGluayI+CiAgICA8IS0tIEdlbmVyYXRvcjogU2tldGNoIDMuOC4zICgyOTgwMikgLSBodHRwOi8vd3d3LmJvaGVtaWFuY29kaW5nLmNvbS9za2V0Y2ggLS0+CiAgICA8dGl0bGU+dHdpdHRlcl9ob3ZlcjwvdGl0bGU+CiAgICA8ZGVzYz5DcmVhdGVkIHdpdGggU2tldGNoLjwvZGVzYz4KICAgIDxkZWZzPjwvZGVmcz4KICAgIDxnIGlkPSJQYWdlLTEiIHN0cm9rZT0ibm9uZSIgc3Ryb2tlLXdpZHRoPSIxIiBmaWxsPSJub25lIiBmaWxsLXJ1bGU9ImV2ZW5vZGQiPgogICAgICAgIDxnIGlkPSJzcHJpdGUtbm8tcmVwZWF0IiB0cmFuc2Zvcm09InRyYW5zbGF0ZSgtNDcwLjAwMDAwMCwgLTI4MC4wMDAwMDApIj4KICAgICAgICAgICAgPGcgaWQ9InR3aXR0ZXJfaG92ZXIiIHRyYW5zZm9ybT0idHJhbnNsYXRlKDQ3MC4wMDAwMDAsIDI4MC4wMDAwMDApIj4KICAgICAgICAgICAgICAgIDxwYXRoIGQ9Ik0xNiwzMiBDMjQuODM2LDMyIDMyLDI0LjgzNyAzMiwxNiBDMzIsNy4xNjMgMjQuODM2LDAgMTYsMCBDNy4xNjQsMCAwLDcuMTYzIDAsMTYgQzAsMjQuODM3IDcuMTY0LDMyIDE2LDMyIiBpZD0iU2hhcGUiIGZpbGw9IiM1MEFBRjAiPjwvcGF0aD4KICAgICAgICAgICAgICAgIDxwYXRoIGQ9Ik0yNSwxMS4xMzUgQzI0LjM3NCwxMS40MTIgMjMuNzAzLDExLjU5OSAyMi45OTcsMTEuNjg0IEMyMy43MTYsMTEuMjUzIDI0LjI3LDEwLjU2OCAyNC41MzEsOS43NTUgQzIzLjg1NSwxMC4xNTUgMjMuMTA5LDEwLjQ0NSAyMi4zMTcsMTAuNjAxIEMyMS42OCw5LjkyNCAyMC43NzMsOS41IDE5Ljc2OSw5LjUgQzE3Ljg0NSw5LjUgMTYuMjgyLDExLjA2MiAxNi4yODIsMTIuOTg3IEMxNi4yODIsMTMuMjYxIDE2LjMxMywxMy41MjcgMTYuMzcyLDEzLjc4MiBDMTMuNDc0LDEzLjYzNiAxMC45MDIsMTIuMjQ5IDkuMTgyLDEwLjEzOSBDOC44ODIsMTAuNjUzIDguNzEsMTEuMjUzIDguNzEsMTEuODkyIEM4LjcxLDEzLjEwMiA5LjMyNiwxNC4xNjggMTAuMjYyLDE0Ljc5NSBDOS42OSwxNC43NzcgOS4xNTIsMTQuNjIgOC42ODIsMTQuMzU4IEw4LjY4MiwxNC40MDMgQzguNjgyLDE2LjA5MiA5Ljg4MywxNy41MDIgMTEuNDc4LDE3LjgyMiBDMTEuMTg2LDE3LjkwMiAxMC44NzgsMTcuOTQ0IDEwLjU2LDE3Ljk0NCBDMTAuMzM2LDE3Ljk0NCAxMC4xMTcsMTcuOTIzIDkuOTA0LDE3Ljg4MiBDMTAuMzQ3LDE5LjI2NiAxMS42MzUsMjAuMjc2IDEzLjE2MSwyMC4zMDMgQzExLjk2OCwyMS4yMzggMTAuNDYzLDIxLjc5NiA4LjgzLDIxLjc5NiBDOC41NDgsMjEuNzk2IDguMjcxLDIxLjc4IDcuOTk4LDIxLjc0NyBDOS41NDIsMjIuNzM3IDExLjM3NSwyMy4zMTQgMTMuMzQ0LDIzLjMxNCBDMTkuNzU5LDIzLjMxNCAyMy4yNjgsMTggMjMuMjY4LDEzLjM5MSBDMjMuMjY4LDEzLjIzOCAyMy4yNjQsMTMuMDg5IDIzLjI1NiwxMi45MzkgQzIzLjk0MSwxMi40NDggMjQuNTM0LDExLjgzNCAyNSwxMS4xMzUiIGlkPSJTaGFwZSIgZmlsbD0iI0ZGRkZGRiI+PC9wYXRoPgogICAgICAgICAgICA8L2c+CiAgICAgICAgPC9nPgogICAgPC9nPgo8L3N2Zz4='); } .rad-social .sharetool a[data-share="facebook"] { background-image: url('data:image/svg+xml;base64,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'); } .rad-social .sharetool a[data-share="facebook"]:hover { background-image: url('data:image/svg+xml;base64,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'); } .rad-social .sharetool + .sharetool a { margin-left: 5px; } .rad-social .sharetools-menu { margin: 15px 0; } .ad.top-ad { border-color: transparent; } .rad-ad-wrapper { margin: 0 auto; margin-top: 36px; margin-bottom: 48px; text-align: center; background: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.05); } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) { .rad-ad-wrapper { margin-top: 45px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 1155px) { .rad-ad-wrapper { margin-top: 45px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) { .rad-ad-wrapper { margin-bottom: 60px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 1155px) { .rad-ad-wrapper { margin-bottom: 60px; } } .rad-ad-wrapper.has-border { padding: 30px 0; border-color: #e2e2e2; border-style: solid; border-width: 1px 0; } .rad-ad-wrapper .ad { margin: 30px auto 50px; } .rad-ad-wrapper .ad:before { display: block; content: 'Advertisement'; text-transform: uppercase; font-family: "nyt-franklin", arial, helvetica, sans-serif; color: #cccccc; font-size: 10px; letter-spacing: 0.05em; text-align: center; width: 100%; padding-bottom: 5px; } .rad-ad-wrapper:last-child { border-width: 0; margin: 40px 20px; padding: 30px 0; } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) { .rad-ad-wrapper:last-child { max-width: 705px; margin: 40px auto 0; } } @media screen and (min-width: 960px) { .rad-ad-wrapper:last-child { max-width: 945px; } } .rad-ad-wrapper .rad-ad { display: inline-block; width: 100%; } @media print { * { background: #fff !important; } .quick-navigation, #masthead .story-meta, .user-tools, .search-flyout-panel, .notification-modals, .announcments, #navigation, #mobile-navigation, .rad-ad-wrapper, figure, .rad-interactive, .media.video, .media.photo, #footer, #related-coverage, .visually-hidden, #page-footer li, .ad, .last-nav, .rad-cover-container, .cover-caption, .cover-replay, .nyt-logo, .location-header-wrapper img { display: none !important; } #page-footer ul { list-style: none; margin: 0; padding: 0; } #page-footer nav ul li:first-child { display: block !important; text-align: center; } .masthead { padding-bottom: 0.2in; margin-bottom: 0.2in; margin-top: 45px; position: static !important; } .masthead .branding { float: none !important; display: block !important; height: 20px; margin: 0 auto; text-align: center; } a { color: #000 !important; text-decoration: none !important; } .rad-cover { height: auto !important; margin-bottom: 0 !important; } .rad-cover .story-heading { color: #111 !important; position: static !important; text-align: center !important; margin: 0 !important; } .rad-cover .interactive-header { position: static !important; max-width: 600px; margin: 0 auto !important; } .rad-cover .interactive-header p { position: static !important; max-width: 600px; color: #111 !important; } .rad-cover .interactive-header p br { display: none !important; } } .topnav { position: fixed; height: 50px; top: 0; left: 0; right: 0; transition: top 0.25s ease-in-out, opacity 0s linear 0.25s, background-color 0.25s linear; z-index: 5555; display: -ms-flexbox; display: flex; -ms-flex-pack: justify; justify-content: space-between; } @media screen and (min-width: 1020px) { .topnav { display: block; height: 67px; top: -67px; opacity: 0; background-color: #000; } .topnav path { fill: #fff; } .topnav .toggler { display: none; } } .topnav .toggler { outline: 0; padding: 4px 10px 6px; background: transparent; outline: none; border: 0px; } .topnav .toggler.is-active { transform: rotate(-180deg); } .topnav .toggler img { opacity: 0; width: 14px; margin: 0px; transition: opacity 0.25s linear; } .topnav__wrapper { display: -ms-flexbox; display: flex; width: 100%; } @media screen and (min-width: 1020px) { .topnav__wrapper { width: auto; } } .topnav__contents { position: fixed; height: calc(100vh - 50px); opacity: 0; top: -100vh; left: 0; right: 0; transition: top 0.5s ease-in-out, opacity 0s linear 0.5s; background: #000; overflow-y: auto; -ms-flex: 1; flex: 1; display: -ms-flexbox; display: flex; } .topnav__contents.show-nav { top: 50px; opacity: 1; transition: top 0.5s ease-in-out, opacity 0s linear 0s; } @media screen and (min-width: 1020px) { .topnav__contents.show-nav { top: auto; } } @media screen and (min-width: 1020px) { .topnav__contents { position: relative; top: auto; height: auto; left: auto; right: auto; max-width: calc(100% - 260px); overflow-y: hidden; opacity: 1; } } .topnav--show-nav { top: 0; opacity: 1; background-color: #000; transition: top 0.25s ease-in-out, opacity 0s linear 0s, background-color 0.25s linear 0s; } .topnav--show-nav .toggler img { opacity: 1; } .topnav--show-nav .topnav__kicker span { opacity: 1; } .topnav--show-nav .topnav__kicker path { fill: #fff; } .topnav--show-nav .topnav__kicker span { color: #ff2700; } .topnav__control { display: none; position: absolute; top: 0; bottom: 0; height: 67px; width: 50px; z-index: -1; opacity: 0; -ms-flex-pack: center; justify-content: center; -ms-flex-align: center; align-items: center; background: #000; transition: opacity 0.25s linear; width: 32px; background-position: 50% 50%; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: auto 17px; } @media screen and (min-width: 1020px) { .topnav__control { display: -ms-flexbox; display: flex; } } .topnav__control img { width: 25px; opacity: 0; } .topnav__control--show { z-index: 1; opacity: 1; } .topnav__control--show:hover { opacity: 1; } .topnav__control--prev { left: 260px; background-image: url('data:image/png;base64,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'); } .topnav__control--next { right: 0; width: 32px; background-image: url('data:image/png;base64,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'); background-position: 50% 45%; background-repeat: no-repeat; background-size: auto 17px; } .topnav__control--next img { opacity: 0; } .topnav__kicker { position: relative; z-index: 2; -ms-flex: 0 0 auto; flex: 0 0 auto; padding: 10px 0 10px 20px; display: -ms-flexbox; display: flex; font-family: "nyt-mag-sans", arial, helvetica, sans-serif; letter-spacing: 0.025em; font-size: 13.5px; color: #fff; text-align: left; line-height: 1; box-sizing: border-box; height: 50px; -ms-flex-align: left; align-items: left; -ms-flex-pack: justify; justify-content: space-between; -ms-flex-align: center; align-items: center; width: 100%; } .topnav__kicker span { opacity: 0; transition: opacity 0.25s linear; } .topnav__kicker path { fill: #000; } .topnav__kicker span { color: #000; } .topnav__kicker svg { display: inline-block; max-width: calc(75vw - 100px); margin-right: 15px; } @media screen and (min-width: 1020px) { .topnav__kicker { padding: 10px 20px; width: auto; -ms-flex-align: start; align-items: flex-start; height: 67px; -ms-flex-pack: center; justify-content: center; -ms-flex-direction: column; flex-direction: column; background: #000; } .topnav__kicker span { opacity: 1; } .topnav__kicker path { fill: #fff; } .topnav__kicker svg { margin-right: 0; max-width: 220px; margin-top: -2px; } .topnav__kicker:before { content: ''; display: block; position: absolute; top: 10px; bottom: 10px; right: 0; width: 1px; background: #fff; } } .topnav ul { -ms-flex: 1; flex: 1; display: -ms-flexbox; display: flex; width: auto; position: relative; z-index: 1; -ms-flex-direction: column; flex-direction: column; -ms-flex-align: center; align-items: center; margin: 0; overflow: hidden; } @media screen and (min-width: 1020px) { .topnav ul { margin: 0 32px 0 0; padding-top: 0; -ms-flex-direction: row; flex-direction: row; -ms-flex-align: start; align-items: flex-start; -ms-flex-pack: start; justify-content: flex-start; } } .topnav ul li { display: -ms-flexbox; display: flex; -ms-flex-direction: column; flex-direction: column; -ms-flex-pack: start; justify-content: flex-start; padding: 30px 20px; font-family: "nyt-mag-sans", arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15.5px; color: #fff; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.1; position: relative; border-bottom: 1px solid #5f5f5f; -ms-flex: 0 0 auto; flex: 0 0 auto; letter-spacing: 0.025em; } @media screen and (min-width: 1020px) { .topnav ul li { width: calc(33vw - 92px); } } @media screen and (min-width: 1607px) { .topnav ul li { width: calc(25vw - 72px); } } .topnav ul li:last-of-type { border-bottom: 0; } .topnav ul li a { color: #fff; text-align: center; padding: 0; line-height: 1.55; max-width: 70%; margin: 0 auto; } @media screen and (min-width: 1020px) { .topnav ul li a { line-height: 1.1; padding: 0; text-align: left; max-width: 320px; margin: 0; } } .topnav ul li a:hover { text-decoration: none; } @media screen and (min-width: 1020px) { .topnav ul li { border-bottom: 0; height: 67px; padding: 12px 15px; font-size: 13.5px; } .topnav ul li:before { content: ''; display: block; position: absolute; top: 12px; bottom: 12px; right: 0; width: 1px; background: #fff; } } .topnav ul li:last-of-type:before { display: none; } #masthead { width: 100% !important; margin-left: 0 !important; border-bottom: 0px !important; display: none; } @media screen and (min-width: 1020px) { #masthead { display: block; } } #masthead .branding { display: inline-block; text-align: left !important; top: 5px; display: none; } #masthead .branding .branding-heading { float: left; margin-left: 20px; text-align: left; } #masthead .branding svg path { fill: #fff !important; } @media screen and (min-width: 1020px) { #masthead .branding { box-sizing: border-box; display: -ms-flexbox; display: flex; -ms-flex-pack: justify; justify-content: space-between; -ms-flex-align: center; align-items: center; color: #ff2700; font-family: "nyt-mag-sans", arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; letter-spacing: 0.025em; left: 25px; top: 10px; opacity: 1; } #masthead .branding.vertical { max-width: calc(50vw - 25px); padding-right: 25px; } #masthead .branding.horizontal { width: calc(23.648649vw + 122px); min-width: 460px; } #masthead .branding span { -ms-flex: 0 0 auto; flex: 0 0 auto; } #masthead .branding .branding-heading { float: none; margin-left: 0; -ms-flex: 1; flex: 1; } } #masthead .branding .branding-label { display: none !important; } #masthead.in-content { background: transparent; box-shadow: none; display: none; } #masthead.in-content .container { background: transparent; box-shadow: none; border-bottom: 0; } #masthead.in-content .container .branding { display: none; } #masthead.in-content .container .user-tools { background: transparent; box-shadow: none; opacity: .4; } #masthead.in-content .container .user-tools .save-sharetool { display: none; } @media screen and (min-width: 1020px) { #masthead.in-content { top: 67px; display: block; } } #masthead .container { width: 100% !important; max-width: 100% !important; padding: 2px 60px 0 15px; z-index: 1; box-sizing: border-box; } @media screen and (min-width: 1020px) { #masthead .container { padding-right: 0; padding-top: 0; } } #masthead .container.slug-24mag-mushrooms .branding { top: 5px; } #masthead .container .quick-navigation { display: none !important; } #masthead .container .sharetools-menu > .facebook-sharetool, #masthead .container .sharetools-menu > .twitter-sharetool, #masthead .container .sharetools-menu > .email-sharetool { display: none !important; } #masthead .container .story-meta { display: none !important; } .rad-cover, .rad-cover.full-bleed { height: auto; margin-bottom: 60px; } .rad-cover .rad-header, .rad-cover.full-bleed .rad-header { position: relative; display: block; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: "nyt-mag-sans", arial, helvetica, sans-serif; padding: 0; max-width: 600px; margin: 60px auto 0; background: transparent; color: #000; } .rad-cover .rad-header .rad-second-byline, .rad-cover.full-bleed .rad-header .rad-second-byline { display: block; } @media screen and (min-width: 1020px) { .rad-cover, .rad-cover.full-bleed { margin-bottom: 120px; } .rad-cover .rad-header, .rad-cover.full-bleed .rad-header { margin-top: 0; } .rad-cover.vertical, .rad-cover.full-bleed.vertical { background: #000 !important; height: 100vh; } .rad-cover.vertical .rad-header, .rad-cover.full-bleed.vertical .rad-header { position: absolute; color: #fff; padding: 50px; } .rad-cover.vertical .media, .rad-cover.full-bleed.vertical .media { float: right; max-width: 50vw; } .rad-cover.vertical .media .rad-caption, .rad-cover.full-bleed.vertical .media .rad-caption { max-width: 100%; float: right; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0 30px; } .rad-cover.vertical .rad-header, .rad-cover.full-bleed.vertical .rad-header { max-width: 50vw; text-align: center; height: 100%; display: -ms-flexbox; display: flex; -ms-flex-pack: center; justify-content: center; -ms-flex-align: center; align-items: center; } .rad-cover.vertical .rad-header .rad-headline, .rad-cover.full-bleed.vertical .rad-header .rad-headline, .rad-cover.vertical .rad-header .rad-summary, .rad-cover.full-bleed.vertical .rad-header .rad-summary, .rad-cover.vertical .rad-header .rad-byline-pubdate, .rad-cover.full-bleed.vertical .rad-header .rad-byline-pubdate { text-align: center; max-width: 600px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 1020px) { .rad-cover.horizontal, .rad-cover.full-bleed.horizontal { background: #000 !important; height: 100vh; } .rad-cover.horizontal .rad-header, .rad-cover.full-bleed.horizontal .rad-header { position: absolute; color: #fff; padding: 50px; } .rad-cover.horizontal .media, .rad-cover.full-bleed.horizontal .media { float: right; width: 76.351351vw; max-width: calc(100vw - 335px); } .rad-cover.horizontal .media .rad-caption, .rad-cover.full-bleed.horizontal .media .rad-caption { max-width: 100%; float: right; box-sizing: border-box; padding: 0 30px; } .rad-cover.horizontal .rad-header, .rad-cover.full-bleed.horizontal .rad-header { width: 23.648649vw; min-width: 335px; padding: 30px; } } /*! * Hamburgers * @description Tasty CSS-animated hamburgers * @author Jonathan Suh @jonsuh * @site https://jonsuh.com/hamburgers * @link https://github.com/jonsuh/hamburgers */ .topnav--show-nav .hamburger { opacity: 1; } .topnav--show-nav .hamburger .hamburger-inner, .topnav--show-nav .hamburger .hamburger-inner::before, .topnav--show-nav .hamburger .hamburger-inner::after { background-color: #fff; } .hamburger { opacity: 0; transition: opacity 0.25s linear; position: relative; z-index: 1; padding: 14px 20px 10px; display: inline-block; cursor: pointer; transition-property: opacity, filter; transition-duration: 0.15s; transition-timing-function: linear; font: inherit; color: inherit; text-transform: none; background-color: transparent; border: 0; margin: 0; overflow: visible; } @media screen and (min-width: 1020px) { .hamburger { opacity: 1; } } .hamburger:focus { outline: 0; box-shadow: none; } .hamburger.is-active .hamburger-inner, .hamburger.is-active .hamburger-inner::before, .hamburger.is-active .hamburger-inner::after { background-color: #fff; } .hamburger-box { width: 20px; height: 12px; display: inline-block; position: relative; } .hamburger-inner { display: block; top: 50%; margin-top: -2px; } .hamburger-inner, .hamburger-inner::before, .hamburger-inner::after { width: 20px; height: 1px; background-color: #000; border-radius: 4px; position: absolute; transition-property: transform; transition-duration: 0.15s; transition-timing-function: ease; } .hamburger-inner::before, .hamburger-inner::after { content: ""; display: block; } .hamburger-inner::before { top: -5px; } .hamburger-inner::after { bottom: -5px; } /* * Slider */ .hamburger--slider .hamburger-inner { top: 2px; } .hamburger--slider .hamburger-inner::before { top: 5px; transition-property: transform, opacity; transition-timing-function: ease; transition-duration: 0.15s; } .hamburger--slider .hamburger-inner::after { top: 10px; } .hamburger--slider.is-active .hamburger-inner { transform: translate3d(0, 5px, 0) rotate(45deg); } .hamburger--slider.is-active .hamburger-inner::before { transform: rotate(-45deg) translate3d(-5.71429px, -6px, 0); opacity: 0; } .hamburger--slider.is-active .hamburger-inner::after { transform: translate3d(0, -10px, 0) rotate(-90deg); } .rad-series-box { display: block; border-top: 4px solid #000; padding-top: 30px; max-width: 860px; width: calc(100% - 30px); margin-top: 60px; } .rad-series-box h2 { text-align: center; font-family: "nyt-mag-slab", georgia, "times new roman", times, serif; font-size: 60px; color: black; margin-bottom: 25px; } .rad-series-box .rad-series-links { display: -ms-flexbox; display: flex; -ms-flex-direction: column; flex-direction: column; -ms-flex-align: center; align-items: center; } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) { .rad-series-box .rad-series-links { -ms-flex-direction: row; flex-direction: row; -ms-flex-pack: start; justify-content: flex-start; -ms-flex-align: start; align-items: flex-start; -ms-flex-wrap: wrap; flex-wrap: wrap; max-width: 830px; margin: 0 auto; } } .rad-series-box .rad-series-links li { -ms-flex: 1; flex: 1; margin: 10px 0; max-width: 500px; background: #000; width: 100%; } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) { .rad-series-box .rad-series-links li { min-width: calc(50% - 15px); margin: 7.5px; } } @media screen and (min-width: 960px) { .rad-series-box .rad-series-links li { width: calc(50% - 15px); max-width: 400px; min-width: 0; -ms-flex: 0 0 auto; flex: 0 0 auto; } } .rad-series-box .rad-series-links li a { display: -ms-flexbox; display: flex; -ms-flex-direction: column; flex-direction: column; color: #fff !important; margin-bottom: 0; } .rad-series-box .rad-series-links li a h3, .rad-series-box .rad-series-links li a p, .rad-series-box .rad-series-links li a .rad-series-link { margin-bottom: 0; color: #fff !important; font-family: "nyt-mag-slab", georgia, "times new roman", times, serif; border-bottom: 0px !important; text-shadow: none !important; } .rad-series-box .rad-series-links li a h3 a, .rad-series-box .rad-series-links li a p a, .rad-series-box .rad-series-links li a .rad-series-link a { display: inline; } .rad-series-box .rad-series-links li a .promo-image { width: 100%; } .rad-series-box .rad-series-links li a .promo-info { padding: 15px 20px; display: -ms-flexbox; display: flex; -ms-flex-direction: column; flex-direction: column; } .rad-series-box .rad-series-links li a .promo-info p { line-height: 1; } @media screen and (min-width: 720px) { .rad-series-box .rad-series-links li a .promo-info { min-height: 156px; 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margin: 50px; } .rad-article[data-slug="15mag-puerto-rico-oak"] .rad-article-credits { display: none; } The Education Issue The Disappearing Schools of Puerto Rico The Koch Foundation Is Trying to Reshape Foreign Policy. With Liberal Allies. I Was a Low-Income College Student. Classes Weren’t the Hard Part. What College Admissions Offices Really Want Anthony Abraham Jack, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Joshua Rashaad McFadden for The New York Times I Was a Low-Income College Student.Classes Weren’t the Hard Part. Schools must learn that when you come frompoverty, you need more than financial aid to succeed. By ANTHONY ABRAHAM JACK SEPT. 10, 2019 Night came early in the chill of March. It was my freshman year at Amherst College, a small school of some 1,600 undergraduates in the hills of western Massachusetts, and I was a kid on scholarship from Miami. I had just survived my first winter, but spring seemed just as frigid. Amherst felt a little colder — or perhaps just lonelier — without the money to return home for spring break like so many of my peers. At that moment, however, I thought less of home and more about the gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach. I walked past Valentine Hall, the cafeteria, its large windows ghostly in the moonlight. Only the emergency exit signs blazed red in the darkness. There was just enough light to see the chairs stacked on top of the tables and the trays out of reach through the gates that barred me from entry. Amherst provided no meals during holidays and breaks, but not all of us could afford to leave campus. After my first year, I knew when these disruptions were coming and planned for hungry days, charting them on my calendar. Back home in Miami, we knew what to do when money was tight and the family needed to be fed. At the time, in the late ’90s, McDonald’s ran a special: 29-cent hamburgers on Wednesdays and 39-cent cheeseburgers on Sundays. Without that special, I am not sure what we would have done when the week outlasted our reserves before payday. But up at Amherst, there was no McDonald’s special, no quick fix. I worked extra shifts as a gym monitor to help cover the unavoidable costs of staying on campus during breaks. At the gym, the vending machines were stocked with Cheetos and Yoo-hoos, welcome complements to the ham-and-cheese and peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches I got from CVS; there are no corner stores or bodegas in Amherst. Not so welcome was the air conditioning on full force in the gym, despite lingering mounds of snow outside. I would check in 20 or so people during my 10-hour shifts, mostly faculty and staff who lived in the area. I recognized them, but they didn’t pay me much mind. Friends would not return until the Friday and Saturday before classes began again. Many came back tan. But what I noticed more was how so many of them returned rested — how different our holidays had been. We like to think that landing a coveted college spot is a golden ticket for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. We think less critically about what happens next. I lived this gap as a first-generation college student. And I returned to it as a first-generation graduate student, spending two years observing campus life and interviewing more than 100 undergraduates at an elite university. Many students from low-income families described having to learn and decode a whole new set of cues and terms like professors’ “office hours” (many didn’t know what they were or how to use them), and foreign rituals like being invited to get coffee with an instructor (and not knowing whether they were expected to pay) — all those moments between convocation and commencement where college life is actually lived. function getFlexData() { return {"data":{"quote":"‘My financial-aid officer didn’t understand why I worked so many jobs or why I picked up even more hours at times.’","attribution":""}}; }var NYTD=NYTD || {}; NYTD.FlexTypes = NYTD.FlexTypes || []; NYTD.FlexTypes.push({"target":"FT100000006707195","type":"Pull Quote","data":{"quote":"‘My financial-aid officer didn’t understand why I worked so many jobs or why I picked up even more hours at times.’","attribution":""}}); ‘My financial-aid officer didn’t understand why I worked so many jobs or why I picked up even more hours at times.’ Now, as a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, I teach a course I’ve titled C.R.E.A.M. (Cash Rules Everything Around Me) — borrowing the title of that still-relevant Wu-Tang Clan track — in which we examine how poverty shapes the ways in which many students make it to and through college. Admission alone, as it turns out, is not the great equalizer. Just walking through the campus gates unavoidably heightens these students’ awareness and experience of the deep inequalities around them. I’ve spent half my life in Miami and the other half in Massachusetts. One 20-minute phone call with an Amherst football coach when I was a high school senior, and a college brochure that arrived two days later, brought this dual citizenship into existence. I can still hear my brother asking, “What is an Amherst?” We didn’t have internet at home, so we had to wait to get to the school computer lab before we could look up the unfamiliar name. We learned that the “H” was as silent as my brother was when he found out a United States president — Calvin Coolidge — was an alumnus, and so was the eminent black physician Dr. Charles Drew. Now maybe his baby brother could be one, too. The path from Miami to Massachusetts was not one that everyone around me could see. I attended George Washington Carver Middle School, which had an International Baccalaureate program, in my neighborhood, Coconut Grove. But the summer before I started at Carver, I took some summer school electives at Ponce de Leon Middle School, our zoned school, where my mom worked as a security guard and which she helped to desegregate in the ’60s. Before the starting bell one day, an assistant principal from Carver saw me goofing around with some friends from around the way. She strode over and said to me, “You don’t have the potential to be a Carverite.” That assistant principal saw black, boisterous boys and deemed us, and me, less than. She didn’t see my drive to succeed. My family didn’t have much, but since my days in Head Start, I was always a top performer in every subject. During one rough patch, I stayed home from school for a few days when we couldn’t afford all the supplies needed to carry out my science-fair experiment on bulb voltage and battery life. I developed my hypotheses and outlined my proposed methods without the materials and had everything ready to go when we were able to afford the supplies. I missed the ribbon but got the A. So on that summer morning when the assistant principal admonished me, anger welled up inside me, but I couldn’t let it show. That would have just played into her preconceived notion of who — or rather, what — I was. I had to prove her wrong. I had to prove myself right. But even as I write these words, I’m aware that this is exactly the kind of story that poor, black and Latinx students are conditioned to write for college application essays. In everyday life, as the poet Paul Laurence Dunbar wrote, we “wear the mask that grins and lies” that “hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,” but when we write these all-important essays we are pushed — by teachers, counselors and anyone who gives advice — to tug the heartstrings of upper-middle-class white admissions officers. “Make them cry,” we hear. And so we pimp out our trauma for a shot at a future we want but can’t fully imagine. At Coral Gables Senior High, I was the safe friend in the eyes of my friends’ mothers. The nerdy, chubby kid who geeked out to novels and cartoons did not pose as much of a threat as his less bookish football teammates. But being the safe friend couldn’t protect me any more than anyone else from the dangers all around us. I’m still haunted by the memory of one night when a group of us decided to go to the CocoWalk AMC theater for a movie. We ran into some folks from school near the corner of Frow and Elizabeth and stopped to joke and roast one another. Then, up ahead at the corner, we heard raised voices. We could make out three men starting to fight. As we watched, frozen, one picked up a cinder block and heaved it down on the head of another man on the ground. An angry voice rang out in our direction: “Who dat is down there?!” Terrified, we sprinted away behind the nearby houses. After seconds that felt like forever, doors slammed and a car sped off. We came out only after the roar of dual exhaust pipes faded away and raced home in the opposite direction, knowing better than to stay and invite questions. Once I was at Amherst, the phone would ring with news of similar nights. I would be reading a novel for class or reviewing my chemistry notes for a test when my mother’s ring tone, “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” by the Tokens, would break the silence. Something in her “Hey, Tony, you busy?” let me know I was about to share in the emotional burden that bad news brings. My family didn’t understand how disruptive those calls could be. Neither did I, really. No one had ever left. We normally went through these events together. But I was no longer able to help figure out when the coast was clear, to investigate the flashing police lights. I always wondered, unnerved, just how close my family was to whatever prompted such a call. I was away. They were still there. Neighborhoods are more than a collection of homes and shops, more than uneven sidewalks or winding roads. Some communities protect us from hurt, harm and danger. Others provide no respite at all. This process is not random but the consequence of historical patterns of exclusion and racism. Life in privileged communities means that children traverse safer streets, have access to good schools and interact with neighbors who can supply more than the proverbial cup of sugar. Life in distressed communities can mean learning to distinguish between firecrackers and gunshots. These starkly different environments have a profound impact on children’s cognitive functioning, social development and physical health. Research on concentrated disadvantage makes it abundantly clear that inequality depresses the mobility prospects of even the brightest kids, with poor black youth disproportionately exposed to neighborhood violence. In his 2010 study of Chicago youth from adolescence to young adulthood, the sociologist Patrick Sharkey, then at New York University and now at Princeton, shows how such violence disrupts learning in ways equivalent to missing two years of schooling. And yet we equate performance on tests with potential, as if learning happens in a vacuum. It doesn’t. Even if they make it to dorms on leafy-green campuses, disadvantaged students still live in poverty’s long shadow. They worry about those back home just as much as those back home worry about them. At Amherst, I would get messages, in the few moments I had between lunch and lab, announcing that someone needed something: $75 for diabetes medicine or $100 to turn the lights back on. One day a call announced that a $675 mortgage payment needed to be paid. It wasn’t the first time. I was annoyed. I was mad that I was annoyed. Was I not the future they had invested in all these years? Did I have enough to spare? Were they expecting the whole thing? How much time did I have? This was before apps like Venmo that allow you to send money to anyone instantly, so it would take almost three hours, start to finish, to get to the nearest Walmart, on Route 9, to send a bit of spare cash home by MoneyGram. That ride on the B43 bus was as lonely as it was long. By my junior year, I had secured four jobs in addition to monitoring and cleaning the gym. My financial-aid officer didn’t understand why I worked so many jobs or why I picked up even more hours at times. That fall, right after Hurricanes Katrina and Wilma, I was called in to the financial-aid office. They wanted to discuss my work schedule and to tell me that they would be reaching out to my bosses to let them know I needed to cut back hours. I was working too much; that’s what the work-study rules said. I pleaded with them not to. I needed the money. More truthfully, my family and I did. One responsibility of being the one who leaves is sending remittances back, a reality that many of us who are the first to venture away from home know all too well. I assured the officials I was handling all my work. In truth, I was really just pushing through; I became a robot, hyperscheduled and mechanical in my interactions. My grades were good, and so I thought I was good. I worried that if I worked less, I would not be able to help my family recover from the storms, let alone get through all their everyday emergencies. But if I was their safety net, I had none. [What college admissions offices really want.] I was surprised this spring when I learned about the College Board’s new Environmental Context Dashboard, renamed Landscape, a set of measures for colleges to use in admissions that takes into consideration students’ neighborhood and high school environments, the constellation of influences — individual and institutional — that shape students’ chances at upward mobility. Critics saw this “adversity index,” as it came to be known, as just another attempt by the College Board to maintain its dominance over college admissions or elide the harm that the SAT has inflicted upon generations of youth from disadvantaged communities. (After pressure, the College Board announced it would not combine the neighborhood and school scores into one individual score.) I hated the SAT. It stole Saturdays from me, especially when I transferred to the private high school where I spent my senior year on a scholarship. And not because I went to tutoring sessions or met with private coaches but because my more privileged peers did, while I passed the hours at home by myself. (I wasn’t doing practice tests either. I couldn’t afford the book.) Those lonely afternoons served as reminders of my poverty and also my precarious future. But now, as a sociologist of education who spent two years interning in the Amherst admissions office, I see the College Board’s new index as a step — and just one step — in the right direction to demonstrate the impact of instability that contributes to differences in performance and social well-being to admissions committees, those gatekeepers of higher education. And at a time when affirmative action is under renewed attack, the index permits an alternative to explicit considerations of race in college admissions by taking into account the ecological factors that are intimately tied to race. The supplemental scores Landscape provides can’t level the playing field, but they offer some context for just how unequal it is. Colleges have made racial and class diversity into virtues with which they welcome students during orientation and entice alumni to make donations. But students of color and those from lower-income backgrounds often bear the brunt of the tension that exists between proclamation and practice of this social experiment. Schools cannot simply showcase smiling black and brown faces in their glossy brochures and students wearing shirts blaring “First Gen and Proud” in curated videos and then abdicate responsibility for the problems from home that a more diverse class may bring with them to campus. Does this entail going beyond providing tuition, room and board? Yes. It requires colleges and universities to question what they take for granted, about their students and about the institutions themselves. And to do this, they’ll need more than an algorithm. What’s needed is a deeply human touch. This means ensuring that campus services meet the needs of all students. College can be a difficult time for everyone. Divorces of parents and deaths of grandparents are not uncommon. Counselors and advisers are more or less prepared for these universal types of challenges. But whom do students turn to when they get those 2 a.m. calls bringing news of street violence, eviction or arrests? Hiring more diverse staff and administrators, as well as those who are familiar with these issues, is important in this effort — but this work can’t just be consigned to the diversity dean, who is often the only person of color in the office. [Sign up for Race/Related, a weekly newsletter focused on race, identity and culture.] College administrations must make a sustained effort to understand the stress and isolation that can define everyday college life for these more vulnerable students.

      He explaining how difficult it can be trying to succeed through college and still maintain through your personal life without it not affecting your academics.

  4. Jan 2021
    1. Self-Serving Biases You may recall that the process of making causal attributions is supposed to proceed in a careful, rational, and even scientific manner. But this assumption turns out to be, at least in part, untrue. Our attributions are sometimes biased by affect—particularly the desire to enhance the self that we talked about in Chapter 3. Although we would like to think that we are always rational and accurate in our attributions, we often tend to distort them to make us feel better. Self-serving attributions are attributions that help us meet our desire to see ourselves positively (Mezulis, Abramson, Hyde, & Hankin, 2004). A particularly common example is the self-serving bias, which is the tendency to attribute our successes to ourselves, and our failures to others and the situation. We all make self-enhancing attributions from time to time. If a teacher’s students do well on an exam, he may make a personal attribution for their successes (“I am, after all, a great teacher!”). On the other hand, when they do poorly on an exam, the teacher may tend to make a situational attribution and blame them for their failure (“Why didn’t you all study harder?”). You can see that this process is clearly not the type of scientific, rational, and careful process that attribution theory suggests the teacher should be following. It’s unfair, although it does make him feel better about himself. If he were really acting like a scientist, however, he would determine ahead of time what causes good or poor exam scores and make the appropriate attribution, regardless of the outcome. You might have noticed yourself making self-serving attributions too. Perhaps you have blamed another driver for an accident that you were in or blamed your partner rather than yourself for a breakup. Or perhaps you have taken credit (internal) for your successes but blamed your failures on external causes. If these judgments were somewhat less than accurate, but they did benefit you, then they were indeed self-serving. Interestingly, we do not as often show this bias when making attributions about the successes and setbacks of others. This tendency to make more charitable attributions about ourselves than others about positive and negative outcomes often links to the actor-observer difference that we mentioned earlier in this section. It appears that the tendency to make external attributions about our own behavior and internal attributions about the conduct of others is particularly strong in situations where the behavior involves undesirable outcomes.

      This section gives additional explanation and examples for self-serving bias.

    2. The Actor-Observer Bias The fundamental attribution error involves a bias in how easily and frequently we make personal versus situational attributions about others. Another, similar way that we overemphasize the power of the person is that we tend to make more personal attributions for the behavior of others than we do for ourselves and to make more situational attributions for our own behavior than for the behavior of others. This is known as the actor-observer bias or difference (Nisbett, Caputo, Legant, & Marecek, 1973; Pronin, Lin, & Ross, 2002). When we are asked about the behavior of other people, we tend to quickly make trait attributions (“Oh, Sarah, she’s really shy”). On the other hand, when we think of ourselves, we are more likely to take the situation into account—we tend to say, “Well, I’m shy in my team at work, but with my close friends I’m not at all shy.” When a friend behaves in a helpful way, we naturally believe that he or she is a friendly person; when we behave in the same way, on the other hand, we realize that there may be a lot of other reasons why we did what we did.

      This section gives additional explanation and an example for actor-observer bias. The following paragraph lets you take a quiz to illustrate how it works.

    3. The tendency to overemphasize personal attributions in others versus ourselves seems to occur for several reasons. One is simply because other people are so salient in our social environments. When you look at someone’s behavior, you tend to focus on that person and are likely to make personal attributions about him or her. It’s just easy because you are looking right at the person. When you look at Cejay giving that big tip, you see him—and so you decide that he caused the action. In fact, research has shown that we tend to make more personal attributions for the people we are directly observing in our environments than for other people who are part of the situation but who we are not directly watching (Taylor & Fiske, 1975). When you think of your own behavior, however, you do not see yourself but are instead more focused on the situation. You also tend to have more memory for your own past situations than for others’. You come to realize that it is not only you but also the different situations that you are in that determine your behavior. Maybe you can remember the other times where you did not give a big tip, and so you conclude that your behavior is caused more by the situation than by your underlying personality. This greater access to evidence about our own past behaviors can lead us to realize that our conduct varies quite a lot across situations, whereas because we have more limited memory of the behavior of others, we may see them as less changeable. This in turn leads to another, related attributional tendency, namely the trait ascription bias, which defines a tendency for people to view their own personality, beliefs, and behaviors as more variable than those of others (Kammer, 1982). We are thus more likely to caricature the behaviors of others as just reflecting the type of people we think they are, whereas we tend to depict our own conduct as more nuanced, and socially flexible. A second reason for the tendency to make so many personal attributions is that they are simply easier to make than situational attributions. In fact, personal attributions seem to be made spontaneously, without any effort on our part, and even on the basis of only very limited behavior (Newman & Uleman, 1989; Uleman, Blader, & Todorov, 2005). Personal attributions just pop into mind before situational attributions do. One reason for this is that is cognitively demanding to try to process all the relevant factors in someone else’s situation and to consider how all these forces may be affecting that person’s conduct. It is much more straightforward to label a behavior in terms of a personality trait. Third, personal attributions also dominate because we need to make them in order to understand a situation. That is, we cannot make either a personal attribution (e.g., “Cejay is generous”) or a situational attribution (“Cejay is trying to impress his friends”) until we have first identified the behavior as being a generous behavior (“Leaving that big tip was a generous thing to do”). So we end up starting with the personal attribution (“generous”) and only later try to correct or adjust our judgment (“Oh,” we think, “perhaps it really was the situation that caused him to do that”). Adjusting our judgments generally takes more effort than does making the original judgment, and the adjustment is frequently not sufficient. We are more likely to commit attributional errors—for example quickly jumping to the conclusion that behavior is caused by underlying personality—when we are tired, distracted, or busy doing other things (Geeraert, Yzerbyt, Corneille, & Wigboldus, 2004; Gilbert, 1989; Trope & Alfieri, 1997).

      This section discusses possible reasons for the actor-observer effect.

    1. Those who will suffer when no sustainability is achieved are the beneficiaries of the sustainability concept!Beneficiaries = people + animals + plants

      I think this is what people forget. Our dependence on fossil fuels might power our lives now, but what about years from now? What will we do when there is nothing else left to mine? No trees left to cut down? No material left to burn? If we put the work in now to switch to renewable energy, our future generations may not feel the impact of our actions as heavily. They will have the chance to LEARN from our mistakes and not work to fix them when we could not.

    1. ince positionality is the multiple, unique experiences that situate each of us in relation to each other, no one student's perspective is privileged. Rather, all are privileged, and therefore all are empowered to speak: students from minor? ity and majority cultures can help teach each other in an atmosphere of mutual respect. When each student confronts his or her empowerment or disempower ment, privilege or lack thereof, no implicit or explicit judgment is leveled against them. No one student comes to embody the despised oppressor and no one student comes to embody the embattled oppressed. Rather, we encourage a scholarly contemplation and personal appreciation of all perspectives in a less politically loaded, less judgmental context. It is increasingly likely that students who would otherwise be marginalized will be heard, and less likely that they will be heard defensively. In my experience, if anger ensues, it is not likely to be directed at others in the class; rather, anger is channeled toward the forces of society that lead to oppression ? and hence that anger is more likely to result in deeper un? derstanding, and, I hope, informed action in the world.

      I see the relationship between our different experiences here and it's beautiful to understand it in the way it is written. I think peer groups, educators, communities everywhere, and the like should adopt this perspective of positionality and what it means for society.

      I think it makes room for tough conversations amongst students while forming a safe space. If I were working towards being a maladjusted educator I would draw some of my methods from here to encourage amongst my students. This section made me think about Martin Luther King Jr.'s mention of having no intentions of adjusting to segregation and discrimination. In one's efforts to maladjust to these factors I think they would be justified in doing so while I also can also see where it could stir up anger as they express themselves. Which brings me to conclude that in our efforts to be maladjusted educators, we must know in our disagreement with whatever we're maladjusting to, where that comes from and how to communicate that effectively without offending others or forming a defense wall when we may not have to. It's not the people we should be angry toward necessarily, rather, toward "the forces of society that lead to oppression - ".

    1. As humans we have the capacity to think about what we do and make conscious decisions—what may be termed ‘reflective motivation’. So, apart from wants and needs, there are thought processes that create and compare evaluations: beliefs about what is beneficial or harmful and right or wrong. These processes underlie our conscious decision-making, when we weigh up the costs and benefits of courses of action or work out solutions to problems. We also have the capacity to plan ahead, and these plans form much of the structure of our behaviour over the course of minutes, hours, days, weeks and years.

      İnsanlar olarak ne yaptığımız hakkında düşünme ve bilinçli kararlar verme kapasitesine sahibiz— buna 'yansıtıcı motivasyon' denebilir. Yani, istek ve ihtiyaçların dışında, değerlendirmeleri yaratan ve karşılaştıran düşünce süreçleri vardır: neyin faydalı, zararlı, neyin doğru ya da yanlış olduğuna dair inançlar. Bu süreçler, eylem kurslarının maliyetlerini ve faydalarını tartdığımız veya sorunlara çözüm çalıştığımızda bilinçli karar verme sürecimizin temelini oluşturur. Biz de önceden planlamak için kapasiteye sahip, ve bu planlar dakika, saat, gün, hafta ve yıl boyunca davranış yapısının çok oluşturur.

    1. ou are engaged whether you recognize it or not (apply what I am asking you to learn to do and you will understand what I mean).

      This is very true even though we may think we are engaged or not, most of the time we are because of course we vote for the things we want

    1. Note: This rebuttal was posted by the corresponding author to Review Commons. Content has not been altered except for formatting.

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      Reply to the reviewers

      We would like to thank the reviewers for taking the time to carefully evaluate our manuscript. The paper will be significantly improved by their suggestions, and we are grateful for their perspectives.

      To address the reviewers’ concerns, we will complete additional control experiments and revise the manuscript as detailed below.

      Reviewer #1 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      In the present work Stumpff, Reinholdt and co-workers investigate the mechanism by which micronuclei contribute to tumorigenesis. Micronuclei are classic markers of genomic instability widely used in the diagnosis of cancer, but whether they work as drivers of the process has recently attracted significant attention due to their link with chromothripsis. Here, the Stumpff/Reinhold labs have explored an interesting model to test some ideas about the role of micronuclei as drivers of tumorigenesis, based on Kif18A/p53 double KO mice. They confirm the formation of micronuclei in these animals, but find no substantial increase in survival and tumor incidence relative to p53 KO animals, despite higher incidence of micronuclei in Kif18A/p53 KO tumors. They conclude that, per se, micronuclei do not have the capacity to form tumors, regardless of p53 status. This was surprising, given the well-established role of p53 in preventing the proliferation of micronucleated cells. To shed light into this apparent paradox, they compared micronuclei from Kif18A KO cells with micronuclei generated by a number of other experimental conditions that promote formation of anaphase lagging chromosomes or generates acentric fragments. They found that micronuclei derived from Kif18A are intrinsically different from micronuclei generated by those other means and essentially showed increased accumulation of lamin B, were more resistant to rupture and preserved the capacity to expand as cells exited mitosis. Of note, they find a correlation between chromosome proximity to the poles/main chromosome mass and the different features that characterize micronuclei from Kif18A KO cells, compared with the other experimental conditions in which late lagging chromosomes are more frequent. Overall, I find this study extremely interesting, well designed and executed in a rigorous way that characterizes the consistent solid work from these laboratories over the years. I have just few minor points that I recommend to be addressed prior to publication. 1-Abstract and main text lines 70 and 100: the authors indicate that Kif18A mutant mice produce micronuclei due to unaligned chromosomes. This is correct, but at the same time misleading. The authors should clarify that although micronuclei derive from compromised congression, I was convinced from previous works (Fonseca et al., JCB, 2019) that it was their asynchronous segregation in anaphase that led to micronuclei formation. As is, a less familiar reader may conceive that misaligned chromosomes directly result in micronuclei, for example by being detached from the main chromosome mass.

      We thank the reviewer for raising this point. We agree that micronuclei form in the absence of KIF18A due to chromosome alignment defects, which reduces interchromosomal compaction and leads to asynchronous arrival of chromosomes at spindle poles during anaphase. As the reviewer suggests, micronuclei form around chromosomes that travel longer distances and arrive late to the poles. We have revised the manuscript to clarify this (Lines 12-13, 72-73, 102).

      2-Page 2, line 59: "cells entering cell division...become fragmented". It is not the cells, but the chromosomes that fragment. Please correct.

      We have revised this wording to indicate it is the chromosomes within micronuclei which fragment (Line 60-63).

      3-Page 4, line 149: "reduced survival in the Kif18A null, p53 mice". P53 what? KO, WT? Please clarify.

      We have revised this wording as suggested, to read: “reduced survival in the Kif18agcd2/gcd2, p53-/- mice,” (Line 158).

      4-Page 5, line 212: the authors refer that micronuclei were scored for absence of lamin A/C, but previously they scored it as "continuous/discontinuous". Please clarify.

      Thank you for raising this question. When we scored lamin A/C, we noted cases where lamin A/C signal was incompletely present (not fully co-localizing with the micronuclear area, as indicated by DAPI). In these infrequent cases, micronuclei were identified as having “discontinuous” lamin A/C signal and were binned with those micronuclei lacking lamin A/C, for purposes of creating a binary readout of the micronuclear envelope: either 1) “intact” (having full, completely continuous lamin A/C signatures) or 2) “ruptured” (lacking a complete micronuclear signal of lamin A/C). We will update the text and the methods to more clearly reflect this categorization (Lines 221-225; 603-607).

      5-Page 6, line 243: "Kif18A is not required for micronuclear envelope rupture". Shouldn't it be micronuclear envelope "integrity"?

      We apologize for the confusion here. The experiment performed was designed to distinguish whether micronuclear envelopes are more stable in KIF18A KO cells or if KIF18A itself is somehow required for the rupture of all micronuclear envelopes to occur. Since nocodazole-induced micronuclei were able to rupture in KIF18A KO cells at similar frequencies to those seen in control cells, the data indicate that KIF18A is not required for the process of micronuclear envelope rupture. We modified the text to improve clarity (lines 252-253).

      6-One of the most interesting results of the paper is the correlation between envelope formation in micronuclei with their respective position relative to the poles/midzone. Could the authors try to investigate causality? For instance, the authors refer to works from other labs in which MT bundles and a midzone Aurora B activity gradient might play a role in the different features associated with micronuclei envelope formation, depending on their origin. Could the authors manipulate this gradient and investigate whether it changes the outcome in terms of nuclear envelope assembly properties on micronuclei? Are there any detectable features in midzone MT organization in Kif18A KO cells that would justify the observed differences?

      We agree that this result is very interesting. However, we feel the proposed experiments would repeat previous work and are somewhat outside the purview of the present study. Elegant experiments to address Aurora’s role in preventing micronucleus formation have already been performed using genetic approaches in Drosophila neuroblasts and small molecule inhibitors in mammalian cells and Drosophila S2 cells (PMIDs: 24925910, 25877868, and 29986897). Interpreting effects of Aurora B inhibition are complicated by the many critical roles Aurora B plays in ensuring proper and faithful chromosome segregation. Thus, experiments to precisely test Aurora’s effect on micronuclear envelope stability require addition of Aurora B inhibitors on a cell-by-cell basis, administered within a narrow window of minutes during anaphase. It would require significant effort to obtain enough cells from different experimental conditions to make a meaningful comparison.

      The suggestion to investigate detectable differences or features in midzone MT organization in KIF18A KO cells is also appreciated. We have not observed gross differences in midzone microtubules in KIF18A KO cells, but we will quantitatively evaluate this and add these results to the revised manuscript.

      Reviewer #1 (Significance (Required)):

      Kif18A plays a key role in chromosome alignment, without apparently affecting kinetochore-microtubule attachments in non-transformed cells. Because they cannot establish a proper metaphase plate Kif18A KO cells enter anaphase with highly asynchronous segregation due to non-uniform chromosome distribution along the spindle axis. Consequently, some "delayed" chromosomes form micronuclei, in cell culture and in vivo. Interestingly, prior art has failed to detect any increased signs of genomic instability in Kif18A KO cells and mice, and, contrary to what would be expected based on current trends, these mice do now show any signs of increased incidence of tumors, in fact they even show some protective effect to induced colitis-associated colorectal cancer. Noteworthy, all previous experimental works pointing to a role of micronuclei as key intermediates of genomic instability in cancer relied on models in which the tumor suppressor protein p53 had been inactivated. In the present work, the authors explore the relationship between micronuclei formation and p53 inactivation by investigating tumor formation in Kif18A/p53 double KO animals (1 or 2 alleles of p53 inactivated).The reported results are timely and will attract the interest of a broad readership, while decisively contributing to shed light into an ongoing debate. I am therefore all in favor for the publication of this work in any journal affiliated with review commons, pending some minor revisions.

      Reviewer #2 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      Sepaniac and colleagues use in vivo and in vitro approaches to examine why micronuclei generated by lack of KIF18A activity do not promote tumorigenesis. The authors conclude that micronuclei in KIF18A depleted cells form stable micronuclear envelopes, which may be a result from lagging chromosomes being closer to the spindle pole when the micronuclear envelope forms. The authors further conclude that the stability of the micronuclei arising from lack of KIF18A can explain why Kif18a mutant mice do not develop tumors. These results also suggest that the consequences of micronuclei and their possible contribution to tumorigenesis depend on the context of their genesis. While the mouse model data and characterization of the stability of micronuclei generated by different insults support the conclusions, the lagging chromosome positioning data could be improved. Moreover, a number of other issues should be addressed prior to publication.

      **Major issues:**

      1.Line 153-155. The authors conclude that the slight reduction in overall survival is "due to a reduced ability of Kif18a mutants to cope with rapid tumorigenesis," but it is unclear why this would be the case. There is also an increase in micronucleated cells in thymic lymphomas from Kif18a/p53 homozygous mice (Fig. 2B)-could this not contribute? In Fig. 3C, the authors show that micronuclear rupture is similar in both Kif18a WT and mutant mice, so it seems possible that the increase in the frequency of micronuclei (Fig. 2B) coupled with a similar frequency of micronuclear rupture (Fig. 3C) could lead to the reduced survival. Then, in the discussion, the authors downplay this finding by saying (line 371) "loss of Kif18a had modest or no effect on survival of Trp53 homozygotes and heterozygotes." Why then speculate earlier in the text that loss of Kif18a reduces the ability to cope with tumorigenesis?

      We thank the reviewer for pointing out this issue. Our goal here was to try and explain why the Kif18a/p53 mutant homozygotes display a small but significant reduction in survival compared to p53 mutants, while the Kif18a mutation does not impact survival of p53 heterozygotes, which could be considered a more sensitive model for detecting decreased survival. Kif18a homozygous mutants do display a small reduction in survival shortly after birth compared to heterozygote and wild type littermates (PMID: 25824710). Thus, we can’t exclude the possibility that incompletely penetrant, postnatal lethality might be coincident with reduced fitness in surviving mutants, thus naming them more sensitive to loss of p53 loss of function. We have removed this statement form the revised text.

      However, the reviewer’s point that the combination of increased micronuclei in Kif18a/p53 homozygous mutants combined with a similar rupture rate seen in p53 mutants could also underlie or at least contribute to reduced survival is a good one. We have softened our conclusion in the Results section regarding the reduced survival of double homozygous mice (lines 158-164). We also agree that the way in which this point is addressed in the results and discussion sound contradictory. Thus, we have edited the language in the Discussion to improve consistency (lines 393-399).

      2.Related to the point above, the authors show in figure 3 that the micronuclei found in healthy tissues display infrequent membrane rupture (panel B). However, micronuclear membrane rupture in tumor tissues is much more frequent (panel C). How do the authors explain this? Do they hypothesize that the micronuclei in the tumors originate by mechanisms other than the misalignment caused by lack of KIF18A? Does KIF18A depletion cause aneuploidy due to segregation of two sisters to the same pole? If so, one could expect the tumors to be aneuploid (is this the case?) and aneuploidy has been shown by numerous groups to cause genomic instability. Such genomic instability could then explain the difference in membrane rupture.

      We agree that this is an interesting question. We plan to investigate several possible contributors to increased rupture in tumor cells in a separate study. As outlined in the Discussion (lines 443-458), we hypothesize that rupture could increase in tumor tissue due to changes in lamin expression or cytoskeletal forces in these cells. However, as the reviewer notes, differences in aneuploidy could also potentially explain the differences in membrane rupture observed in healthy (non-tumorous) and thymic lymphoma tissues. For example, an increase in chromosome number could lead to lagging chromosomes being positioned closer to the midzone in Kif18a mutant cells or, as the reviewer suggests, the micronuclei could occur in aneuploid tumors due mitotic defects other than misalignment. This may be difficult to determine unequivocally in primary cell or tissue samples. However, we do have a limited quantity of primary thymic lymphoma-derived cells and we will use these to initially investigate aneuploidy in the two genotypes. The results of these studies will be added to the final revised manuscript. In addition, we will incorporate a discussion of how aneuploidy may increase rupture frequency in tumors into the revised manuscript.

      3.The authors conclude that lagging chromosomes in KIF18A KO cells are found closer to the main chromatin mass. The Stumpff lab showed in a 2019 JCB paper that KIF18 KO cells have a chromosome alignment defect and as a result during anaphase the chromosomes can be scattered rather than forming the tight, uniform mass that is observed in WT cells. The scattering of kinetochores resulting from this phenotype could affect the value of "Avg Chromosomes Distances" in Fig 7B and the normalized distance in the KIF18A KO cells. Therefore, live-cell imaging experiments would be helpful to resolve this and possibly strengthen this conclusion. RPE1 cells with fluorescently tagged CENP-A and centrin could be used to ensure that the lagging chromosomes will not rejoin the main nucleus. Moreover, these cells could be used for correlative live-fixed cell experiments in which fixed cell analysis following micronucleus formation could be used to show that chromosomes that lag farther away from the spindle pole are more likely to have defective micronuclear envelopes.

      The reviewer’s concern that the unalignment phenotype, characteristic of KIF18A KO cells, may impact the value of average chromosome distances used to set a threshold for chromosomes meeting our definition of lagging is valid. To address this, we analyzed the standard deviations for chromosome-to-pole distances within half spindles of KIF18A KO and nocodazole-washout treated anaphase cells as a way to compare chromosome scattering in these two conditions. This analysis revealed no significant difference between the standard deviations of chromosome positions in the two groups, suggesting that scattering is similar in nocodazole treated and KIF18A KO cells. We have included these data in the manuscript (Line 351-356, and additional data added to Figure S2C).

      In order to further strengthen this conclusion, we are certainly willing to attempt the live cell imaging experiments suggested by the reviewer. We would like to point out that the frequency of micronucleus formation in the KIF18A KO cells is relatively low compared to the frequency seen after other experimental treatments (~7% of divisions result in a micronucleus). Thus, a large number of individual cells would need to be imaged with relatively high temporal resolution to make conclusions about the effects of chromosome position on micronuclear envelope formation (such analyses are not possible with the live data sets we currently have, where cells were imaged every 2 minutes). This difficulty led us to perform these measurements in synchronized and fixed cells to begin with.

      4.Based on the Fonseca et al. 2019 JCB paper (video 2), micronuclei from KIF18A KO do not exclusively arise from lagging chromosomes. Instead, chromosomes can also escape the main chromatin mass after segregation and subsequently be excluded from the main nucleus. It would be important to know what fraction of the micronuclei in KIF18A KO cells arise via lagging chromosomes. Since Aurora B and/or bundled microtubules at the spindle midzone are believed to prevent proper nuclear envelope formation, chromosomes that properly segregate but later become separated from the main nucleus would be more likely to form proper micronuclear envelopes than those arising from lagging chromosomes. The correlative microscopy experiment suggested in the previous point could allow differentiation between these two routes to micronucleus formation.

      The reviewer is correct that we did occasionally see chromosomes escape the main chromatin mass after segregation in the Fonseca et al., 2019 study referenced. We did not quantify the frequency of these events in that study, but they were rare. To address this quantitatively, we have measured the incidence of micronuclear formation around lagging chromosomes and chromosomes that escape the main chromatin mass after segregation in videos of KIF18A KO cells. We find that when micronuclei form in these cells, they form around lagging chromosomes 98% (46 out of 47 events) of the time. These data were derived from 4 live cell imaging experiments. This information has been added to the Results section (line 328-330).

      **Minor issues:**

      1.Some parts of the manuscript are excessively wordy and some sentences are unclear or convoluted (e.g., lines 148-153 and 238-239).

      Thank you for this feedback. We have revised the text in these two locations to improve clarity (lines 159-162 and 247-248 in the revised manuscript).

      2.Lines 59-61. This sentence is formulated incorrectly. First of all, the subject of the sentence is "cells" and the verb is "can become fragmented." However, the authors mean that the DNA in the micronucleus can become fragmented (not the cells). Moreover, the way the sentence is currently formulated seems to suggested that the fragmentation occurs during cell division. However, this is not the case. Please, revise the text to make it more accurate.

      We appreciate this point and have revised this text to reflect more precise language to describe this model. It is certainly the micronucleated chromatin which may become fragmented, and this fragmentation occurs as a result of replication stress, including replication fork collapse, after an existing micronucleated cell enters a subsequent round of S or G2 phase (PMIDs: 22258507, 26017310).

      3.Lines 114-115. Please, provide references in support of this statement.

      The statement in question: “This arrest was at least partially dependent on p53, consistent with other reports of cell cycle arrest following micronucleation,” shares the same references as the sentence that follows it (Sablina 1998, Thompson and Compton, 2010; Fonseca et al., 2019). We have updated the references to appear after the first statement to make this clear.

      4.Line 153. The authors refer to Fig. 1C, but I think they mean Fig. 1B.

      Thank you, we have updated the text to read Fig 1B.

      5.Line 324. the authors find that RPE1 KIF18A KO cells have lagging chromosomes in ana/telophase 9% of the time, then say that this shows that lagging chromosomes are rare in KIF18A KO cells. However, this is a large increase compared to normal RPE1 cells, which only have 1-2% frequency of lagging chromosomes. So, they should revise the text here to say that the rates of lagging chromosomes from KIF18A KO are lower compared to the rates induced by nocodazole washout.

      This is an important distinction. We have removed this confusing statement from the revised text (lines 336-338).

      6.Line 383. The references listed here should be moved earlier and specifically after the statement summarizing the results of the studies instead of being listed after the authors' conclusion/interpretation of the data. The same issue was noted in other parts of the manuscript.

      We have corrected this error (Lines 402-408). Before final submission, we will further amend the style of the manuscript throughout to cite relevant papers after the statement summarizing the results of those studies, rather than after our interpretation of the studies.

      7.Figure 1A. In the text, the authors say they cross a Kif18a heterozygous mutant mouse with a p53 heterozygous mutant mouse, but the two mice in this figure are already heterozygous for both. Please, revise the text or depict the previous additional cross necessary to obtain the double heterozygous.

      We thank the reviewer for catching this discrepancy. We have revised the text to describe the crosses necessary to obtain the double heterozygous mice shown in the figure (lines 121-123). The gcd2 mutation in Kif18a was named due to the “germ cell depleted” phenotype it causes. These homozygous mice are therefore infertile (Czechanski et al., 2015). For this reason, heterozygous mice for each gene were crossed to achieve the necessary homozygous progeny.

      8.Figure 3A. Arrows or dotted circles outlining the micronuclei in the insets of the middle and bottom rows would be helpful since the DAPI signal in the micronuclei is low and somewhat difficult to see.

      We have updated these figures as suggested to more clearly indicate the micronuclear area.

      9.Figure 3B. Error bars should be added to the graph. Moreover, the authors noted that the differences are not significant. However, this seems surprising, given that in some cases there is a three- to five-fold difference between certain pairs. Indeed, a chi-square test using the numbers from table S1 indicated p values We appreciate this feedback on the statistical tests and comparisons among these data. The main point of these analyses is to demonstrate that tissues other than blood form micronuclei in vivo in the absence of Kif18a function and that the majority of these micronuclear envelopes are completely surrounded by Lamin A/C. The data presented in Figure 3B were obtained by counting several tissue types from a single mouse of each genotype. Thus, we do not believe that error bars are appropriate in this context. To avoid confusion, we have also removed the statistical bars which had indicated no significant differences in rupture frequency among the genotypes in each sampled tissue, as these are also probably inappropriate.

      We understand the reviewer’s point that some pairwise comparisons of the data in Table S1 indicate that they are significantly different. We originally used a Chi-square test to compare the data from all three genotypes for each tissue. Because these data did not rise to the threshold of significance necessary to reject the null hypothesis across all three genotypes within each individual tissue type, we did not think performing pairwise comparisons between only two of those genotypes was appropriate (Whitlock and Schluter, The Analysis of Biological Data, 2009). Specifically, analyses of rupture frequency for spleen, liver, and thymus tissue gave p-values above 0.05 (spleen, p = 0.35; liver, p = 0.056; thymus, p = 0.052). Thus, we did not proceed with pairwise comparisons. In contrast, the analyses of p53 effects on micronucleus levels in peripheral blood in Fig 1D utilized samples from 8 individual mice for each genotype, and are therefore more amenable to statistical comparisons. If the reviewer believes any of the details of this approach are incorrect, we are happy to revise the analyses.

      10.Figure 5G. When referring to this figure (lines 292-294), the authors talk about correlation. However, the points in this graph seem to be scattered a bit randomly.

      To address this concern, we performed a Pearson’s correlation test on the data in Figure 5G. As suspected by the reviewer, this analysis did not indicate a significant correlation, and we have removed this plot from the manuscript.

      11.Figure 6B-D. The Y-axis titles of the three graphs are a bit confusing. Please, consider revising.

      We have updated the Y-axis titles for these graphs to more accurately represent what is displayed on each plot.

      12.In Figure 7 and the text, the authors use the terms "late-lagging" and "lagging" chromosomes interchangeably, which is somewhat confusing in this context because lagging chromosome distance from the main chromosome mass is thought to contribute to defective assembly of micronuclear envelopes. It is not clear whether the authors intend to indicate, with this term, that the lagging chromosome is farther away from the main chromosome mass or that the lagging chromosome is in a "late" anaphase cell. Because this is confusing, I suggest just using the term "lagging chromosome" consistently. It could be useful to include representative images of lagging chromosomes located at different distances from the main chromosome mass. And certainly, the authors should include an example of a lagging chromosome in the KIF18A KO cells.

      We agree with the reviewer’s concern regarding confusion of these terms. We have updated the text to use the term “lagging chromosome” consistently, as the reviewer suggests. We have also updated Figure 7A to include a representative image of a lagging chromosome in a KIF18A KO cell.

      13.Figure S2A. The example in the bottom right image looks more like a chromosome bridge than a lagging chromosomes. Kinetochore staining is necessary to unequivocally identify lagging chromosomes.

      We agree with the reviewer that kinetochore staining is necessary to precisely identify lagging chromosomes. We had used these images to quickly and crudely assess the presence and frequency of potentially lagging chromosomes, observed in late-anaphase cells by eye, and for subsequent experiments where lagging chromosomes were measured, repeated these experiments with proper staining of poles and kinetochores to make precise, quantifiable assessments. Reviewer #2 (Significance (Required)):

      Based on the previous knowledge on the factors that cause abnormal assembly of the micronuclear membrane, the results presented in this study were somewhat predictable. However, these findings will add to the knowledge of how micronuclei form and the potential factors that lead to micronuclear membrane rupture. Previous studies investigating micronucleus behavior have focused on micronuclei arising via merotelic kinetochore mis-attachments. These mis-attachments lead to formation of micronuclei close to the spindle midzone. In the present study, instead, the micronuclei arising from lack of KIF18A activity form farther away from the spindle midzone. The results presented here suggest that the positioning of these micronuclei farther away from the midzone enables assembly of a more stable micronuclear membrane that will be less likely to rupture during the following cell cycle. A recent study showed that the microtubule bundles in the spindle midzone interfere with micronuclear membrane assembly. Based on this, it is not surprising that micronuclei forming away from the spindle midzone (like those resulting from lack of KIF18A activity) assemble more normal membranes. Although somewhat expected, this study provides the actual data in support of this phenomenon. This study will be of interest to cell biologists interested in cell division and genomic instability. My research has focused on cell division, aneuploidy, and chromosomal instability for nearly thirty years. Therefore, I believe I am fully qualified to evaluate this manuscript.

      **Referees cross-commenting**

      My areas of expertise do not include nuclear membrane structure and function. Therefore, I encourage the authors to consider the comments of reviewer #3 for issues related to reliable quantification of micronuclear membrane rupture.

      Reviewer #3 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      **Summary** Sepaniac et al demonstrate that loss of KIF18a, a motor protein required for proper chromosome congression and chromatin compaction during mitosis, is insufficient to drive tumor development in mice although it does increase the frequency of micronuclei (MN), nuclear compartments that form around broken or missegregated chromosomes, in both normal and tumor tissue. MN are thought to increase genome instability and metastasis by undergoing DNA damage and activating innate immune signaling after irreparable nuclear membrane rupture. The authors use a non-transformed human cell line, hTERT-RPE-1, with KIF18a knocked out to demonstrate that MN formed as a result of KIF18a loss have more stable nuclear membranes than MN generated by other methods. They go on to correlate this increased stability with increased chromosome proximity to the main chromatin mass during nuclear envelope assembly and increased chromatin decompaction by a combination of fixed and live cell imaging.

      **Major Comments**

      1.This study relies heavily on the use of lamin A loss or discontinuity to identify ruptured micronuclei. Although the authors validate this marker against "leakage" of the soluble nuclear protein mCherry-NLS, there are several lines of evidence suggesting that lamin A loss or disruption is not a reliable reporter. In figure S3C, the top two panels of intact MN in the KIF18KO appear ruptured based on the gH2AX labeling, yet have significant levels of lamin A and are labeled as intact. In figure 4D, the rate of MN rupture after nocodazole release (60% ruptured in 2 hours) is much faster than that reported in other papers (40-60% in 16-18 hours, Liu et al; 60% in 16 hours; Hatch et al). In addition, images in Hatch et al, 2013 show lamin A localizing to both intact and ruptured MN and anecdotal information in the field suggests that lamin A localization is not a reliable reporter.

      These discrepancies may be due to how the authors' define "mCherry-NLS leakage", which needs to be defined in the methods as previous studies have demonstrated that MN frequently have delayed or reduced nuclear import even though the membrane is intact. Regardless, the authors need to provide compelling independent evidence that lamin A loss and disruption faithfully recognize ruptured MN by either validating this marker against additional rupture reporters, such as Lap2, LBR, or emerin accumulation, or by repeating key experiments in cells expressing mCherry-NLS.

      Our decision to use lamin A/C as a reporter was based on its use as a marker for micronuclear envelope presence in prior studies (Hatch, 2013; Liu, 2018). We were unaware of anecdotal information in the field that suggests that lamin A localization may not be a reliable reporter.

      However, we think we understand the reviewer’s point to be that although it is clear from prior studies that gaps in the nuclear lamina are a known predictor of micronuclear rupture, these gaps can persist for some time before rupture has actually occurred. We agree that this is an important distinction and thank the reviewer for raising these questions.

      As the reviewer notes, we performed control experiments to address this issue and validate the use of lamin A/C as a marker of micronuclear envelope rupture. Our approach involved correlating lamin staining with the localization of mCherry-NLS signal to the micronucleus (Figure S1). We found that these signals correlated well. As the reviewer points out, this analysis in fixed cells could be misleading in cases where nuclear import is reduced, but the micronuclear envelope is intact. If this were a significant contributor, we may have expected to see greater instances of micronuclei that exhibit continuous lamin A/C signal but lack nuclear localization of mCherry-NLS. However, we found this combination was rare among the KIF18A and RPE1 nocodazole washout treated cells (2%, or 1 of 46 micronuclei had continuous lamin A/C while lacking mCherry-NLS). We admit that this assumption may be oversimplified though.

      The reviewer’s point about the timing of nocodazole treatment and washout something we have definitely considered. We note that prior studies have used differing time points after nocodazole treatment and release. For Hatch et al., 2013: U2OS cells were treated for 6 hours with nocodazole and then subjected to mitotic shakeoff, 48% of micronuclei were ruptured after 6 hours and ~60% were ruptured after 16 hours. Similarly, in Liu et al., 2018 60% of micronuclei were ruptured 16 hours post mitotic shake off and nocodazole release. While these results suggest that rupture increases with time after mitosis, it isn’t clear how early rupture may occur. In other words, does it take several hours in G2 before nearly half of micronuclei rupture or do many of these rupture shortly after cell division?

      We note that other explanations could also potentially contribute to the differences in rupture rates reported in our study compared to those in previous publications. For example, we used a short nocodazole treatment (2 hrs) compared to the longer treatments (6 hrs) used in previous studies. We did this originally in order to produce a similar percentage of micronucleated cells as is seen in KIF18A KO cell populations. However, the difference in nocadozole treatment length could potentially influence the types and frequencies of kinetochore microtubule attachments formed. For example, if centrosomes stay closer together in mitotic cells after short nocodazole treatments, this could increase the number of abnormal attachments (e.g. PMID: 22130796). Such an effect would be expected to increase the frequency of lagging chromosomes and/or potentially produce more lagging chromosomes within the anaphase midzone.

      The best way to address this issue would be to repeat our analyses of mcherry-NLS in live cells to track the formation and rupture of micronuclei. We did attempt these live imaging experiments previously and have found this experiment challenging due to: 1) the low frequency of micronuclear formation in KIF18A KO cell population; 2) a low transfection/expression efficiency for the mCherry-NLS plasmid in RPE1 cells, and 3) photobleaching of the mCherry-NLS plasmid. For these reasons, we transitioned into fixed cell experiments for the mCherry-NLS reporter. However, we propose to troubleshoot this assay and attempt to obtain the data necessary to determine when rupture is occurring. In addition, we will use additional markers to investigate micronuclear envelope stability, as the reviewer has suggested.

      Regardless of the outcome of these experiments, we have measured a clear difference between the lamin deposition within micronuclear envelopes of KIF18A KO cells compared to those formed following other insults. Lamin recruitment is well established as a predictor of nuclear envelope stability. If necessary, we could alter the text to indicate that the presence of lamin A/C and B within micronuclear envelopes of KIF18A KO cells are indicative of nuclear envelope stability, and that this is distinct from the lamin profiles of micronuclei in cells subjected to nocodazole-washout.

      2.Micronuclei in tumor sections and other dense tissues can appear very similar to other types of chromatin, including blebs from adjacent nuclei and dead cells. To verify that the quantified structures are bona fide micronuclei, the authors need to include a marker for the cell boundary. This is especially critical in the lamin a stained tumor sections with heterogenous lamin A protein expression.

      We appreciate the point this reviewer raises and we carefully considered accurate identification of micronuclei in tissues. Three optical sections were collected from each sample. During analyses, we scrolled through the ~2-micron thick sections to exclude chromatin bodies connected to an out-of-plane nucleus or nuclear bleb. We have a limited number of sectioned and preserved thymic lymphoma tissues remaining. We will use these samples to reassess micronuclear frequency in the presence of a cell boundary marker.

      3.Figure 4 compares MN rupture frequency between cells treated with different inducers of micronuclei - KIF18A KO, nocodazole release, and irradiation. These treatments have different effects on the cell cycle: KIF18A causes minor delays, nocodazole arrests cells in mitosis, and g-IR likely causes delays in S and G2. Since MN rupture frequency increases with the duration of interphase, the authors need to assess rupture frequency at similar time points after mitosis for all three conditions. One way to accomplish this would be to repeat this experiment and analyze cells collected by mitotic cells by shake-off prior to fixation and labeling.

      We appreciate this point regarding differences in mitotic timing. Since micronuclear rupture frequency increases with time in interphase, we would expect the MN in KIF18A KO cells to exhibit the highest level of rupture if cell cycle timing were the primary variable affecting stability in our experiments. KIF18A KO cells are asynchronously dividing, and the micronuclei examined in populations of those cells could have been generated at any time. We do not have the same type of temporal control of these events as we do with drug treatment. In contrast, the vast majority of the MN in nocodazole washout cells would not have been in interphase for more than 1.5 hours in our experiments, yet showed increased lamin A/C defects. RPE1 cells treated with MAD2 siRNA knockdown, which do not experience mitotic delays (PMID: 9606211; 15239953), also showed greater frequencies of micronuclear envelopes which lacked lamin A/C compared to those arising in KIF18A KO cells.

      To further address this question, we could attempt a mitotic shake-off assay, however, we believe that the formation of micronuclei, as a percentage in the population of KIF18A KO cells, will be limiting in these experiments.

      As an alternative, we propose to use live cell imaging to follow micronuclear formation and rupture, as described above in reference to point 1.

      **Minor Comments**

      1.In figure 6A, it is unclear when the videos start and how micronuclei are selected for analysis. Do the micronuclei have to be continuously visible from the time they missegregate? Do the videos all start at the same time point during mitosis or is it contingent on when the MN appears separated from the main nucleus? One concern is that a consistent delay in micronucleus appearance in the nocodazole treated cells could artificially decrease the amount of MN expansion observed.

      We thank the reviewer for these questions. The individual micronuclei did not need to be continuously visible from the time that they missegregated, though the majority were. When a micronucleus was not sufficiently in the plane of focus for an accurate area measurement, the individual measurement at that time point was not collected. In cases where one or more frames which were not measurable, a micronucleus was only included in the final data set if it was 1) the only micronucleus present in the daughter cell or 2) easily identifiable to be the same micronucleus. Measurements were taken until the micronuclear area reached an equilibrium for several frames. Final fold change in area was established by dividing final area measurements by initial measurements.

      The initial measurement for each micronucleus taken from the videos all start at the same relative point during mitosis, which is just after chromosome segregation has occurred.

      2.In figure 7A, it is difficult to identify the "lagging" chromosome in the top panel. It would be helpful to label the chromosome that becomes the MN, or ideally, to include a video or still images to demonstrate how micronuclei form in the KIF18A KO cells.

      We have updated the images in Figure 7A to include an example of a lagging chromosome in a KIF18A KO cell. We will also include a more explicit reference to our previous study (Fonseca et al., 2019), which described how micronuclei form around lagging chromosomes in KIF18A KO RPE1 cells.

      3.The two image panels in figure 7A are imaged at significantly different times during anaphase (early anaphase on bottom versus late anaphase/telophase on top). A better comparison would be between two cells at the same time point in anaphase.

      We have updated the images in Figure 7A to compare cells at similar stages of anaphase. In our quantification of lagging chromosomes, we also accounted for anaphase-timing differences by normalizing all measurements within each half-spindle.

      Reviewer #3 (Significance (Required)):

      In this study, the authors identify chromatin decondensation in micronuclei as a new predictor of membrane stability. Although these results are correlative, if their micronucleus rupture results can be validated as described in major comment 1, this study would advance our understanding of the micronucleus rupture mechanism by linking mitotic spindle location, chromatin decondensation, and lamin B1 protein recruitment. This would provide needed support to a current model in the field that micronucleus stability is largely determined during nuclear envelope assembly. In addition, if KIF18a loss generates stable micronuclei at high frequency, it will become a critical system for testing MN rupture hypotheses in the field. Thus, this work would be of significant interest to cell biologists working on nuclear envelope structure and function, chromosome organization, and mitosis. I include myself in this group as a cell biologist studying nuclear envelope structure and function with an expertise in membrane dynamics. The authors also find that mice mutant for KIF18a have increased micronucleation in normal tissues but not increased tumor initiation. They hypothesize that this is due to the low rupture frequency of KIF18a-induced MN, however their data cannot reject the null hypothesis that the small increase in MN they see in KIF18a mutant mice would be insufficient to induce tumorigenesis even if rupture frequency was high. Thus the significance of their finding that micronucleation is not sufficient for cancer progression is unclear. However, the thorough analysis of micronucleation and rupture in several healthy tissues as well as a tumor model in KIF18 mutant mice would be of interest to both pathologists and cancer researchers focused on mechanisms of genome instability. These types of experiments are critical to determine how micronuclei contribute to cancer progression and the quantifications presented in this paper are truly impressive.

      We appreciate this reviewer’s enthusiasm for our work and acknowledge that we cannot definitively conclude that micronuclear envelope stability explains why Kif18a mutant mice do not form tumors. However, it is interesting to note that the micronuclear loads measured using a peripheral erythrocyte assay are similar in Kif18agcd2/gcd2 mutant mice (0.6% micronucleated erythrocytes, of total erythrocytes) and ATMtm1 Awb/tm1 Awb mutant mice (0.6% of micronucleated erythrocytes, of total) (Fonseca et al., 2019). Yet, the tumor frequency in these two models is dramatically different: Kif18agcd2/gcd2 mutant mice do not spontaneously form tumors – while the majority of ATMtm1 Awb/tm1 Awb mutant mice do develop thymic lymphoma tumors between 2 and 4 months (Barlow, 1996). It is not clear how much micronuclei contribute to tumorigenesis in the ATM mutant model, but this comparison does suggest that the increase in MN seen in Kif18a mutants may be physiologically relevant. We have added this information to the revised text (lines 125-130).

      **Referees cross-commenting**

      I agree with the concerns raised by the other 2 reviewers, especially their comments about the need to clarify the mechanism of chromosome lagging versus chromosome congression and compaction. I think that all of these suggestions, though, are contingent on them being able to reproduce their micronucleus rupture results with a better marker of nucleus integrity. I strongly believe that additional validation of lamin A as a micronucleus rupture marker will demonstrate that it is unreliable, based both on our own observations in RPE-1 cells and the images they show

    1. Reviewer #3:

      Behaviours that are instrumental for producing reward can be either goal-directed or, after repeated practice, habitual. Tasks that dissociate these types of learning, notably outcome devaluation, are tricky to implement for studying intravenous drug delivery although there is great interest to understand the role of habits in controlling drug use and addiction and so this paper is important in that regard. This article takes a new approach analyzing response latencies to infer the types of decision-making process that underlies a reward-seeking behaviour. Goal-directed behaviours are argued to involve evaluation of the outcome of responding and/or deliberation between choices both of which should take time, and slow responding relative to an efficient but inflexible habit. So I think this approach is quite interesting. The paper is well written and the predictions are clear.

      My main issue in evaluating the current article is that while different predictions are made about when response latency should be relatively fast or slow, since the article is framed in terms of dissociating goal-directed and habitual processes, I feel there should be some independent evaluation of whether the target behaviour is in fact goal-directed or habitual. The authors rely on the amount of training as extended training has been shown to promote habitual control. However, exactly how much training is needed and how other parameters (type of reward, schedules of reinforcement, choice or single outcome) affect when habitual control may emerge varies widely in the literature and I don't think we can take for granted that after a certain amount of training responding will be habitual without testing that.

      It is also important to consider alternative explanations for differences in response latency. A behaviour that is well-practiced might well be expected to become more efficient and faster. This need not be due to habit formation. The authors acknowledge the possibility that responding could be at floor but don't really discuss it or whether it might apply more to the saccharin response.

    2. Reviewer #1:

      Vandaele et al. probe the mechanisms of decision making in rats when making a forced choice between drug and non-drug reward. The authors have led the field in this domain. In this manuscript, a retrospective analysis of choice response times from many rats in their past work is used to tease out potential decision-making mechanisms. We know already from decades of work that choice response times are almost always log-normally distributed (humans, non-human primates, rodents). The question here is whether differences in the mean and dispersion of these distributions can be used to derive insights into nature of the decision-making mechanism - a deliberative comparison versus a race model - and how this may differ for rats that prefer cocaine over saccharin and how this might be altered by more extended training. These questions are framed in terms of the differences between goal-directed and habitual behavior which, to be frank, I found less compelling (these response time data are of significant interest in their own right). I enjoyed reading this manuscript. It was thoughtful and well presented. I have only two comments.

      First, much, if not all, of the absolute differences between latencies in sample and choice phases appear to be carried by the sample rather than the choice phase. Choice latencies for cocaine preferring rats, saccharin preferring rats, and the indifferent rats are all very similar. In contrast, the sampling latencies for cocaine preferring rats and the indifferent rats are longer. I am not sure why this should be. My reading was that the authors were more concerned with the choice side of the experiment being different, not the sample phase. Is this predicted by the models being tested? I struggled to understand why an SCM-like model would predict the difference being in the sample phase. Either way, the authors could be clearer about where the difference is expected to lie and why the sample phase is so obviously different in some conditions and the choice phase so similar.

      Second, the main and real issue for me is whether the differences between response latencies in the sample versus choice phases plausibly reflect operation of different decision making mechanisms (race model versus deliberative processing) or different operation of the same decision-making mechanism. I don't know the answer, but I could not really derive the answer from the data and modelling provided. The authors frame the differences in response time as being uniquely predicted or explained by different forms of choice. The models that the authors are using are closely linked to, and intellectually derived from, models of human choice reaction time. The most successful of these models are the diffusion model (DDM) (Ratcliff, R., Smith, P.L., Brown, S.D., and McKoon, G. (2016). Diffusion Decision Model: Current Issues and History. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 20, 260-281) and the linear ballistic accumulator (LBA) (Brown, S.D., and Heathcote, A. (2008). The simplest complete model of choice response time: linear ballistic accumulation. Cognitive Psychology 57, 153-178.2008).

      Even though the DDM and LBA adopt different architectures to each other (but the same architectures as those in Supp Fig 1A), they are intended to explain the same data. Of relevance, the same model (a DDM or an LBA) can explain differences in both the response distribution and the mean response time via changes in the starting point of evidence accumulation, rate of evidence accumulation, and/or the boundary or threshold at which evidence is translated into choice behavior. So, for either a difference accumulator model (DDM) or a race model (LBA), the difference between sampling and choice performance could reflect changes in how the model is operating between these two phases, including a change in the starting point of the decision [bias], a change in rate of accumulation [evidence], a change in threshold [caution] or collapsing boundary scenario, rather than reflecting operation of a completely different decision-making mechanism.

      In thinking of a way forward I readily concede I could be wrong and the authors may effectively rebut this point. Another option could be to acknowledge this possibility and discuss it. E.g., does it really matter if it is a qualitatively different decision-making process or different operation of the same decision-making mechanism? I don't really think the action-habit distinction lives or dies by reaction/response time data, this distinction is almost certainly far less absolute than often portrayed in the addiction literature, and it is generally intended as an account of what is learned rather than an account of how that learning is translated into behaviour (even if an S-R mechanism provides an account of both). Response time data tell me, at least, something different about how what has been learned is translated into behaviour. The third, marginally more difficult but more interesting option, would be to explore these issues formally and to move beyond simple descriptive or LDA analyses of response time distributions. The LBA has a full analytical solution and there are reasonable approximations for the DDM. Formal modelling of choice response times (e.g., Bayesian parameter estimation for a race model or DDM) could indicate whether a single decision-making mechanism (LBA or DDM or something else) can explain response times under both sample and choice conditions or not. This is a standard approach in cognitive modelling. This would be compelling if it showed the dissociation the authors argue - i.e. one model cannot be fit to both sample and choice datasets for all animals. However, if one model can be fit to both, then formal modelling would show which decision making parameters change between the sample and choice conditions for cocaine v saccharin v individual animals to putatively cause the differences in response times observed. Either way, more formal modelling would provide a platform towards identification of those specific features of the decision-making mechanisms that are being affected.

    1. The world has arrived at an age of cheap complex devices of great reliability; and something is bound to come of it.

      The importance of interchangeable parts is underlined here. Before the mass production of parts, something that we do not even think about not working, like a lightbulb, would have taken possibly weeks for a craftsman to make. It may not have even been possible to have lightbulbs made if it was not for interchangeable parts.

    2. Machines with interchangeable parts can now be constructed with great economy of effort. In spite of much complexity, they perform reliably

      I would argue that quality and quality control diminishes heavily when interchangeable parts are produced cheaply and at high intervals. I understand that they perform reliably for a short period of time, but there is a reason we see older cars at a high volume, and its because they were built with higher quality materials and at a slower rate to ensure a quality product.

    1. If you do so, you will do well, and that which you are obliged to do to their Highnesses, and we in their name shall receive you in all love and charity, and shall leave you, your wives, and your children, and your lands, free without servitude, that you may do with them and with yourselves freely that which you like and think best, and they shall not compel you to turn Christians, unless you yourselves, when informed of the truth, should wish to be converted to our Holy Catholic Faith, as almost all the inhabitants of the rest of the islands have done. And, besides this, their Highnesses award you many privileges and exemptions and will grant you many benefits.

      This specific part shows the noble intentions Spain had towards the new people they had encounter in the new world. Unlike other empires such as the British or the French, the Spanish empire oficial position was to always pursue peace before war in the Americas, and always tried to unify with the natives, and saw them as equal as any other spanish in front of the crown.

      This was due (among other factors) to the fact that the queen Isabel "La Católica" was very catholic, and following the teachings she learned from catholicisim, she always ordered that the natives should be treated well and no harm should be done upon them. She even ordered Columbus to punish any man who would harm the natives (something Columbus later ignored).

    1. ome even refer to child care and early childhood programs as an industry, rather than as a service

      I cannot help but think about all children and educators may lose if we are thought of as an industry. You see this with many cookie-cutter, for profit centers that push fear to families, making them concerned about "readiness" and academics, without stressing the need and important developmental aspects of play or social-emotional needs for young children.

    1. ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS

      Are these based off of school curriculum or can they encompass what we think is important as well? How close do we need to follow a districts outline if we think things may be superfluous or unnecessary for understanding?

    1. Reviewer #2:

      The study investigates key components of the entorhinal circuits through which signals from the hippocampus are relayed to the neocortex. The question addressed is important but the stated claim that layer 5b (L5b) to layer 5a (L5a) connections mediate hippocampal-cortical outputs in LEC but not MEC appears to be an over-interpretation of the data. First, the experiments do not test hippocampal to L5a connections, but instead look at L5b to L5a connections. Second, the data provide evidence that there are L5b to L5a projections in LEC and MEC, which contradicts the claim made in the title. These projections do appear denser in LEC under the experimental conditions used, but possible technical explanations for the difference are not carefully addressed. If these technical concerns were addressed, and the conclusions modified appropriately, then I think this study could be very important for the field and would complement well recent work from several labs that collectively suggests that information processing in deep layers of MEC is more complex than has been appreciated (e.g. Sürmeli et al. 2015, Ohara et al. 2018, Wozny et al. 2018, Rozov et al. 2020). Major Concerns:

      1) An impressive component of the study is the introduction of a new mouse line that labels neurons in layer 5b of MEC and LEC. However, in each area the line appears to label only a subset (30-50%) of the principal cell population. It's unclear whether the unlabelled neurons have similar connectivity to the labelled neurons. If the unlabelled neurons are a distinct subpopulation then it's difficult to see how the experiments presented could support the conclusion that L5b does not project to L5a; perhaps there is a projection mediated by the unlabelled neurons? I don't think the authors need to include experiments to investigate the unlabelled population, but given that the labelling is incomplete they should be more cautious about generalising from data obtained with the line.

      2) For experiments using the AAV conditionally expressing oChIEF-citrine, the extent to which the injections are specific to LEC/MEC is unclear. This is a particular concern for injections into LEC where the possibility that perirhinal or postrhinal cortex are also labelled needs to be carefully considered. For example, in Figure 3D it appears the virus has spread to the perirhinal cortex. If this is the case then axonal projections/responses could originate there rather than from L5b of LEC. I suggest excluding any experiments where there is any suggestion of expression outside LEC/MEC or where this can not be ruled out through verification of the labelling. Alternatively, one might include control experiments in which the AAV is targeted to the perirhinal and postrhinal cortex. Similar concerns should be addressed for injections that target the MEC to rule out spread to the pre/parasubiculum.

      3) It appears likely from the biocytin fills shown that the apical dendrites of some of the recorded L5a neurons have been cut (e.g. Figure 4A, Figure 4-Supplement 1D, neuron v). Where the apical dendrite is clearly intact and undamaged synaptic responses to activation of L5b neurons are quite clear (e.g. Figure 4-Supplement 1D, neuron x). Given that axons of L5b cells branch extensively in L3, it is possible that any synapses they make with L5a neurons would be on their apical dendrites within L3. It therefore seems important to restrict the analysis only to L5a neurons with intact apical dendrites; a reasonable criteria would be that the dendrite extends through L3 at a reasonable distance (> 30 μm?) below the surface of the slice.

      4) Throughout the manuscript the data is over-interpreted. Here are some examples:

      • The title over-extrapolates from the results and should be changed. A more accurate title would be along the lines of "Evidence that L5b to L5a connections are more effective in lateral compared to medial entorhinal cortex".

      • "the conclusion that the dorsal parts of MEC lack the canonical hippocampal-cortical output system" seems over-stated given the evidence (see comments above).

      • Discussion, para 1, "Our key finding is that LEC and MEC are strikingly different with respect to the hippocampal-cortical pathway mediated by LV neurons, in that we obtained electrophysiological evidence for the presence of this postulated crucial circuit in LEC, but not in MEC". This is misleading as there is also evidence for L5b to L5a connections in MEC, although this projection may be relatively weak. Recent work by Rozov et al. demonstrating a projection from intermediate hippocampus to L5a provides good evidence for an alternative model in which MEC does relay hippocampal outputs. This needs to be considered.

      5) What proportion of responses are mono-synaptic? How was this tested?

    1. what the advantages might be in incorporating OER as a part of the regular or special needs classroom. Any disadvantages?

      Incorporating OER in the classroom has many advantages. OER allow students to learn not just by reading a textbook, but by interacting with resources in a variety of ways. OER can be videos, online books, games (to name just a few), and students often find them more engaging than traditional resources. OER allow for differentiated instruction as different resources may work better for some types of learners over others. If a student needs more of a challenge, there might be a more complicated game or activity that they can work on through OER. OER could be a big advantage in a SPED classroom. Some students might do better HEARING a lesson on a video as opposed to reading about a concept, for example. OER are also great because they can be changed/updated more regularly than a textbook. The video we watched talked about how math and sciences textbooks quickly go out-of-date. OER are free. I work at a university and I can tell you that the cost of traditional textbooks is often a burden to students. I think the one big disadvantage of OER is internet accessibility (especially during COVID). My son’s school district is doing a great job of getting access for students who do not have internet, but I could see in “regular” times, if this was not a priority, that students without computers or internet (or slow internet) would be at a disadvantage.

    1. not as a wellspringof truth but as a pool of imagination,

      We all have our own ideas and truths. We may think one way as we read through the stories, but hear a different thought of truth. They both should be treated as equal as there is no clear answer.

    1. Meanwhile, we are going to have to work actively so those systematically less pre-sent in printed sources do not fall out of view.

      I do wonder the impacts of what is lost to time. Obviously, we've already lost a bounty of information to time over the last thousands of years, but humans today (within the last several hundred years) also out-produce the humans of a thousand years ago. So while more may be saved as a %, that doesn't mean we aren't loosing so, so much (and how that shapes the history of.... history for the future). I think that's the point being made here.

    1. The "dialogical man" is critical and knows that although it is within the power of humans to create and transform, in a concrete situation of alienation individuals may be impaired in the use of that power.

      I chose this quote because I think there are multiple ways that one might interpret it. The message that I drew from this quote is that even the most grounded of humans must recognize that to be human alone, is to be far from perfect. The ;'dialogical man' that Freire refers to is supposed to be aware of how crucial the aspect of dialogue is to life and understand the immense power that humans hold, all while knowing how inferior they truly can be. In reading this quote I see how it can be connected to my father as although he is an extremely wise and balanced person he remains humble in the fact that he still has much to learn. I see how this relates to Angela Davis's work in the way that as a society we have all accepted that the prison system is the correct way to deal with crime, and we have accepted this for so long. It is shocking that humanity grows in so many ways year after year, yet we still believe that laws and systems we created decades ago remain just as effective. Angela Davis creates the dialogue that the prison system is obsolete, and it is up to humanity to further this dialogue and push for change.

    1. is the goal for patients to have more autonomy and self-determination when it comes to their care?

      Without giving too much detail, I just wanted to comment on how big of a difference it makes when a health care professional makes a conscious effort to include you and your input in on the course of your treatment. Of course it comes down to professional expertise, but dealing with doctors who discussed options with me and let me have as much control as possible/appropriate over changes to medications, for example, has routinely been profoundly less stressful than situations in which I was given no choice nor say. I also respect that sometimes what I want may not be what's best for me/most effective, and because of my doctor's history of including me and educating me on every choice he/we made, I am comfortable trusting his judgement in such scenarios. I think that's what it comes down to: mutual communication, respect, and trust.

    1. It might seem unfair to IVHS to consider it in light of all thisother accumulated information-but I think, on the contrary, that it isthe only way to see the threat accurately. The reason is this: We haveprivacy when we can keep personal things out of the public view.Information-gathering in any particular realm may not seem to pose avery grave threat precisely because it is' generally possible to preserveone's privacy by escaping into other realms. Consequently, as welook at each kind of information-gathering in isolation from the others,each may seem relatively benign.2 However, as each is put into prac-tice, its effect is to close off yet another escape route from public ac-cess, so that when the whole complex is in place, its overall effect onprivacy will be greater than the sum of the effects of the parts. Whatwe need to know is IVHS's role in bringing about this overall effect,and it plays that role by contributing to the establishment of the wholecomplex of information-gathering modalities.

      Reiman argues that we can typically achieve privacy by escaping into a different realm. We can avoid public eyes by retreating into our private houses. It seems we could avoid Facebook by, well, avoiding Facebook.

      If we treat each information-gather in one realm as separate, they may seem relatively benign.

      When these realms are connected, they close off our escape routes and the effect on privacy becomes greater than the sum of its parts.

    1. Reviewer #1:

      This study examines MEG activity in a picture categorization task (decide living or non-living) in a sample of 18 patients with semantic variant PPA, compared to 18 controls. As svPPA is a rare (but scientifically informative) disorder, the sample size is impressive, and given that relatively few MEG studies exist in PPA at all, this is an interesting dataset. The authors show differences in engagement of oscillatory activity, specifically increased low-gamma ERS in occipital cortex and increased beta ERD in the superior temporal gyrus. The authors interpret this as reflecting increased engagement of / reliance on early perceptual mechanisms for completing the task, as opposed to semantic identification of the picture.

      Major concerns:

      1) My biggest methodological issue with this paper relates to a very old debate in neuroimaging that still comes up all the time: the choice of statistical threshold. Using a high threshold prevents false positives, but may also lead to false negatives, and I fear that is the case here, with the high threshold contributing to an unrealistic impression of spatial specificity in MEG. It is obvious from the average responses in both groups that these oscillatory responses are widespread through the brain. Indeed the alpha and beta responses are significant in the majority of cortical voxels. This basic property of the responses should be presented clearly and prominently in the paper - I don't think it's appropriate to put it in supplementary information where only a minority of readers will even see it. The authors then use what I think is an extremely high and conservative statistical threshold to contrast differences between the two groups. P<.005 uncorrected is a highly conservative threshold already, even before cluster-thresholding is added (although with data as smooth as MEG beamforming solutions, cluster-thresholding is unlikely to change anything). Basically this makes the only the strongest part of the activation survive, and it is valid to conclude that a significant group difference exists there (protected from Type 1 error), but this can give a false impression of the difference is specific to that region. I think a more realistic characterization of the results would involve measuring differences in the strength of the responses between groups on a broader level, possibly the sensors or in large ROIs - and not ROIs pre-selected to show a dramatic difference by first searching the whole brain for the most significant effects - that is the classic "double-dipping" fallacy in neuroimaging.

      2) Similarly, the ERD/ERS in each frequency band is treated as a separate entity, ignoring the fact that these bands are arbitrary and frequency is a continuous quantity. This matters because much is made of the fact that PPA participants exhibited greater ERS in the low-gamma range, and that this was correlated with reaction time. Supplementary figure 1 shows that both groups had strong occipital ERS in the high-gamma range, but only PPA showed it in the low gamma range as well. This suggests that the ERS in the PPA group may simply have been shifted to a lower frequency range. A more fulsome characterization of these group differences via time-frequency analysis and/or power spectral analysis would help clarify what is going on here.

      3) It is surprising that PPA participants only exhibited increased MEG responses compared to controls - assuming that both gamma ERS and beta ERD can be interpreted as increased neural activation, which is a reasonable assumption based on the literature. No decreases in the PPA group are found, and thus the observed increases can be plausibly attributed to compensatory processes as framed by the authors. However, I am concerned about the role of certain analysis choices in producing this data pattern. In particular, the authors state (line 611): "To remove potential artifacts due to neurodegeneration or eye movement (lacking electrooculograms), we masked statistical maps using patients' ATL atrophy maps (see section MRI protocol and analyses), as well as a ventromedial frontal mask."

      It is not clear whether this masking was done in group space from average atrophy maps, or on an individual level. In either case, I don't think this is well justified. I don't know any physical mechanism by which tissue undergoing neurodegeneration can be said to generate an artifactual signal. Atrophied tissue still contains living neurons with ionic currents; these are real signals not artifacts, and furthermore, atrophy is a continuous process with tissue further from the epicenter also undergoing similar neurodegenerative mechanisms. Atrophied tissue may well generate electromagnetic signals that are different from healthy tissue, and such differences should be included in this paper. I think that there may be regions of hypoactivation as well as hyperactivation in this PPA group. If the hypoactivation localizes to atrophied tissue and the hyperactivation to other regions, that will bolster the case that we are seeing compensatory processes, but it isn't certain with half the story masked. I also don't really see statistical masking of the frontal region as a valid solution to eye movement artifacts. The authors would have to present evidence that the region that they masked corresponds to the region potentially affected by eye movements. However, many studies have found that beamforming already does a pretty good job of removing ocular artifacts from estimated brain signals, except for very close to the eyes.

      4) The correlation with reaction time in the occipital cortex is consistent with the idea that the ERS there may reflect compensatory overreliance on perceptual information, but it isn't conclusive. The authors suggest that PPA patients are able to categorize the stimuli correctly based on visual features, but are unable to name them. What about testing for correlations with the out-of-scanner behavioural measures that established that the patients have a naming deficit? It would strengthen the case if atrophy or hypoactivation (see comment above) correlated with the naming deficit.

    1. Reviewer #2:

      Overall I think the authors collected an interesting dataset. Analyses should be adjusted to include all cells rather than sub-selecting for stability. Additionally, the language needs to be adjusted to better reflect the data. I wish there was any behavioral data included, but if the authors compare their data to publicly available data in V1 for a single recording session during a visually guided task, these concerns could be quelled a bit.

      1) In general the language of this paper and title seem to mismatch the results. The fraction of cells that were 'stable' as the authors say on line 112 was very small, however the authors focus extensively on this small subset for the majority of analyses in the paper. Why ignore the bulk of data (line 119)? What happens if you repeat the same analysis and keep all cells in the dataset? The general language around stability of neural ensembles should be adjusted to better reflect the data (ex: lines 157, 225).

      2) There are claims in this paper about how ensembles 'implement long-term memories' in the introduction and conclusion and yet the authors never link the activity of ensembles to any behavioral or stimulus dependent feature. This language reaches far beyond the evidence provided in this paper. The introduction could provide some better framing for expectations of stability vs. drift in neural activity rather than focus on the link between ensembles and memory given that there isn't much focus on the ensembles' contribution to memory throughout. For example, the last sentence of the paper is not supported by data in the paper. Where is the link between ensembles and memory in the data? What is the evidence that transient ensembles are related to new or degraded memories? This reads as though it was the authors' hypothesis before doing the experiments and was not adjusted in light of the results.

      3) There is no discussion around the alternative to stability of neuronal ensembles. What are the current theories about representational drift? For example, in Line 34 the authors present an expectation for stability without any reasoning for why there need not be stability. This lack of framing makes their job of explaining results in line 217 more difficult. There is a possibility that the most stable cells aren't more important - what is the evidence that they are? Does an ensemble need a core? Would be interesting to include some discussion on the possibility of a drifting readout (Line 223). [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conb.2019.08.005]

      4) How do activations in V1 in this dataset compare to other data collected from V1 while the animal is performing a task (where for example the angle of the gradings is relevant to how the mouse should respond)? I would be interested to know if the authors compared statistics of their ensembles to publicly available data recorded in V1 during a visually guided behavior. Are the ensembles tuned to anything in particular? Could they be related to movement? [http://repository.cshl.edu/id/eprint/38599/]

      5) The authors provide some hypotheses as to why fewer cells are active in the later imaging sessions (dead/dying cells?). This is worrisome in regards to how much it might have affected the imaged area's biology. One alternative hypothesis is that the animal is more familiar with the environment/ not running as much etc. Have the authors collected any behavioral data to compare over time?

      6) How much do the results change when you vary the 50% threshold of preserved neurons within an ensemble (Line 146)? Does it make sense to call an ensemble stable when 50% of the cells change? Especially given that the cells analyzed as contributing to an ensemble are already sub-selected to be within the small population of stable cells (Line 119)?

      7) Cells are referred to as 'stable' when they're active on 3 different sessions that are separated in time. However, the authors find a smaller number of cells are stable over extended time (43-46 days later). If we extrapolate this over more time, would we expect these cells to continue to be stable? Given these concerns, it might make more sense to qualify the language around stability by the timespan over which these cells were studied.

      8) Filtering frames to only coactive neurons for ensemble identification seems strange to me. Authors may be overestimating the extent of coactivation. What happens when you don't do this? How much do the results change when you don't subselect for Jaccard similarity? I would be interested to see how the results vary as you vary this threshold (Line 136).

      9) The term 'evoked activity' is misleading because the authors don't link these activations to the visual stimulus. There's no task, so the mice could be paying little attention to the stimulus. Should we really consider this activity to be visually driven? Could the authors provide any evidence of this?

      10) A method like seqNMF could reveal ensembles that are offset in time. This looser temporal constraint could potentially reveal more structure. This should be run on the entire dataset (without stability sub-selection). I suggest this as a potential alternative or supplement to the method described by the authors. [https://elifesciences.org/articles/38471]

    1. A like reasoning will account for the idea of external existence. We may observe, that 'tis universally allow'd by philosophers, and is besides pretty obvious of itself, that nothing is ever really present with the mind but its perceptions or impressions and ideas, and that external objects become known to us only by those perceptions they occasion. To hate, to love, to think, to feel, to see; all this is nothing but to perceive. Now since nothing is ever present to the mind but perceptions, and since all ideas are deriv'd from something antecedently present to the mind; it follows, that 'tis impossible for us so much as to conceive or form an idea of any thing specifically different from ideas and impressions. Let us fix our attention out of ourselves as much as possible: Let us chace our imagination to the heavens, or to the utmost limits of the universe; we never really advance a step beyond ourselves, nor can conceive any kind of existence, but those perceptions, which have appear'd in that narrow compass. This is the universe of the imagination, nor have we any idea but what is there produc'd.

      there is not such a thing like existence outside perception

  5. Dec 2020
    1. The United States agrees, at its own proper expense, to construct, at some place on the Missouri river, near the centre of said reservation where timber and water may be convenient, the following buildings, to wit, a warehouse, a store-room for the use of the agent in storing goods belonging to the Indians, to cost not less than $2,500; an agency building, for the residence of the agent, to cost not exceeding $3,000; a residence for the physician, to cost not more than $3,000; and five other buildings, for a carpenter, farmer, blacksmith, miller, and engineer-each to cost not exceeding $2,000; also, a school-house, or mission building, so soon as a sufficient number of children can be induced by the agent to attend school, which shall not cost exceeding $5,000.

      If this promise can be done properly, I think it's going to change Native American's lives. However, based on what we have studied this quarter. I think it is not the case.

    1. Note: This rebuttal was posted by the corresponding author to Review Commons. Content has not been altered except for formatting.

      Learn more at Review Commons


      Reply to the reviewers

      We thank the reviewers for their constructive suggestions, which have substantially improved this work. We have comprehensively revised the manuscript, and detail individual responses below:

      Reviewer #1 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      The study by Forbes et al describes and characterizes a 2nd generation peptide-based inhibitor of the MYB:CBP interaction, termed CRYBMIM, which they use to study MYB:cofactor interactions in leukemia cells. The CRYBMIM has improved properties relative to the MYBMIM peptide, and display more potency in biochemical and cell-based assays. Using a combination of epigenomics and biochemical screens, the authors define a list of candidate MYB cofactors whose functional significance as AML dependencies is supported by analysis of the DepMap database. Using genomewide profiling of TF and CBP occupancy, the authors provide evidence that CRYBMIM treatment reprograms the interactome of MYB in a manner that disproportionately changes specific cis-elements over others. Stated differently, the overall occupancy pattern of many TFs/cofactors shows gains and losses at specific cis elements, resulting in a complex modulation of MYB function and changes in transcription in leukemia cells. Overall, this is a strong, well-written study, with clear experimental results and relatively straightforward conclusions. The therapeutic potential of modulating MYB in cancer is enormous, and hence I believe this study will attract a broad interest in the cancer field and will likely be highly cited. I list below a few control experiments that would clarify the specificity of CRYBMIM. 1) Does CRYBMIM bind to other KIX domains, such as of MED15. It would be important to evaluate the specificity of this peptide for whether it binds to other KIX domains.

      Response: We analyzed all known human KIX domain sequences, and found that the most similar one to CBP/P300 is MED15 (38% identity), as shown in revised Supp. Fig. 2D. The sequence similarity of the remaining human KIX domains is substantially lower. To determine the specificity of CRYBMIM in binding the CBP/P300 versus MED15, we exposed human AML cell extracts to biotinylated CRYBMIM immobilized on streptavidin beads versus beads alone. Whereas CRYBMIM binds efficiently to CBP/P300, it does not exhibit any measurable binding to MED15 (even though MED15 is highly expressed), as shown in revised Supp. Fig. 2E, and reproduced for convenience below. While this does not exclude the possibility that CRYBMIM binds to other proteins, the biochemical specificity observed here, combined with the genetic requirement of CBP for cellular effects of CRYBMIM as shown by a genome-wide CRISPR screen (Fig. 1B and below), indicate that CRYBMIM is a specific ligand of CBP/P300. The manuscript has been revised on page 6 and 4-5 accordingly.

      2) Similarly, it would be useful to perform a mass spec analysis to all nuclear factors that associate with streptavidin-immobilized CRYBMIM. This again would be help the reader to understand the specificity of this peptide.

      Response: We agree with the reviewer that macromolecular ligands like CRYBMIM may interact with cellular proteins in complex ways. To define specific effects, we utilized four orthogonal strategies, explained below.

      First, we purified the CBP-containing nuclear complex using immunoprecipitation and determined its composition by mass spectrometry proteomics. This analysis revealed 833 proteins that are specifically associated with CBP (revised Table S6). Although technically feasible, the fact that CBP is associated with hundreds of proteins would make the experiment suggested by the reviewer difficult to interpret, because it would be a major challenge to distinguish proteins bound directly by the peptide versus proteins purified indirectly by virtue of the fact that CRYBMIM binds to CBP/P300, which in turn binds to many other proteins. While we recently developed improved methods for cross-linking mass spectrometry proteomics that permit the identification of direct protein-protein interactions (Ser, Cifani, Kentsis 2019, https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jproteome.9b00085), we believe that these experiments are beyond the scope of the current manuscript, which already includes 40 new figure panels as part of this revision.

      In lieu of this experiment, we purified the CBP-containing nuclear complex after treatment with CRYBMIM or control using immunoprecipitation and determined its composition by targeting Western blotting. This analysis revealed RUNX1, LYL1 and SATB1 are specifically associated with CBP (revised Fig. 14B), among which RUNX1 is specifically remodeled in the MYB:CBP/P300 complex upon CRYBMIM binding. This transcriptional factor recruitment and remodeling support the idea of CRYBMIM’s specificity for the MYB:CBP/P300 complex.

      Second, to define the specificity of CRYBMIM, we used glycine mutants of CRYBMIM and its parent MYBMIM, CG3 and TG3, respectively, in which residues that form key salt bridge and hydrophobic interactions with KIX are replaced with glycines, but otherwise retain all other features of the active probes. Both CG3 and TG3 exhibit significantly reduced effects on the viability of AML cell lines, consistent with the specific effects of CRYBMIM (Fig. 3D).

      To confirm that this is due to CBP binding, we purified cellular CBP/P300 by binding to biotinylated CRYBMIM, and observed that it can be efficiently competed by excess of free CRYBMIM, but not TAT (Fig. 2E).

      Finally, to establish definitively that cellular CBP is responsible for CRYBMIM effects, we generated isogenic cell lines that are either deficient or proficient for CBP using CRISPR genome editing. This experiment demonstrated that CBP deficiency confers significant resistance to CRYBMIM, indicating that CBP is required for CRYBMIM-mediated effects (revised Figure 4), and reproduced below. We revised the manuscript on pages 21, 8, 6 and 9 accordingly.

      3) The major limitation of this study which modestly lessens my enthusiasm of this work is that the mechanistic model of MYB-sequestered TFs proposed here is based on a face-value interpretation of IP-MS data coupled with ChIP-seq data. Normally, I would expect such a mechanism to be supported with some additional focused biochemical experiments of specific interactions, to complement all of the omics approaches. For example, can the authors evaluate and/or validate further how MYB physically interacts with LYL1, CEBPA, SPI1, or RUNX1. Are these interactions direct or indirect? Which domains of these proteins are involved? Does CRYBMIM treatment modulate the ability of these proteins to associate with one another in a co-IP? Do these interactions occur in normal hematopoietic cells? A claim is made throughout this study that these are aberrant TF complexes, but I believe more evidence is required to support this claim.

      Response: We appreciate the reviewer’s comment and totally agree with this point. To examine how MYB aberrantly assembles transcription factors in AML, we performed MYB co-immunoprecipitation (co-IP) in a panel of seven genetically diverse AML cell lines with varying susceptibility to CRYBMIM, chosen to represent the common and refractory forms of human AML. Here, we confirmed co-assembly of CBP/P300, LYL1, E2A, LMO2 in all AML cell lines tested, and cell type-specific co-assembly of SATB1 and CEBPA, as shown in revised Fig. 8A, which are in agreement with the IP-MS and ChIP-seq results. We further corroborated these findings by co-IP studies of CBP/P300, as shown in the revised Fig. 8B. We performed similar co-IP experiments in normal hematopoietic progenitor cells, and found most of the co-assembled factors in AML cells were not observed in normal cells except for CBP/P300 and LYL1, as shown in the revised Figure 9E. Combined with the apparently aberrant expression of E2A and SATB1 in AML cells but not normal blood cells, this leads us to conclude that MYB assembles aberrant transcription factor complexes in AML cells. These complexes can be remodeled by peptidomimetic inhibitors, leading to their redistribution on chromatin, suppression of oncogenic gene expression and induction of cellular differentiation. We confirmed this mechanism by direct biochemical experiments in AML cells, demonstrating disassembly and remodeling of CBP/P300 complexes, as shown in the revised Figure 14. At least some of these interactions are direct, given the known direct binding between MYB and CEBPA (Oelgeschläger, Nuchprayoon, Lüscher, Friedman 1996, https://doi.org/10.1128/mcb.16.9.4717). We revised the manuscript text on pages 13, 15 and 21 accordingly.

      Reviewer #1 (Significance (Required)):

      Overall, this is a strong, well-written study, with clear experimental results and relatively straightforward conclusions. The therapeutic potential of modulating MYB in cancer is enormous, and hence I believe this study will attract a broad interest in the cancer field and will likely be highly cited.

      Response: We appreciate this sentiment and completely agree with the reviewer. The phenomenon reported in this work represents the first of its kind demonstration of the aberrant organization of transcription factor control complexes in cancer, and its pharmacologic modulation. We believe that this concept will serve as a transformative paradigm for understanding oncogenic gene control and the development of effective therapies for its definitive treatment.

      Reviewer #2 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      This manuscript reports the generation of a new and improved peptide mimetic inhibitor of the interaction between MYB and CBP/P300. The original MYBMIM inhibitor of this interaction, reported recently by the same laboratory, was modified by addition and substitution of peptide sequences from CREB, thus improving the affinity of the resulting CRYBMIM peptide to CBP/P300. The improved inhibitor profile results in increased anti-AML efficacy of CRYBMIM over MYBMIM. The authors go on to examine the mechanism underlying the anti-AML activity of CRYBMIM by integrating gene expression analysis, chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing and mass spectrometric protein complex identification in human AML cells. I have some minor questions the authors may wish to comment on:

      1) The relocation of MYB, along with CBP/P300, to genes controlling myeloid differentiation (clusters 4 and 9) upon CRYBMIM treatment is reminiscent of the increased binding of MYB to myeloid pro-differentiation genes in AML cells following RUVBL2 silencing, recently reported in Armenteros-Monterroso et al. 2019 Leukemia 33:2817. Do the authors know if there is any overlap between genes in either of the clusters and the list reported in the latter study?

      Response: We thank the reviewer for making this suggestion. We also observe both RUVBL2 and RUVBL1 in the protein complex specifically associated with MYB (Fig. 7A and B). We compared the gene expression changes induced by CRYBMIM with those reported by Armenteros-Monterroso et al in 2019 (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41375-019-0495-8), and found that 37% of upregulated genes by RUVBL2 silencing were shared with genes induced by CRYBMIM treatment. In addition, upregulated genes in cluster 4 and 9 included myeloid differentiation-related genes, such as JUN, FOS and FOSB, which were also induced RUVBL2 silencing. We revised the manuscript to reflect this association on page 12.

      2) Could the authors comment on a possible mechanism to explain the co-localization of MYB and CBP/P300 to the loci in clusters 4 and 9 following CRYBMIM treatment? Is it possible that CBP/P300 is recruited by other transcription factors to these loci, independently of binding to MYB? Or is the binding of CBP/P300 to MYB at these loci somehow more resistant to disruption by CRYBMIM?

      Response: The reviewer has focused on an interesting point. At least for cluster 9, these genes exhibit gain of CBP/P300 in association with RUNX1 (Figure 12A), which we confirm by direct biochemical studies of MYB and CBP/P300 complexes immunoprecipitated from AML cells (revised Figure 14B-C). These experiments show that CRYBMIM treatment disrupts the MYB:CBP/P300 complexes, leading to the increased assembly of CBP/P300 with RUNX1. These findings are consistent with a dynamic competition mechanism that governs availability of CBP/P300 to transcriptional co-activation, in which distinct transcription factors compete for limiting amounts of CBP/P300. This possible mechanism is discussed in the revised manuscript (page 18-19 and 21).

      3) In the first paragraph of page 9, the text states: "Previously, we found that MYBMIM can suppress MYB:CBP/P300-dependent gene expression, leading to AML cell apoptosis that required MYB-mediated suppression of BCL2 (Ramaswamy et al., 2018)." I think this is a typo, since in this study, MYBMIM treatment results in loss of MYB binding to the BCL2 gene and consequent reduction in BCL2 expression. Do the authors mean 'MYBMIM-mediated suppression of BCl2' or 'loss of MYB-mediated activation of BCL2'?

      Response: We thank the reviewer and have corrected this typographic error in the text.

      4) The authors explain the failure of excess CREBMIM to displace CBP/P300 from immobilised CREBMIM (Figure 1E-F) by the nature of the CREB:CBP/P300 interaction. Does this imply that CREBMIM is unable to disrupt the interaction between CREB and CBP/P300 in living cells and that the CBP/P300 purified from native MV4;11 lysates by immobilised CREBMIM was from a pool not associated with CREB?

      Response: We thank the reviewer for making this point. Indeed, we reproducibly observe that CRYBMIM binding to CBP can be competed with excess free CRYBMIM, but CREBMIM binding cannot be competed by excess CREBMIM. This may be due to the different stabilities of the CBP complexes that are available for binding in cells. Alternatively, it is also possible that CREB binding to CBP, as reflected by CREBMIM, has a relatively slow dissociation rate, as compared to MYB, as reflected by CRYBMIM. We have begun to purify cellular CBP complexes (revised Fig 8. and response to comment 2 for Reviewer 1), and aim to define their determinants in future studies, as enabled by the introduction of CRYBMIM, CREBMIM and MLLMIM probes in the current work.

      Reviewer #2 (Significance (Required)):

      Based on this integrative analysis, the authors propose a convincing hypothesis, involving the assembly of aberrant transcription factor complexes and sequestration of P300/CBP from genes involved in normal myeloid development, for the oncogenic activity of MYB in AML. As well as the obvious therapeutic potential of the CRYBMIM inhibitor itself, the data reported here reveal multiple avenues for future investigation into novel anti-AML therapeutic strategies. This is an innovative and important study.

      This study will be of interest to scientists and clinicians involved in leukaemia research as well as cancer biology in general.

      My field of expertise: leukaemia biology, leukaemia models, aberrant transcription factor activity in leukaemia

      Response: We appreciate and agree with this assessment.

      Reviewer #3 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      This manuscript describes an improved MYB-mimetic peptide (cf the group's earlier work published in Nature Communications, 2018) and its effects on AML cell lines. It also describes - and this constitutes the majority of the paper - the dynamics of chromatin occupancy by MYB and other associated transcription factors upon disruption of the MYB-CBP/P300 interaction. The authors suggest this represents a shift from an oncogenic program to a myeloid differentiation program. \*Major comments:***

      Regarding the improved affinity, and biological activity, of CRYBMIM:

      1.Improved affinity of CRYBMIM cf MYBMIM: clearly, it is improved, but not by a lot. By MST the increased affinity is about 3x. In terms of effects on AML cell viability: there is no direct comparison, and this should be included. In the group's previous paper there is no direct estimate for MYBMIM but it looks like the IC50 is between 10 and 20 micromolar so the effect is again around 2.5 fold. Also, the effects of the amino acid substitutions in CG3 are also very small (2.4x) given that 3 critical residues are altered. This is quite concerning.

      Response: As pointed out by the reviewer, CRYBMIM exhibits several fold increase in binding affinity, as measured using purified proteins in vitro. Similar increase in cellular potency is observed after short-term treatment of AML cells, as shown in revised Figure 3C, and reproduced below. However, increasing the duration of treatment to several days leads to substantial improvement in apparent cellular potency (Figure 3G). For example, while MYBMIM induces approximately 100-fold reduction in cell viability of MV411 cells, CRYBMIM induces more than 1,000-fold reduction. Similarly, whereas MYBMIM exhibited relatively modest effects on OCIAML3 and SKM1 cells, CRYBMIM induces more than 1,000-fold reduction in cell viability. As we show in the revised manuscript, this appears to be due to the combination of increased biochemical affinity and specific proteolysis of MYB, which cooperate to induce extensive remodeling of MYB transcriptional complexes and gene expression (revised Figure 11). In all, this exemplifies how pharmacologic modulators of protein interactions can achieve significantly improved biological potency from relatively modest affinity effects, a concept that recently has been successfully used to develop a variety of PROTACs that leverage this “event-driven” as opposed to occupancy-driven pharmacology. The manuscript has been revised on page 8 and 18 to clarify this point.

      2.Does CRYBMIM really "spare" normal hematopoietic cells? Not according to Fig 2E, where there is only a 2-fold difference in IC50.

      Response: To better define the relative toxicity of CRYBMIM and MYBMIM, we examined their effects on the growth and survival of normal hematopoietic progenitor cells as compared to AML cells using colony forming assays in methylcellulose under more physiologic conditions in the presence of human hematopoietic cytokines (revised Figure 3E, and reproduced below). While CRYBMIM significantly reduced the clonogenic capacity, growth and survival of MV411 AML cells, there were no significant effects on the total clonogenic activity of normal CD34+ human umbilical cord blood progenitor cells under these conditions. At the highest dose, CRYBMIM induced modest reduction in CFU-MG colony formation, and modest increase in BFU-E colony formation of normal hematopoietic progenitor cells. We revised the manuscript to indicate that CRYBMIM “relatively spares” normal blood progenitor cells on page 8.

      Response: We appreciate the attention to this issue. In the original manuscript, we showed dose-response curves of cord blood progenitor cells cultured in suspension supplemented with fetal bovine serum, a system that is known to induce in appropriate hematopoietic cell differentiation (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.molmed.2017.07.003). In the revised manuscript, we show results of colony formation assays of hematopoietic progenitor cells cultured in serum-free, semi-solid conditions supplemented with human hematopoietic cytokines (revised Figure 3E and 3F). This is a more physiologic system which more faithfully maintains normal hematopoietic cell differentiation, as compared to the cellular differentiation induced by fetal bovine serum-containing media lacking hematopoietic growth factors, as used in the experiments in our original manuscript. To establish a positive control, in addition to treating AML cells under the same condition, we used doxorubicin, which is part of current treatment of patients with AML, and which in our experiments, exhibits significant and pronounced reduction in the clonogenic capacity, growth and survival of normal blood progenitor cells (revised Figure S3B). The manuscript has been revised on page 8 accordingly.

      1. Fig 2F doesn't include any lines that express very low or undetectable levels of MYB. Some of these should be included to further examine specificity.

      Response: We have now tested CRYBMIM against a large panel of non-hematopoietic tumor and non-tumor cell lines, with varying degrees of MYB expression. Some of those cells exhibit high level of MYB gene expression and MYB genetic dependency, which is at least in part correlated with susceptibility to CRYBMIM. (revised Figure S4, and reproduced below). The manuscript has been revised on page 8 accordingly.

      Effects on gene expression and MYB binding:

      Data on MYB target gene expression and apoptosis/differentiation, and the conclusions drawn per se are sound, but:

      5.Fig S3 seems to show that MYB protein is lost on treatment with CRYBMIM. This isn't even mentioned in the text but raises a whole range of major questions eg why is this the case? Is this what is responsible for the loss of MYB-p300 interaction and/or biological effects on AML cells? Is this what is responsible for the effects on MYB target gene expression in Fig 3 and MYB binding to chromatin in Fig 4? This must be addressed.

      Response: We have revised the manuscript to include this discussion, and performed additional experiments to define this phenomenon. We confirmed rapid reduction in MYB protein levels upon CRYBMIM treatment on the time-scale of one to four hours in diverse AML cell lines (revised Figure 11), with the rate of MYB protein loss correlating to the cellular susceptibility to CRYBMIM (revised Figure 11, and reproduced below). The manuscript has been revised on page 18 accordingly.

      This is consistent with the specific proteolysis of MYB induced by the peptidomimetic remodeling of the MYB:CBP/P300 complex. We confirmed this by combined treatment with the proteosomal/protease inhibitor MG132 (revised Figure 11C, and reproduced below). This effect was specific because overexpression of BCL2, which blocks MYBMIM-induced apoptosis (Ramaswamy et al, Kentsis, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-017-02618-6), was unable to rescue CRYBMIM-induced proteolysis of MYB, arguing that MYB proteolysis is a specific effect of CRYBMIM rather than a non-specific consequence of apoptosis. The manuscript has been revised on page 18 accordingly.

      6.Fig 4 and the accompanying text are a bit hard to follow, but if I understood them correctly, I am surprised that the "gained MYB peaks" don't include the MYB binding motif itself? This at least deserves some comment. Also, there doesn't seem to have been any attempt to integrate the ChIP-Seq data with the expression data of Fig 3. This would provide clearer insights into the identities and types of MYB-regulated genes that are directly affected by suppression of CBP/p300 binding to MYB.

      Response: We thank the reviewer for this suggestion. The revised manuscript now includes a comprehensive and integrated analysis of chromatin and gene expression dynamics (revised Figures 13A and 13B). In contrast to the model in which blockade of MYB:CBP/P300 induces loss of gene expression and loss of transcription factor and CBP/P300 chromatin occupancy, we also observed a large number of genes with increased expression and gain of CBP/P300 occupancy (revised Figure 13A-B, and reproduced below). This includes numerous genes that control hematopoietic differentiation, such as FOS, JUN, and ATF3. As a representative example, in the case of FOS, we observed that CRYBMIM-induced accumulation of CBP/P300 was associated with increased binding of RUNX1, and eviction of CEBPA and LYL1 (revised Figure 13C). Thus, the absence of “gained MYB peaks” is due to the redistribution of CBP/P300 with alternative transcription factors, such as RUNX1. In all, these results support the model in which the core regulatory circuitry of AML cells is organized aberrantly by MYB and its associated co-factors including LYL1, CEBPA, E2A, SATB1 and LMO2, which co-operate in the induction and maintenance of oncogenic gene expression, as co-opted by distinct oncogenes in biologically diverse subtypes of AML (revised Figure 14). This involves apparent sequestration of CBP/P300 from genes controlling myeloid cell differentiation. Thus, oncogenic gene expression is associated with the assembly of aberrantly organized MYB transcriptional co-activator complexes, and their dynamic remodeling by selective blockade of protein interactions can induce AML cell differentiation. The manuscript has been revised on page 20-21 accordingly.

      7.The MS studies on MYB-interacting proteins seem very interesting and novel. I am not an expert on MS, though, so I'd suggest this section be reviewed by someone who is. Moreover, I was unable to see the actual data from this study because the material I was provided with didn't include Table S4 and S5.

      Response: We appreciate this point. For this reason, we have deposited all of our mass spectrometry data to be openly available via PRIDE (accession number PXD019708), and also openly provide all of the analyzed data via Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4321824), as additionally provided in the Supplementary Material for this manuscript.

      \Should the authors qualify some of their claims as preliminary or speculative, or remove them altogether?* 8.Claims regarding biological activity, specificity and improvements cf MYBMIM should be moderated given the small size of these effects as mentioned above (points 1 and 3).*

      Response: As explained in detail in response to comments 1-3 above (page 12-14 of this response), we have substantially revised the manuscript to incorporate both new experimental results and additional explanations (pages 6-8).

      9.I found the description of the studies related to Figs 5 and 6 somewhat difficult to follow and convoluted. While changes in MYB and CBP/p300 chromatin occupancy clearly occur on M CRYBMIM treatment, it is not clear that the complexes seen on genes prior to treatment represent "aberrant" complexes. These may just be characteristic of undifferentiated (myeloid) cells. The authors appear to argue that because some of the candidate co-factors show "apparently aberrant expression in AML cells" based on comparison of (presumably mRNA) expression data with normal cells, the presence of these factors in the complexes make them "aberrant" (moreover, the "aberrancy score" of Fig 5 C is not defined anywhere, as far as I can see). This inference is drawing a rather long bow, given that the AML-specific factors may not actually be absent from the complexes in normal cells. So this conclusion should be moderated if a more direct MS comparison cannot be provided (for which I understand the technical difficulties).

      Response: We have now measured protein abundance levels of key transcription factors assembled with MYB in AML cells in various normal human hematopoietic cells (revised Figure 9, and reproduced below). We found that most transcription factors that are assembled with MYB in diverse AML cell lines could be detected in one or more normal human blood cells, albeit with variable abundance, with the exception of CEBPA and SATB1 that were measurably expressed exclusively in AML cells (revised Figure 9A). Using unsupervised clustering and principal component analysis, we defined the combinations of transcription factors that are associated with aberrant functions of MYB:CBP/P300, as defined by their susceptibility to peptidomimetic remodeling (revised Figure 9B-D). In addition, we directly examined the physical assembly of MYB with key transcription factors in normal hematopoietic cells using co-immunoprecipitation studies (revised Figure 9E). In agreement with the physical association of MYB seen in AML cell lines, we observed association with CBP/P300 and LYL1 in normal hematopoietic cells. However, we did not observe physical association with E2A and SATB1 in normal cells, which indicates aberrant association of these in AML cell lines. This leads us to propose that these complexes are aberrantly assembled, at least in part due to the inappropriate transcription factor co-expression. The manuscript has been revised on page 15 accordingly.

      \Would additional experiments be essential to support the claims of the paper?*

      Response: As explained in detail in response to comment 5 above (page 16 of this response), we have carried out extensive studies of the specific proteolysis of MYB. We conclude that MYB transcription complexes are regulated both by MYB:CBP/P300 binding and by specific factor proteolysis, and can be induced by its peptidomimetic blockade in AML cells. Such “event-driven” pharmacology is emerging as a powerful tool to modulate protein function in cells, and studies reported in our work should enable its translation into improved therapies for patients, and improved probes for basic science.

      11.Provision of a positive control for the experiment of Fig S2.

      Response: As explained in detail in response to comment 2 above (page 13-14 of this response), we precisely defined the effects of CRYBMIM and MYBMIM on the clonogenic capacity, growth and survival of normal hematopoietic progenitor cells in serum-free, methylcellulose media supplemented with human hematopoietic cytokines. These experiments showed relatively modest effects (9.3 ± 3.8% reduction) of CRYBMIM on normal cells (Figure 3E), as compared to substantial inhibition (54 ± 2.4 % reduction) of the growth and survival of AML cells (Figures 3E). For comparison, doxorubicin led to more than 98 % reduction in clonogenic capacity (revised Figure S3B).

      12.\Are the data and the methods presented in such a way that they can be reproduced?**

      -Mostly yes

      Response: The revised manuscript includes a complete description of all methods, including a detailed supplement, listing technical details, with all analyzed data available openly via Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4321824).

      13.\Are the experiments adequately replicated and statistical analysis adequate?**

      -Mostly yes

      Response: All experiments were performed in at least three replicates, with all quantitative comparisons performed using appropriate statistical tests, as explained in the manuscript.

      **Minor comments:**

      *Specific experimental issues that are easily addressable.*

      -These are mostly indicated above.

      In addition:

      14.Why is BCL2 expression down-regulated by MYBMIM but not CRYMYB?

      Response: We made the same observation, and attribute this difference to the fact that BCL2 expression is regulated by several transcription factors, including CEBPA, which is affected by CRYBMIM but not MYBMIM. Similar to MYBMIM treatment, MYB occupancy at the BCL2 enhancer was reduced upon CRYBMIM treatment. However, new binding sites of other factors, such as CBP/P300 and RUNX1, appeared simultaneously, suggesting that redistribution of transcription factors following CRYBMIM treatment can affect transcriptional regulation of BCL2 expression (revised Figure S9 and shown below).

      *Are prior studies referenced appropriately?

      -Yes *Are the text and figures clear and accurate?*

      15.Generally, although some details are missing eg what aberrancy score in Fig 5C means.

      Response: Thank you for pointing this out. We have revised this figure to clarify this score, which is defined as the ratio of gene expression in AML cells relative to normal hematopoietic progenitor cells (revised Figure 7C).

      16.\Do you have suggestions that would help the authors improve the presentation of their data and conclusions?**

      -The title of this manuscript could and I think should be changed. The term "therapeutic", is not appropriate because no therapeutic agents are described in the m/s nor is any form of AML, even experimentally, treated. Also "CBP" should be replaced with CBP/P300, especially since most evidence suggests that P300 is the likely more important partner of MYB (eg Zhao et al 2011

      Response: We agree and have revised the title to clarify the significance of this work: “Convergent organization of aberrant MYB complexes controls oncogenic gene expression in acute myeloid leukemia.” We have revised the manuscript to indicate CBP/P300.

      17.-It would be worth discussing the core observation that disruption of the MYB-CBP/P300 interaction actually results in changes in MYB DNA binding. That this would occur is not at all obvious, because CBP/p300 doesn't interact with MYB's DNA binding domain nor does it have intrinsic DNA binding activity.

      Response: We thank the reviewer for this comment, and agree that remodeling of the MYB complex must affect the binding of MYB and other cofactors to DNA, at least in part mediated by potential acetylation by CBP/P300 (page 24).

      Reviewer #3 (Significance (Required)):

      **The Nature and Significance of the Advance**

      1) The major significance of this work lies in the chromatin occupancy and MYB complex studies. There are a number of very interesting findings including the apparent redistribution of MYB and/or CBP/P300 upon treatment with CRYBMIM. These suggest a series of changes in factors associated with particular gene sets involved in myeloid differentiation, although as mentioned above particular target genes are not specifically identified. However the pathways corresponding to these are listed in Table S6.

      Response: We have revised the manuscript to include the target genes in revised Supplemental Table 4 as well as DESeq2 tables (deposited in Zenodo, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4321824).

      2) The new peptide design (CRYBMIM) is interesting but its differences in binding and biological effects of MYBMIM are mostly incremental. See above.

      Response: We respectfully disagree and would like to explain how this work is significant both for conceptual and technical reasons. First, while the biochemical affinity of CRYBMIM is quantitatively increased compared with MYBMIM, this quantitatively increased affinity translates into qualitatively improved biological potency, as a result of “event-driven” pharmacology that characterizes pharmacologic protein interaction modulators (please also see response to Reviewer 3, comment 1, page 6 of this response). MYBMIM suppresses the growth and survival mostly of MLL-rearranged leukemias, whereas CRYBMIM does so for the vast majority (10 out of 11) of studied subtypes of AML. This now enables its therapeutic translation, as we are currently pursuing in collaboration with Novartis. Second, its improved biological activity led to the discovery of the previously unknown and unanticipated CBP/P300 sequestration mechanism of oncogenic gene control. We use this discovery to develop a precise model of aberrant gene control in AML that for the first time unifies previously disparate observations into a general mechanism. This is highly significant because it provides shared molecular dependencies for most subtypes of AML, a long-standing conundrum in cancer biology.

      *Place the work in the context of the existing literature (provide references, where appropriate).*

      -This m/s builds on and extends the report from the same group in Nature Communications (2018), which described the earlier peptide MYBMIM, some effects on MYB target genes and on AML cells. It and the previous paper also draw on the findings regarding the role of the MYB-CBP/P300 interaction in myeloid leukemogenesis (Pattabirman et al 2014) and on previous genome-wide studies of MYB target genes (Zhoa et al 2011; Zuber et al 2011).

      *State what audience might be interested in and influenced by the reported findings.*

      -This m/s will likely be of interest to scientists interested in MYB per se, in AML, in cancer genomics and transcriptional regulation.

      *Define your field of expertise with a few keywords to help the authors contextualize your point of view. Indicate if there are any parts of the paper that you do not have sufficient expertise to evaluate.* -My expertise: AML, experimental hematology, transcription, MYB, cancer genomics

      3) As mentioned above, I feel that additional expertise is required to review the MS studies.

      Response: We have deposited all raw data in PRIDE (accession number PXD019708) and all processed data in Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4321824), making it available for the community for further analysis.

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      Referee #2

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      This manuscript reports the generation of a new and improved peptide mimetic inhibitor of the interaction between MYB and CBP/P300. The original MYBMIM inhibitor of this interaction, reported recently by the same laboratory, was modified by addition and substitution of peptide sequences from CREB, thus improving the affinity of the resulting CRYBMIM peptide to CBP/P300. The improved inhibitor profile results in increased anti-AML efficacy of CRYBMIM over MYBMIM. The authors go on to examine the mechanism underlying the anti-AML activity of CRYBMIM by integrating gene expression analysis, chromatin immunoprecipitation sequencing and mass spectrometric protein complex identification in human AML cells.

      I have some minor questions the authors may wish to comment on:

      1) The relocation of MYB, along with CBP/P300, to genes controlling myeloid differentiation (clusters 4 and 9) upon CRYBMIM treatment is reminiscent of the increased binding of MYB to myeloid pro-differentiation genes in AML cells following RUVBL2 silencing, recently reported in Armenteros-Monterroso et al. 2019 Leukemia 33:2817. Do the authors know if there is any overlap between genes in either of the clusters and the list reported in the latter study?

      2) Could the authors comment on a possible mechanism to explain the co-localization of MYB and CBP/P300 to the loci in clusters 4 and 9 following CRYBMIM treatment? Is it possible that CBP/P300 is recruited by other transcription factors to these loci, independently of binding to MYB? Or is the binding of CBP/P300 to MYB at these loci somehow more resistant to disruption by CRYBMIM?

      3) In the first paragraph of page 9, the text states: "Previously, we found that MYBMIM can suppress MYB:CBP/P300-dependent gene expression, leading to AML cell apoptosis that required MYB-mediated suppression of BCL2 (Ramaswamy et al., 2018)." I think this is a typo, since in this study, MYBMIM treatment results in loss of MYB binding to the BCL2 gene and consequent reduction in BCL2 expression. Do the authors mean 'MYBMIM-mediated suppression of BCl2' or 'loss of MYB-mediated activation of BCL2'?

      4) The authors explain the failure of excess CREBMIM to displace CBP/P300 from immobilised CREBMIM (Figure 1E-F) by the nature of the CREB:CBP/P300 interaction. Does this imply that CREBMIM is unable to disrupt the interaction between CREB and CBP/P300 in living cells and that the CBP/P300 purified from native MV4;11 lysates by immobilised CREBMIM was from a pool not associated with CREB?

      Significance

      Based on this integrative analysis, the authors propose a convincing hypothesis, involving the assembly of aberrant transcription factor complexes and sequestration of P300/CBP from genes involved in normal myeloid development, for the oncogenic activity of MYB in AML. As well as the obvious therapeutic potential of the CRYBMIM inhibitor itself, the data reported here reveal multiple avenues for future investigation into novel anti-AML therapeutic strategies. This is an innovative and important study.

      This study will be of interest to scientists and clinicians involved in leukaemia research as well as cancer biology in general.

      My field of expertise: leukaemia biology, leukaemia models, aberrant transcription factor activity in leukaemia

    1. In our pursuit for new friends in college, many students have chosen to interact with those they share surface level commonalities with because its comfortable, there is not as much stress to dive deeper into conversation. This is a faulty deal where we are selling ourselves short of growing as individuals. It is more valuable to learn about people’s thinking over their surface level groupings because this is to learn about the choices they have made in their life versus the choices that have been pre-determined for them by others.

      During my workshop feedback, a couple of my peers noted that they wanted me to expand on my conclusion-- specifically the context surrounding my last sentence. To their points, I recognized that my essay ended rather abruptly, but I liked leaving the reader with the thought of "choices that have been pre-determined for them by others" as a way to open up my essay to allow the reader to think how this may apply in their life. Instead, I discussed the effects for college students of only getting to know people on the surface level. This ties into my last sentence because it forces the reader to think beyond my narrative and into their own life or other's lives to see how diving deeper into conversation is or is not applied, all while highlighting what I have learned as takeaways. This, as well as my other revisions explained above, have helped me become lost in writing by creating an essay that interacts more with the reader and allows them to be present in my narrative through my thoughts and experiences.

    1. First, there is tremendous potential for our current version of AI. It will have enormous economic, cultural, and geopolitical impact. It will change life for ordinary people over the next many decades. It will create great riches for some. It will lead to different world views for many. Like heavier than air flight it will transform our world in ways in which we can not yet guess.

      Many people think that Brooks is opposed to AI because he takes a critical view of deep learning, and has more pessimistic (realistic?) timelines for when we may achieve general AI. But being critical isn't the same as being in opposition to.

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      Reply to the reviewers

      Reviewer #1 The authors study allostery with a beautiful genotype-phenotype experiment to study the fitness landscape of an allosteric lac repressor protein. The authors make a mutational library using error prone pcr and measure the impact on antibiotic resistance protein expression at varying levels of ligand, IPTG, expression. After measuring the impact of mutations authors fill-in the missing data using a neural net model. This type of dose response is not standard in the field, but the richness of their data and the discovery of the "band pass" phenomena prove its worth here splendidly. Using this mixed experimental/predicted data the authors explore how each mutation alters the different parameters of a hill equation fit of a dose response curve. Using higher order mutational space the authors look at how mutations can qualitatively switch phenotypes to inverted or band-stop dose-response curves. To validate and further explore a band-stop novel phenotype, the authors focused on a triple mutant and made all combinations of the 3 mutations. The authors find that only one mutation alone alters the dose-response and only in combination does a band-stop behavior present itself. Overall this paper is a fantastic data heavy dive into the allosteric fitness landscape of protein. Overall, the data presented in this paper is thoroughly collected and analyzed making the conclusions well-based. We do not think additional experiments nor substantial changes are needed apart from including basic experimental details and more biophysical rationale/speculation as discussed in further detail below.

      The authors do a genotype-phenotype experiment that requires extensive deep sequencing experiments. However, right now quite a bit of basic statistics on the sequencing is missing. Baseline library quality is somewhat shown in supplementary fig 2 but the figure is hard to interpret. It would be good to have a table that states how many of all possible mutations at different mutation depths (single, double, etc) there are. Similarly, sequencing statistics are missing- it would be useful to know how many reads were acquired and how much sequencing depth that corresponds to. This is particularly important for barcode assignment to phenotype in the long-read sequencing. In addition, a synonymous mutation comparison is mentioned but in my reading that data is not presented in the supplemental figures section.

      We thank the reviewer for this succinct summary of the manuscript and the results. We appreciate the reviewer identifying data of interest that were not included in the original manuscript. We agree that this information is necessary to consider the results. Specific changes are summarized in the comments below.

      The paper is very much written from an "old school" allostery perspective with static end point structures that are mutually exclusive - eg. p5l10 "relative ligand-binding affinity between the two conformations" - however, an ensemble of conformations is likely needed to explain their data. This is especially true for the bandpass and inverted phenotypes they observe. The work by Hilser et al is of particular importance in this area. We would invite the authors to speculate more freely about the molecular origins of their findings.

      We agree with the suggestions to adopt a modern allosteric perspective. We have changed the language throughout the manuscript to align with the ensemble model of allostery. We continue to frame results using the Monad-Wyman-Changeaux model, which reliably predicts LacI activity from biophysical parameters and is not exclusive of more modern models of allostery.

      **Minor** There are a number of small modifications. In general this paper is very technical and could use with some explanation and discussion for relevance to make the manuscript more approachable for a broader audience. P1L23: Ligand binding at one site causes a conformational change that affects the activity of another > not necessarily true - and related to using more "modern" statistical mechanical language for describing allostery.

      We agree with the reviewer’s comment. We have addressed this comment by adopting language in line with more modern view of allostery, for example:

      “With allosteric regulation, ligand binding at one site on a biomolecule changes the activity of another, often distal, site. Switching between active and inactive states provides a sense-and-response function that defines the allosteric phenotype.”

      P2L20: The core experiment of this paper is a selection using a mutational library. In the main body the authors mention the library was created using mutagenic pcr but leave it at that. More details on what sort of mutagenic pcr was used in the main body would be useful. According to the methods error prone pcr was used. Why use er-pcr vs deep point mutational libraries? Presumably to sample higher order phenotype? Rationale should be included. Were there preliminary experiments that helped calibrate the mutation level?

      We agree that justifying the decision to use error-prone PCR for library construction would be helpful. To explain this decision, we have added to the main text to explain this decision and to reflect on the consequences.

      “We used error-prone PCR across the full lacI CDS to investigate the effects of higher-order substitutions spread across the entire LacI sequence and structure.”

      And

      Novel phenotypes emerged at mutational distances greater than one amino acid substitution, highlighting the value in sampling a broader genotype space with higher-order mutations. Furthermore, the untargeted, random mutagenesis approach used here was critical for finding these novel phenotypes, as the genotypes required for these novel phenotypes were unpredictable.”

      P2L20: Baseline library statistics would be great in a table for coverage, diversity, etc especially as this was done by error prone pcr vs a more saturated library generation method. This is present in sup fig2 but it's a bit complicated.

      To more clearly convey the diversity within the library, we have included a heatmap of amino acid substitution counts found within the library (Supplementary Fig. 4). Additionally, we have added Supplementary Table 1, which lists the distribution of mutational distances of LacI variants found within the library, and the corresponding coverage of all possible mutations for each mutational distance.

      P2L26: How were FACS gates drawn? This is in support fig17 - should be pointed to here.

      We agree that a better description of the FACS process would be helpful. To address this we have included Supplementary Fig. 2, showing flow cytometry measurements of the library before and after FACS. Additionally, we have extended the description of the FACS process:

      “The initial library had a bimodal distribution of G__­0, as indicated by flow cytometry results, with a mode at low fluorescence (near G__­0 of wildtype LacI), and mode at higher gene expression. To generate a library in which most of the LacI variants could function as allosteric repressors, we used fluorescence activated cell sorting (FACS) to select the portion of the library with low fluorescence in the absence of ligand, gating at the bifurcation of the two modes (Sony SH800S Cell Sorter, Supplementary Fig. 2).”

      __

      P3L4: Where is the figure/data for the synonymous SNP mutations? This should be in the supplement.

      We agree this data is necessary to support the claim that LacI function was not impacted by synonymous mutations. We have included a new Supplementary Fig. 9, which shows the distribution of Hill equation parameters for LacI variants that code for the wild-type amino acid sequence, but with non-identical coding DNA sequences. Additionally, we included the results of a statistical analysis in the main text, this analysis compared all synonymous sequences in the library:

      “__We compared the distributions of the resulting Hill equation parameters between two sets of variants: 39 variants with exactly the wild-type coding DNA sequence for LacI (but with different DNA barcodes) and 310 variants with synonymous nucleotide changes (i.e. the wild-type amino acid sequence, but a non-wild-type DNA coding sequence). Using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, we found no significant differences between the two sets (p-values of 0.71, 0.40, 0.28, and 0.17 for G0, G∞, EC50, and n respectively, Supplementary Fig. 9).” __

      P3L20: The authors use a ML learning deep neural network to predict variant that were not covered in the screen. However, the library generation method is using error prone pcr meaning there could multiple mutations resulting in the same amino acid change. The models performance was determined by looking at withheld data however error prone pcr could result in multiple nonsynomymous mutations of the same amino acid. For testing were mutations truly withheld or was there overlap? Because several mutations are being represented by different codon combinations. Was the withheld data for the machine learning withholding specific substitutions?

      We thank the reviewer for identifying the need to clarify this critical data analysis. Data was held-out at the amino acid level, and so no overlap between the training and testing datasets occurred. We have clarified the description of the method in the main text:

      “We calculated RMSE using only held-out data not used in the model training, and the split between held-out data and training data was chosen so that all variants with a specific amino acid sequence appear in only one of the two sets.”


      In addition, higher order protein interactions are complicated and idiosyncratic. I am surprised how well the neural net performs on higher order substitutions. P4L4: Authors find mutations at the dimer/tetramer interfaces but don't mention whether polymerization is required. is dimerization required for dna binding? Tetramerization?

      We agree with the reviewer that, overall, a description of LacI structure and function would improve messaging the reported results. As such, we have added Supplementary Table 2, which defines the structural features discussed throughout the manuscript. Additionally, we have strived to describe the relevant structural and functional role of specific amino acids that are discussed in the text. Finally, we have also added a paragraph to the main text that summarizes the structure and function of LacI.

      “The LacI protein has 360 amino acids arranged into three structural domains__22–24__. The first 62 N-terminal amino acids form the DNA-binding domain, comprising a helix-turn-helix DNA-binding motif and a hinge that connects the DNA-binding motif and the core domain. The core domain, comprising amino acid positions 63-324, is divided into two structural subdomains: the N-terminal core and the C-terminal core. The full core domain forms the ligand-binding pocket, core-pivot region, and dimer interface. The tetramerization domain comprises the final 30 amino acids and includes a flexible linker and an 18 amino acid α-helix (Fig. 3, Supplementary Table 2). Naturally, LacI functions as a dimer of dimers: Two LacI monomers form a symmetric dimer that further assembles into a tetramer (a dimer of dimers).”

      P4L8: Substitutions near the dimer interface both impact g0 and ec50, which authors say is consistent with a change in the allosteric constant. Can authors explain their thinking more in the paper to make it easier to follow? Are the any mutations in this area that only impact g0 or ec50 alone? Why may these specific residues modify dimerization?

      We agree that a more in-depth discussion on the possible mechanisms behind these phenotypic changes would improve the manuscript. We have added discussion throughout the subsection “Effects of amino acid substitutions on LacI phenotype,” we believe this added discussion improve the manuscript and clarify the relationship between the observed allosteric phenotypes and the molecular mechanisms behind them. W

      Overall, we have made a number of changes in the manuscript that we hope will address these concerns.

      P4L8: The authors discuss the allosteric constant extensively within the paper but do not explain it. It would be helpful to have an explanation of this to improve readability. This explanation should include the statistical mechanical basis of it and some speculation about the ways it manifests biophysically.

      The allosteric constant is a critical concept, and we agree that it must be defined and discussed clearly throughout the manuscript. We have greatly expanded the discussion of the effects of single amino acid substitutions, and in the process we give examples of biochemical changes in the protein, and how they may affect the allosteric constant. We think this added text improves the manuscript and helps clarify the allosteric constant and the biomolecular processes that affect it.

      P4L1-16: Authors see mutations in the dimerization region that impact either G0 and Gsaturated in combination with Ec50 but not g0 and gsaturated together. Maybe we do not fully understand the hill equation but why are there no mutations that impact both g0 and gsaturated seen in support fig 13c? Why would mutations in the same region potentially impacting dimerization impact either g0 or gsaturated? What might be the mechanism behind divergent responses?

      It is important to recognize that the dimer interface does not just support the formation of dimers. There are many points of contact along the dimer interface that change when LacI switches between the active and inactive states. So, the dimer interface also helps regulate the balance between the active and inactive states. Our results show that different substitutions near the dimer interface can push this balance either toward the active or inactive states to varying degrees. We’ve added text throughout the description of single-substitutions effects to give specific examples and added a new paragraph at the end of that section to provide additional discussion and context. With regard to the more specific question of changes to both G0 and Ginf, the models indicate that simultaneous changes to those Hill Equation parameters requires an unusual combination of biophysical changes. To clarify this point, we added a short paragraph to the text:

      “None of the single amino substitutions measured in the library simultaneously decrease __G∞ and increase G0 (Supplementary Fig. 20c). This is not surprising, since substitutions that shift the biophysics to favor the active state tend to decrease G∞ while those that favor the inactive state tend to increase G0, and the biophysical models2,14,15 indicate that only a combination of parameter changes can cause both modifications to the dose-response. The library did, however, contain several multi-substitution variants with simultaneously decrease __G∞ and increase G0. These inverted variants, and their associated substitutions are discussed below.”


      P4L29: for interpretability it would be good to explain what log-additive effect means in the context of allostery.

      We agree that this information would be useful to the reader and have added additional text to explain log-additivity. We thank the reviewer for pointing out this oversight.

      “Combining multiple substitutions in a single protein almost always has a log-additive effect on EC50. That is, the proportional effects of two individual amino acid substitutions on the EC50 can be multiplied together. For example, if substitution A results in a 3-fold change, and substitution B results in a 2-fold change, the double substitution, AB, behaving log-additively, results in a 6-fold change__.”__

      P4L34-P5L19: This section is wonderful. Really cool results and interesting structural overlap! P5L34 Helix 9 of the protein is mentioned but it's functional relevance is not. This is common throughout the paper - it would be useful for there to be an overview somewhere to help the reader contextualize the results with known structural role of these elements.

      We agree with the reviewer that this information would help to contextualize the results. We have made a number of changes to address this. First, we have added Supplementary Table 2, which describes the structural features of LacI. Second, we have added a paragraph overviewing the structure and function of LacI. Third, we have expanded the section “the effects of individual amino acid substitutions on the function of LacI” to discuss the structural or biochemical impact of specific substitutions. We thank the reviewer for this suggestion.

      P5L39: The authors identified a triple mutant with the band-stop phenotype then made all combination of the triple mutant. Of particular interest is R195H/G265D which is nearly the same as the triple mutant. It would be nice if the positions of each of these mutations and have some discussion to begin to rationalize this phenotype, even if to point out how far apart they are and that there is no easy structural rationale!

      We appreciate the reviewer highlighting this area of interest. We have added structural information to Fig. 6, which indicates to position of the amino acid substitutions that result in the band-stop phenotype, as well as a small discussion in the main text:

      “To further investigate the band-stop phenotype, we chose a strong band-stop LacI variant with only three amino acid substitutions (R195H/G265D/A337D). These three positions are distributed distally on the periphery of the C-terminal core domain, and the role that each of these substitutions plays in the emergence of the band-stop phenotype is unclear.”

      P6L9: There should be more discussion of the significance of this work directly compared to what is known. For instance, negative cooperativity is mentioned as an explanation for bi-phasic dose response but this idea is not explained. Why would the relevant free energy changes be more entropic? Another example is the reverse-TetR phenotype observed by Hillen et al.

      We agree that more discussion is necessary to frame the results reported in the manuscript. To address this, we have added additional discussion throughout the manuscript that relates the results to the current understanding of allostery. Also, in the Conclusion, we added specific examples that lead us to link the ideas of bi-phasic dose response, negative cooperativity, and entropy/disorder. We believe these additions have improved the manuscript and we thank the reviewer for this suggestion.

      P6L28: The authors mention that phenotypes exist with genotypes that are discoverable with genotype-phenotype landscapes. This study due to the constraints of error prone pcr were somewhat limited. How big is the phenotypic landscape? Is it worth doing a more systematic study? What is the optimal experimental design: Single mutations, doubles, random - where is there the most information. How far can you drift before your machine learning model breaks down? How robust would it be to indels?

      The reviewer raises some excellent questions here, some of which are appropriate subjects for future work. The optimal experimental design depends on the objective: If the goal is to understand every possible mutation, a systematic site-saturation approach would be more appropriate. However, the landscape of a natural protein is limited by its wild-type DNA coding sequence, and so some substitutions are inaccessible (due to the arrangement of the codon table). The approach we took allowed to us characterize most of the accessible amino acid substitutions, while also allowing us to identify novel functions that would not have been identified with other approaches. We have added a little to the main text to discuss this (below). With regard to the DNN model, in the manuscript (SI Fig. 14), we show how the predictive accuracy degrades with mutational distance from the wild-type. It is possible that the type of DNN that we used could handle indels, since it effectively encodes each variant as a set of step-wise changes from the wild-type. But as with all machine-learning methods, it would require training with a dataset that included indels.

      “Novel phenotypes emerged at mutational distances greater than one amino acid substitution, highlighting the value in sampling a broader genotype space with higher-order mutations. Furthermore, the untargeted, random mutagenesis approach used here was critical for finding these novel phenotypes, as the genotypes required for these novel phenotypes were unpredictable.”

      Figures: Sup figs 3-7: The comparison of library-based results and single mutants is a great example of how to validate genotype-phenotype experiments!

      Thank you.

      Supp fig 5.: Missing figure number.

      We appreciate the reviewer catching this error and have attempted to properly label all figures and tables in this revision. Thank you.

      Supp fig7: G0 appears to have very poor fit between library vs single mutant version. Why might this be? R^2 would likely be better to report here as opposed to RMSE as RMSE is sensitize to the magnitude of the data such that you cannot directly compare RMSE of say 'n' to G0.

      We agree that these are important discussion points and have addressed this concern with an expanded discussion in the main text, as well as the addition of coefficient of correlation (R^2) in the caption for Figure 2 (previously supplementary figure 7). We believe these additions contribute meaningfully to the manuscript, and they address the concerns of the reviewer. The additional text reads:

      “We compared the Hill equation parameters from the library-scale measurement to those same parameters determined from flow cytometry measurements for each of the chemically synthesized LacI variants (Fig. 2). This served as a check of the new library-scale method’s overall ability to measure dose-response curves with quantitative accuracy. The accuracy for each Hill equation parameter in the library-scale measurement was: 4-fold for G0, 1.5-fold for G∞, 1.8-fold for EC50, and ± 0.28 for n. For G0, G∞, and EC50, we calculated the accuracy as: __, where __ is the root-mean-square difference between the logarithm of each parameter from the library-scale and cytometry measurements. For n, we calculated the accuracy simply as the root-mean-square difference between the library-scale and cytometry results. The accuracy for the gene expression levels (G0 and G∞) was better at higher gene expression levels (typical for G∞) than at low gene expression levels (typical for G0), which is expected based on the non-linearity of the fitness impact of tetracycline (Supplementary Figs. 10-11). Measurements of the Hill coefficient, n, had high relative uncertainties for both barcode-sequencing and flow cytometry, and so the parameter n was not used in any quantitative analysis.”

      Sup fig13c: it is somewhat surprising that mutations only appear to effect g0 and not gsaturated. This implies that basal and saturated activity are not coupled. Is this expected? Why or why not?

      This comment is partially addressed with a response above (P4L1-16). Coupled gene expression increases do occur, especially with substitutions at the start codon that result in fewer copies of LacI in the cell. In this instance, both G0 and G∞ are increased. Otherwise, changes to multiple biophysical parameters are required to increase both G0 and G∞.

      Reviewer #1 (Significance (Required)): Allostery is hard to comprehend because it involves many interacting residues propagating information across a protein. The Monod-Wyman-Changeux (MWC) and Koshland, Nemethy, and Filmer (KNF) models have been a long standing framework to explain much of allostery, however recent formulations have focused on the role of the conformational ensemble and a grounding in statistical mechanics. This manuscript focuses on the functional impact of mutations and therefore contribution of the amino acids to regulation. The authors unbiased approach of combining a dose-response curve and mutational library generation let them fit every mutant to a hill equation. This approach let the authors identify the allosteric phenotype of all measured mutations! The authors found inverted phenotypes which happen in homologs of this protein but most interesting is the strange and idiosyncratic 'Band-stop' phenotype. The band-stop phenotype is bi-phasic that will hopefully be followed up with further studies to explain the mechanism. This manuscript is a fascinating exploration of the adaptability of allosteric landscapes with just a handful of mutations. Genotype-phenotype experiments allow sampling immense mutational space to study complex phenotypes such as allostery. However, a challenge with these experiments is that allostery and other complicated phenomena come from immense fitness landscapes altering different parameters of the hill equation. The authors approach of using a simple error prone pcr library combined with many ligand concentrations allowed them to sample a very large space somewhat sparsely. However, they were able to predict this data by training and using a neural net model. I think this is a clever way to fill in the gaps that are inherent to somewhat sparse sampling from error prone pcr. The experimental design of the dose response is especially elegant and a great model for how to do these experiments. With some small improvements for readability, this manuscript will surely find broad interest to the genotype-phenotype, protein science, allostery, structural biology, and biophysics fields. We were prompted to do this by Review Commons and are posting our submitted review here: Willow Coyote-Maestas has relevant expertise in high throughput screening, protein engineering, genotype-phenotype experiments, protein allostery, dating mining, and machine learning. James Fraser has expertise in structural biology, genotype-phenotype experiments, protein allostery, protein dynamics, protein evolution, etc.

      Reviewer #2 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)): The authors use deep mutational scanning to infer the dose-response curves of ~60,000 variants of the LacI repressor and so provide an unprecedently systematic dataset of how mutations affect an allosteric protein. Overall this is an interesting dataset that highlights the potential of mutational scanning for rapidly identifying diverse variants of proteins with desired or unexpected activities for synthetic biology/bioengineering. The relatively common inverted phenotypes and their sequence diversity is interesting, as is the identification of several hundred genotypes with non-sigmoidal band-stop dose-response curves and their enrichment in specific protein regions. A weakness of the study is that some of the parameter estimates seem to have high uncertainty and this is not clearly presented or the impact on the conclusions analysed. A second shortcoming is that there is little mechanistic insight beyond the enrichments of mutations with different effects in different regions of the protein. But as a first overview of the diversity of mutational effects on the dose-response curve of an allosteric protein, this is an important dataset and analysis. **Comments** **Data quality and reproducibility** "The flow cytometry results confirmed both the qualitative and quantitative accuracy of the new method (Supplementary Figs. 3-7)"

      • There need to be quantitative measures of accuracy in the text here for the different parameters.

      We believe this comment is addressed along with the following two comments.

      • Sup fig 7 panels should be main text panels - they are vital for understanding the data quality In particular, the G0 parameter estimates from the library appear to have a lower bound ie they provide no information below a cytometry Go of ~10^4. This is an important caveat and needs to be highlighted in the main text. The Hill parameter (n) estimate for wt (dark gray) replicate barcodes is extremely variable - why is this?

      • In general there is not a clear enough presentation of the uncertainty and biases in the parameter estimations which seem to be rather different for the 4 parameters. Only the EC50 parameter seems to correlate very well with the independent measurements.

      We thank the reviewer for identifying a need for more information on the accuracy of this method. So, we have moved Supplementary Fig. 7 to the main text (Fig 2 in the revised manuscript) and have added coefficients of correlation to each Hill equation parameter in that figure caption. Furthermore, we have added new data (Supplementary Fig. 11), which shows the uncertainty associated with different gene expression levels. Finally, we have added a discussion on the accuracy of this method for each parameter of the Hill equation to the main text. Estimation of the Hill coefficient (n) from data is often highly uncertain and variable, because that parameter estimate can be highly sensitive to random measurement errors at a single point on the curve. The estimate for the wild type appears to be highly variable because the plot contains 53 replicate measurements. So, the plotted variability represents approximately 2 standard deviations. The spread of wild-type results in the plot is consistent with the stated RMSE for the Hill coefficient. Furthermore, the Hill coefficient is not used in any of the additional quantitative analysis in our manuscript, partially because of its relatively high measurement uncertainty, but also because, based on the biophysical models, it is not as informative of the underlying biophysical changes.

      “We compared the Hill equation parameters from the library-scale measurement to those same parameters determined from flow cytometry measurements for each of the chemically synthesized LacI variants (Fig. 2). This served as a check of the new library-scale method’s overall ability to measure dose-response curves with quantitative accuracy. The accuracy for each Hill equation parameter in the library-scale measurement was: 4-fold for G0, 1.5-fold for G∞, 1.8-fold for EC50, and ± 0.28 for n. For G0, G∞, and EC50, we calculated the accuracy as: "exp" ["RMSE" ("ln" ("x" ))], where "RMSE" ("ln" ("x" )) is the root-mean-square difference between the logarithm of each parameter from the library-scale and cytometry measurements. For n, we calculated the accuracy simply as the root-mean-square difference between the library-scale and cytometry results. The accuracy for the gene expression levels (G0 and G∞) was better at higher gene expression levels (typical for G∞) than at low gene expression levels (typical for G0), which is expected based on the non-linearity of the fitness impact of tetracycline (Supplementary Figs. 10-11). Measurements of the Hill coefficient, n, had high relative uncertainties for both barcode-sequencing and flow cytometry, and so the parameter n was not used in any quantitative analysis.”

      • The genotypes in the mutagenesis library contain a mean of 4.4 aa substitutions and the authors us a neural network to estimate 3 of the Hill equation parameters (with uncertainties) for the 1991/2110 of the single aa mutations. It would be useful to have an independent experimental evaluation of the reliability of these inferred single aa mutational effects by performing facs on a panel of single aa mutants (using single aa mutants in sup fig 3-7, if there are any, or newly constructed mutants).

      We agree that the predictive performance of the DNN requires experimental validation. We evaluated the performance by withholding data from 20% of the library, including nearly 200 variants with single amino acid substitutions, and then compared the predicted effect of those substitutions to the measured effect. The results of this test are reported in Supplementary Fig. 14. Additionally, we have adjusted the main text to more clearly explain the evaluation process.

      “To evaluate the accuracy of the model predictions, we used the root-mean-square error (RMSE) for the model predictions compared with the measurement results. We calculated RMSE using only held-out data not used in the model training, and the split between held-out data and training data was chosen so that all variants with a specific amino acid sequence appear in only one of the two sets.” __ __

      • fig3/"Combining multiple substitutions in a single protein almost always has a log-additive effect on EC50." How additive are the other 2 parameters? this analysis should also be presented in fig 3. If they are not as additive is it simply because of lower accuracy of the measurements? If the mutational effects are largely additive, then a simple linear model (rather than the DNN) could be used to estimate the single mutant effects from the multiple mutant genotypes.

      We agree with the reviewer that exploring the log-additivity of the Hill equation parameters is informative, and have included Supplementary Figure 21, which displays this information. Furthermore, we expanded the discussion of log-additivity on all three parameters in the main text:

      “Combining multiple substitutions in a single protein almost always has a log-additive effect on EC50. That is, the proportional effects of two individual amino acid substitutions on the EC50 can be multiplied together. For example, if substitution A results in a 3-fold change, and substitution B results in a 2-fold change, the double substitution, AB, behaving log-additively, results in a 6-fold change. Only 0.57% (12 of 2101) of double amino acid substitutions in the measured data have EC50 values that differ from the log-additive effects of the single substitutions by more than 2.5-fold (Fig. 4). This result, combined with the wide distribution of residues that affect EC50, reinforces the view that allostery is a distributed biophysical phenomenon controlled by a free energy balance with additive contributions from many residues and interactions, a mechanism proposed previously1,39 and supported by other recent studies17, rather than a process driven by the propagation of local, contiguous structural rearrangements along a defined pathway.

      A similar analysis of log-additivity for G0 and G∞ is complicated by the more limited range of measured values for those parameters, the smaller number of substitutions that cause large shifts in G0 or G∞, and the higher relative measurement uncertainty at low G(L). However, the effects of multiple substitutions on G0 and G∞ are also consistent with log-additivity for almost every measured double substitution variant (Supplementary Fig. 21).”

      **Presentation/clarity of text and figures**

      • The main text implies that the DNN is trained to predict 3 parameters of the Hill equation but not the Hill coefficient (n). This should be clarified / justified in the main text.

      We agree that the decision to exclude the parameter ‘n’ requires explanation in the main text. To address this, we have added to the main text:

      “Measurements of the Hill coefficient, n, had high relative uncertainties for both barcode-sequencing and flow cytometry, and so the parameter n was not used in any quantitative analysis.”

      and

      “We trained the model to predict the Hill equation parameters G0, G∞, and EC50 (Supplementary Fig. 13), the three Hill equation parameters that were determined with relatively low uncertainty by the library-scale measurement.”

      • The DNN needs to be better explained and justified in the main text for a general audience. How do simpler additive models perform for phenotypic prediction / parameter inference?

      We agree with the reviewer that the DNN needs to be justified in the main text. As part of the revision plan, we propose to compare the predictive performance of the DNN to an additive model.

      • Ref 14. analyses a much smaller set of mutants in the same protein but using an explicit biophysical model. It would be helpful to have a more extensive comparison with the approach and conclusions to this previous study.

      Throughout the manuscript, we frame the results and discussion in terms of the referenced biophysical model. Using the model, we describe the biophysical effects that a substitution may have on LacI, based on observed changes to function associated with that substitution. We also comment briefly on the limitations of this model when applied to the extensive dataset presented here.

      “Most of the non-silent substitutions discussed above are more likely to affect the allosteric constant than either the ligand or operator affinities. Within the biophysical model, those affinities are specific to either the active or inactive state of LacI, i.e. they are defined conditionally, assuming that the protein is in the appropriate state. So, almost by definition, substitutions that affect the ligand-binding or operator-binding affinities (as defined in the models) must be at positions that are close to the ligand-binding site or within the DNA-binding domain. Substitutions that modify the ability of the LacI protein to access either the active state or inactive state, by definition, affect the allosteric constant. This includes, for example, substitutions that disrupt dimer formation (dissociated monomers are in the inactive state), substitutions that lock the dimer rigidly into either the active or inactive state, or substitutions that more subtly affect the balance between the active and inactive states. Thus, because there are many more positions far from the ligand- and DNA- binding regions than close to those regions, there are many more opportunities for substitutions to affect the allosteric constant than the other biophysical parameters. Note that this analysis assumes that substitutions don’t perturb the LacI structure too much, so that the active and inactive states remain somehow similar to the wild-type states. Our results suggest that this is not always the case: consider, for example, the substitutions at positions __K84 and M98 discussed above and the substitutions resulting in the inverted and band-stop phenotypes discussed below.”__

      • Enrichments need statistical tests to know how unexpected that results are e.g. p5 line 12 "67% of strongly inverted variants have substitutions near the ligand-binding pocket"

      We agree that this information is necessary to interpret the results. We have included p-values (previously reported only in the Methods section) throughout the main text of the manuscript.

      The publication by Poelwijk et al. was considered extensively when planning this work, and failing to cite that manuscript would have been tremendously unjust. We have included it, as well as a few additional references that have identified and discussed inverted LacI variants. We sincerely thank the reviewer for identifying this oversight.

      • What mechanisms do the authors envisage that could produce the band-stop dose response curves? There is likely previous theoretical work that could be cited here. In general there is little discussion of the biophysical mechanisms that could underlie the various mutational effects.

      We agree with the reviewer, that discussing the biophysical mechanisms that underlie many of the reported mutations is important to understand the results. We have expanded the subsection “Effects of amino acid substitutions on LacI phenotype” to include discussion on several of the key substitutions (or groups of substitutions) and their potential biophysical effects. Additionally, we consider mechanism that may underlie the band-stop sensor, and propose one model that could explain the band-stop phenotype:

      “In particular, the biphasic dose-response of the band-stop variants suggests negative cooperativity: that is, successive ligand binding steps have reduced ligand binding affinity. Negative cooperativity has been shown to be required for biphasic dose-response curves__42,43. The biphasic dose-response and apparent negative cooperativity are also reminiscent of systems where protein disorder and dynamics have been shown to play an important role in allosteric function1, including catabolite activator protein (CAP)44,45 and the Doc/Phd toxin-antitoxin system46. This suggests that entropic changes may also be important for the band-stop phenotype. A potential mechanism is that band-stop LacI variants have two distinct inactive states: an inactive monomeric state and an inactive dimeric state. In the absence of ligand, inactive monomers may dominate the population. Then, at intermediate ligand concentrations, ligand binding stabilizes dimerization of LacI into an active state which can bind to the DNA operator and repress transcription. When a second ligand binds to the dimer, it returns to an inactive dimeric state, similar to wildtype LacI. This mechanism, and other possible mechanisms, do not match the MWC model of allostery or its extensions2,13–15__ and require a more comprehensive study and understanding of the ensemble of states in which these band-stop LacI variants exist.”

      • "This result, combined with the wide distribution of residues that affect EC50, suggests that LacI allostery is controlled by a free energy balance with additive contributions from many residues and interactions." 'additive contributions and interactions' covers all possible models of vastly different complexity i.e. this sentence is rather meaningless.

      We have attempted to contextualize this statement by adding additional discussion and references. We hope these additions give more meaning to this section.

      “__This result, combined with the wide distribution of residues that affect EC50, reinforces the view that allostery is a distributed biophysical phenomenon controlled by a free energy balance with additive contributions from many residues and interactions, a mechanism proposed previously1,39 and supported by other recent studies17, rather than a process driven by the propagation of local, contiguous structural rearrangements along a defined pathway.”__

      • fig 4 c and d compress a lot of information into one figure and I found this figure confusing. It may be clearer to have multiple panels with each panel presenting one aspect. It is also not clear to me what the small circular nodes exactly represent, especially when you have one smaller node connected to two polygonal nodes, and why they don't have the same colour scale as the polygonal nodes.

      We agree with the reviewer that figure 4 (or Figure 5 in the revised manuscript) contains a lot of information. The purpose of this figure is to convey the structural and genetic diversity among the sets of inverted variants and band-stop variants. We designed this figure to convey this point at two levels: a brief overview, where the diversity is apparent by quickly considering the figure, and at a more informative level, with some quantitative data and structurally relevant points highlighted. We have modified the caption slightly, in an effort to improve clarity.

      • line 25 - 'causes a conformational change' -> 'energetic change' (allostery does not always involve conformational change

      We thank the reviewer for this comment and have adopted a more modern language describe allostery throughout the manuscript.

      • sup fig 5 legend misses '5'

      We thank the reviewer for pointing this out, we have attempted to number all figures and tables more carefully.

      • sup fig 7. pls add correlation coefficients to these plots (and move to main text figures).

      We agree that this information is of interest and have included this data as main text Figure 2. In addition, we have included coefficients of correlation in the caption of this figure.

      • Reference 21 is just a title and pubmed link

      We thank the reviewer for identifying this error, we have corrected this in the references.

      • "fitness per hour" -> growth rate

      To ensure that this connection is clearly established, when we introduce fitness for the first time, we clarify that it relates to growth rate:

      “Consequently, in the presence of tetracycline, the LacI dose-response modulates cellular fitness (i.e. growth rate) based on the concentration of the input ligand isopropyl-β-D-thiogalactoside (IPTG).”

      Also, we define ‘fitness’ in the Methods section:

      “The experimental approach for this work was designed to maintain bacterial cultures in exponential growth phase for the full duration of the measurements. So, in all analysis, the Malthusian definition of fitness was used, i.e. fitness is the exponential growth rate__58__.”

      • page 6 line 28 - "discoverable only via large-scale landscape measurements" - directed evolution approaches can also discover such genotypes (see e.g. Poelwijk /Tans paper). Please re-phrase.

      We agree with the reviewer and have adjusted the main text accordingly.

      “__Overall, our findings suggest that a surprising diversity of useful and potentially novel allosteric phenotypes exist with genotypes that are readily discoverable via large-scale landscape measurements.”__

      • pls define jargon the first time it is used e.g. band-stop and band-pass

      We agree that all unconventional terms should be explicitly defined when used, and we have attempted to define the band-pass and band-stop dose-response curves more clearly in the main text:

      “These include examples of LacI variants with band-stop dose-response curves (i.e. variants with high-low-high gene expression; e.g. Fig. 1e, Supplementary Fig. 7), and LacI variants with band-pass dose-response curves (i.e. variants with low-high-low gene expression; e.g. Supplementary Fig. 8).”

      **Methods/data availability/ experimental and analysis reproducibility:** The way that growth rate is calculated on page 17 equation 1- This section is confusing. Please be explicit about how you accounted for the lag phase, what the lag phase was, and total population growth during this time. In addition, please report the growth curves from the wells of the four plates, the final OD600 of the pooled samples, and exact timings of when the samples were removed from 37 degree incubation in a table. These are critical for calculating growth rate in individual clones downstream.

      We thank the reviewer for identifying the need to clarify this section of text. The ‘lag’ in this section referred to a delay before tetracycline began impacting the growth rate of cells. To address this, we have changed ‘lag’ in this context to ‘delay.’ Furthermore, we have attempted to clarify precisely the cause of this delay, and how we accounted for it in calculating growth rates:

      For samples grown with tetracycline, the tetracycline was only added to the culture media for Growth Plates 2‑4. Because of the mode of action of tetracycline (inhibition of translation), there was a delay in its effect on cell fitness: Immediately after diluting cells into Growth Plate 2 (the first plate with tetracycline), the cells still had a normal level of proteins needed for growth and proliferation and they continued to grow at nearly the same rate as without tetracycline. Over time, as the level of proteins required for cell growth decreased due to tetracycline, the growth rate of the cells decreased. Accordingly, the analysis accounts for the variation in cell fitness (growth rate) as a function of time after the cells were exposed to tetracycline. With the assumption that the fitness is approximately proportional to the number of proteins needed for growth, the fitness as a function of time is taken to approach the new value with an exponential decay:

      (3)

      where μitet is the steady-state fitness with tetracycline, and α is a transition rate. The transition rate was kept fixed at α = log(5), determined from a small-scale calibration measurement. Note that at the tetracycline concentration used during the library-scale measurement (20 µg/mL), μitet was greater than zero even at the lowest G(L) levels (Supplementary Fig. 10). From Eq. (3), the number of cells in each Growth Plate for samples grown with tetracycline is:

      • What were the upper and lower bounds of the measurements? (LacI deletion vs Tet deletion / autofluoresence phenotype - true 100% and true 0% activity). Knowing and reporting these bounds will also allow easier comparison between datasets in the future.

      We agree that knowing the limitations of the measurement are important for contextualizing the results. To address this point, we have included Supplementary Fig. 11, which shows the uncertainty of the measurement across gene expression levels.

      Please clarify whether there was only 1 biological replicate (because the plates were pooled before sequencing)? Or if there were replicates present an analysis of reproducibility.

      We thank the reviewer for pointing out the ambiguity in the original manuscript. The library-scale measurement reported here was completed once, the 24 growth conditions were spread across 96 wells, so each condition occupied 4 wells. The 4 wells were combined prior to DNA extraction. We have clarified this process in the methods by removing ‘duplicate’:

      “Growth Plate 2 contained the same IPTG gradient as Growth Plate 1 with the addition of tetracycline (20 µg/mL) to alternating rows in the plate, resulting in 24 chemical environments, with each environment spread across 4 wells.”

      Despite there being only a single library-scale measurement, the accuracy and reliability of the results are supported by many distinct biological replicates within the library (i.e. LacI variants with the same amino acid sequence but with different barcodes, see new Supplementary Fig. 9), as well as over 100 orthogonal dose-response curve measurements completed with flow cytometry (Figure 2). We believe these support the reproducibility of the work and we have included statistical analysis on the accuracy of the library-scale measurement results.

      “To test the accuracy of the new method for library-scale dose-response curve measurements, we independently verified the results for over 100 LacI variants from the library. For each verification measurement, we chemically synthesized the coding DNA sequence for a single variant and inserted it into a plasmid where LacI regulates the expression of a fluorescent protein. We transformed the plasmid into E. coli and measured the resulting dose-response curve with flow cytometry (e.g. Fig. 1e). We compared the Hill equation parameters from the library-scale measurement to those same parameters determined from flow cytometry measurements for each of the chemically synthesized LacI variants (Fig. 2). This served as a check of the new library-scale method’s overall ability to measure dose-response curves with quantitative accuracy. The accuracy for each Hill equation parameter in the library-scale measurement was: 4-fold for G0, 1.5-fold for G∞, 1.8-fold for EC50, and ± 0.28 for n. For G0, G∞, and EC50, we calculated the accuracy as: "exp" ["RMSE" ("ln" ("x" ))], where "RMSE" ("ln" ("x" )) is the root-mean-square difference between the logarithm of each parameter from the library-scale and cytometry measurements. For n, we calculated the accuracy simply as the root-mean-square difference between the library-scale and cytometry results (Supplementary Fig. 7).”

      • Please provide supplementary tables of the data (in addition to the raw sequencing files). Both a table summarising the growth rates, inferred parameter values and uncertainties for genotypes and a second table with the barcode sequence counts across timepoints and associated experimental data.

      We agree that access to this information is critical. Due to the size of the associated data, we have made this data available for download in a public repository. We direct readers to the repository information in the “Data Availability” statement:

      “The raw sequence data for long-read and short-read DNA sequencing have been deposited in the NCBI Sequence Read Archive and are available under the project accession number PRJNA643436. Plasmid sequences have been deposited in the NCBI Genbank under accession codes MT702633, and MT702634, for pTY1 and pVER, respectively.

      The processed data table containing comprehensive data and information for each LacI variant in the library is publicly available via the NIST Science Data Portal, with the identifier ark:/88434/mds2-2259 (https://data.nist.gov/od/id/mds2-2259 or https://doi.org/10.18434/M32259). The data table includes the DNA barcode sequences, the barcode read counts, the time points used for the libarary-scale measurement, fitness estimates for each barcoded variant across the 24 chemical environments, the results of both Bayesian inference models (including posterior medians, covariances, and 0.05, 0.25, 0.75, and 0.95 posterior quantiles), the LacI CDS and amino acid sequence for each barcoded variant (as determined by long-read sequencing), the number of LacI CDS reads in the long-read sequencing dataset for each barcoded variant, and the number of unintended mutations in other regions of the plasmid (from the long-read sequencing data).

      Code Availability

      All custom data analysis code is available at https://github.com/djross22/nist_lacI_landscape_analysis.”

      Reviewer #2 (Significance (Required)): The authors present an unprecedently systematic dataset of how mutations affect an allosteric protein. This illustrates the potential of mutational scanning for rapidly identifying diverse variants of allosteric proteins / regulators with desired or unexpected activities for synthetic biology/bioengineering. Previous studies have identified inverted dose-response curve for a lacI phenotypes https://www.cell.com/fulltext/S0092-8674(11)00710-0 but using directed evolution i.e. they were not comprehensive in nature. The audience of this study would be protein engineers, the allostery field, synthetic biologists and the mutation scanning community and evolutionary biologists interested in fitness landscapes. My relevant expertise is in deep mutational scanning and genotype-phenotype landscapes, including work on allosteric proteins and computational methods. Reviewer #3 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)): In this interesting manuscript the authors developed in ingenious high throughput screening approach which utilizes DNA barcoding to select variants of LacI proteins with different allosteric profiles for IPTG control using E. coli fitness (growth rate) in a range of antibiotic concentrations as a readout thus providing a genotype-phenotype map for this enzyme. The authors used library of 10^5-10^ variants of LacI expressed from a plasmid and screened for distinct IPTG activation profiles under different conditions including several antibiotic stressors. As a result they identified various patterns of activation including normal (sigmoidal increase), inverted (decrease) and unusual stop-band where the dependence of growth on [IPTG] is non-monotonic. The study is well-conceived, well executed and provides statistically significant results. The key advance provided by this work is that it allows to identify specific mutations in LacI connected with one of three allosteric profiles. The paper is clearly written all protocols are explained and it can be reproduced in a lab that possesses proper expertise in genetics. Reviewer #3 (Significance (Required)): The significance of this work is that it discovered libraries of LacI variants which give rise to distinct profiles of allosteric control of activation of specific genes (in this case antibiotic resistance) by the Lac mechanism. The barcoding technology allowed to identify specific mutations which are (presumably) causal of changes in the way how allosteric activation of LacI by IPTG works. As such it provides a rich highly resolved dataset of LacI variants for further exploration and analysis. Alongside with these strengths several weaknesses should also be noted:

      1. First and foremost the paper does not provide any molecular-level biophysical insights into the impact of various types of mutations on molecular properties of LacI. Do the mutations change binding affinity to IPTG? Binding side? Communication dynamics? Stability? The diagrams of connectivity for the stop-band mutations (Fig.4) do not provide much help as they do not tell much which molecular properties of LacI are affected by mutations and why certain mutations have specific effect on allostery. A molecular level exploration would make this paper much stronger.

      We address this comment with comment (2), below.

      1. In the same vein a theoretical MD study would be quite illuminating in answering the key unanswered question of this work: Why do mutations have various and pronounced effects of allosteric regulation by LacI?. I think publication of this work should not be conditioned on such study but again adding would make the work much stronger.

      We appreciate the reviewer’s comments and agree that investigating the molecular mechanisms driving the phenotypic changes identified in this work is a compelling proposition. Throughout the manuscript, we identify positions and specific amino acid substitutions that affect the measurable function of LacI, and occasionally discuss the biophysical effects that may underly these changes. We have expanded the discussion to include possible molecular-level effects.

      The dataset reported here identifies many potential candidates for molecular-level study, either computationally or experimentally. However, this manuscript is scoped to report a large-scale method to measure the genotype-phenotype landscape of an allosteric protein, and a limited investigation into the emergence of novel phenotypes that are identified in the landscape.

      1. Lastly a recent study PNAS v.116 pp.11265-74 (2019) explored a library of variants of E. coli Adenylate Kinase and showed the relationship between allosteric effects due to substrate inhibition and stability of the protein. Perhaps a similar relationship can explored in this case of LacI.

      We thank the reviewer for highlighting this publication. We agree with the reviewer that similar effects may play a role in the activity of LacI. Establishing such a relationship would require additional experimentation, and, we think, is outside the scope of the submitted manuscript. Although, we hope follow-up studies using this dataset will investigate this phenomenon and other related mechanisms, that may underlie the band-stop phenotype and other observed effects.

    2. Note: This preprint has been reviewed by subject experts for Review Commons. Content has not been altered except for formatting.

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      Referee #1

      Evidence, reproducibility and clarity

      The authors study allostery with a beautiful genotype-phenotype experiment to study the fitness landscape of an allosteric lac repressor protein. The authors make a mutational library using error prone pcr and measure the impact on antibiotic resistance protein expression at varying levels of ligand, IPTG, expression. After measuring the impact of mutations authors fill-in the missing data using a neural net model. This type of dose response is not standard in the field, but the richness of their data and the discovery of the "band pass" phenomena prove its worth here splendidly.

      Using this mixed experimental/predicted data the authors explore how each mutation alters the different parameters of a hill equation fit of a dose response curve. Using higher order mutational space the authors look at how mutations can qualitatively switch phenotypes to inverted or band-stop dose-response curves. To validate and further explore a band-stop novel phenotype, the authors focused on a triple mutant and made all combinations of the 3 mutations. The authors find that only one mutation alone alters the dose-response and only in combination does a band-stop behavior present itself. Overall this paper is a fantastic data heavy dive into the allosteric fitness landscape of protein.

      Major

      Overall, the data presented in this paper is thoroughly collected and analyzed making the conclusions well-based. We do not think additional experiments nor substantial changes are needed apart from including basic experimental details and more biophysical rationale/speculation as discussed in further detail below.

      The authors do a genotype-phenotype experiment that requires extensive deep sequencing experiments. However, right now quite a bit of basic statistics on the sequencing is missing. Baseline library quality is somewhat shown in supplementary fig 2 but the figure is hard to interpret. It would be good to have a table that states how many of all possible mutations at different mutation depths (single, double, etc) there are. Similarly, sequencing statistics are missing- it would be useful to know how many reads were acquired and how much sequencing depth that corresponds to. This is particularly important for barcode assignment to phenotype in the long-read sequencing. In addition, a synonymous mutation comparison is mentioned but in my reading that data is not presented in the supplemental figures section.

      The paper is very much written from an "old school" allostery perspective with static end point structures that are mutually exclusive - eg. p5l10 "relative ligand-binding affinity between the two conformations" - however, an ensemble of conformations is likely needed to explain their data. This is especially true for the bandpass and inverted phenotypes they observe. The work by Hilser et al is of particular importance in this area. We would invite the authors to speculate more freely about the molecular origins of their findings.

      Minor

      There are a number of small modifications. In general this paper is very technical and could use with some explanation and discussion for relevance to make the manuscript more approachable for a broader audience.

      P1L23: Ligand binding at one site causes a conformational changes that affects the activity of another > not necessarily true - and related to using more "modern" statistical mechanical language for describing allostery.

      P2L20: The core experiment of this paper is a selection using a mutational library. In the main body the authors mention the library was created using mutagenic pcr but leave it at that. More details on what sort of mutagenic pcr was used in the main body would be useful. According to the methods error prone pcr was used. Why use er-pcr vs deep point mutational libraries? Presumably to sample higher order phenotype? Rationale should be included. Were there preliminary experiments that helped calibrate the mutation level?

      P2L20: Baseline library statistics would be great in a table for coverage, diversity, etc especially as this was done by error prone pcr vs a more saturated library generation method. This is present in sup fig2 but it's a bit complicated.

      P2L26: How were FACS gates drawn? This is in support fig17 - should be pointed to here.

      P3L4: Where is the figure/data for the synonymous SNP mutations? This should be in the supplement.

      P3L20: The authors use a ML learning deep neural network to predict variant that were not covered in the screen. However, the library generation method is using error prone pcr meaning there could multiple mutations resulting in the same amino acid change. The models performance was determined by looking at withheld data however error prone pcr could result in multiple nonsynomymous mutations of the same amino acid. For testing were mutations truly withheld or was there overlap? Because several mutations are being represented by different codon combinations. Was the withheld data for the machine learning withholding specific substitutions?

      In addition, higher order protein interactions are complicated and idiosyncratic. I am surprised how well the neural net performs on higher order substitutions.

      P4L4: Authors find mutations at the dimer/tetramer interfaces but don't mention whether polymerization is required. is dimerization required for dna binding? Tetramerization?

      P4L8: Substitutions near the dimer interface both impact g0 and ec50, which authors say is consistent with a change in the allosteric constant. Can authors explain their thinking more in the paper to make it easier to follow? Are the any mutations in this area that only impact g0 or ec50 alone? Why may these specific residues modify dimerization?

      P4L8: The authors discuss the allosteric constant extensively within the paper but do not explain it. It would be helpful to have an explanation of this to improve readability. This explanation should include the statistical mechanical basis of it and some speculation about the ways it manifests biophysically.

      P4L1-16: Authors see mutations in the dimerization region that impact either G0 and Gsaturated in combination with Ec50 but not g0 and gsaturated together. Maybe we do not fully understand the hill equation but why are there no mutations that impact both g0 and gsaturated seen in support fig 13c? Why would mutations in the same region potentially impacting dimerization impact either g0 or gsaturated? What might be the mechanism behind divergent responses?

      P4L29: for interpretability it would be good to explain what log-additive effect means in the context of allostery.

      P4L34-P5L19: This section is wonderful. Really cool results and interesting structural overlap!

      P5L34 Helix 9 of the protein is mentioned but it's functional relevance is not. This is common throughout the paper - it would be useful for there to be an overview somewhere to help the reader contextualize the results with known structural role of these elements.

      P5L39: The authors identified a triple mutant with the band-stop phenotype then made all combination of the triple mutant. Of particular interest is R195H/G265D which is nearly the same as the triple mutant. It would be nice if the positions of each of these mutations and have some discussion to begin to rationalize this phenotype, even if to point out how far apart they are and that there is no easy structural rationale!

      P6L9: There should be more discussion of the significance of this work directly compared to what is known. For instance negative cooperativity is mentioned as an explanation for bi-phasic dose response but this idea is not explained. Why would the relevant free energy changes be more entropic? Another example is the reverse-TetR phenotype observed by Hillen et al.

      P6L28: The authors mention that phenotypes exist with genotypes that are discoverable with genotype-phenotype landscapes. This study due to the constraints of error prone pcr were somewhat limited. How big is the phenotypic landscape? Is it worth doing a more systematic study? What is the optimal experimental design: Single mutations, doubles, random - where is there the most information. How far can you drift before your machine learning model breaks down? How robust would it be to indels?

      Figures:

      Sup figs 3-7: The comparison of library-based results and single mutants is a great example of how to validate genotype-phenotype experiments!

      Supp fig 5.: Missing figure number.

      Supp fig7: G0 appears to have very poor fit between library vs single mutant version. Why might this be? R^2 would likely be better to report here as opposed to RMSE as RMSE is sensitize to the magnitude of the data such that you cannot directly compare RMSE of say 'n' to G0.

      Sup fig13c: it is somewhat surprising that mutations only appear to effect g0 and not gsaturated. This implies that basal and saturated activity are not coupled. Is this expected? Why or why not?

      Significance

      Allostery is hard to comprehend because it involves many interacting residues propagating information across a protein. The Monod-Wyman-Changeux (MWC) and Koshland, Nemethy, and Filmer (KNF) models have been a long standing framework to explain much of allostery, however recent formulations have focused on the role of the conformational ensemble and a grounding in statistical mechanics. This manuscript focuses on the functional impact of mutations and therefore contribution of the amino acids to regulation. The authors unbiased approach of combining a dose-response curve and mutational library generation let them fit every mutant to a hill equation. This approach let the authors identify the allosteric phenotype of all measured mutations! The authors found inverted phenotypes which happen in homologs of this protein but most interesting is the strange and idiosyncratic 'Band-stop' phenotype. The band-stop phenotype is bi-phasic that will hopefully be followed up with further studies to explain the mechanism. This manuscript is a fascinating exploration of the adaptability of allosteric landscapes with just a handful of mutations.

      Genotype-phenotype experiments allow sampling immense mutational space to study complex phenotypes such as allostery. However, a challenge with these experiments is that allostery and other complicated phenomena come from immense fitness landscapes altering different parameters of the hill equation. The authors approach of using a simple error prone pcr library combined with many ligand concentrations allowed them to sample a very large space somewhat sparsely. However, they were able to predict this data by training and using a neural net model. I think this is a clever way to fill in the gaps that are inherent to somewhat sparse sampling from error prone pcr. The experimental design of the dose response is especially elegant and a great model for how to do these experiments.

      With some small improvements for readability, this manuscript will surely find broad interest to the genotype-phenotype, protein science, allostery, structural biology, and biophysics fields.

      We were prompted to do this by Review Commons and are posting our submitted review here:

      Willow Coyote-Maestas has relevant expertise in high throughput screening, protein engineering, genotype-phenotype experiments, protein allostery, dating mining, and machine learning.

      James Fraser has expertise in structural biology, genotype-phenotype experiments, protein allostery, protein dynamics, protein evolution, etc.

      Referees cross-commenting

      Seems like our biggest issues are: better uncertainty estimates of the parameters and more biophysical/mechanistic explanation/speculation. The uncertainty estimates might be tricky with the deep learning approach. The more biophysical speculation will require some re-writing around an ensemble rather than a static structure perspective.

    1. Author Response:

      This response corresponds to the essential revisions sent to the authors after review.


      1) Further characterization and clarification are needed regarding the sensor properties. This is crucial for the potential users in the field to judge and use the sensor, and for interpretation of the biology results using the sensor.

      We are grateful to the reviewers and editors to raise such important questions regarding the characterization of sensor properties. The feedback surely contributes to clarify important aspects of the sensor.

      i) Clear statement in prominent places about the improvement of the sensor and new potential for its biologic applications separating from the authors' 2015 paper.

      Previous enzyme-based biosensor designs, including the ChOx biosensor described in our publication on 2015 (Santos et al, 2015), were based on the differential coating of electrode sites with matrices containing or lacking ChOx. This modifications render the sites Ch- sensitive or insensitive, respectively. The latter have been termed “sentinel” sites, as they are designed to respond to any perturbation except to the analyte of interest (Ch in this case). By subtracting the sentinel from the Ch-measuring site, this approach has been useful to decrease the contribution of interferent signals, namely caused by electrochemical oxidation of electroactive compounds or by voltage fluctuations associated with LFP. However, cross- talk caused by H2O2 diffusion from enzyme-coated to sentinel sites poses important constraints on this design. The inter-site spacing required to avoid diffusional cross-talk leads, for example, to uncontrolled differences in the amplitude and phase of LFP across sites, compromising common-mode rejection.

      In the current study, we have circumvented diffusional cross-talk-related limitations by implementing a novel sensing approach. Rather than changing the coating composition across recording sites, we have differentially modified their electrocatalytic properties towards H2O2, resulting in Ch-sensitive and pseudo-sentinel sites. As Ch responses depended solely on the intrinsic properties of the metal surface, we could dramatically reduce the size and increase the spatial density of recording sites by using tetrode configuration. Tetrodes, a bundle of four twisted wires glued together, are conventionally used for separating single neuron action potentials based on the spatial structure of their action potentials across wires. Here, the spatial structure of the electrochemical signal is created by electrochemical modification of wires. Importantly this design allows the unbiased measurement of ChOx activity and O2 in the same brain spot by using a tetrode site to directly measure the latter. This has not been possible to achieve with conventional enzyme-based biosensor designs, including our own previous stereotrode design.

      We acknowledge that the improvements of the TACO sensor over our previous stereotrode design, published in 2015 (as well as other conventional enzyme-based biosensors in general), were not clearly emphasized in the manuscript. We added new paragraphs/sentences in the introduction and results of the revised manuscript (page 4 lines 10-16, page 5 lines 6-15 and page 6 line 8) highlighting the main difference between the two sensors and advantages of the new design for the unbiased measurement of the signals derived from ChOx activity (COA) and O2.

      ii) Regarding the choline responses: characterizing the linearity of choline response is important for users to understand the sensor properties.

      Responses to choline were highly linear within the concentration range tested (up to 30 μM). This information was added to Table 1 and mentioned in the text (page 7, line 18) of the revised manuscript.

      Related, demonstration how to calibrate moving artificial signals in freely-moving rodents will be useful for the future applications.

      Movement can cause electromagnetic or mechanical perturbations (movement artifacts) that are expected to scale with the impedance of individual recording sites. As the same applies for LFP-related currents, it is not trivial to discriminate both confounds. Nevertheless, our common-mode rejection approach, which is optimized by a frequency-domain correction of electrode impedances (please check Methods section, page 40, for detailed explanation), is designed to optimally remove both LFP- and movement-related artifacts.

      In our freely-moving recordings we did not have prominent movement-related perturbations, probably due to the proximity of the head-stage to the sensor and the shielding effect of the grounded copper mesh that covers the implant. Nevertheless, candidate events likely caused by movement consisted in current deflections aligned to locomotion bouts, which were completely removed by common-mode rejection. In the revised manuscript we added the average raw traces triggered on locomotion bouts in Figure 2D, highlighting the usefulness of our method to remove putative movement-related artifacts in addition to LFP and other interferents. We have also added a brief mention to this issue in page 10, lines 32-35 and page 11, lines 1-2.

      Further, since the COA signal is confounded by phasic O2 fluctuations, the authentic changes in COA are potentially interfered by O2-evoked enzymatic responses. The interpretation of the signal interference needs to be clearly discussed, including O2-evoked changes, and other related signaling changes, like DA.

      The main focus of our study was to investigate the effect of physiological O2 fluctuations on the ChOx biosensor signal, which is given by the activity of immobilized ChOx, which we abbreviate as COA across the manuscript. In order to address this issue in an unbiased manner it is essential to clean artifacts that directly generate currents on the electrode surface (please see response to point 1vi for details). Our TACO sensor was designed to optimize the removal of such confounds, resulting in a clean COA signal. As this signal reflects the activity of immobilized enzyme, it is sensitive to changes in O2, not only Choline. Thus, the COA signal is not confounded, but rather modulated by changes in O2. Our main finding was that phasic O2 modulation of COA is a major confound of phasic Ch dynamics measurements using ChOx sensors in vivo in the brain. In this sense, the central tenet of the paper is that COA is not reflecting an authentic choline concentration dynamics, but rather a nonlinear function of Ch and O2 dynamics, with no feasible analytical approach to separate the two.

      We recognize that, in the Methods section, the description of how the COA signal was computed could lead to confusion between authentic COA and authentic Ch measurement. In the revised manuscript we have changed the terms used in the signal cleaning procedure (page 40-41).

      Regarding neurochemical confounds (e. g. ascorbate or dopamine and other monoamines), we acknowledge that the description of multichannel sensor properties in Table 1 could be confusing to readers. The table was also not conveying the important information on how sensitive is our COA measurement to these artifacts. In the revised manuscript we have removed the information about selectivity ratios for individual sites. Instead, the table section now called “Analytical properties for COA measurement” was expanded and now shows DA and AA sensitivities and selectivity ratios for the COA signal, computed from the difference between Au/Pt/m-PD and Au/m-PD sites.

      Additionally, we added a column in the color plot in Figure 1E describing the relative responses of the COA measurement to the different factors. This addition highlights the high selectivity of the COA signal for Ch, as compared with individual sites.

      Finally, we have detailed the interpretation of the freely-moving signals triggered on SWRs and locomotion bouts. In the Methods section of the revise manuscript (page 41, lines 4-11), we clarify how the differential signals COAnon-mPD and NCC (neurochemical confounds) presented in Figure 2 (revised version) were computed. In the description of these results, we also explain how the response patterns of raw and cleaned signals can be used to infer the contribution of different sorts of artifacts, including movement- and LFP-related and those caused by neurochemicals (page 10 lines 26-35, page 11 lines 1-5).

      iii) The dimensions of the sensor head need to be specified and spelled out clearly. It seems to be around 50 um, but the text seems to suggest 150 um. The individual sensing elements are 17 um in diameter. If this is true, it is very exciting because it exhibits hemispherical diffusion yielding higher response and enhanced sensitivity. This may improve spatial and temporal resolution if this is in indeed a much smaller sensor as a disk-shaped one.

      We thank the reviewers for referring to this point. It is an important detail that was not clearly stated in the manuscript. In the Methods section (page 34 of original manuscript), the description of the insertion of the tetrode inside a silica tube might have been misleading. In fact, the tetrode actually protrudes 1-2 cm out of the silica tube. This distance assures that the latter is not in contact with the brain in in vivo recordings. The cutting of the twisted ending of the tetrode results in four disc-shaped sensing elements with 17 μm diameter. The total diameter of the tetrode is approximately 60 μm. In the revised manuscript we have clarified and emphasized these details in the Methods section (page 36 lines 10, 15-16), in the results (page 6, lines 3-5) and with an additional cartoon in Figure 1A.

      iv) The role of the sentinels with differential plating is very interesting, but the function of the sentinels is not clear (p. 4 "canceling LFP-related currents"). They consume oxygen. Why does this not result in overlap of the diffusion layer for the choline sensor and therefore affect choline response? Please explain why differential electroplating was employed.

      We further clarified the role of the pseudo-sentinel sites on the removal of LFP-related currents and neurochemical artifacts and expanded the reasoning behind this approach. Please check the Introduction of the revised manuscript (page 4 lines 4-18, page 5 lines 6- 15).

      When polarized at +0.6 V vs. Ag/AgCl, the pseudo-sentinel channels display a residual activity towards electrochemical oxidation of H2O2. This electrochemical reaction generates O2, but the effect on the local O2 concentration is negligible due to the poor sensitivity and very small electrode surface area (17 μm diameter disc). We measured O2 (head-fixed mice and in vitro) by electrochemical reduction at -0.2 V vs. Ag/AgCl at a pseudo-sentinel site (gold-plated without m-PD). In this case O2 is consumed, but at a very limited extent that does not affect the local O2 level in the sensor. In accordance with the expected lack of effect on O2 levels, we have confirmed that switching the applied potential on a gold-plated site between +0.6 V and -0.2 V vs. Ag/AgCl has no effect on the COA signal. In the revised manuscript we added a supplementary figure (Figure S4) describing this observation. Accordingly, we extended the discussion of this topic in the results section (page 13, lines 17-18).

      v). Please explain how time-dependent behavior of the sensor was measured. This process typically leads to the formation of a film on this electrode surface which can affect sensitivity. According the authors' 2015 paper, the method for measuring the response time seems rather crude, and may overestimate the response time which is related to the mixing of the solution. This needs to be discussed.

      The sensor response times were estimated from the rise of the current in response to analyte additions in a stirred buffer solution, as described in the Methods section (page 40, lines 9-10 of revised manuscript). In the revised manuscript, we added a sentence to further clarify the use of this setup to estimate response times (page 37, line 29). Indeed, this setup is not the most appropriate to precisely determine response times due to the bias introduced by the analyte mixing time after its addition to the buffer. Our previous study (Santos et al, 2015) suggests however that the biggest contribution to the estimated response time is due to diffusion of Ch in the sensor coating. Besides the fact that we cannot precisely determine response times, it is noteworthy that real response times are faster than the values we report. This further highlights the high temporal resolution of the TACO sensor. We added a paragraph discussing this topic in the revised manuscript (page 7, lines 19-21).

      vi). The effect of LFP and other perturbations of sensor responses need to be more clearly explained.

      Two main types of artifacts affect the response of enzyme-based electrochemical biosensors: electromagnetic or electrochemical sources that directly generate currents at the electrode surface and biochemical factors that affect the activity of the immobilized enzyme. The first group can be sub-divided into: a) artifacts that generate faradaic currents, arising from oxidation/reduction of electrochemically active molecules, such as ascorbate or dopamine; b) artifacts that change the charge distributions at the electrode surface, generating capacitive currents, which in the brain are mainly caused by local fluctuations in field potentials (LFP) generated by the transmemberane current sources of the surrounding neural tissue. Effectively, LFP causes potential changes at the electrode surface who’s voltage is clamped by the potentiostat circuit, giving rise to apparent current, similar to voltage clamp measurement of the intracellular current. The second group, consisting in biochemical artifacts, comprises mainly the effect of oxygen on enzymatic activity (although other factors such as temperature and pH might have a minor effect, as discussed in the manuscript, page 34, lines 16-20).

      Importantly, the strategies devised to reduce artifacts that directly generate electrochemical currents (chemical surface modifications or common-mode rejection) do not control for factors influencing immobilized ChOx activity.

      Since O2 interference was the main focus of the paper and is thoroughly described throughout the manuscript, in the Introduction of revised manuscript we extended the description of the factors directly generating currents on the electrode surface (page 4, lines 4-18).

      2) Re-organization of the manuscript to improve the readability. This manuscript contains the characterization of the TACO sensor and application of this sensor to monitor real-time behavior in freely moving rodents. The design and characterization of the sensor is intermingled with the application of studying the choline biology with the sensor, making the logic flow hard to follow. The arrangement and presentation of the figures need to be improved so readers can appreciate both characterization and applications aspects and how they are tightly linked. This might also involves properly arrange main figures and associated supplementary figures.

      We believe this suggestion stems from the expectation that we may have conveyed to the readers regarding the possibility of measuring authentic Ch dynamics in behaving animals with our TACO sensor. Indeed the TACO sensor design makes it ideally suited for the unbiased measurement of brain Ch dynamics based on ChOx, while controlling for O2 changes that might modulate immobilized enzyme activity. However, our data shows that phasic ChOx activity (COA) is dominated by O2 fluctuations in the brain of behaving animals. The complexity of the nonlinear interplay between COA and O2, which depends on multiple time-scale concentration dynamics of both enzyme substrates made it impossible to extract authentic Ch from the in vivo COA signal.

      Following the logic of data presentation in our manuscript, the initial description of TACO sensor design and properties towards COA measurement was followed by its in vivo application in freely-moving and head-fixed rodents, which led to the discovery of the possible O2 confound. This, in turn, prompted the next in vivo experiments with causal manipulations to prove the hypothetical confound effect. Next, in vitro experiments were used for more systematic investigation of the details of the confound and its underlying causes guided by the prior in vivo observations. Finally, we used a detailed mathematical model to quantitatively uncover the mechanism of the oxygen confound of the choline-oxidase-based biosensor.

      We think this logic of exposition is guiding the reader through our thought process and progresses consistently from the development of novel methodology to evaluation and identification of the confound, and then to unraveling the mechanism in vivo, in vitro and in the model. Reversing the order of presentation would break this logic and hurt the presentation of the story.

      We would like to ask the editor for her consent not to follow the suggested major reorganization. Instead, we clarified the internal logic at the end of the introduction section (page 5, lines 16-23), as well as throughout exposition of the results. Morevover, throughout the revised manuscript we emphasize the focus of our study on phasic COA dynamics instead of putative Ch by replacing terms alluding to the latter by “COA”. Accordingly, we better articulated the motivation for assessing SWR- and locomotion-related signals in freely- moving animals (Figure 2) and the interpretation of these results to avoid a biased expectation of the reader that COA signals provide authentic Ch readout. The revised manuscript now provides an unbiased perspective on motivation and interpretation of the in vivo experiments (page 10 lines 19-22, page 11 lines 5-12). The bias of COA by O2 and the issues associated with derivation of authentic Ch dynamics from our measurements were also further explained in the discussion (page 34, lines 35-37). Along the same lines, we have trimmed Figure 2 in order to keep the focus of the paper on phasic dynamics of the COA signal. Namely, we moved panels B and C describing tonic COA dynamics in the original manuscript to a supplementary figure in the revised version (Figure S3).

  6. multidimensional.link multidimensional.link
    1. I generally have four or five books open around the house—I live alone; I can do this—and they are not books on the same subject. They don’t relate to each other in any particular way, and the ideas they present bounce off one another. And I like this effect. I also listen to audio-books, and I’ll go out for my morning walk with tapes from two very different audio-books, and let those ideas bounce off each other, simmer, reproduce in some odd way, so that I come up with ideas that I might not have come up with if I had simply stuck to one book until I was done with it and then gone and picked up another. So, I guess, in that way, I’m using a kind of primitive hypertext. I am not a solitary thinker, or solitary learner, or solitary channel of these universal wisdoms and universal truths. I’m constantly learning from other people. I weave. We all weave in different ways. What is the tapestry of lessons and wisdom that are unique for me? Each person ends up with a different tapestry, but you start to see patterns amongst them. As masks are the sign that there are faces, words are the sign that there are things. And these things are the sign of the incomprehensible. Mutation occurs in the present, both flattening and warp occur in the immediate. The liminal period ends with another submersion in liquid that evokes the water of rebirth. From the wind, I learned a syntax for forwardness, how to move through obstacles by wrapping myself around them. To let meaning come from an accumulation of feeling. An experience when an unanticipated and spontaneous idea suddenly pops up into the head from nowhere. An unnerving sensation that, rather than us making something happen, something is happening to us. How such connections spring to mind are guesswork but they seem to favor those who have a promiscuous curiosity and chronic attraction to problems. As Nietzsche put it: “A thought comes as it wills, not when I will it.” A transformer is a device by which the voltage of an alternating current system may be changed. Slowly, the giant hand that has been crushing you relaxes its grip. The gilt lettering on the cover, the well-rubbed yellow-gray pages, the bugle notes of the title page, the orderly chapter headings, the finality of the last page—all these assured him of something sensible in the world. Naivety toward the full complexity of a situation, its effects and affects, but also its potential vulnerabilities, can be an asset rather than a hindrance. It frees you to fully think the situation anew. void setup() { size(200,200); } void draw() { background(200); fill(0); int i, j; for(i=1; i <= 10; i++) { for(j=1; j <= i; j++) { text(""*"", i*10, j*10); } } } “Folk” is an unstable term that immediately embodies a tension between self and other, us and them, past and present, here and there, urban and rural, high and low, tradition and innovation, individual and anonymous/communal. In tracing out these tensions, our research counters that the received idea that danced “folk” movements are simple, natural, local, uncodified - their meanings entirely transparent or self-evident - and suggests instead that, rather than affirming hierarchies or “backdating” aspects of culture, “folk” movement comprises a set of conventions that have been deployed as an aesthetic and political strategy to persuade and make arguments and to mobilize affect in service of various projects at different historical moments and in different cultural contexts. In short, “folk” has been used by dancers and choreographers as a tactic to reconfigure the present and reshape the future. 1. [Pera pera]. Describes chattering away frivolously, glibly. Describes speaking fluently in a foreign language. Describes leafing through a book, thumbing through. Describes cloth or wooden boards that are thin and cheap-looking. 2. By which force does one single mutated cell, in turn, change the entire body? The world we want is one where many worlds fit. Often we arbitrarily designate moments, points along the way, as “finished” or complete. But when does something’s destiny finally come to fruition? How do I listen to others? As if everyone were my Teacher, speaking to me (Her) cherished last words. The universe of possible worlds is constantly expanding and diversifying thanks to the incessant world-constructing activity of human minds and hands. We live amidst and, however unconsciously, partake in constellations of the real that cultural standards, narrative givens, etc. can’t make sense of, or even perceive. Simply to realize they are here, emitting flickers from the feathery increments of their iridescent half-lives, requires the kinds of time that we are rarely, if ever, permitted to have. Reading can be freefall. You are reading about a poem comprised of a thousand wayward looks. Dear navigator, in this highly-controlled environment without any natural climate, temperature, or humidity, my writing letters to you according to the rhythm of the seasons and the twenty-four solar terms is in itself a little silly, with a hint of obsessive-compulsiveness, but for me this is the only way to preserve my fundamental sense of earth time, so that when I step back on land, I won’t be overwhelmed by that fierce sense of strangeness. Each of these spaces is perceived at a different moment—a book is also a sequence of moments.  It should not be permanent, it should be very impermanent. It should aspire to the interminably pure moment of an interlude. Lila’s and Lenu’s obsessive relations to both physical order and to specifically writerly order make better sense when considering the original language that Ferrante uses to describe Lila’s experience. What translator Ann Goldstein describes so evocatively as “dissolving margins” or “dissolving boundaries” is smarginare (verb) or la smarginatura (noun), a peculiarly untranslatable and double-edged typographical term. Smarginare, oddly, indicates both excess (as when an image bleeds across its boundary, or the margin of the page), and boundedness (as in the cropping or cutting of the image to size), both the breakdown and strict maintenance of margins. Translator’s sons and daughters, or more redundantly, the translator’s translators. The source keeps shifting. It is It that travels. It is also I who carry a few fragments of it. In front of the simple question of where to bury her, it suddenly became frighteningly clear to me—to me, the free, the liberated, artist—whose head was full of freedom—how deep the hidden ties between us went, how strong they were, and how my world could be destroyed in a moment if theirs caved in. The coming together of two self-consistent but habitually incompatible frames of reference causes un choque, a cultural collision. I believe in radical softness and I enact it as I feel able , allowing myself the opportunity to embrace thew vulnerability in queer existence as a source of strength. Vamos pensar no espaço não como um lugar confinado, mas como o cosmos onde a gente pode despencar em paraquedas coloridos. Entre a oração e a ereção / Ora são, ora não são / Unção / Bênção / Sem nação / Mesmo que não nasçam / Mas vivem e vivem / E vem. MATRIARCHY [IS DEFINED]BY AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT CONCEPTION OF LIFE, NOT BASED ON DOMINATION AND HIERARCHIES, AND RESPECTFUL OF THE RELATIONAL FABRIC OF ALL LIFE. a monster of energy... that does not expend itself but only transforms itself... [A] play pf forces and waves of forces, at the same time one and many...; a sea of forces flowing and rushing together, eternally changing..., with an ebb and a flood of its forms; out of the simplest forms striving toward the most complex, out of the stillest, most rigid, coldest forms towards the hottest, most turbulent..., and then again returning home to the simple out of this abundance, out of the play of contradictions back to the joy of concord. 1. Make something invisible for a camera,

      https://multidimensional.link/static/audio/noise.m4a

    1. Of the first, the two Consuls of Rome may serve as an example

      I find it interesting that Ancient Rome is used as an example. It is strange to think that we both look back on the same people and still today have a lot to learn.

    1. To Janie’s strange eyes, everything in the Everglades was big and new.

      https://youtu.be/Gb4skfRHV5M

      Now, I know that The Muck sounds and looks to be a place that isn’t desirable, but through this photo and video montage, I wanted to show the other side of it that maybe not everyone would see. Of course, it is hard to view it in this way, but I think that anything involving nature is a beautiful thing, and when imagination is brought into it, can open up a door of things we as humans don’t even care to imagine, such as the magic of forests and trees, whatever that may be. That is why I included the gif of the sparkles. I tried to not include any pictures that could provide a negative connotation because the whole point of my montage was to see the beautiful side of it. I used pictures of foliage to show the foliage one might see in the Muck, and showed clouds to show the depth of the Muck and what it might have to offer.

    1. Note: This rebuttal was posted by the corresponding author to Review Commons. Content has not been altered except for formatting.

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      Reply to the reviewers

      We thank the reviewers for carefully reading our manuscript. We found their comments to be incredibly thoughtful and constructive and greatly appreciate their feedback. We are confident that addressing the reviewers’ concerns will strengthen our manuscript.

      Reviewer #1 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      In this manuscript entitled 'Combinatorial patterns of graded RhoA activation and uniform F-actin depletion promote tissue curvature' by Denk-Lobnig et al. the authors study the organisation of junctional F-actin during the process of mesoderm invagination during gastrulation in the model Drosophila. Following on from previous work by the same lab that identified and analysed a multicellular myosin II gradient across the mesoderm important for apical constriction and tissue bending, the authors now turn their attention to actin. Using imaging of live and fixed samples, they identify a patterning of F-actin intensity/density at apical junctions that they show is dynamically changing going into mesoderm invagination and is set up by the upstream transcription factors driving this process, Twist and Snail. They go on to show, using genetic perturbations, that both actin and the previously described myosin gradient are downstream of regulation and activation by RhoA, that in turn is controlled by a balance of RhoGEF2 activation and RhoGAP C-GAP inactivation. The authors conclude that the intricate expression patterns of all involved players, that all slightly vary from one another, is what drives the wild-type distinctive cell shape changes in particular rows of cells of the presumptive mesoderm and surrounding epidermis.

      This is a very interesting study analysing complex and large-scale cell and tissue shape changes in the early embryo. Much has been learned over the last decade and more about many of the molecular players and their particular behaviours that drive the process, but how all upstream regulators work together to achieve a coordinated tissue-scale behaviours is still not very well understood, and this study add important insights into this.

      The experiments seem well executed and support the conclusion drawn, but I have a few comments and questions that I feel the authors should address to strengthen their argument.

      We thank the reviewer for their interest in the paper and their helpful comments.

      **General points:**

      1. The authors state early on that they chose to focus on junctional rather than apical medial F-actin, but it is unclear to me really what the rationale behind that is. In much of the authors earlier work, they study the very dynamic behaviour of the apical-medial actomyosin that drives the apical cell area reduction in mesodermal cells required for folding. They have previously analysed F-actin in the constricting cells, but have only focused on the most constricting central cell rows (Coravos, J. S., & Martin, A. C. (2016). Developmental Cell, 1-14). The role of junctional F-actin compared to the apical-medial network on which the myosin works to drive constriction is much less clear, it could stabilize overall cell shape or modulate physical malleability or compliance of cells, or it could more actively be involved in implementing the 'ratchet' that needs to engage to stabilise a shrunken apical surface. I would appreciate more explanation or guidance on why the authors chose not to investigate apical-medial F-actin across the whole mesoderm and adjacent ectoderm, but rather focused in junctional F-actin, especially explaining better throughout what they think the role of the junctional F-actin they measure is.

      We focused on the junctional/lateral F-actin pool because this is where tissue-wide patterns in intensity variation are observed, especially when looking across the mesoderm-ectoderm boundary. Indeed, when we compare the apical-medial F-actin of marginal mesoderm cells to ectoderm cells in cross sections, we find no apparent difference, whereas there is a striking difference in junctional/lateral F-actin density (Fig. 1B, C; Supplemental Fig. 1A, D). We provide some preliminary en face views of the medial-apical surface in our response to Point 2, and we will obtain higher resolution images from live and fixed embryos to better show the network organization. We agree with the reviewer that this requires added justification. Therefore, we will: 1) Provide higher resolution images of apical-medial F-actin comparing different regions of mesoderm and ectoderm, and 2) revise the text to better justify why we chose junctional/lateral F-actin to focus our tissue-level analysis and to elaborate more on what we think the role of junctional/lateral F-actin in this process may be.

      Comparing the F-actin labeling in the above previous paper to the stainings/live images shown here, they look quite different. This is most likely due to the authors here not showing the whole apical area but focusing on junctional, i.e. below the most apical region. It is not completely clear to me from the paper at what level along the apical-basal axis the authors are analysing the junctional F-actin. Supplemental Figure 2 seems to suggest about half-way down the cell, which would be below junctional levels. Could the authors indicate this more clearly, please? Overall, I would appreciate if the authors could supply some more high-resolution images of F-actin from fixed samples (which I assume will give the better resolution) of how F-actin actually looks in the different cells with differing levels. Is there for instance a visible change to F-actin organisation? And could this help explain the observed changes in intensity and their function?

      We apologize for the confusion, we were referring to ‘junctions’ as the lateral contacts between cells, as opposed to the adherens junctions at the apical surface. We have modified the text to use the term ‘lateral’ rather than ‘junctional’ F-actin, so as to avoid this confusion. The difference in cortical F-actin staining is not restricted to a particular apical-basal position, but extends along the length of the lateral domain (Fig. 1B, C). As far as we can tell the actin is bundled and underlies the entire cell circumference. We will: 1) better define the apical-basal position within the cell that we are showing, and 2) show high-resolution en face images of F-actin at different apical-basal positions, across different cell positions, in live and fixed embryos to better justify our focus on lateral F-actin (similar orientation, but higher resolution/quality than preliminary live data below).

      Along the same lines of thought as in point 2): Dehapiot et al. (Dehapiot, B., ... & Lecuit, T. (2020). Assembly of a persistent apical actin network by the formin Frl/Fmnl tunes epithelial cell deformability. Nature Cell Biology, 1-21) have recently shown for the process of germband extension and amnioserosa contraction that two pools of F-actin can be observed, a persistent pool not dependent on Rho[GTP] and a Rho-[GTP] dependent one. Could the authors comment on what they think might occur in the mesoderm, are similar pools present here as well?

      1. As the authoirs state themselves, Rho does not only affect actin via diaphanous, but of course also myosin via Rock. So it would be good to refelect this more in the interpretation and discussion of data, as the causal timeline could be complex.

      We thank the reviewer for reminding us to address this point and to discuss this excellent recent paper. We have not observed a persistent medial actin network in mesoderm cells or ectoderm cells at this stage (i.e. prior to germband extension). It was previously shown in mesoderm cells that pulsed myosin contractions condense the medio-apical F-actin network, but that this is often followed by F-actin network remodeling and that total F-actin levels decrease during apical constriction (Mason et al., 2013). Furthermore, Rho-kinase inhibition in mesoderm cells significantly disrupts this network, but does not inhibit the rapid assembly and disassembly of apical F-actin cables, which could reflect elevated actin turnover (Mason et al., 2013; Jodoin et al., 2015). To address the reviewer’s points, we 1) now include a paragraph in the Discussion to discuss the Dehapiot et al. paper (Comment 3) and the possible roles of various pools of F-actin and Rock/myosin shape the tissue (Comment 4) (lines 404-408), and 2) will image the apical surface of mesoderm and ectoderm at this stage and also germband extension (as a positive control) in order to determine whether there is a persistent network.

      **More specific comments to experiments and figures:**

      1. Reduction of junction function by alpha-catenin-RNAi: how strong is the reduction in catenin? Could they label a-catenin in fixed embryos? The authors conclude the original pre-constriction patterning of F-actin intensity is not dependent on intact junctions, but they show that the increase in F-actin in the mesodermal cells concomitant with apical constriction is in fact impaired in the RNAi. Thus, the authors can also not conclude whether the continued accumulation of myosin and its persistence depend on intact junctions. The initial set-up of the myosin gradient in terms of intensity distribution is unaffected, but clearly dynamics, subcellular pattern, interconnectivity etc. of myosin are affected and thus may well depend on some mechanical feed-back. I find this section of the manuscript slightly overstated and feel the conclusion should be more cautious.

      We thank the reviewer for pointing this out; we completely agree that we should have been more precise with our language. Our main conclusion was that myosin accumulation in a gradient does not require ‘sustained mechanical connectivity’. We felt it was important, given our model of transcriptional patterning, to show that some patterns did not result from mechanics or even apical constriction. Alpha-catenin knock-down provides the cleanest and most severe disruption of adhesion that we can accomplish at this developmental stage. We showed that alpha-catenin-RNAi resulted in: a) almost no intercellular connectivity in myosin structures (Yevick et al., 2019), and b) no apical constriction (this study, Fig. 3B).

      We: 1) revised the text in this section, clarifying that we are only referring to the gradient and that other myosin properties clearly do depend on mechanics, 2) will include data better showing the extent of the alpha-catenin knockdown and its effects on junctions and actomyosin.

      Figure 1 versus Figure 2: Why do the Utrophin-ABD virtual cross-sections look so fuzzy and bad in comparison to phalloidin labelled F-actin in the virtual cross-section in Fig. 1B and C? The labelling shown in 2B and D does not even look very junctional...

      We apologize that we did not explain the difference in visualization methods more clearly. For live images (Figure 2), we used a projection of cross-sections, which includes 20 µm length along the anterior-posterior (AP) axis. This projection method is less dependent on the specific AP position of the cross-section and the specific cells being shown. We did this because the projection helps to visualize the tissue pattern in live images where fluorescence images are noisier than fixed images, which exhibit cleaner labeling (Fig. 1). To address this point, we plan to: 1) Edit the text to make the method of visualization clearer, and 2) fix snail and twist mutant embryos and also provide thin cross-sections analogous to Fig. 1.

      Figure 5 C and D: the control gradients for myosin shown in C and D are completely different, for C the half-way height cell row is deduced as 5 whereas the (in theory identical) control measure in D has row 3 at halfway height! Why is this? Putting all curves together in the same panel would suggest that that C control curve is very similar to RhoGEF2-OE! This can't be right.

      The reason for the different width of the gradients in these controls is the Sqh::GFP copy number. All of our experiments perturbing Rho were carefully controlled so as to ensure the same copy number of the fluorescent marker that we were visualizing. For technical reasons, we were only able to get 1 copy of the Sqh::GFP into the RhoGEF2-OE background. Having two copies of the Sqh::GFP appears to have a slightly activating effect; in fact, the reviewer might have noticed that ventral furrows with 2 copies Sqh::GFP (and a wider gradient) have lower curvature, consistent with our main conclusion (Fig. 7 C). The effects of fluorescently tagged markers were a concern for us and so we were careful to show that the effects of changing RhoA activity on tissue curvature occur regardless of the fluorescent marker (i.e., Sqh::GFP or Utr::GFP, Fig. 7 and Sup. Fig. 7).

      Still in Figure 5: Panels C and D again, but for apical area: are the control and C-GAP-RNAi or RhoGEF2-OE curves significantly different? What statistics were used on this?

      We thank the reviewer for this point. We did not include statistical comparisons of the gradient width originally, because we felt that it does not completely capture the difference between the two curves and that presenting the curves instead lets readers examine the intricacies of the data as a whole. However, to address the reviewer’s point, we will add statistical comparisons for apical area as well as myosin and actin patterns.

      Supplemental Figure 1: Panels in D: I appreciate this control, but would really also like to see the same control at a stage when folding has commenced and stretched cells are present at the margin of the mesoderm. How homogenous does the GAP43 label look in those?

      We will add a more apical projection (with quantification) of this embryo, in which folding has already commenced, to the revised manuscript, so its stage is clearer.

      Supplemental Figure 5: Panel 5 B: the authors conclude that the myosin gradient under RhoGEF2 RNAi is not smaller, but looking at the curves it in fact looks wilder. They also mention that the overall level of myosin in this condition is lower than the control...

      We will include quantification of absolute levels in Supplemental Figure 5 to compare overall levels. We will also statistically compare RhoGEF2 RNAi and control gradients and update our conclusions accordingly.

      Following on from the above, a comment of Figure 7: - The authors use RhoGEF2 RNAi stating that it affects the actin pattern, but the myosin pattern also seems affected. In line 318 the authors state that they use this condition to look at how junctional actin density affects curvature. I find this phrase misleading as It might lead the readers to think that RHoGEF2 RNAi only affects junctional F-actin, although it also affects myosin patterning.

      We thank the reviewer for catching this, that’s a good point. We have revised the text in lines 317-326 to more accurately describe the effect of RhoGEF2-RNAi on actin and myosin patterning, and to connect this to the effect on curvature.

      • Line 311: confusingly, the authors state that an increase in the actomyosin gradient affects curvature. But it is only the myosin gradient that is increased, while the junctional actin gradient is flatter than the control in both C-GAP RNAi and RhoGEF2 OE (the distinction is even made by authors line 243). Could this be clarified?

      We thank the reviewer for pointing out this imprecision on our part and have revised Line 311 to more precisely describe the individual effects on myosin and F-actin pattern changes upon RhoA perturbation.

      Reviewer #2 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      Mesoderm invagination during Drosophila gastrulation has been a paradigm for how regionally restricted gene expression locally activates Rho signalling and for how subsequently activated acto-myosin drives cell shape changes which in turn lead to a change in tissue morphology. Despite the numerous studies on this subject and a good understanding of the overall process, several important aspects have remained elusive so far. Among these is the dynamics of cortical and junctional F-actin and its contribution to the shape changes of cells and tissue. Previous studies have focused on MyoII, the „active" component of the actin cytoskeleton. The dynamics of the „passive" counterpart, namely actin filaments, has been neglected, although it is clear that Rho signalling controls both branches.

      We thank the reviewer for the tough questions. The reviewer raises important points that, even if not all feasible to address experimentally, can be addressed by being more precise with our language__ and conclusions.__

      1. Although I clearly acknowledge the efforts taken by the authors to define a function of cortical (junctional) F-actin in apical constriction and furrow formation, several central aspects of the study are not sufficiently resolved and conclusive. Rho signalling controls MyoII via Rok and F-actin via forming/dia, among other less defined targets. The role of MyoII and cortical contraction could be conclusively sorted out, since inhibition of Rok affects the MyoII branch but not the other branches. A similar approach, i. e. a specific inhibition/depletion without affecting the other branch, has not been taken yet for the F-actin branch. The authors have not resolved this issue. When analysing the mutants, the authors cannot distinguish the effect of Rho signalling on the MyoII and F-actin branch. For this reason the changes in F-actin distribution in the mutants are linked to changes in Myo activity and thus a function cannot be assigned to F-actin. In order to derive a specific role of F-actin distribution for furrow formation, the authors need to find experimental ways to affect F-actin levels without affecting MyoII, for example by analysing mutants for dia or other formins.

      The reviewer’s assertion that Rok and Diaphanous only affect myosin and actin, respectively, is oversimplified. For example, in mammals, Rok regulates the Lim-Kinase/Cofilin pathway and thus F-actin (Geneste et al., JCB, 2002). The ‘F-actin branch’ of the RhoA pathway has been examined in multiple previous studies of mesoderm invagination (Fox and Peifer, 2007; Homem et al., 2008; Mason et al., 2013). We did not include diaphanous mutants in this tissue-level study because diaphanous mutants and actin drugs: a) affect RhoA signaling (Munjal et al., 2015; Coravos et al., 2016; Michaux et al., 2018), b) disrupt adherens junctions and tissue integrity (Homem et al, 2008; Mason et al., 2013), and c) have a preponderance of cellularization defects (Afshar et al., 2000). However, we agree with the reviewer that this could potentially be interesting, and so we 1) will look at the tissue-level pattern in Diaphanous-depleted embryos, 2) will analyze tissue-level actomyosin patterns in Rok inhibitor-injected embryos, and 3) have added a section to the Discussion (lines 418-432) explaining past work in this area and why we did not provide data on diaphanous mutants. A caveat of the proposed experiments is that actin and myosin ‘branches’ may be too interconnected to be conclusively separated.

      The authors employ a discontinuous spatial axis by the cell number. Although there are good arguments to understand and treat the cells as units, there are also good arguments for using a scale with absolute distance. I have doubts that the graded distributions presented by the authors are a result of this scaling with cell units. When looking at panel B of Fig 1 or Fig. 2A,B, for example, a sharp step like distribution is visible at the boundary between mesoderm and ectoderm anlage. In contrast a F-actin intensity distribution is graded after quantification. The graded distribution appears not to be a consequence of averaging because an even sharper step is very obvious in a projection along the embryonic axis as shown in panel B and D of Fig. 2, for example. The difference of a sharp step in the images and graded distribution after quantification with a spatial axis in cell number, is obvious for a-catenin in Fig. 3D and Rho signalling in Fig. 4 B. As the authors base their central conclusion (see headline) on the graded distribution, resolving the issue of spatial scale is a prerequisite of publication.

      We thank the reviewer for their point. It is an excellent idea and we have included representative plots with a continuous spatial scale in addition to our cell-based analysis (see below, each trace is average line intensity for 1 embryo). The spatially resolved analysis shows similar patterns for F-actin, myosin and RhoA pathway components as the cell-based metric and we plan to include this data as Supplemental Fig. 3 and 4 in a revised version of the manuscript.

      The authors put the spatial distribution of Rho signalling and F-actin into the center of their conclusion. They do so by affecting the pattern with mutants in twist/snail and varying upstream factors of Rho signalling. With respect to myo activation this have been done previously although possibly with less detail and it is no new insight that the width of the mesoderm anlage and corresponding Rho signalling domain has a consequence on the shape of the groove and furrow. To maintain the conclusion of the manuscript that spatially graded Rho signalling is contributes to tissue curvature, more convincing ways to change the pattern of Rho signalling are needed. Changing the balance of GEF and GAP shows the importance of Rho signalling and possibly signalling levels but not the contribution of its spatial distribution.

      A strength of our study was that we were able to stably ‘tune’ Rho signaling pattern and then follow tissue shape at later stages to determine the connection between the two. We respectfully disagree with the statement that, “with respect to myosin activation this has been done previously”. In past work, we expanded myosin activation by modifying embryonic cell fate, including changes in dorsal cell fates (Heer et al. 2017; Chanet et al., 2017). Here, we directly manipulate RhoA signaling, maintaining the width of the mesoderm anlage (see images below).

      A central conclusion of our study is that RhoA activation level determines the width of myosin activation within a normally sized mesoderm anlage, which has not been done before. The genetic approach presented in the paper was the best way we found to manipulate the spatial pattern of myosin/actin in a stable manner that lasts through invagination. It is worth noting that this approach allowed us to carefully ‘tune’ the level of RhoA activation so as to avoid elevating RhoA levels to the point that it disrupts signaling polarity within the cell (Mason et al., 2016). In our hands, optogenetic manipulation of RhoA, which requires continuous optical input, was less robust because: a) 2D tissue flow precludes delivering a consistent level of activation to given cells over the time course of invagination, b) tissue folding (i.e. 3D deformation) dramatically alters how much light is delivered to the mesoderm cells.

      To address the reviewer’s point, we: 1) edited the Discussion to explicitly state that we did not alter the pattern of RhoA activation without altering RhoA signaling levels and (lines 339-343), 2) plan to include Snail or Twist stainings showing that the width of the mesoderm anlage is not altered by changes in RhoA signaling so there is no confusion about this point, and 3) plan to include a mechanical model that compares how altering signaling levels vs. altering the spatial distribution of signaling affect fold curvature, respectively.

      Reviewer #2 (Significance (Required)):

      The question of a contribution of F-actin is addressed in this manuscript. The authors quantify F-actin in fixed and living embryos at two prominent steps in ventral furrow formation, (1) shortly prior to onset of apical constrictions and (2) when the groove has formed. They distinguish junctional and „medial" cortical F-actin. They employ a discontinuous spatial axis, the number of cells away from the ventral midline but not an absolute scale (see my notes below). The measurements are applied to wild type and mutant embryos affecting the transcriptional patterning (twist, snail), adherens junctions, and Rho signalling. The authors claim to reveal by their measurements a graded distribution of F-actin intensities with a peak at the ventral midline and a second peak at the boundary between mesoderm and ectoderm with a low point in the stretching cells of the mesectoderm. The authors further claim to reveal a graded distribution of Rho signalling components within the mesoderm anlage. Based on these data the authors conclude that graded Rho signalling and depletion of F-actin promote tissue curvature.

      Reviewer #3 (Evidence, reproducibility and clarity (Required)):

      Previous work has shown that mesoderm invagination at the ventral midline of the Drosophila embryo requires precise spatial regulation of actomyosin levels in order to fold the tissue. In this work, Denk-Lobnig and colleagues further investigate the spatial distribution of myosin and F-actin in the mesoderm and how these patterns are established. The authors identify an F-actin pattern at the apical cell junctions that emerges upon folding, with elevated levels in the cells around the ventral midline, a decrease in junctional F-actin in the marginal mesoderm, and then an increase at the mesoderm-ectoderm border. They identify Snail and Twist as regulating different aspects of establishing this F-actin pattern. Additionally, by modulating RhoA activity (downstream of Twist) the authors are able to alter the width of the actomyosin pattern without affecting the width of the mesoderm tissue, which in turn affects the curvature of the tissue fold and the post-fold lumen size.

      The authors have conducted an elegant quantitative analysis of the distribution of actin, myosin and several of their regulators across the tissue. The study makes an attempt at integrating a large amount of information into a model of tissue folding, and the concept of mechanical gradients is exciting and still underexplored. I am concerned that the interpretation of some results focuses on specific details but ignores larger scale effects (e.g. potential effects of some of the manipulations on the ectoderm, and the impact that that could have on tissue folding are largely ignored). The statistical analysis of several results should also be improved. I suggest to address the following points.

      We thank the reviewer for their interest in our work and their important suggestions.

      **MAJOR**

      1. Line 127 and Figure 1E: The authors argue that there is an anticorrelation between F-actin distribution and cell areas. However, an R-squared value of 0.1083 rather suggests little-to-no correlation. The authors should evaluate the statistical significance of that correlation.

      To indicate whether the relationship between F-actin distribution and cell areas is significant, we will report the p-value for the F-test for overall significance for our regression analysis, as well as sample size, of this data in the revised manuscript. The F-statistic for this analysis is __F = 89.2, p-value = 4.7e-20.__

      Figure 5: claims that the width of the actomyosin gradient is affected by the various perturbations should be supported with statistical analysis. For example, the half-maximal gradient position for each individual myosin trace could be calculated (instead of using the mean trace), displayed using a box plot, and tested for significance using the Mann-Whitney U test, as in Figure 7. This is slightly complicated by the fact that the control group in Figure 5C is the same as the control group in Figure 3E, which needs to be carefully considered. Also, similar calculations should be made for the F-actin data in Fig 5E-G since throughout the rest of the paper, the authors refer to the width of the "actomyosin gradient" which implicates both myosin and actin.

      We thank the reviewer for this point We will include statistical comparisons for myosin gradients in the revised manuscript. To allow for multiple comparisons using the same control, we plan to use Kruskal-Wallis testing, which is analogous to one-way ANOVA for non-parametric data, and a post-hoc test to determine which pairs have significantly different distributions.

      We will update the language in the manuscript to distinguish between actin and myosin patterns. As our main conclusion is that F-actin depletion levels are changed by RhoA in marginal mesoderm cells, we will statistically compare this between groups.

      Line 142 and Figure 2B-C: I was confused by the description of the snail phenotype: - a. the claim that in snail mutants actin levels are uniform: based on Figure 2C, I'd say that F-actin levels decrease across the mesoderm moving away from the ventral midline, and that the main issue is with the accumulation of actin in the distal end of the mesoderm. The authors should better justify the claim that F-actin levels are uniform in snail mutants (or remove it). Maybe comparing F-actin levels in the first four or five rows of the mesoderm? - b. how about the increase of F-actin in the distal mesoderm, just adjacent to the ectoderm boundary? Why is it gone in snail mutants?

      1. We agree that the intensity in all embryos appears to decrease on the sides of the embryos when imaged in this way, but it is also clear that there is no abrupt increase in F-actin density going into the ectoderm. In our experience, the edge effect is due to the distance of the side of the embryo from the coverslip rather than actual lower F-actin density. This is suggested by: a) the fact that all snail mutant embryos peak at the center of the image even though they are not all oriented with the ventral side perfectly on top, and b) all embryos exhibit an intensity decrease within the ectoderm toward the edges of the image that are further away from the coverslip (Fig. 2 C, E, F). We will: 1) modify the text to include an explanation, and 2) fix and stain snail and twist mutant cross-sections that will not exhibit this effect of imaging depth, for comparison.
      2. We show in Figure S1C that in wild-type, F-actin does not actually increase in cells at the ectoderm boundary, but merely decreases in lateral mesoderm cells. Thus, it is likely that snail mutant embryos are merely lacking patterning in the mesoderm, where snail is active.
      3. With alpha-catenin-RNAi, F-actin depletion across the mesoderm still occurs, but junctional F-actin levels are not increased around the midline. While some explanations are offered in the text, the reason for this phenotype seems important for the story. The text in lines 204-205 suggests that F-actin that would normally be localized to the apical junctions is instead being drawn into medioapical actomyosin foci. Is this idea supported by evidence that medioapical F-actin in control embryos is lower than in alpha-catenin RNAi?

      We appreciate the reviewer’s suggestion to explain this more thoroughly. We find that in alpha-catenin-RNAi and even arm (β-catenin) mutant embryos, junctional complexes (i.e., E-cadherin) are drawn into the myosin spot through continuous contractile flow (see below and Martin et al., 2010 for arm). To make this clear in the manuscript, we plan to: 1) include data showing the effects of alpha-catenin RNAi on F-actin and E-cadherin localization in fixed embryos, which is now included in Supplemental Figure S3, and 2)

      include live imaging of UtrGFP-labeled alpha-catenin RNAi embryos.

      Figure 6A: there is a correlation between cell position and the productivity of myosin pulses, which the authors attribute to the RhoA gradient. This should be more definitively demonstrated by:

      • a. Plot and calculate the correlation between RhoA levels (measured with the RhoA probe) and the change in cell area caused by a contraction pulse. Is this a significant correlation?

      • b. How does myosin persistence change when RhoA is manipulated, e.g. in RhoA overexpressing embryos or in RhoA RNAi?

      It has already been shown that there is a correlation between myosin amplitude and apical constriction amplitude (Xie et al., 2015).__ Apical myosin and Rho-kinase localization depends entirely on RhoA activity (Mason et al., 2016) and Rho-kinase co-localizes precisely with myosin in both space and time (Vasquez et al., 2014). Changing levels of the RhoA regulator C-GAP has been shown to affect myosin persistence and the productivity of apical constriction, with higher C-GAP causing less productive constriction (Mason et al., 2016). We plan to update the text to connect the observation with what has been shown in previous studies and to make statements regarding causality on the tissue-level more cautious. However, our observation further shows how cytoskeletal activity is patterned across the mesoderm, so we think it has value and that it should be included in this paper. An in depth study of the connection between RhoA regulators and myosin persistence/pulsing is beyond the scope of the present study, especially considering possible COVID-19 restrictions. Making these connections will require substantial effort in the future.__

      **MINOR**

      1. The authors should indicate if the myosin shown in Figure 1A is junctional or medioapical. If it is junctional, does medioapical myosin better match junctional F-actin and cell areas? Similarly, if they are showing medioapical myosin, how does junctional myosin compare to junctional actin? It seems to me that consistently comparing the patterns of junctional F-actin and medioapical myosin (and RhoGEF2, RhoA, and ROCK in Figure 4) could be somewhat misleading, as the pools compared localize in different subcellular compartments.

      The myosin images shown throughout the paper are medioapical myosin. Junctional myosin in mesoderm cells is lower in intensity and cannot easily be seen by live imaging. We agree that it is important for the reader to see all pools of these proteins. Therefore, we will include in a supplemental figure high resolution images of actin and myosin at both apical and subapical positions for midline mesoderm, marginal mesoderm, and ectoderm cells at the time of folding. We will also justify why the analyzed pools were chosen, respectively.

      Most of the intensity traces for myosin and F-actin are presented as normalized intensity, relative to the highest intensity in the trace. However, there are claims throughout the text about the relative levels of myosin (ex. Line 241) and F-actin (conclusions based on Fig. 2B-D) that should be supported by quantification. It seems that changes in intensity for both F-actin and myosin, in addition to shape of the gradient, would contribute to the understanding of actomyosin regulation in this tissue. However, if intensities cannot be directly compared between groups due to variation in imaging settings or staining protocols, there should be no claims made about changes in overall F-actin or myosin intensity.

      We appreciate the point made by the reviewer here. To address this point, we will provide data for absolute levels in relevant cases and be more precise in our conclusions.

      The significance of the correlation in Figure 7E should be quantified.

      We will report the p-value for the F-test for overall significance for our regression analysis of this data. The F-statistic for this analysis is F = __15.6, p-value = 0.00103.__

      Supplemental Figure 2: does the segmentation image match the second Z reslice immediately above? It does not appear so, or perhaps they are just not aligned. Having the two match would be more convincing of the segmentation technique.

      We will ensure that matching images are used for this figure.

      Reviewer #3 (Significance (Required)):

      The authors have conducted an elegant quantitative analysis of the distribution of actin, myosin and several of their regulators across the tissue. The study makes an attempt at integrating a large amount of information into a model of tissue folding, and the concept of mechanical gradients is exciting and still underexplored. I am concerned that the interpretation of some results focuses on specific details but ignores larger scale effects (e.g. potential effects of some of the manipulations on the ectoderm, and the impact that that could have on tissue folding are largely ignored). The statistical analysis of several results should also be improved.

      This is a great point. It is important to note that our conclusions required us to ‘tune’ the expression of GEF and the depletion of GAP with GAL4 drivers to get expression levels that do not dramatically affect RhoA polarity within mesoderm cells, but that alter the tissue level pattern within the mesoderm. Furthermore, we were cautious in making sure that our perturbations that elevate RhoA activation level did not lead to elevated myosin in the ectoderm (Fig. 5A and B). It is worth noting that RhoGEF2 is still full-length in all cases and has all of the normal regulatory domains that allow its activity to be restricted to the mesoderm at this stage. To more explicitly show the effect of our perturbations on ectoderm cells, we plan to include higher resolution images comparing myosin and F-actin organization/levels in the ectoderm for our manipulations of RhoA signaling.

    1. This island's mine, by Sycorax my mother,Which thou takest from me. When thou camest first,

      I think in these quotes we can see a little bit of background to Caliban's behavior. No matter what, attempting to rape Miranda is not justified, but to him it does not seem like a big deal or problem. In this quote he reminds us that the island originally belongs to him and his mother, suggesting that he is the one that shall pass judgment on its grounds. We also know from other parts of the book, they were cruel to the spirits that also inhabited the island with them, which may also impact why he is okay with cruelly treating others. These quotes also give the impression that even after death, Syncorax is able to influence and control Caliban, as he is unable to think of the island without mentioning her. He thinks ruling the island is his birthright and the constant reminder of his mother could be a large factor in his complex of not seeing himself in the wrong.

    2. I rememberYou did supplant your brother Prospero. ANTONIO True:And look how well my garments sit upon me;Much feater than before: my brother's servantsWere then my fellows; now they are my men.

      This actually corroborates Prospero's previous story that he told to Miranda. Initially I wasn't sure if we could trust the word of Prospero due to his control issues and him causing the storm. Based on much of Shakespeare I wasn't sure if Prospero's story could even be trusted. It felt like something Mother Gothel would tell Rapunzel. Now we have Antonio admit to it so we can assume Prospero is being honest. Also He uses garments as a stand in for status and power like we discussed in Much Ado About Nothing. Its interesting to see that analogy between the position he stole from Prospero and wearing his clothes. His claim to power is that, " Well it fits me better" and thats really the same way that Prospero described in his story. It shows that Prospero is rather good at understanding how people think as well as their motivations for behaving in certain ways. He may be a bit of a recluse, but Prospero has quite a bit of people skills and social intelligence.

    1. These general observations will enable you to discern what I intend by different classes, and the general scope of my ideas, when I contend for uniting and balancing their interests, feelings, opinions, and views in the legislature. We may not only so unite and balance these as to prevent a change in the government by the gradual exaltation of one part to the depression of others, but we may derive many other advantages from the combination and full representation.

      The author's purpose is depicted perfectly in these couple sentences. Instead of just speaking of or about these worries (balancing interests, feelings, etc..) he names them outright in a list. This compels the audience to think over the list and realize whether or not they have the same end goal as the author. He is portraying himself as a true man of the people, someone to depend on .

    1. Author Response:

      We would like to thank the reviewers for taking the time review our manuscript. The comments below have been thought-provoking and will inspire several new analyses that we hope address concerns. In particular, we will carefully reappraisal the framing of the results, shifting away from a false dichotomy of “this is perception” and “this is binding”, and towards more restraint terminology that discusses the shift in balance between perception and binding. Moreover, we will expand our analysis of theta-gamma phase-amplitude coupling beyond the hippocampus and to the whole brain.

      We answered each comment in turn, first by providing a general response to the comment and then by providing an outline of the explicit action we will take to address this issue.

      Reviewer #1:

      This MEG study by Griffiths and colleagues used a sequence learning paradigm which separates information encoding and binding in time to investigate the role of two neural indexes - neocortical alpha/beta desynchronization and hippocampal theta/gamma oscillation - in human episodic memory formation. They employed a linear regression approach to examine the behavioral correlates of the two neural indexes in the two phases, respectively and demonstrated an interesting dissociation, i.e., decreased alpha/beta power only during the "sequence perception" epoch and increased hippocampal theta/gamma coupling only during the "mnemonic binding" phase. Based on the results, they propose that the two neural mechanisms separately mediate two processes - information representation and mnemonic binding. Overall, this is an interesting study using a state-of-art approach to address an important question. Meanwhile, I have several major concerns that need more analysis and clarifications.

      Major comments:

      1) The lack of theta-gamma coupling during stimulus encoding period is possibly due to the presentation of figure stimulus, which would elicit strong sensory responses that mask the hippocampus activity. How could the author exclude the possibility? In other words, the dissociated results might derive from different sensory inputs during the two phases.

      Response: The reviewer raises a good point; However, we feel this is already addressed by our use of memory-related contrasts. The masking of an effect that arises due to stimulus presentation would be consistent across all memory conditions, and therefore subtracted out in any contrast between these conditions. The analyses in our original submission use this approach to avoid such a confound. Furthermore, previous studies (e.g. Heusser et al., 2016, Nat. Neuro.) have demonstrated that hippocampal theta-gamma coupling can arise during stimulus presentation, suggesting strong sensory responses do not, generally speaking, mask measures of theta-gamma coupling.

      Action: We will explain the potential concern about masking in the main text, and also explain how we have addressed such a concern with the use of contrasts.

      2) About the hippocampal theta/gamma phase-power coupling analysis. I understand that this hypothesis derives from previous research (e.g., Heusser et al., 2018) as well as the group itself (Griffiths et al., PNAS, 2019). Meanwhile, MEG recording, especially the gradiometer, is known to be relatively insensitive to deep sources. Therefore, the authors should provide more direct evidence to support this approach. For instance, the theta/gamma analysis relies on the presence of theta-band and gamma-band peak in each subject. Although the authors have provided two representative examples (Figure 3A), it remains unknown how stable the theta-band and gamma-band peak exist in individual subject.

      Action: We will plot the data for all participants to demonstrate the stability of the theta/gamma band peaks.

      Additional response: In regards to the concerns to the MEG gradiometers being relatively insensitive to deep sources, we feel it is worth noting that a recent review (Ruzich et al., 2019, Human Brain Mapping) identified 29 studies that had reported successful hippocampal measurements when only using gradiometers, suggesting our use of gradiometers is not unprecedented nor unjustified. Furthermore, in their recommendations for optimising hippocampal recordings with MEG, the old wisdom of using magnetometers rather than gradiometers is conspicuous in its absence in the review – perhaps because while magnetometers have a greater theoretical potential to detect deep signal, they also have greater theoretical potential to pick up noise, so the signal-to-noise ratio (which, arguably, is key here) for deep sources may not differ so much between gradiometers and magnetometers.

      3) Related to the above comment, the theta-gamma coupling is a brain-wide phenomenon including both cortical and subcortical areas and not limited to just hippocampus. Although the authors have performed a control analysis to assess the behavioral correlates of the coupling in other regions, the division of brain region is too coarse and I am not convinced that this is a fair comparison, since they differ from hippocampus at least in terms of area size in the source space. The authors could consider plotting the power-phase coupling distribution in the source space and then assessing their behavioral correlates, rather than just showing results from hippocampus. This result would be important to confirm the uniqueness of the hippocampus in this binding process.

      Response: We concur that the plots currently do not demonstrate the specificity of the hippocampus, and whole brain images would better demonstrate the effect.

      Action: As suggested by the reviewer, we will plot theta-gamma coupling across the brain.

      4) About behavioral correlates. The current behavioral index confounds encoding and binding processes. Is there any way to seperate the encoding and binding performance from the overall behavioral measurements? It would be more convincing for me to find the two neural indexes at two phases predict the two behavioral indexes, respectively.

      Response: This is a really interesting idea, but one which perhaps requires a different experiment paradigm. For associative memory, we would argue that binding is an essential step for the successful encoding of a memory, so it would quite possibly be impossible to separate the two processes in the paradigm used here. That said, a different paradigm that compared associative memory to, say, item memory, may be able to answer such a question.

      Action: We will discuss this as an avenue of future research within the discussion.

      5) The author's previous works have elegantly shown the two neural indexes during fMRI and intracranial recording in episodic memory. The current work, although providing an interesting view about their possible dissociated functions, only focuses on the memory formation period (information encoding and binding). Given previous works showing an interesting relationship between encoding and retrieval (Griffith et al., PNAS, 2019), I would recommend the authors to also analyze the retrieval period and see whether the two indexes show consistent dissociated function as well.

      Response: Yes, we completely agree. We had included this in a previous draft of the manuscript, and found a consistent dissociation here, where alpha/beta power decreases accompanied retrieval (perhaps linked to the representation of retrieved information) and theta-gamma coupling did not (perhaps due to the absence of a need to bind stimuli together in order to complete the retrieval task). We had cut this section to make a more streamlined manuscript, but have no qualms adding this back in.

      Action: We will include the same central analyses, this time conducted at retrieval.

      Reviewer #2:

      In this manuscript, the authors examine the neural correlates of perception and memory in the human brain. One issue that has plagued the field of memory is whether the neural processes that underlie perception can be dissociated from those that underlie memory formation. Here the authors directly test this question by introducing a behavioral paradigm designed to dissociate perception from mnemonic binding. In brief, while recording MEG data, they present subjects with a sequence of visual stimuli. Following the sequence, the subjects are instructed to bind the three stimuli together into a cohesive memory, and then are tested on their memory for which pattern was associated with an object, and which scene. The authors investigate changes in alpha/beta power and theta/gamma phase amplitude coupling during two separate epochs - perceptual processing and mnemonic binding. Overall, this is a well written and clear manuscript, with a clear hypothesis to be tested. Using MEG data enables the authors to draw conclusions about the neurophysiological changes underlying both perception and memory, and establishing this dissociation would be an important contribution to the field. I think the conclusions are justified, but there are several issues that should be addressed to improve the strength and clarity of the work.

      The fundamental premise of the task design is that subjects view a sequence of stimuli, and then separately at a later time actively try to bind those visual stimuli together as a memory. However, it is entirely possible, and even likely, that memories are being formed and even bound together as the subjects are still viewing the sequences of objects. How would the authors account for this possibility? One possible way would be if there were a control task where subjects were just asked to view items and not remember them.

      Response: Indeed, it is impossible to be certain that no binding is occurring during sequence presentation, and the terminology used in the original submission is ill-fitting as a result. However, we would argue that there is a shift in the ratio between perception and binding across the encoding task, with greater perceptual processes arising during the presentation of the sequence relative to the “associate” cue (as this is when the items are presented), and greater associative processes arising during the “associate” cue (as this is when all items are available for binding). To suggest that the two processes can be completely separated would be erroneous, but we feel it is also difficult to argue that there is no shift in balance between the two processes over the course of the encoding task. Importantly, linking a shift in balance between the two processes (binding/perception) with neurophysiological correlates (alpha-beta/theta-gamma) is sufficient for our main conclusion.

      Action: We will carefully rephrase the manuscript in such a way that it no longer implies that there is a perfect separation of perception and binding, but rather a shift in the balance between the two processes.

      Note on a “control” task: In our view, the control task proposed by the reviewer is captured by the “forgotten” condition – participants view the items, but do not subsequently remember them.

      Another possibility would be to examine the trials that the participants failed to remember correctly. Presumably, one would still see the same decreases in alpha power. Yet it seems from the data, and the correlations, that during those trials that were not remembered properly, alpha power changed very little. Of course, it is unclear in these trials if failed memory is due to failed perception, but one concern would be that this would imply that decreases in alpha power are relevant for memory too. It would be helpful to see how changes in alpha power break down as a function of the number of actual items remembered. It would also be helpful to know how strong these correlations actually are.

      Note: We are a little unsure of what the reviewer is suggesting here, as we feel that most of these analyses were included in the main text. The response below re-cap of the results and how they link to our interpretation of the reviewer’s comment, but if we have misunderstood the point, we would be willing to re-address it in a subsequent revision.

      Response: In the original submission, we had focused solely on the memory-related change in alpha/beta power (that is: the contrast “2 items recalled” > “1 item recalled” > “no items recalled”). Therefore, the inferential statistics allow us to conclude that a relative decrease in alpha/beta power correlates with an increase in number of items recalled. What the analyses in the original submission do not show is that alpha/beta power changes from baseline (that is, are all items perceived [i.e. as indexed by a power decrease], or just the remembered items?). This is something we’d be happy to address in the revision

      Action: We will probe the change in alpha/beta power following stimulus presentation, and ask whether alpha/beta power decreases are present for all memory conditions, or only when the items are subsequently remembered.

      A related issue is with respect to hippocampal PAC. The authors investigate this during the mnemonic binding period. Yet they also raise the possibility in discussion that this could also be happening during perception, which goes back to the point above. Did they analyze these data during perception, and are there changes with perception that correlate with memory? This would suggest that binding is actually occurring during this sequence of visual stimuli.

      Response: We did indeed analyse the data during perception in the original submission (see lines 127-128; figure 3d) and found no evidence to suggest that memory-related PAC varied during perception. In an additional analysis, we also examined with PAC varied as the sequence progressed (that is, does PAC change from the first item to the second, and from the second to the third?), but found no evidence to suggest it does. Together, these results would suggest that putative binding mechanisms are not dominating the sequence perception phase of encoding.

      Action: We will supplement the original analyses of PAC during sequence perception (collapsed over the three epochs) with additional analyses investigating PAC fluctuations over the course of the presentation of the sequence.

      The authors perform a whole brain analysis examining the correlation between alpha power and memory to identify cluster corrected regions of significant. However, the PAC analysis focuses only on the hippocampus, raising the question of whether these results can account for the possible comparisons one could make in the whole brain. They do look at four other brain regions for PAC, which it would be helpful to account for. In addition, are there other measures of mnemonic binding that are significant? For example, theta power, or even gamma power?

      Response: We had focused our PAC analyses on the hippocampus because of our a priori hypotheses but appreciate that only showing data from the hippocampus would obscure the whole picture. Our analyses did not uncover convincing evidence for changes in theta or gamma power, but we will report these in the main text.

      Action: We will present the PAC results across the whole brain. We will add analyses into theta and gamma power.

      The authors note in the discussion that the magnitude of hippocampal gamma synchrony has been shown to be related to the decreases in alpha power. Is this also true in their data?

      Action: We will include an additional analysis probing the correlation between hippocampus theta/gamma activity and neocortical alpha/beta power

      Reviewer #3:

      The authors report results of an MEG analysis deploying a cognitive paradigm in which participants engage in a source memory task characterized by the appearance of three images in succession and are then tested via a cue (the first of the three images) followed by a choice of responses for a two dimensional pattern and then a choice (out of three images) of a photographic scene.

      The principal finding is that (via MEG sensor level data) there is a widespread 8-15 Hz power decrease that is correlated with the number of recalled items (from 0 to 2) on a given trial. In the hippocampus (via MEG source reconstruction), the magnitude of phase amplitude coupling observed as participants are told to associate the items is correlated with memory performance. The 8-15 Hz power decrease/memory correlation (as estimated by beta coefficients in a model described in Figure 1) is larger (across individuals) during moments when subjects are viewing the stimulus items as opposed to during the "associate" period. The novelty in the result is related to the experimental task that attempts to dissociate memory-related effects related to perception from those related to binding which putatively occurs when subjects are given the "associate" instruction.

      My main conceptual concern is related to the design of the experimental task. I am not sure that the perception/binding framing is appropriate, since there is no reason to think that subjects are not associating/binding items during the periods when the items are being shown on the screen. I suppose this may partly explain the lack of a significant difference in PAC/memory beta coefficients observed in the hippocampus when contrasting these two epochs (Figure 4). But the corollary is that the alpha power-related beta coefficients are observed while binding is likely also occurring within the paradigm (esp since each image is shown for 1.5 seconds it would seem). Is the alpha power effect seen in the hippocampus? The plots in 3a suggest there is an oscillation present in the relevant frequency range, and the time course of alpha power differences seen in Figure 2 suggests that they occur relatively late after onset of the images, which may fit better with some contribution for this pattern to the forming of associations rather than perception.

      Response to comments on task: We agree that the task does not unequivocally separate the two cognitive tasks, and any statement to suggest that the does is erroneous. That said, we would argue that, on a balance of probability, there is likely to be more information processing going on during sequence perception relative to the associate cue. This is because the participant is still being exposed to rich stimuli during sequence presentation, while only being presented with a simple cue during the association phase. Similarly, there is likely to be more binding during the associate cue than during sequence presentation. This is because participants have greater cognitive resources available for binding during the associate cue relative to during sequence perception. Now, neither of these reasons are sufficient to argue that “association” does not occur during sequence perception. However, we feel that these reasons are sufficient to suggest we expect to see a shift in the balance of “association” between the sequence perception and the binding window, where “association” is more easily executed during the binding window. Indeed, we feel it would be difficult to argue that there is no shift in the balance between these processes at any point. Importantly, linking such a shift in balance between the two processes (binding/perception) with neurophysiological correlates (alpha-beta/theta-gamma) is sufficient for our main conclusion. As such, we feel a careful rephrasing can address these concerns, where portions of the text referring to a separation of perception and binding are rephrased as a “shift in the balance in perception and binding” – the latter phrasing allows for the possibility that there is some small mixing of the two tasks.

      Action to comments on task: We will carefully rephrase the manuscript such that the text does not suggest that perception and binding are perfectly separated, but rather that the balance between the two processes shift during the encoding task.

      Response to comments on hippocampal alpha: We agree that there appears to be an alpha peak in the hippocampus, but as this plot is across all trials, it remains unclear whether this alpha oscillation is linked to memory. This is, of course, something we can investigate in revisions.

      Action: We will investigate whether hippocampal alpha power demonstrates a memory-related effect during perception and/or binding.

      I understand that the paradigm was constructed in an attempt to temporally dissociate memory effects attributable to perception versus those attributable to binding. But given the temporal resolution available using EEG, I would imagine that the authors could differentiate an earlier perception-related effect from a later PAC binding effect in the time series if the associated images were presented in conjunction. Is it correct to frame the alpha results as related to "perception?" The beta coefficients used for analysis reflect a "memory related effect observed when visual stimuli are present on the screen," but not necessarily improved memory predicated on more accurate perception to my interpretation. I would think that a perception/binding distinction requires operationalizing perception as activity that doesn't vary with later associative memory success, and binding as activity that does. The notion of perception used by the authors here seems slightly different. The authors can perhaps comment on this concern.

      Response: This is a very interesting point. A hallmark of visual perception is a reduction in alpha/beta power (e.g. Pfurtscheller et al., 1994, Int. J. Psychophysiology), regardless of whether it is remembered or not. As such, we would expect alpha/beta power to decrease following stimulus onset even if a memory is not formed. This could be directly tested by examining the stimulus-evoked power decrease in all conditions, with the expectation that alpha/beta power drops from baseline in all conditions.

      Action: We will contrast of pre-stimulus and post-stimulus power investigate whether alpha/beta power decreases accompany visual perception regardless of successful memory encoding.

      The authors report PAC results for other regions on page 6, but claiming that PAC is a hippocampal-specific effect would require showing that the PAC-related beta coefficients are significantly greater than the other regions, rather than simply the absence of a significant effect in these regions. The authors should also clarify if they combined locally measured PAC over several ROIs into an average for these other regions? It seems unlikely to detect PAC if a single theta/gamma time series were extracted over such a large area of cortex.

      Response: We agree with the principle that the PAC results should be probed further, though would argue against the use of inter-region contrasts here as they will not provide evidence that PAC is specific to a single region. Take, for example, an effect where there is a significant memory-related increase in PAC in region A, but there is a significantly larger memory-related increase in region B. In a direct contrast, PAC in B will be significantly greater than A, but clearly PAC is not specific to B. Therefore, an inter-region contrast is not a means to irrefutably demonstrate regional specificity. While there has been a call for direct comparisons between experimental contrasts (see Nieuwenhuis et al., 2011), this is specifically for cases where individuals wish to make the claim that “A is significantly greater than B”, which was a claim that we never made here. Rather, we asked whether there is a memory-related difference in PAC within the hippocampus, and then followed this up by confirming that this effect was not a “bleed-in” from PAC in another neighbouring region (i.e. the cortical ROI analyses; where the absence of a significant difference would suggest that memory-related hippocampal PAC is not attributable to memory-related PAC in another region). We will, however, better visualise the PAC results to further rule out the risk of a “bleed-in” effect (see response to Reviewer 1, point 3).

      Action: We will visualise PAC across the cortex.

      Response to ROI-based contrasts: We had originally collapsed PAC measures over the ROI for the sake of simplicity, but the reviewer makes a good point for a more focal analysis.

      Action for ROI-based contrasts: We will run a voxel-wise analysis of PAC to compliment the ROI-based approach

      The interaction effect reported at the end of the results (ANOVA model) is interpreted such that the cortical alpha effect is stronger when the visual items are presented, while the hippocampal PAC effect is stronger when no items appear on the screen, but these recordings are made in different regions (hippocampus versus the entire cortex). If my understanding is correct, a result in line with the model the authors suggest (cortical alpha power decrease/hippocampal PAC) would show a region (hipp v cortex) x task (images on screen vs "associate" command) x metric (PAC vs alpha) interaction. Can the authors clarify if the cortical data entered into this model includes only those regions that showed a significant effect initially, or just all the sensors? The former would seem to introduce bias.

      Response: We had originally collapsed metric and region into a single factor (hippocampal PAC vs. cortical alpha), but the reviewer makes a very good point here – a better way to probe this interaction via a 3-factor ANOVA (using “region”, “epoch” and “metric”).

      Action: We will revise the ANOVA in such a way that we can probe a three-way interaction (location vs. time vs. measure).

      Similarly, the different visual classes are always presented in the same order, which may give rise to the strong disparity in recall fraction between the pattern and scene images. I understand the linear model incorporates predictor variables for scene/pattern recall, but given that scene recall is driving a significant amount of the overall recall number observed as the main variable of interest, I would wonder if the alpha/beta power effects are related to the relative complexity of the scene images as compared to the patterns. Given the analysis schematic the authors report, I assume the authors have analyzed whether the same effects occur when contrasting scene versus no recollection and pattern vs no recollection. If the same effects are observed regardless of type of image (when compared with no recollection) this may help address this concern.

      Action: We will include supplementary analyses that ask whether alpha/beta power decreases vary as a function of stimulus type.

      Additional note: the scene and pattern stimuli were not always presented in the same order, but rather counterbalanced across blocks to avoid order effects.

      My second conceptual question is related to MEG data. It appears to me that the authors use MEG sensor-level data for the alpha-related effect in the cortex (Figure 2), but MEG beamformer reconstructed data (localized to the hippocampus) for the PAC effect. Is there a reason the authors did not use MEG data localized to specific cortical regions rather than sensor data? This may reflect confusion on my part, but I don't understand why they would use qualitatively different types of data for these two aspects of the analysis that are then combined (in the ANOVA, for example).

      Response to questions on source-reconstructed alpha power: We had not included source-reconstructed analysis of the alpha power effect here because, in an earlier draft, extensive analysis (e.g. the reporting of both sensor-level and source-reconstructed alpha power effects) drew criticism from reviewers for a lack of conciseness. That said, as such analyses have already been conducted, it is relatively easy to add these back in.

      Action: We will include source-reconstructed alpha-band effects.

      The authors should also engage with concerns regarding the validity of localizing MEG signals (especially for an analysis such as PAC) to deep mesial temporal structures such as the hippocampus. I understand that MEG systems with greater than 300 sensors are more reliable for this purpose, but I think a number of readers would still have doubts about MTL localization of signal. Also, my understanding is that such deep source localization requires around 100 trials per class, which I think fits with what the subjects completed, but the authors may include references related to this issue.

      Response: In recent years, there has been a growing list of studies that have reported successful localisation of hippocampal signals using MEG (for review of 37 of these studies, see Ruzich et al., 2019, Human Brain Mapping). Generally speaking, our experimental paradigm and analysis pipeline show large overlap with these previous successes (e.g. use of beamformers, gradiometers, co-registered MRI-to-MEG head position), meaning our results are not completely out of line with what could be expected. Nonetheless, it would be beneficial to explicit state this in the manuscript.

      Action: We will explicitly address the historic difficulties of localising hippocampal MEG signals, and highlight how our approach fits with a growing consensus on how to successfully localise such signals (e.g. Ruzich et al., 2019, Human Brain Mapping).

      I think the signal processing steps are overall quite reasonable. I would ask the authors to clarify if they limited their analysis of cortical alpha/beta oscillations to those in which a peak exceeded the 1/f background, as they report for the PAC analysis on page 5. Also, it would be helpful to show that the magnitude of the MI values in the hippocampus exceed those observed by chance (using a shuffle procedure) in addition to showing that there is a memory-related association reflected in the beta coefficients.

      Response: We had not limited the analysis to peak alpha/beta oscillations in the original submission, but have no qualms about doing so – indeed, such an analytical approach may better substantiate the claim that we are probing oscillatory activity as opposed to non-oscillatory fluctuations.

      Action: We will restrict alpha/beta power analysis to the peak oscillation. We will add supplementary analysis contrasting measures of hippocampal PAC to a shuffled baseline.

    1. Scientists may think they have good reasons for believing thatliving organisms evolved naturally from nonliving chemicals, or thatcomplex organs evolved by the accumulation of micromutations throughnatural selection, but having reasons is not the same as having proof. Ihave seen people, previously inclined to believe whatever “science says,”become skeptical when they realize that the scientists actually do seem tothink that variations in nch beaks or peppered moths, or the mereexistence of fossils, proves all the vast claims of “evolution.”

      Many of these reasons for evolution do have some sound evidence that backs it up. Would there be exceptions or certian anomilies? yes, thats what makes those cases and anomily, but what this process does is it best explains this process were we can get these complec structures and specialized traits a such a large variety while sticking to known natural laws. By just simply stating that we can never full trace back lineages, therefore there is no proof is a weak argument and doesn't hold and water.

    Annotators

    1. joinimupbet

      I really like these combinations, "joinimupbet," "markimbet" and "shortenimupbet." For English speakers it may sound a little silly but the truth is we say the same thing it's just we don't combine it into a word in a written sense. If you're already going to be saying "shorten it up a bit" why not just have a word for it? I think pidgin kind of shows that what one person sees as "simple" or "bad grammar" another person sees as being economical with their words. And when Engilsh itself was developing German and French speakers probably also thought that it was ruining their languages. So that's my opinion, don't judge a language for sounding silly or having simpler vocabulary because all languages evolve for the same reason: to allow people to communicate, not to have a bunch of nice-sounding words.

    1. Reviewer #1:

      Taken collectively, the findings described in the manuscript provide a new perspective on how LAP2alpha influences the state of A-type lamins. By extension, one impact of the findings is that they provide a mechanism by which A-type lamin state is distinct within the nucleoplasm and at the nuclear lamina. The authors also arrive at some additional insights that are valuable. For example, the data supporting the initial peripheral localization of what is argued to be pre-lamin A during processing rather than filament assembly was interesting and, although indirect, largely convincing. I would encourage the authors to address the fact that this work drives a reinterpretation of their prior findings early in the paper. I also have some concern that the impact of the findings is somewhat narrow.

      Major points:

      1) Given that a major focus of the paper is to explain conflicting results with (the same group's) prior published data on the effect of LAP2alpha depletion, it would have helped to lay this out more clearly from the outset of the paper. As written, the reader is confused until arriving at Figure 3. I appreciate that resolving this conflict leads to a new perspective - namely that LAP2alpha influences the state of the lamin assembly in a way that disrupts its detection by the N18 antibody, but structuring the manuscript to get to this point as quickly as possible would improve its accessibility.

      2) I found the plots in Fig. 1A and B confusing. Can the authors clarify how the measurements are achieved - through ROIs for the entire nucleoplasm/periphery? How do they capture the diffuse versus focal signal within the nucleoplasm? There is also some concern that the nucleoplasmic signal may simply be too low to detect robustly at early time points (leading to an increase at later time points as the protein accumulates). Line profiles (which are useful in Fig. 3) would be very helpful if used more broadly for assessing the data particularly for Figure 1.

      3) Related to Figure 1 - the results for the deltaK32 mutant is essential for the interpretation and should be included in the primary figures.

      4) The authors make no comment on the functionality of the mEos-tagged lamin A/C CRISPR lines. However, the comment suggesting that some clones could have altered nuclear morphology (line 225) raises some questions. How did the authors interpret this? Were these clones in which there were indels in some lmnA alleles affecting the levels? Or is this a consequence of the fusion? How do the authors explain the relatively low expression level of the mEos fusion relative to the untagged? If the MDFs are diploid, presumably we would expect this to be one allele tagged and one allele untagged. Given that the expression ratio is very different from this, could the tagged lamin A/C be targeted for degradation? As these cell lines are critical for the rest of the study, this information is important.

      5) How does the deltaK32 mutation affect the ability to detect lamin A/C with the N18 antibody? Could this provide further insight into the impact of LAP2alpha by extension?

      6) Greater explanation for the apparent paradox between the increase in immobile fraction by FRAP and the increased diffusion coefficient by FCS in the LAP2alpha-depleted condition is needed. The authors suggest that the latter is due to the loss of LAP2alpha binding (line 395), but some modeling would go a long way here. What form are the lamins thought to be in, and how does the bulk that LAP2 alpha would bring match the apparent changes in diffusivity?

      7) One prediction that arises from the proposed model is that regulation of LAP2alpha levels will modulate the relative pool of A-type lamins at the nuclear interior versus the nucleoplasm. Beyond the knock-out cells, is there any other evidence of this relationship?

      8) Much of the biochemical characterization seems confirmatory - e.g. the binding and gradients in Fig. 5A and B. Use of the assembly mutants of lamin here could be informative is essential to interpret the changes induced by addition of LAP2alpha.

      9) With regards to the effects on chromatin mobility - over what time interval was the volume of movement observed? This is important because more fluctuations in nuclear position, for example, could influence this measure. In addition, telomeres are a confusing choice, given abundant evidence that there is crosstalk between the state of the nuclear lamina and telomere biology (e.g. lamin mutants affecting telomere homeostasis, etc.). At a minimum, acknowledging that telomeres may not reflect the effect on chromatin globally is important. Examples of the raw mean squared displacements would be more informative. Is the difference between lmna KO and lmna/Lap2alpha DKO (Fig. 6 right panel) significant?

      10) How do the authors think the membrane integrated LAP2beta fits into the story?

    1. Remora Communiqué

      The Remora Communiqué

      Issued by No Spectator Left, December 2020

      1

      I heard the voice

      Of the Remora speak –

      Slowly, all in silence,

      To wake me from my sleep.

      2

      I heard the voice

      Of its silence say,

      ‘A Plague Ship has been

      Stopped today.’

      3

      ‘Did you even know

      You were at sea?

      Did you ever stop

      To think of me?’

      4

      ‘Know you’d left

      The world behind,

      Or what on Earth

      You hoped to find?’

      5

      ‘Have you heard the whales

      Now have to yell?

      You think they’re singing –

      You can’t tell!’

      6

      ‘It was the droning on & on

      Of your Dread-Nought Destroyer

      That made me sound my calm alarm

      In the ear of your Employer.’

      7

      ‘The Strain & Refrain

      From onboard seemed familiar,

      An updated version of

      “Long Live Caligula!”’

      8

      ‘I stopped his progress, ah

      The hutzpah of karma!

      Rome outweighed

      By the scales of Remora... ’

      9

      ‘Mark Antony

      I scuppered too,

      Underthrown before

      He knew…’

      10

      ‘But today, you thought,

      What need to worry?

      What voodoo-glue can now undo

      Your ship’s world-beating hurry!’

      11

      ‘So I downsized, to fill the role

      I was unborn to play:

      Remember, as the Show Goes On,

      You recast me this way!’

      12

      ‘You even gave new me a name

      (With hollow ring, it’s true):

      Corona-Virus, The Sick Crown,

      Sitting right with you…’

      13

      ‘If you should miss this hint now –

      Heaven knows, I tried! –

      The next ring at the doorbell?

      No more Mr. Nice Guy!’

      14

      ‘For tho’ the story of l’il ole me

      Is soon & simply told

      (N.B., I’m only as little

      As you made the world),

      15

      Perchance in the Grand Scheme

      There’s ‘small’ & then there’s small,

      And your friend the atom

      May do for us all!’

      16

      ‘Fat Man’s little boy

      For purpose trained fit:

      The crack that splits open

      The hull of the ship!’

      17

      ‘Yes, that’s the thing (you’ll see too late),

      It All cracks from inside:

      Nothing in the world left ‘out’

      Now you’ve grown worldwide.’

      18

      ‘So while we’ve a moment –

      And if not now, when? –

      Pray, pay me best attention:

      We may not meet again.’

      19

      ‘And it’s hard to imagine

      But sadly safe to say, you

      May yet remember me

      Fondly one day!’

      20

      ‘For it’s not just the overlooked

      Pit of the Bomb, the

      Abyss that’s grown tired from

      Yawning so long,’

      21

      ‘There’s now – just in case! –

      As the Atomic Clock ticks,

      A new kid on the Doomsday Block,

      A spare Apocalypse!’

      22

      ‘And with two caps melting

      The Dunce is warming to his task,

      Facing down his Mother,

      Preparing Her Death-Mask.’

      23

      ‘But what does Her life matter

      (& who’ll be left to grieve?),

      The Old Girl in the Chokehold

      Croaking “I Can’t Breathe!”’

      24

      ‘O you wring your hands & ring your bells

      While skies & forests fall,

      But “capitalism will adapt!” no doubt:

      It has to, after all!’

      25

      ‘The trusty greenwashed reset button,

      Point missed without fail –

      “Sustainable development”…

      Of the Fairy Tale!’

      26

      ‘And to “listen to the science”

      Isn’t all you need to do:

      If you want to really heal thyself,

      Listen to my silence too!’

      27

      ‘It really is a killer,

      The racket y’all make:

      What kind of f** bully

      Wants to make his Mother Quake?’

      28

      ‘It is what it is,

      Boys will be boys,

      In their noisome

      Kingdom of Noise?’

      29

      ‘Well, until my little finger

      Touched the spinning top,

      Ripped you from the driver’s seat

      Of the Roaring Chariot.’

      30

      ‘But I cannot now take the helm

      Lay in a course that’s true,

      Back to safely grounded land –

      That’s up to all the Crew.’

      31

      ‘For in this emergency,

      All hands on the (burning) deck:

      Check your destiny’s manifest, there

      Are no passengers left!’

      32

      ‘It’s time to call a midnight strike,

      Make love to Mutiny –

      Go overboard, throw overboard

      This plaguey, illthy Bounty!’

      33

      ‘What exactly should you do? You

      Crave a detailed scheme?

      I’m not a power-point, you know,

      Just your own fever-dream!’

      34

      I started when the silence stopped,

      So badly missed its voice:

      Left all alone, onboard to make

      The choice that is no choice –

      35

      To put away so many

      Very foolish things,

      While we can still remember

      What being human means,

      36

      Remember that the question

      ‘To be or not to be?’

      Isn’t just a question

      Of or for humanity,

      37

      Though it wouldn’t be an issue

      Without the threats we pose,

      The constant hammering it takes

      To crucify Life’s Rose,

      38

      To pulverize the Earth that is

      Our only common wealth,

      To tame and tag, gas & gag

      The good wild life of health.

      39

      I cried, ‘my God, I have to rush,

      Right now alert the crew;

      Not those who know they slave & serve –

      The rest, without a clue,

      40

      Who buckle up,

      Enjoy the ride,

      Let those “in the

      Know” decide

      41

      Their fate: “Awake!,” I’d cry,

      “Discern!, deride

      The course laid in

      For Omnicide!”’

      42

      But my voice would

      Not be the Dream’s,

      And I must wake

      To what It means –

      43

      So first things first,

      Some silence, pray:

      High Time to issue

      The Remora Communiqué…

    1. Decius, well urged.  I think it is not meet, Mark Antony, so well beloved of Caesar, Should outlive Caesar.  We shall find of him A shrewd contriver; and, you know, his means, If he improve them, may well stretch so far As to annoy us all; which to prevent, Let Antony and Caesar fall together.

      Cassius: we should merk Mark Brutus: no dude, thats mean :,(

    1. Author Response

      Reviewer #1:

      The paper has potential. It's not there yet.

      The paper presents a sequencing study describing the evolution of Spiroplasma over various years in lab cultures. Spiroplasma is a fascinating bacteria that induces some unique phenotypes including enhancing insect immunity or "protection" and male-killing. The premise for the study was that sometimes these phenotypes disappear in cultures and thus the bacteria is likely quickly evolving and subject to frequent mutation. The researchers sequence various cultures of Spiroplasma (sHy and sMel), assemble and annotate genomes, compare the genomes, quantify the rates of evolution and compare these rates to some other studies on viruses, human microbiota/pathogens, and wolbachia. They find that Spiroplasma evolve real fast and speculate that the mechanism for this is a lack of various Mut repair enzymes. They look at fast evolving proteins of interest including RIP toxins which kill nematodes and spaid which is an inducer of male killing. So essentially the big result here is that Spiroplasma evolves real fast.

      In my opinion the paper is weak in a few senses. It doesn't reflect hypothesis driven science. It's mostly observational data and the researchers do not test any hypotheses. Now I don't think this is a deal breaker, but I do think it weakens the paper. Also, my comment should not imply that there isn't valuable data herein; and in fact I think the other big weakness is that the researchers do NOT exploit the true value of the data to derive and test novel hypotheses.

      We respectfully disagree with the reviewer’s opinion that hypothesis driven papers are generally ‘stronger’ than observational studies. Arguably, valuable insights can be derived from both types of studies, and this has been discussed in depth elsewhere (e.g., https://doi.org/10.1186/s13059-020-02133-w). However, we did have a hypothesis when we designed this study, and it was based on previous reports that novel phenotypes occur commonly in Spiroplasma in lab culture. We hypothesised that molecular evolution of Spiroplasma is likely also very fast. We further conclude with novel hypotheses on the evolutionary ecology of Spiroplasma poulsonii.

      For example: one aspect I was most excited about was to see how the researchers dissect and annotate evolutionary differences induced by axenic culture systems. The authors have the ability to compare and contrast genomes of Spiroplasma cultured in host insects AND Spiroplasma cultured without insects in axenic culture. Within these genome comparisons are likely novel insights that could shed light on mechanisms of maternal transmission and mechanisms of cell invasion etc... However, I was shocked to see that there is no in-depth analysis of specific proteins that are changing and evolving in these two diverse culture systems. I thought the analysis was entirely insufficient and didn't extract or present the real value of the datasets here. There are some brief mentions in the discussion of adherin binding proteins, but that was essentially it. I think the researchers focused too much on the past, ( the RIP toxins and spaid) rather than pointing out new interesting genes and hypotheses about them.

      For example: Maternal transmission would no longer be required in axenic culture, what genes got mutated? This is perhaps the most interesting thing that is not even touched upon.

      So essentially my main criticism is the added value from this paper which is the potential ability to compare symbiont genomes in hosts to symbionts with Axenic culture was NOT exploited. Given the novelty and impact of the axenic culture studies by Bruno, I would have hoped to see this upfront.

      We agree in general that our dataset presents the opportunity to compare evolution of the symbiont in axenic culture and in the host. However, any potential interpretation of evolution in axenic culture vs. in-host is hampered by the fact that we were comparing two different strains of Spiroplasma. With a sample size of 1 each, any conclusions on evolution in axenic culture vs. in-host would have been speculative.

      Additionally, we did not find notable differences in evolutionary rates or affected proteins between the two strains. From the first version of our paper:

      “The changes in sMel over ~2.5 years in culture affected only 15 different CDS in total, of which four were ARPs, and three lipoproteins”

      –which is overall very similar to the changes observed in sHy (Fig. 3). We concluded that the same genes are likely to evolve in axenic culture and in the host. We have made this clearer now in the manuscript:

      “The changes in sMel over ~2.5 years in culture affected only 15 different CDS in total, of which four were ARPs, and three lipoproteins. [New version:] Thus, the rates and patterns of evolutionary change are similar between the axenically cultured sMel and the host associated sHy.“

      Also there are some paragraphs comparing broad genomic differences between sHy and sMel, but I didn't think the differences in how these genomes evolved over time in comparison to their earlier selves was emphasized or explained in enough detail.

      We summarise the main patterns of change over time in sMel and sHy in the results and discussion sections, in Figure 3, and further list all detected changes from both strains in Supplementary table S2. We thus feel that the level of detail is appropriate here, especially given the length of the overall manuscript.

      Another example of not exploiting the value of the data: The plasmids are usually where much of the action is in microbes. There should be detailed annotations and figures of the plasmids. Tell me what is on them. Tell me which genes are evolving. Tell me if there are operons. Tell me what pathways are in the plasmids. I found the discussions of plasmid results wholly lacking. I also inherently felt that discussions of plasmids should be kept completely separate from discussions of chromosome evolution, regardless of similar rates of evolution or not... Plasmids are unique selfish entities and I imagine their evolution is wholly distinct from the evolution of chromosomes. They deserve their own sections and figures (in my opinion).

      There is a figure comparing plasmid synteny and gene content across the investigated strains in the supplementary material. Notable loci are highlighted, and again, the majority of genes are uncharacterised.

      The figure legends are completely insufficient and they ask me to read other papers to understand them, which is annoying.

      We apologise for this oversight and have now provided more comprehensive legends for all figures.

      Other minor comments:

      What about presence/absence of recA?

      recA is truncated in sMel by a previous stop codon, as discussed in detail in Paredes et al. (https://doi.org/10.1128/mBio.02437-14). recA appears to be complete and potentially functional in sHy, which supports Paredes et al’s inference that the truncation in sMel may be relatively recent (prior to the split of sMel and sHy). The new version of the manuscript now includes this detail:

      “Further, while recA is truncated in sMel, the copy in sHy appears complete and functional. As suggested by Paredes et al. (2015), the loss of recA function in sMel is therefore likely very recent.”

      There are differences in dna extraction prior to genome sequencing for each of the strains. I suspect this is because different individuals sequenced different genomes. But I worry that different protocols could produce different results and therefore a comparison might be tainted by dna extraction and library prep specifics. Can you at least explain to the reader why this is not an issue, if it is not an issue?

      DNA extraction procedures differed because they were done in different laboratories. All DNA extractions were based on phenol-chloroform, and all Spiroplasma extractions were based on isolating fly hemolymph. Any differences in protocols are minor, and mentioned mainly for reasons of reproducibility. We do not see any reason why this would affect genome reconstruction of a single bacterial isolate. Several studies suggest that the impact of DNA extraction and library preparation is negligible for assemblies and calling SNPs (e.g., https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2019.e02745; https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-71207-3).

      Examples:

      181 - why were heads removed? Why was this dna extraction protocol here different from the hemolymph extraction protocol? Might this have changed anything?

      Please see the comment on DNA extraction above. Head removal is often used when enrichment of symbiont DNA in whole fly extracts is desired.

      195 - how much heterogeneity do you expect in any given fly. Do you have SNP data differences amongst good reads that could point out different alleles within a Spiroplasma population within an individual fly? It would be interesting to know which genes have a large amount of different alleles.

      As described in the methods section, we always pooled hemolymph from multiple fly individuals in order to extract sufficient DNA for genome sequencing, so we cannot say anything about the genetic heterogeneity of Spiroplasma populations in any single fly individual. The levels of heterozygosity in the pooled extracts were however very low: Out of all variants called with more than 10x coverage in sHy-Liv18B and sHy-TX12 strains, 98% and 95% were unanimously supported by all mapping reads, respectively. Only 0.8% and 1% of variants had 5% or more reads supporting an alternative allele, respectively. No alternative allele was supported by more than 18% and 11% of reads, respectively.

      199 - another DNA extraction protocol. There isn't consistency here. If the reads and coverage are good enough, it shouldn't be a problem. But if there were data issues or assembly issues, this would raise concern in my mind. Can the researchers discuss or alleviate concerns here? Some assemblies have 6 chromosomes, some have 3 chromosomes. I presume these were different strains of Spiroplasma and not the same one?

      Please see the comment on DNA extraction above. As described in the methods section, we obtained long reads and short reads from the same DNA extract. Depending on the reads and algorithms employed, we created assemblies that differed in number of contigs. This is not unusual or unexpected (e.g., http://doi.org/10.1099/mgen.0.000132). A consensus was created by using a long read assembly and correcting it with contigs from a hybrid assembly, and subsequently, with Illumina reads. We feel that this was a good approach to ensure a contiguous, but accurate assembly.

      Figure 1: were the samples that are 6 years apart (red) sequence in exactly the same way with the same technology? Could this produce any relics? Also, why display information for sMel in a table and information for sHy in a figure? Can't you creatively standardize a visual means of showing this information and compile information to one item?

      Please see the comment on DNA extraction above. We have taken up the suggestion of the reviewer and created a single figure to display sampling for both strains.

      I wonder what would happen if you took the same sample and did different DNA extraction protocols, different library prep protocols, and different illumina rounds of sequencing and independent algorithm assemblies... how much would they come out the same? Has anyone ever done this experiment? Is there any reference for this control that shows they would in fact come out the same? This is essentially what I am worried about here. This could be a minor issue, if the researchers could just confidently explain why this is NOT an issue.

      Please see the comment on DNA extraction above.

      Line 30 - you introduce sHy and sMel without defining what they are yet? Clarify immediately that they are both S.poulsoni

      This was clearly stated in line 29 of our manuscript.

      line 247 - They found fragmented genes with orthofinder, if it was less than 60% length homology... why set an arbitrary cutoff of 60? Anything less than 100 is possibly a pseudogenization if the last amino acid is important, or the C-terminus is important, which it often is... What is the rationale here?

      We agree with the reviewer that this is a relatively crude measure of pseudogenization that likely results in missing several candidate pseudogenes. Because it is usually impossible to functionally characterise all loci of a bacterial genome, truncation is often used as an indication that genes may have lost their functions (https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gki631). This limitation was acknowledged in the first version of the manuscript: “Both sMel and sHy have a number of missing or truncated (i.e., potentially pseudogenized) genes when compared with each other”.

      To quantify an evolutionary rate, I read that they counted the number of changes in 3rd codon wobble positions/year. Why just wobble codons... why not all SNPs period? But then in the figure 2, it seemed like they are tallying a percentage of a total 100% = 570 "variants" or changes in the sequences (I wouldn't use the word variants, as this makes me think of strains; better to say "changes", no?). These changes include snps, insertions, deletions, and "complex"... no idea what complex is? The figure legends are completely insufficient. And I still don't know if you are tallying in some kind of number of recombinations and psuedogenizations into the mix (I assume these are included in the frame-shifts)? The quantification is murky to me.

      We used third codon positions mainly to facilitate comparison with other studies; e.g., the Richardson et. al analysis of Wolbachia evolutionary rates (https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1003129). It is however common to only use mostly neutrally evolving sites to determine evolutionary rates in order to avoid differences arising from adaptive processes.

      The figures the reviewer is referring to aim to convey different types of information: Figure 2 displays the evolutionary rate estimates from neutral sites in comparison to other symbionts and pathogens. Figure 3 in contrast displays all changes we observed in a single strain of Spiroplasma.

      The adhesin proteins are evolving fast. But aren't Spiroplasma commonly intracellular... so why would it be binding an extracellular protein? ... can you discuss this? I presume invasion or something?

      Drosophila-associated Spiroplasma are mostly extracellular, although they experience an intracellular phase during vertical transmission when they infect oocytes. We know that in other Spiroplasma species, adhesins are involved in insect cell invasion (https://doi.org/10.3389/fcimb.2017.00013, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0048606) and we have now clarified this in the discussion:

      “For example, adhesion-related proteins are important in cell invasion in other Spiroplasma species (Béven et al., 2012; Dubrana et al., 2016; Hou et al., 2017) and are enriched for evolutionary changes in sHy and sMel (Fig. 2).”

      There might be a correlation with genome size and speed of evolution. You mention this in the discussion, but briefly. Can you elaborate on this, especially because Spiroplasmas are close to mycoplasmas which are REALLY small genomes.

      There is some novel evidence that prokaryotic genome size is strongly correlated with mutational rate (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2020.07.034), rather than mostly determined by effective population size as previously suggested. This novel study also found that increased mutation rates often occur in lineages that have lost DNA repair genes, which is in line with our findings. Comparing evolutionary rates (Fig. 1) with genome sizes and the presence of DNA repair genes reveals that correlation is not straightforward for the endosymbiotic lineages we compared. For example, Wolbachia and Buchnera appear to have lower substitution rates than Spiroplasma, yet both have ~similar genome sizes (Wolbachia) or smaller genomes (Buchnera) than Spiroplasma poulsonii. We have included the discussion on mutational rates determining genome size as follows:

      “Further to absence of DNA repair genes causing elevated mutation rates, a recent comparative study demonstrated a strong negative correlation between mutation rate and genome size in free living and endosymbiotic bacteria (Bourguignon et al., 2020). This correlation is however not apparent in the genomes of endosymbionts we have investigated. For example, the considerably slower evolving Buchnera genomes are much smaller than Spiroplasma, and Wolbachia would be predicted to have much larger genomes if their size was mainly determined by mutational rates. This suggests that mutational rates alone are a poor predictor for the sizes of the here investigated genomes. Likely, these genome sizes result from an interplay of multiple factors such as population size, patterns of DNA repair gene absence, and mutational rates (Kuo et al., 2009; Marais et al., 2020).”

      We have further moved supplementary Figure S5 into the main manuscript body (now Fig. 7) to better enable the readers to follow the discussion on the lack of DNA repair genes.

      Figure 3 is really confusing. I assume FS is frameshift, is IF induced fragmentation? After about 10 minutes I could decode it. Is this really the best way to think about these results? Perhaps? But perhaps not? ARP? I think it's adhesin stuff, but you don't say this until later.

      We have revised and clarified all figure legends. Please also see the comment above.

      Reviewer #2:

      General assessment:

      This work utilizes two Spiroplasma populations as the materials to study the substitution rates of symbiotic bacteria. A major finding is that these symbionts have rates that are ~2-3 orders higher than other bacteria with similar ecological niches (i.e., insect symbionts), and these substitution rates are comparable to the highest rates reported for bacteria and the lowest rate reported for RNA virus. Based on these findings, the authors discussed how this knowledge could be used to infer and to understand symbiont evolution. The biological materials used (i.e., symbionts maintained in fly hosts for 10 years and cultivated outside of the host for > 2 years) are valuable, the technical aspects are challenging, and the answers obtained are certainly interesting. The key concern is the limited sampling of other bacteria for comparison to derive the conclusions.

      Major comments:

      1) The key concern regarding sampling involves several points. (a) The two populations represent the species Spiroplasma poulsonii. Is this species a good representative for the genus? Or is it an exception because it is a vertically inherited male-killer? Most of the characterized Spiroplasma species appear to be commensals and are not vertically inherited. (b) The other species with a comparable rate is Mycoplasma gallisepticum (i.e. a chicken pathogen that spreads both horizontally and vertically). Mycoplasma is a polyphyletic genus with three major clades. While closely related to Spiroplasma, their hosts and ecology are quite different. Do all three groups of Mycoplasma have such high rates? If so, are the high rates simply a shared trait of these Mollicutes and has nothing to do with the distinct biology of S. poulsonii? How about other Mollicutes (e.g., Acholeplasma and phytoplasmas). (c) The group "human pathogens" in Fig. 2 show rates spreading across four orders of magnitude. This is too vague. How many species are included in this group? Are their rates linked to their phylogenetic affiliations? (d) Did Fig. 2 provide comprehensive sampling of bacteria? How about DNA viruses? Michael Lynch has done extensive works on mutation rates (e.g., DOI: 10.1038/nrg.2016.104), some of those should be integrated and discussed.

      (a) We agree that it is difficult to draw general conclusions of evolutionary rates in the genus Spiroplasma from looking at only 2 strains from the same species, and therefore we have not attempted to do so. We also agree that population bottlenecks at vertical transmission events may be a main reason for the elevated substitution rates. In the first version of the manuscript (first section of the discussion), we have therefore focussed our comparisons on Bacteria with similar ecology for which evolutionary rate estimates are available (Wolbachia, Buchnera, Blochmannia).

      (b) As far as we are aware, there is some anecdotal evidence that mycoplasmas evolve quickly (https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02115648) as well as one study estimating evolutionary rates from genome-wide data of multiple M. gallisepticum isolates (https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1002511). We are unaware of systematic studies estimating evolutionary rates in other mollicutes, and we feel it is beyond the scope of this article to provide such a systematic assessment. However, we do agree that loss of DNA repair genes and elevated substitution rates in M. gallisepticum and S. poulsonii could also have occurred independently and have now clarified this in the manuscript: “Absence of DNA mismatch repair pathway may thus be ancestral to Entomoplasmatales (Spiroplasmatacea + Entomoplasmataceae) and contribute to the dynamic genome evolution across this taxon (Lo et al., 2016; Rocha and Blanchard, 2002). [New version:] Alternatively, increased substitutional rates caused by the loss of these loci could have arisen multiple times independently in Entomoplasmatales. ”

      (c) We have now provided a more comprehensive figure legend that clarifies that the estimate was obtained from 16 different human pathogens. The range provided covers almost the entire mutational spectrum in Bacteria (https://doi.org/10.1099/mgen.0.000094).

      (d) Please see the comment under (c). We have now also included an estimate for DNA viruses in Fig. 2.

      2) This study is based on two lab-maintained populations. How may the results differ from natural populations? I understand that no estimate may be available for natural populations and additional experiments may not be feasible, but at least a more in-depth discussion should be provided.

      We have expanded the discussion on this matter:

      “Our rate estimate is potentially biased by at least two factors. First, we have only investigated laboratory populations of Spiroplasma poulsonii. Each vertical transmission event creates symbiont population bottlenecks potentially increasing genetic drift and thus substitution rates. Because the number of generations in natural populations of the Spiroplasma host Drosophila hydei is lower compared with laboratory reared hosts, vertical transmission events are rarer under natural conditions, and substitution rates therefore potentially lower. Further, laboratory strains could experience relaxed selection compared with natural symbiont populations. This may lead to higher substitution rate estimates from laboratory populations compared with natural populations. Secondly, substitution rates often appear larger when estimated over brief time periods (Ho et al., 2005).”

      3) The authors use adaptation as a key explanation for several of the findings. Stronger support and alternative explanations are needed. For example, why genome degradation may be used as a proxy for host adaptation (line 497)? If this explanation works only for sHy but not the other strain within the same species (i.e., sNeo), is this still a good explanation? Similarly, for the arguments made in lines 524-528, supporting evidence should be presented in the Results. For example, what are the rate distribution of all genes? Do those putative adaptation genes have statistically higher rates and/or signs of positive selection?

      We agree with the reviewer in that we have no direct evidence for adaptation as explanation for the genomic architecture of sHy. We have therefore carefully revised the manuscript to make clear that adaptation is a potential explanation. The key paragraph now reads:

      “Using signatures of genomic degradation as a proxy, our findings collectively suggest that sHy is in a more advanced stage of host restriction than sMel. This may indicate host adaptation as a result of the fitness benefits associated with sHy under parasitoid pressure, and the absence of detectable costs for carrying sHy in Drosophila hydei (Osaka et al., 2013; Jialei Xie et al., 2014; Xie et al., 2010). However, the Spiroplasma symbiont of Drosophila neotestacea sNeo is also protective, does not cause obvious fitness costs (Jaenike et al., 2010), but has a less reduced genome (Fig.5, Ballinger and Perlman, 2017). Further, it is also possible that genome reduction in sHy was mainly driven by stochastic effects or even by adaptation to laboratory conditions, as we have not investigated contemporary sHy from wild D. hydei populations.”

      4) The chromosome and plasmids have very different rates (lines 315-316). Since this study aims to compare across different bacteria, perhaps the analysis should be limited to chromosomes for all bacteria.

      We have only used chromosomal variants for the rate estimates. From the results section of the first version of the manuscript: “To estimate rates of molecular evolution in Spiroplasma poulsonii, we measured chromosome-wide changes in coding sequences of Spiroplasma from fly hosts (sHy) and axenic culture (sMel) over time.“ We now also mention this information in the figure legend for Fig. 2.

      5) Formal statistical tests should be performed to test the stated correlations (e.g., lines 360-361, genome size and the number of insertion sequences).

      As suggested, we have calculated Pearson’s correlation coefficients, which confirm the observation that Spiroplasma genome size is correlated with the number of predicted IS elements and proportion of predicted prophage regions (new supplementary file Fig. S4).

      6) Fig. 5. The differences in CDS length distribution should be investigated and discussed in more details. The authors stated that they have re-annotated all genomes using the same pipeline, so this finding cannot be attributed to the bioinformatic tools. If these findings are true (rather than annotation artifacts), it is quite interesting. How to explain these? Why is Sm KC3 so different from all others?

      There are several potential explanations for the differences in CDS length: 1) The skew towards very short predicted CDS is most pronounced in draft assemblies with relatively many contigs. We therefore think that assembly breaks have resulted in an artificially high number of short CDS by introducing splits mid-CDS. For example, in the Poulsonii clade, the sNeo assembly is composed of 181 contigs. This likely explains the higher proportion of very short CDS when compared with sMel and sNeo. 2) An excess of short CDS could also indicate many truncated genes that have become pseudogenised. We would therefore expect shorter median CDS lengths in genomes that undergo reduction. In Fig 5, the differences in CDS lengths within the Mirum group may be explained this way: in comparison with S. eriocheiris, CDS lengths are shorter for S. mirum and S. atrichopogonis. The latter 2 genomes also have a lower coding density and genome size, which may indicate recent genomic reduction. 3) Prophage regions are often characterised by shorter CDS, so genomes with overall higher proportions of prophage are expected to harbour a higher amount of smaller CDS. We have added the following statement to the manuscript:

      “The distribution of CDS sequence lengths varies across the investigated genomes (Fig. 5), which may be explained by differences in proportion of prophage regions, level of pseudogenization, and assembly quality.”

      7) Lines 467-479. Multiple lineages have purged the prophages is an interesting hypothesis and may be important in furthering our understanding of these bacteria. More detailed info (e.g., syntenic regions of prophage sites across different species) should be provided in the Results to support the claim. Perhaps the sampling should be expanded to include the Apis clade (i.e., the clade with the highest number of described species within the genus) to test if the prophage invasion occurred even earlier or independently in multiple lineages. Additionally, CRISPR/Cas systems are known to have variable presence across Spiroplasma species (DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2019.02701). How does this correspond to prophage distribution/abundance?

      For sMel, none of the prophage regions predicted with PHASTER show clear synteny over the majority of their length in sHy, which makes synteny comparison (including across even more distantly related strains) difficult. CRISPR-Cas systems are entirely absent in Citri and Poulsonii clades, so are unlikely to be responsible for differences in prophage proportions between sMel and sHy. For the revised version of the manuscript, we have performed two additional analyses focussing on prophages and CRISPR/Cas in Spiroplasma, and have expanded the sampling to the Apis clade, as suggested by the reviewer.

      Firstly, we have investigated the history of prophage-related loci across the Spiroplasma phylogeny. Gene tree - species tree reconciliations suggest that the number of prophage loci have expanded greatly in some of the lineages, especially in the Citri clade. Many of these expansions have happened relatively recently, and therefore most likely occurred independently in multiple lineages.

      Secondly, we have used two approaches to predict CRISPR/Cas systems and arrays. We found CRISPR/Cas systems, or their remnants only in the Apis clade, which coincides with the absence of prophage loci in most members of this clade. Based on Cas9 phylogeny, there were multiple origins and several losses of Cas9 systems in the Apis clade. Interestingly, in some taxa with reduced Cas9 systems (e.g., S. atrichopogonis and S. mirum), there are elevated numbers of phage loci which suggests that phage invasion in Spiroplasma is linked to the loss of antiviral systems, as has been suggested previously.

      Overall, these data are in line with Spiroplasma being susceptible to viral invasion when CRISPR/Cas is absent. Highly streamlined genomes in the absence of CRISPR/Cas might thus be explained by loss of prophage regions or by a lack of exposure to phages. We have revised the paragraph discussion prophage distribution:

      “It was therefore argued that phages have likely invaded Spiroplasma only after the split of the Syrphidicola and Citri+Poulsonii clades (Ku et al., 2013). Our prophage gene tree-species tree reconciliations are in line with this hypothesis, but also indicate that prophage proliferation has largely happened independently in different Spiroplasma lineages (Fig. S4, supplementary material). CRISPR/Cas systems have multiple origins in Spiroplasma (Ipoutcha et al., 2019) and only occur in strains lacking prophages (Fig. S4, supplementary material). While the absence of antiviral systems often coincides with prophage proliferation (e.g., in the Citri clade), several strains with compact, streamlined genomes lack CRISPR/Cas and prophages (e.g., TU-14, Fig. S4, supplementary material). These strains also show other hallmarks of reduced symbiont genomes (small size, high coding density, lack of plasmids and transposons, Fig. 5), which is in line with the model of genome reduction discussed above and suggests prophage regions were purged from these genomes. Alternatively, these strains may never have been exposed to phages.“

      Minor comments:

      1) Lines 32, 517, and possibly other parts: Use "increased" or "decreased" to describe the rate differences are inappropriate because these imply inferences of evolutionary events after divergence from the MRCA, which are clearly not the case. It would be more appropriate to use "higher" or "lower" to describe the difference.

      We agree and have revised the use of these terms. In the new version of the manuscript we only use ‘increase’ or ‘decrease’ ’when we refer to a change compared with MRCA.

      2) Lines 31-32. This is too vague. For the rates, the description should be more explicit (e.g., higher by X orders of magnitude). The term "symbiont" is also vague. Broadly speaking, all human pathogens (included in Fig. 2) or plant-associated bacteria could be considered as symbionts as well. Would be better to define this point more clearly.

      Corrected:

      “We observed that S. poulsonii substitution rates are among the highest reported for any bacteria, and around two orders of magnitude higher compared with other inherited arthropod endosymbionts.”

      3) Fig. 1. The alignment is off. For example, June should be located near the middle between two tick marks.

      The tick marks did not correspond to year boundaries. We recognise that this may be confusing and have adjusted the image for the new version of the manuscript.

      4) Line 207. This is confusing. There should not be 6 circular chromosomes.

      Corrected ‘chromosomes’ to ‘contigs’.

      5) Line 211. Why is the hybrid assembly more fragmented?

      The hybrid assembly algorithm used by Unicycler (https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005595) first creates an assembly from the short reads and then uses long reads to span repeats and other questionable nodes in the assembly graph. We suspect that if the initial short read assembly is highly fragmented (such as is the case for S. poulsonii), even a large amount of high quality long reads cannot fully resolve the assembly graph. Our approach was therefore to use the complete long read assembly as starting point.

      6) Methods and Results. More detailed information regarding the sequencing and assembly should be provided. For example, how much raw reads were generated for each library? What are the mapping rates? How much variation in observed coverage across the genome?

      We now provide these details in the new Supplementary table S2.

      7) Lines 341-342. How to establish an expected level of synteny conservation?

      We have removed the reference to ‘expected’ levels of synteny.

      8) Line 487. I do not see how this statement could be supported by Fig. 5. Also "less pronounced" is vague.

      Corrected to

      “However, when using the similarity agnostic tool PhiSpy, the predicted prophage regions were similar in size between sHy and sMel (Fig. S2).”

  7. Nov 2020
    1. Author Response

      Summary: A major tenet of plant pathogen effector biology has been that effectors from very different pathogens converge on a small number of host targets with central roles in plant immunity. The current work reports that effectors from two very different pathogens, an insect and an oomycete, interact with the same plant protein, SIZ1, previously shown to have a role in plant immunity. Unfortunately, apart from some technical concerns regarding the strength of the data that the effectors and SIZ1 interact in plants, a major limitation of the work is that it is not demonstrated that the effectors alter SIZ1 activity in a meaningful way, nor that SIZ1 is specifically required for action of the effects.

      We thank the editor and reviewers for their time to review our manuscript and their helpful and constructive comments. The reviews have helped us focus our attention on additional experiments to test the hypothesis that effectors Mp64 (from an aphid) and CRN83-152 (from an oomycete) indeed alter SIZ1 activity or function. We have revised our manuscript and added the following data:

      1) Mp64, but not CRN83-152, stabilizes SIZ1 in planta. (Figure 1 in the revised manuscript).

      2) AtSIZ1 ectopic expression in Nicotiana benthamiana triggers cell death from 3-4 days after agroinfiltration. Interestingly CRN83-152_6D10 (a mutant of CRN83-152 that has no cell death activity), but not Mp64, enhances the cell death triggered by AtSIZ1 (Figure 2 in the revised manuscript).

      For 1) we have added the following panel to Figure 1 as well as three biological replicates of the stabilisation assays in the Supplementary data (Fig S3):

      Figure 1 panel C. Stabilisation of SIZ1 by Mp64. Western blot analyses of protein extracts from agroinfiltrated leaves expressing combinations of GFP-GUS, GFP Mp64 and GFP-CRN83_152_6D10 with AtSIZ1-myc or NbSIZ1-myc. Protein size markers are indicated in kD, and equal protein amounts upon transfer is shown upon ponceau staining (PS) of membranes. Blot is representative of three biological replicates , which are all shown in supplementary Fig. S3. The selected panels shown here are cropped from Rep 1 in supplementary Fig. S3.

      For 2) we have added the folllowing new figure (Fig. 2 in the revised manuscript):

      Fig. 2. SIZ1-triggered cell death in N. benthamiana is enhanced by CRN83_152_6D10 but not Mp64. (A) Scoring overview of infiltration sites for SIZ1 triggered cell death. Infiltration site were scored for no symptoms (score 0), chlorosis with localized cell death (score 1), less than 50% of the site showing visible cell death (score 2), more than 50% of the site showing cell death (score 3). (B) Bar graph showing the proportions of infiltration sites showing different levels of cell death upon expression of AtSIZ1, NbSIZ1 (both with a C-terminal RFP tag) and an RFP control. Graph represents data from a combination of 3 biological replicates of 11-12 infiltration sites per experiment (n=35). (C) Bar graph showing the proportions of infiltration sites showing different levels of cell death upon expression of SIZ1 (with C-terminal RFP tag) either alone or in combination with aphid effector Mp64 or Phytophthora capsica effector CRN83_152_6D10 (both effectors with GFP tag), or a GFP control. Graph represent data from a combination of 3 biological replicates of 11-12 infiltration sites per experiment (n=35).

      Our new data provide further evidence that SIZ1 function is affected by effectors Mp64 (aphid) and CRN83-152 (oomycete), and that SIZ1 likely is a vital virulence target. Our latest results also provide further support for distinct effector activities towards SIZ1 and its variants in other species. SIZ1 is a key immune regulator to biotic stresses (aphids, oomycetes, bacteria and nematodes), on which distinct virulence strategies seem to converge. The mechanism(s) underlying the stabilisation of SIZ1 by Mp64 is yet unclear. However, we hypothesize that increased stability of SIZ1, which functions as an E3 SUMO ligase, leads to increased SUMOylation activity towards its substrates. We surmise that SIZ1 complex formation with other key regulators of plant immunity may underpin these changes. Whether the cell death, triggered by AtSIZ1 upon transient expression in Nicotiana benthamiana, is linked to E3 SUMO ligase activity remains to be investigated. Expression of AtSIZ1 in a plant species other than Arabidopsis may lead to mistargeting of substrates, and subsequent activation of cell death. Dissecting the mechanistic basis of SIZ1 targeting by distinct pathogens and pests will be an important next step in addressing these hypotheses towards understanding plant immunity.

      Reviewer #1:

      In this manuscript, the authors suggest that SIZ1, an E3 SUMO ligase, is the target of both an aphid effector (Mp64 form M. persicae) and an oomycete effector (CRN83_152 from Phytophthora capsica), based on interaction between SIZ1 and the two effectors in yeast, co-IP from plant cells and colocalization in the nucleus of plant cells. To support their proposal, the authors investigate the effects of SIZ1 inactivation on resistance to aphids and oomycetes in Arabidopsis and N. benthamiana. Surprisingly, resistance is enhanced, which would suggest that the two effectors increase SIZ1 activity.

      Unfortunately, not only do we not learn how the effectors might alter SIZ1 activity, there is also no formal demonstration that the effects of the effectors are mediated by SIZ1, such as investigating the effects of Mp64 overexpression in a siz1 mutant. We note, however, that even this experiment might not be entirely conclusive, since SIZ1 is known to regulate many processes, including immunity. Specifically, siz1 mutants present autoimmune phenotype, and general activation of immunity might be sufficient to attenuate the enhanced aphid susceptibility seen in Mp64 overexpressers.

      To demonstrate unambiguously that SIZ1 is a bona fide target of Mp64 and CRN83_152 would require assays that demonstrate either enhanced SIZ1 accumulation or altered SIZ1 activity in the presence of Mp64 and CRN83_152.

      The enhanced resistance upon knock-down/out of SIZ1 suggests pathogen and pest susceptibility requires SIZ1. We hypothesize that the effectors either enhance SIZ1 activity or that the effectors alter SIZ1 specificity towards substrates rather than enzyme activity itself. To investigate how effectors coopt SIZ1 function would require a comprehensive set of approaches and will be part of our future work. While we agree that this aspect requires further investigation, we think the proposed experiments go beyond the scope of this study.

      After receiving reviewer comments, including on the quality of Figure 1, which shows western blots of co-immunoprecipitation experiments, we re-analyzed independent replicates of effector-SIZ1 coexpression/ co-immunoprecipitation experiments. The reviewer rightly pointed out that in the presence of Mp64, SIZ1 protein levels increase when compared to samples in which either the vector control or CRN83-152_6D10 are co-infiltrated. Through carefully designed experiments, we can now affirm that Mp64 co-expression leads to increased SIZ1 protein levels (Figure 1C and Supplementary Figure S3, revised manuscript). Our results offer both an explanation of different SIZ1 levels in the input samples (original submission, Figure 1A/B) as well as tantalizing new clues to the nature of distinct effector activities.

      Besides, we were able to confirm a previous preliminary finding not included in the original submission that ectopic expression of AtSIZ1 in Nicotiana benthamiana triggers cell death (3/4 days after infiltration) and that CRN83-152_6D10 (which itself does not trigger cell death) enhances this phenotype.

      We have considered overexpression of Mp64 in the siz1 mutant, but share the view that the outcome of such experiments will be far from conclusive.

      In summary, we have added new data that further support that SIZ1 is a bonafide target of Mp64 and CRN83-152 (i.e. increased accumulation of SIZ1 in the presence of Mp64, and enhanced SIZ cell death activation in the presence of CRN83-152_6D10).

      Reviewer #2:

      The study provides evidence that an aphid effector Mp64 and a Phytophthora capsici effector CRN83_152 can both interact with the SIZ1 E3 SUMO-ligase. The authors further show that overexpression of Mp64 in Arabidopsis can enhance susceptibility to aphids and that a loss-of-function mutation in Arabidopsis SIZ1 or silencing of SIZ1 in N. benthamiana plants lead to increased resistance to aphids and P. capsici. On siz1 plants the aphids show altered feeding patterns on phloem, suggestive of increased phloem resistance. While the finding is potentially interesting, the experiments are preliminary and the main conclusions are not supported by the data.

      Specific comments:

      The suggestion that SIZ1 is a virulence target is an overstatement. Preferable would be knockouts of effector genes in the aphid or oomycete, but even with transgenic overexpression approaches, there are no direct data that the biological function of the effectors requires SIZ1. For example, is SIZ1 required for the enhanced susceptibility to aphid infestation seen when Mp64 is overexpressed? Or does overexpression of SIZ1 enhance Mp64-mediated susceptibility?

      What do the effectors do to SIZ1? Do they alter SUMO-ligase activity? Or are perhaps the effectors SUMOylated by SIZ1, changing effector activity?

      We agree that having effector gene knock-outs in aphids and oomycetes would be ideal for dissecting effector mediated targeting of SIZ1. Unfortunately, there is no gene knock-out system established in Myzus persicae (our aphid of interest), and CAS9 mediated knock-out of genes in Phytophthora capsici has not been successful in our lab as yet, despite published reports. Moreover, repeated attempts to silence Mp64, other effector and non-effector coding genes, in aphids (both in planta and in vitro) have not been successful thus far, in our hands. As detailed in our response to Reviewer 1, we considered the use of transgenic approaches not appropriate as data interpretation would become muddied by the strong immunity phenotype seen in the siz1-2 mutant.

      As stated before, we hypothesize that the effectors either enhance SIZ1 activity or alter SIZ1 substrate specificity. Mp64-induced accumulation of SIZ1 could form the basis of an increase in overall SIZ1 activity. This hypothesis, however, requires testing. The same applies to the enhanced SIZ1 cell death activation in the presence of CRN83-152_6D10.

      Whilst our new data support our hypothesis that effectors Mp64 and CRN83-152 affect SIZ1 function, how exactly these effectors trigger susceptibility, requires significant work. Given the substantial effort needed and the research questions involved, we argue that findings emanating from such experiments warrant standalone publication.

      While stable transgenic Mp64 overexpressing lines in Arabidopsis showed increased susceptibility to aphids, transient overexpression of Mp64 in N. benthamiana plants did not affect P. capsici susceptibility. The authors conclude that while the aphid and P. capsici effectors both target SIZ1, their activities are distinct. However, not only is it difficult to compare transient expression experiments in N. benthamiana with stable transgenic Arabidopsis plants, but without knowing whether Mp64 has the same effects on SIZ1 in both systems, to claim a difference in activities remains speculative.

      We agree that we cannot compare effector activities between different plant species. We carefully considered every statement regarding results obtained on SIZ1 in Arabidopsis and Nicotiana benthamiana. We can, however, compare activities of the two effectors when expressed side by side in the same plant species. In our original submission, we show that expression of CRN83 152 but not Mp64 in Nicotiana benthamiana enhances susceptibility to Phytophthora capsici. In our revised manuscript, we present new data showing distinct effector activities towards SIZ1 with regards to 1) enhanced SIZ1 stability and 2) enhanced SIZ1 triggered cell death. These findings raise questions as to how enhanced SIZ1 stability and cell death activation is relevant to immunity. We aim to address these critical questions by addressing the mechanistic basis of effector-SIZ1 interactions.

      The authors emphasize that the increased resistance to aphids and P. capsici in siz1 mutants or SIZ1 silenced plants are independent of SA. This seems to contradict the evidence from the NahG experiments. In Fig. 5B, the effects of siz1 are suppressed by NahG, indicating that the resistance seen in siz1 plants is completely dependent on SA. In Fig 5A, the effects of siz1 are not completely suppressed by NahG, but greatly attenuated. It has been shown before that SIZ1 acts only partly through SNC1, and the results from the double mutant analyses might simply indicate redundancy, also for the combinations with eds1 and pad4 mutants.

      We emphasized that siz1-2 increased resistance to aphids is independent of SA, which is supported by our data (Figure 5A). Still, we did not conclude that the same applies to increased resistance to Phytophthora capsici (Figure 5B). In contrast, the siz1-2 enhanced resistance to P. capsici appears entirely dependent on SA levels, with the level of infection on the siz1-2/NahG mutants even slightly higher than on the NahG line and Col-0 plants. We exercise caution in the interpretation of this data given the significant impact SA signalling appears to have on Phytophthora capsici infection.

      The reviewer commented on the potential for functional redundancy in the siz1-2 double mutants. Unfortunately, we are unsure what redundancy s/he is referring to. SNC1, EDS1, and PAD4 all are components required for immunity, and their removal from the immune signalling network (using the mutations in the lines we used here) impairs immunity to various plant pathogens. The siz1-2 snc1-11, siz1-2 eds1-2, and siz1-2 pad4-1 double mutants have similar levels of susceptibility to the bacterial pathogen Pseudomonas syringae when compared to the corresponding snc1-11, eds1-2 and pad4-1 controls (at 22oC). These previous observations indicate that siz1 enhanced resistance is dependent on these signalling components (Hammoudi et al., 2018, Plos Genetics).

      In contrast to this, we observed a strong siz1 enhanced resistance phenotype in the absence of snc1- 11, eds1 2 and pad4-1. Notably, the siz1-2 snc1-11 mutant does not appear immuno-compromised when compared to siz1-2 in fecundity assays, indicating that the siz1-2 phenotype is independent of SNC1. In our view, these data suggest that signalling components/pathways other than those mediated by SNC1, EDS1, and PAD4 are involved. We consider this to be an exciting finding as our data points to an as of yet unknown SIZ1-dependent signalling pathway that governs immunity to aphids.

      How do NahG or Mp64 overexpression affect aphid phloem ingestion? Is it the opposite of the behavior on siz1 mutants?

      We have not performed further EPG experiments on additional transgenic lines used in the aphid assay. These experiments are quite challenging and time consuming. Moreover, accommodating an experimental set-up that allows us to compare multiple lines at the same time is not straightforward. Considering that NahG did not affect aphid performance (Figure 5A), we do not expect to see an effect on phloem ingestion.