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Scallops might only have tiny eyes, but they have many of them and they glitter like crystal! These molluscs have up to two hundred eyes, each containing a million square tiled mirror – a form not often seen in the natural world. Benjamin Palmer, Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, and his colleagues used cryo-electron microscopy – one of the pioneers of this technique is 2017 Nobel Prize winner and Faculty Member Joachim Frank – to understand the complexity of the scallop’s eye and how they are fine tuned for underwater vision.

They discovered that scallops make a kind of guanine crystal, a type that has never before been seen in nature. The crystal is in the shape of a flat square, and their eyes are made up of a mosaic of these tightly packed square guanine crystals. This structure means that the eyes reflect 100% of the blue light received and explains the function of the two retinas; one creates a sharp image of what appears in front of the eye, while the other gives a better view of the periphery.

Thinking about nature’s optics and how we picture the world  around us, we highlight the top F1000Prime recommended articles on vision, as well as sharing our usual top three articles for the month and our Hidden Jewels. Click on the images for full access to the recommendations.

F1000Prime is a literature recommendation service. The service has a peer-nominated global Faculty of more than 8,000 of the world’s leading biomedical scientists and clinicians who select those articles they think are particularly interesting and important, and write recommendations explaining their selection. From the numerical ratings awarded, we have created a unique system for quantifying the importance of individual articles.

Top 3 article recommendations on retina and vision

“This remarkable study suggests that the same physical principles that determine the shapes of soap bubble aggregates also dictates how cells organize in the eye.” – Deborah Leckband, University of Illinois, US

“This is the first study to identify a transcriptional regulator that confers ipsilaterality to neurons projecting from the binocular part of the mammalian retina. Comparison of Zic2 expression patterns in different species strongly suggests evolutionary conservation of Zic2 function in controlling binocularity.” – Christine Holt, University of Cambridge, UK 

“Ten years ago, there was no way to reverse retinal blindness, even in experimental animal models. With the publication of this manuscript by Fortin et al., however, we now have at least five independent methods for doing just that.” – Naoum Issa, University of Chicago, US

Current Top 3 recommendations

Rankings are generated using the articles recommended in F1000Prime during the preceding 30 days.

“This commentary by William G. Kaelin Jr. adds one more voice to the implications and consequences of the high pressure for publication. This is a responsibility expanding from authors, journals, editors, and reviewers, up to the funding agencies. The publication of solid pieces of work is a basic step for the advancement of general knowledge and science.” – David Cánovas, University of Seville, Spain  

“This is a provocative article that challenges the community to consider the significance of associations of genetic variants with clinical syndromes discovered from genome-wide association studies (GWASs).” – Steven Finkbeiner and Julia Kaye, University of California, US

“This study provides evidence that mice from diverse environments, including barn (feral) and pet store mice, have elevated antigen-experienced CD8+ T cells, cells that control immune reactivity to intracellular pathogens and tumors, compared to laboratory mice housed in clean, specific pathogen-free (SPF) conditions. The difference in these immune reactive cells is most likely shaped by the environmental antigen exposure, and therefore the microbiota of the mice.” –Charles Elson, University of Alabama , US 

Hidden Jewels

Hidden Jewels rankings only include articles published in specialist journals, recommended in F1000Prime during the preceding 30 days.
“This study provides an in-depth description of the efferocytic cells in LN and shows unambiguously that they correspond to a macrophage subset and further clarify their contribution to LN homeostasis.” –Sylvie Guerder, University of Toulouse, France 

“This report details the identification of a novel human Th2 subset that are antigen specific and track with allergic disease (named “Th2A” by the authors, these cells are CD27- CD45RB- and CRTh2+, CD49d+, and CD161+). The authors are able to show that the Th2A but not traditional Th2 cells are activated by exposure to the appropriate antigen. The Th2A cells tend to produce more than one Th2 cytokine (IL4, IL5, or IL13) compared to traditional Th2 cells.” – Mitchell Grayson, Nationwide Children’s Hospital, US  

“In the present study, the authors reported the isolation of Bacillus safensis from these soil samples. They showed that B. safensis inhibits virulence factors expression and biofilm formation in both C. neoformans and C. gattii. This inhibition depends on the close interaction with an alive bacterium and the yeast cell and relies on a bacteria chitinase activity.” – Guilhem Janbon, Institut Pasteur, France 

You can read more of our top article recommendations and hidden gems here.