All reviews of published articles are made public. This includes manuscript files, peer review comments, author rebuttals and revised materials. Note: This was optional for articles submitted before 13 February 2023.
Peer reviewers are encouraged (but not required) to provide their names to the authors when submitting their peer review. If they agree to provide their name, then their personal profile page will reflect a public acknowledgment that they performed a review (even if the article is rejected). If the article is accepted, then reviewers who provided their name will be associated with the article itself.
The abstract was changed accordingly.
[# PeerJ Staff Note - this decision was reviewed and approved by Celine Gallagher, a PeerJ Section Editor covering this Section #]
Although most of the changes suggested by the reviewers have been made, the manuscript still needs revision. The abstract must emphasize the importance and novelty of the study. Include a conclusion and delete excessive details related to the methods and results.
Satisfactory
Comprehensive and adequate
All data were provided and valid
Overall, the queries have been answered.
The review process is now complete, and two reviews (including annotated manuscript) are included at the bottom of this letter. All reviewers and I agree that your manuscript deserves to be published. Although there is considerable merit in your paper, we also identified some concerns that must be considered in your resubmission.
1-Please, consider reviewing the abstract aiming to emphasize the importance and novelty of the study. Include a conclusion and delete excessive details related to the methods and results.
2- Figures 1 and 2 have been published already. Please, describe them only as a background, not as a new and original result.
Please, provide, point-to-point responses according to the comments made by the Reviewers in the new version of your manuscript.
[# PeerJ Staff Note: Please ensure that all review and editorial comments are addressed in a response letter and any edits or clarifications mentioned in the letter are also inserted into the revised manuscript where appropriate. #]
1. The problem statement was not stated clearly, hence not explicit in the intro section.
2. Some literature references were not properly cited across the text, some cited references were missing in the ref. list, while often, most of the cited references were too old. It is understandable that there are not too many literature on Tz, but other spp of Trichinella or tissue-dwelling nematodes could be cited.
Some vital information about inoculation of the parasites and animal handling & sacrifice were not provided. The author should provide detailed info about these.
1. Any evidence of permission by the journal or publisher of the Fig. 1&2 to be for publication in PeerJ?
2. The use of 2-way ANOVA for table 1. was not appropriate. Also, posthoc test should have been adopted to do the ranking for differences in means.
1. The Title is too long. Suggestion has been provided in the text
2. Footnote should be provided for the table
3. There should be consistency in the references list.
The article is well written and meets the standard presentation of this journal.
Authors introduced their subject with a clear research question referring to relevant literature to give the reader context. Raw data was supplied as supplementary files and due process was taken to give recognition to authors whose findings are available already in literature to complete the methodology used in this paper. Unfortunately, the reference of this paper, Murambiwa et. al. 2020 is missing in the bibliography.
The figures are clear and of good quality, each presenting important aspects of their findings. They shared their raw data for verification of results and points of discussion.
Research question was clearly stated and the gap in knowledge argued from literature. The design is appropriate to answer the research question.
The experimental design is straightforward and sound, to discriminate between treatment (co-infection) and non-treatment (Pb mono-infection) effects. The 42-day trial period allowed only 14 days period of co-infection, since Tz took 28 days to establish itself in muscle tissue. As much as the authors clearly state in the supplementary files and methods that day 0 is day 28 (when Pb co-infection took place, giving them 14 days to D42) I suggest in the annotated comments on the pdf, to always refer to the groups as mono-infection (Pb only) group and co-infection (Pb + Tz) group, the Tz only group poses no confusion.
A rigorous investigation was performed and high ethical and technical standards were upheld.
Their findings are corroborated by the results of this investigation and they took their liberty to use results from literature, which is actually research done in their laboratory. The effects of Pb and Tz co-infection on insulin levels, glycogen concentration and glucose concentration will still need further investigation, but these conclusions will form part of the basis or reference point for comparison. The experiments were appropriately controlled.
The paper is well written and the English is easy to understand. I suggested a few grammatical corrections on the pdf. If they can better distinguish the mono-infected and co-infected groups as stated under experimental design comments and on the pdf anotations, then the confusing element will be obviated. It was interesting to engage with the findings of this research.
All text and materials provided via this peer-review history page are made available under a Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.