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Dear Authors,
I would like to compliment with you for the efforts provided in addressing the Reviewers' comments.
Your manuscript has reached the level requested for publication in PeerJ and can be accepted in its current form.
Best regards
Salvatore Andrea Mastrolia
PeerJ Academic Editor
Dear Authors,
The Reviewer is in general favorable to the publication of your manuscript in PeerJ after a minor revision.
Please incorporate or discuss the suggested changes in order to achieve publication.
Best regards
Salvatore Andrea Mastrolia
Peerj Academic Editor
Several grammatical and spelling errors need to be rectified in the manuscript.
Comments have been addressed
Comments have been addressed
The authors need to address the discrepancy regarding the expression data. In the manuscript text they report that AA genotype has increased mRNA expression whereas the Gtex data (figure 2) states that GG genotype has increased mRNA expression.
Also, in the text they report "rs633862 G→A variant may regulate ABO expression" whereas it technically should be A->G since
All other comments have been addressed.
Dear Authors,
The Reviewers found your manuscript very interesting.
I would suggest to take into consideration the Reviewers' comments and discuss or incorporate them within your manuscript in order to achieve publication.
Best regards
Overall several parts of the manuscript- especially the introduction and discussion section needs to be rewritten to address several grammatical and punctuation errors. Several aspects needs to be rewritten to address the technical aspects and to ensure the right rationale and message is getting across
The results need to be addressed again to ensure the statistics used are well explained and the correlation is well described
Line 141- p value – report the exact p value form the gtex
Kindly expand on the results obtained from SNPinfo
Kindly expand on the overall follow up time line.
Detailed clinical and pathological information was retrieved for all the patients however, no information is provided. Including a demographics table including all this information is pertinent
For the multivariate analysis- kindly mention in the methods exactly which covariates have been included in the analysis including if continuous or catergorical
How was the bioinformatics analysis done to determine that the SNP was a TFBS. Also kindly expand on the actual bioinformatics analysis done vs. information look up using databases such as GTEx and UCSC genome browser. Along the same lines “Genotype-phenotype correlation analysis” is merely looking up the expression on the GTEX database or was any further analysis using the samples in the study done?
The gene-expression of the ABO bases on the genotyped should be determined (if samples permit) in the study samples itself to check the correlation with
Rationale for picking ABO vs others reported in the previous paper by the authors should be expanded upon
Conclusion/Discussion needs more clear writing to tease apart the message
Lack of greater follow up time was reported as one of the short comings of the paper. However no details on the actual follow up done was provided
Some kind of replication is warranted especially for the gene expression reported usingGTEX
Further information is needed regarding the SNP in question - rs633862
- minor allele frequency especially in the Han chinese population
- rationale for the grouping of the SNP - AA+AG vs GG instead of carriers vs. non-carriers of the SNP
The paper needs to address some big questions and several parts need to be readdressed to make it clear and lucid. More elaboration is needed on the SNP itself and the reason for not addressing the gene dosage effect and grouping both carriers and non carriers together. If G allele is being purported as the protective allele then additional analysis with just the GG genotype is needed to support this claim.
Literature references, sufficient field background/context provided
Data missing for study group as detailed below
Study group design-
1. Separating loss of follow-up and death from the disease may better clarify survival analysis
2. Time at enrollment is not stated. Importance arises weather neoadjuvant chemotherapy was introduced to advanced stage disease at time of enrollment. The same pitfall for discussing survival analysis is also true for treatment with Bevacizumab as it is a factor for prolonged survival in a subgroup of ovarian cancer patients. If so, this needs to be discussed as an optional explanation for survival difference.
3. There is a need for sub classifying EOC by histological subtypes as the prognosis is different. HGSOC comprised 71% of EOC in this study. Are the results true for other subtypes of EOC apart from HGSOC?
4. There is missing data regarding how many patients had reached to follow up and was there a difference between the groups in that matter?
See above
Research question well defined, relevant & meaningful dealing with front research in oncology
In summary, representing the study group by histologic subtype, number of patients reaching to follow-up, stage of the disease and novel treatments relevant for accepted treatment of ovarian cancer today my explain survival difference ruling out the hypothesis of this study
The report is clear and well written and professional English is used through out . References are up to date and relevant. There is a few typos to be corrected in subediting. Reference 1 Angelov et al. should be 2014 not 1900.
Tables and figures are relevant and clear.
The research question is well defined, relevant and original.
Methods appear to be well decribed.
The data is well presented and appear statistically sound. Limits of the applicability are acknowledged.
Congratulations on an excellent paper. I support the publication this manuscript.
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