http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9553-7673
Peer Review History
| Original SubmissionJuly 18, 2019 |
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PONE-D-19-20068 Environmental DNA points at shared pastures and proximity to woodlands as tuberculosis risk factors for cattle in multi-host settings PLOS ONE Dear Mr. Martinez-Guijosa, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. As you will see the Referee 1# was very positive (minor revisions) about the quality of you work whereas the Referee 2# supported the rejection of your manuscript. In these situations, I prefer to recommend to the authors to pay attention to all points raised by the most sceptic reviewer (he mainly argued against the interpretation of your results) and even to perform extra laboratory work and the re-analysis of the data to prevent rejection in a second round. Please, take this negative as an opportunity to improve your research. We would appreciate receiving your revised manuscript by Nov 24 2019 11:59PM. When you are ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. To enhance the reproducibility of your results, we recommend that if applicable you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io, where a protocol can be assigned its own identifier (DOI) such that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:
Please note while forming your response, if your article is accepted, you may have the opportunity to make the peer review history publicly available. The record will include editor decision letters (with reviews) and your responses to reviewer comments. If eligible, we will contact you to opt in or out. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Emmanuel Serrano, PhD Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: 1. When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at http://www.journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and http://www.journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf 2. 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If applicable, please specify in the figure caption text when a figure is similar but not identical to the original image and is therefore for illustrative purposes only. The following resources for replacing copyrighted map figures may be helpful: USGS National Map Viewer (public domain): http://viewer.nationalmap.gov/viewer/ The Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth (public domain): http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/sseop/clickmap/ Maps at the CIA (public domain): https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html and https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/cia-maps-publications/index.html NASA Earth Observatory (public domain): http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/ Landsat: http://landsat.visibleearth.nasa.gov/ USGS EROS (Earth Resources Observatory and Science (EROS) Center) (public domain): http://eros.usgs.gov/# Natural Earth (public domain): http://www.naturalearthdata.com/ Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Partly ********** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: I Don't Know Reviewer #2: No ********** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: Here are some comments about your work that I would like you to consider: Line number (LN) 3: The authors must write accent mark in: Martínez-Guijosa In the abstract: The authors must remove the abbreviations: TB (tuberculosis) and ED (epidemiological diagnosis) LN42: The authors must write: Mycobacterium instead of M. LN80: The authors must write: Materials (in plural) LN103: The authors must change: …described by Rowcliffe et al. 2008 [21], for: …described previously [21] LN100-110: The authors must indicate the study period (2012-2016 also or only 2015/2016? Not specified) LN110: The authors must write: and submitted for bacteriological culture and molecular identification in a... LN115: The authors must clarify how many cattle (since if there were a total of 3,100 cattle in 36 herds, how many cattle were in the 24 herds were studied?) and goats (a total of 309 goats?) are tested for TB. LN116 and LN117: The authors must write: Spanish Eradication Program of Bovine Tuberculosis just like they have written in LN127. LN117: The authors must clarify if in Spanish Eradication Program of Bovine Tuberculosis (year 2018) were available the data for cattle and goats for the period 2012-2016 or just the cattle’s data In the Table 1: The authors should analyze if the expression “Freq. sees roe deer” refers to seeing roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) or actually they mean red deer (Cervus elaphus). If it is not a spelling mistake, the authors must make reference in the introduction (LN49-LN54) to the relationship between roe deer and tuberculosis, e. g. “the roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) are not a significant TB reservoir” (Balseiro A, Oleaga Á, Orusa R, Robetto S, Domenis L, Zoppi S, et al. Tuberculosis in roe deer from Spain and Italy. Vet Rec. 2009;164: 468-470). “However, once infected, it develops lesions reflecting a clear ability for bacterial excretion and therefore transmission to other species, most likely by indirect contact. It could thus be a spillover host included in a multi-host component reservoir in endemic areas. Consequently, passive surveillance is essential to detect infection and to implement specific management to limit interactions with cattle, where infected roe deer are found” (Lambert S, Hars J, Réveillaud E, Moyen JL, Gares H, Rambaud T, et al. Host status of wild roe deer in bovine tuberculosis endemic areas. Eur J Wildl Res. 2017;63: 15). LN142 and LN143: The authors must clarify if on each farm, each of the two sponges were used on the back of a single animal (1 sponge / 1 animal) or the same sponge was scrubbed ten times on the back of the two randomly chosen cattle (1 sponge / 2 animals). In addition, the authors must explain why they chose the back and not another anatomical region of the animal such as the head or legs to take the samples of environmental DNA. LN149: The authors must write the primers and probe used to detect IS6110 or add another reference along with the [25]. LN166: The authors must write: The local host community is composed of XXXX cattle, just like they have written in LN115. LN180-LN182: The authors must indicate how many MTC isolates were obtained in the study in each animal species, e. g. “All cattle (N= XXX), sheep (N= 4), wild boar (N= 5) and badger (N= 1) isolates obtained in the study were identified as M. bovis and were classified with SB0134 spoligotype (according to the Mbovis.org database)”. LN187-190: Authors should refer to the results observed in: “A conventional PCR was also used to discard the presence of Mycobacterium avium subspecies [26]”. LN216 and LN217. The authors must explain where they obtained these data (“also about 23 to 43 MTC infected wild boar -at a minimum prevalence of 10%-”) because previously they indicated: “With regard to wildlife, we sampled 57 hunter-harvested wild boar. The TB-compatible lesion prevalence was 54% (31/57) and the infection prevalence confirmed by culture was 8.8% (5/57)”. LN251-LN257: The authors must explain why the environmental DNA samples that proved to be positive for the presence of MTC were not analyzed by spoligotyping as did Barbier el at. 2016 [26], especially considering that “all cattle, sheep, wild boar and badger isolates obtained in the study were identified as M. bovis and were classified with SB0134 spoligotype”. LN272-LN274: The authors must write: Gortázar C, Che Amat A, O’Brien DJ. Open questions and recent advances in the control of a multi-host infectious disease: Animal tuberculosis. Mamm Rev. 2015;45: 160–175. doi:10.1111/mam.12042 LN277: Authors should change the URL and put: https://www.mapa.gob.es/es/ganaderia/temas/sanidad-animal-higiene-ganadera/pnetb_2018_tcm30-436761.pdf LN278: The authors must write accent mark in: Liébana, Gómez-Mampaso, Galán LN 283: The authors must write: infections (no italic letter) LN 296: The authors must delete: Khudyakov YE, editor. LN297: The authors must delete: –e71074 LN302 and LN303: The authors must delete: Fooks A, editor. – e18058 LN318 and LN319: Authors should change the URL and put: LN325 and LN326: The authors must write: Wildlife/Livestock Interface. Transbound Emerg Dis. 2017;64: 1148–1158. doi:10.1111/tbed.12480 LN331: The authors must write: Mycobacterium bovis (with italic letter) LN347: The authors must delete: Inacio J, editor. –e88824 LN373: The authors must write accent mark in: Pérez A, Reviewer #2: This is an interesting paper describing the relationship between on-animal environmental MTC DNA detection and bovine TB risk in a multi-host scenario. Detection of environmental MTC DNA in cattle herds is an interesting tool, however I think results obtained in this paper does not completely support conclusions and some important issues need to be considered for publication The main concerns about this paper are: - Interpretation of results: Authors conclude that on-animal MTC DNA detection could be a good proxy for TB risk in cattle herds and that it could be used as an epidemiological tool to understand unexpected results. To support this conclusion it could be expected an association between the detection of MTC DNA and the presence of new TB-positive animal at heard level. However, this hypothesis has not been assessed in this work. Furthermore, there is not association between herds where MTC DNA was detected and herd with higher risk of TB. MTC-DNA detection in cattle herds was related to the use of communal pasture, altitude and distance to woodland, but it does not mean that this technique was related with the risk of TB infection. Other risk factors also related with TB risk like the abundance of wild boar or the presence of risk points, seem not to be associated with MTC-DNA detection, and it should be discussed. - Specificity of the technique: In discussion section the authors assume that the PCR technique used in this work could have small risk of cross reaction with some environmental mycobacteria or with other agents. But, how small is this risk in an scenario where environmental mycobacteria have been isolated repeatedly isolated from cattle and wildlife? Could the specificity be improved using confirmative PCR assays based on exclusive M. bovis gene? Furthermore, about the sensitivity, could the absence of MTC DNA be ensured testing only two animals per herd? - Cost-benefits of on-animal MTC detection: Authors should discuss whether this technique is appropriate regarding to cost-benefits criteria. Other issues about the paper are: - Lines 178-179: Although the prevalence of tb-like lesions in wild boar was a 54%, the infection only was confirmed in a 8.8%. I think this issue should be discussed as an unexpected result. Could infections with other agents related with MTC produce this kind of lesion? - Lines 184-486: Which scientific criteria have been used to stablish hard or low TB risk herds? Perhaps, low TB risk herds could be those without positive animals. Furthermore, in order to avoid theoretical classification, quantitative variable would be used to measure TB risk (e.g. number of positive animals or mean prevalence in the last 10 years, etc.) - Lines 188-190: When were samplings to detect MTC environmental DNA carried out (simultaneously, in different years…). Results of MTC samplings should be added to s1 table. - Lines 193-194: Do cattle herds sharing the same municipal pasture really coincide as regards their MTC DNA detection status? I think it should be clarify. In Figure 1 I count five municipalities with more than one cattle herds and only in three of them I can see a complete coincidence in MTC status. - Lines 195-196. Are there any correlation between altitude and woodland distance? I could be an interesting point to assess. - Line 233. Was the use of communal pastures really identified as a risk factor for TB in cattle in this work? ********** 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: Yes: José Manuel Benítez-Medina Reviewer #2: No [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files to be viewed.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email us at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. |
| Revision 1 |
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PONE-D-19-20068R1 Environmental DNA points at shared pastures and proximity to woodlands as tuberculosis risk factors for cattle in multi-host settings PLOS ONE Dear Mr. Martinez-Guijosa, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. In the second review, a referee (wildlife vet; #2 reviewer) directly advised for the rejection of your work whereas the other (environmental microbiologist; #1 reviewer) asked for major revisions. Both reviewers thought that your work is timely and interesting but needs additional methodological clarifications. A third reviewer, however, was very positive and accepted your work for publication. In this situation, I usually reject manuscripts but in your case, because of the interest our your research, I prefer to give you a new chance to deal with these methodological issues. I strongly recommend paying particular attention to the questions raised by the #2 and #1 referee that will be invited again to revise your work. We would appreciate receiving your revised manuscript by Mar 29 2020 11:59PM. When you are ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. To enhance the reproducibility of your results, we recommend that if applicable you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io, where a protocol can be assigned its own identifier (DOI) such that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:
Please note while forming your response, if your article is accepted, you may have the opportunity to make the peer review history publicly available. The record will include editor decision letters (with reviews) and your responses to reviewer comments. If eligible, we will contact you to opt in or out. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Emmanuel Serrano, PhD Academic Editor PLOS ONE [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation. Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed Reviewer #2: (No Response) Reviewer #3: (No Response) ********** 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Partly Reviewer #3: Partly ********** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: I Don't Know Reviewer #2: No Reviewer #3: I Don't Know ********** 4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes Reviewer #3: Yes ********** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes Reviewer #3: Yes ********** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: Thanks for including the suggestions. I believe that paper is now better understood. In any case, as you have clarified, this research is especially a methodological work that must be continued to clarify some issues and prove their true usefulness. Please review references 1 (2015; 45: 160–175.) and 3 (name bacteria in italics). Reviewer #2: Dear authors, Many thanks for responding all my comments included in the first round. I maintain that environmental MTC DNA detection is a promising and an interesting tool to be used in epidemiological studies. However, despite of modification included in this new version, data showed in the manuscript do not support suggestions and conclusions yet, and hence, I cannot recommend publication. In this work, two criteria have been used to analyse TB status of the farms: TB testing results (based on official data between 2001 and 2016), and on-animal detection of environmental MTC DNA at herd level. Detection of MTC DNA was related with three epidemiological factors (probably correlated among them): altitude of the farm, distance to woodland and the use of regional pasture. However, TB risk level does not correlated with any of the risk factors proposed. In addition, no association was detected between TB risk level (based on data from 2001-2016) and environmental MTC DNA detection at herd level. These results are prudently discussed in few sections of the paper. However, authors maintain in the manuscript some statements like “This study suggests that on-animal environmental DNA sampling can be a proxy for contact (or contact risk) with MTC in livestock, at the herd level”, “Our results allow us to accept the initial hypothesis: the detection of environmental DNA in cattle could contribute to risk factor identification at the cattle herd level and, always in combination with the official TB tests of individual animals, could represent a useful epidemiology tool to investigate MTC maintenance in TB hotspot areas” or “We consequently suggest that MTC DNA could be a good proxy for current infection risk. The low prevalence and incidence in the area and the apparently random detection of positive tests could indicate an environmental origin of the new cases”; which, from my point of view, are not supported by data showed in the manuscript. To support these suggestions, it would be necessary an association between detection of MTC DNA and TB positivity at herd levels, but it has not been proven. I know that this fact can be due to the sensitivity problems of the diagnostic test used in low prevalence areas. But this fact could be also due to specificity problems of the MTC DNA detection, mainly in areas closed to woodlands where wild boar with a high percentage (26/31 (84%)) of microbiologically unconfirmed TB-like lesions (probably caused by closely related bacteria) are living. Once validated, on-animal MTC DNA detection would be an useful tool to be implemented in low-prevalence areas like the studied one. However, in order to assess the association between environmental MTC DNA detection and the risk of TB appearance at herd level (based on official diagnosis method), areas with higher prevalence of TB could be better scenarios, allowing to standardize the technique (e.g. establishing percentage or number of animals tested to detect MTC DNA at herd level) and to find out more robust conclusions about the interprtation of this technique. Reviewer #3: Jordi MARTINEZ-GUIJOSA and collaborators are reporting upon the detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex (MTC) mycobacteria in herds and wild fauna in one region of Spain, where bovine tuberculosis remains of concern. The topic is of prime interest, yet methods used to address the question are very confusing so that this reviewer had difficulties to draw any firm conclusions from the partial data herein reported. In details: 1. The tentative integrated approach by the authors (observation of the geography, hygrometry, flora, fauna, etc …) is appropriate and very interesting, but why not sample soil which has been shown to preserve MTC mycobacteria for long, hence a potential source of contamination for the wild and farmed animals? It is a major drawback in the interpretation of reported data; and probably a missed opportunity to better understand the puzzling epidemiology of bovine tuberculosis in that region. 2. The methods used to assess the presence (absence) of MTC in animals are disparate, not all tested animals have been tested with the same methods and in fact, very few animals have been really tested. 3. Among the methods used to assess the presence of MTC in animals, only culture is appropriate, catching living mycobacteria which are presumably the only ones of interest in the natural history of bovine tuberculosis. In fact, only 57 animals have been tested by culture, and only dead animals have been tested. Why not test feces which are a valuable source for MTC DNA and viable mycobacteria ? 4. Methods of interest must be detailed for the reader to interpret data: a. PCR: Negative controls? Internal DNA extraction control ? calibration curve ? Cts values ? b. Culture: culture medium ? temperature and atmosphere of incubation ? identification of colonies ? Minor remarks: 1. Epidemiological diagnosis: this new concept is very unclear for the reviewer. In the opinion of the reviewer, the authors made a (limited) diagnosis of bovine tuberculosis, using three different methods. Interpretation of these limited diagnosis data in terms of epidemiology would require a large sample of tested animals, and integration of the sensitivity / specificity values of each one of the three tests, in calculations. 2. Line 75: Is detection of “environmental” MTC DNA really innovative? 3. Line 134: UCLM ? ********** 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: Yes: José Manuel Benítez-Medina Reviewer #2: No Reviewer #3: No [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files to be viewed.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email us at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. |
| Revision 2 |
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PONE-D-19-20068R2 Environmental DNA points at shared pastures and proximity to woodlands as tuberculosis risk factors for cattle in multi-host settings PLOS ONE Dear Mr. Martinez-Guijosa, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. I am so sorry for the huge delay in sending a decision on your work. The first two referees had a completely differed opinion about the suitability of your work to be accepted for publication. A third referee, however, raised some methodological questions but refused to revise a revised version of your work. To my understanding, you work provided some original and interesting information about the interest of considering environmental DNA in TB epidemiological models. However, your sample size is moderate as well as the contribution of the environmental DNA in your epidemiological model. In consequence, I strongly recommend you to get in touch with a native speaker to help you to put your results into context. I am sure that a good English editing will enhance the impact or your findings. On the other hand, I think that “Environmental DNA a promising factor for tuberculosis risk assessment in multi-host settings” is a more appropriate title for your work. Enclosed you will find some additional comments embedded in the pdf. We would appreciate receiving your revised manuscript by Jun 08 2020 11:59PM. When you are ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. To enhance the reproducibility of your results, we recommend that if applicable you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io, where a protocol can be assigned its own identifier (DOI) such that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:
Please note while forming your response, if your article is accepted, you may have the opportunity to make the peer review history publicly available. The record will include editor decision letters (with reviews) and your responses to reviewer comments. If eligible, we will contact you to opt in or out. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Emmanuel Serrano, PhD Academic Editor PLOS ONE [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files to be viewed.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email us at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step.
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| Revision 3 |
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Environmental DNA: a promising factor for tuberculosis risk assessment in multi-host settings PONE-D-19-20068R3 Dear Dr. Martínez-Guijosa, We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it complies with all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you will receive an e-mail containing information on the amendments required prior to publication. When all required modifications have been addressed, you will receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will proceed to our production department and be scheduled for publication. Shortly after the formal acceptance letter is sent, an invoice for payment will follow. To ensure an efficient production and billing process, please log into Editorial Manager at https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the "Update My Information" link at the top of the page, and update your user information. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to enable them to help maximize its impact. If they will be preparing press materials for this manuscript, you must inform our press team as soon as possible and no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. With kind regards, Emmanuel Serrano, PhD Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): My congratulations! Emmanuel Reviewers' comments: |
| Formally Accepted |
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PONE-D-19-20068R3 Environmental DNA: a promising factor for tuberculosis risk assessment in multi-host settings Dear Dr. Martínez-Guijosa: I am pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper at this point, to enable them to help maximize its impact. If they will be preparing press materials for this manuscript, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org. For any other questions or concerns, please email plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE. With kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Emmanuel Serrano Academic Editor PLOS ONE |
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