PONE-D-19-26611

Genetic polymorphisms of superoxide dismutase 1 are associated with the serum lipid profiles of Han Chinese adults in a sexually dimorphic manner

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Zhou,

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PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

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: No

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

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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

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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: No

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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: The articles by Xu et al. describe the SOD1 polymorphisms with the lipid disorders in the adult males and females of the Chinese.

This article is of interest but some points should be clarified:

Page 2, line 60: Is enough that the patients living in Shenzhen for > 2 years. This point is very important because of life style and it should be influenced in the results.

Page 2, line 61: How the authors demonstrated that the patients were free of liver diseases, renal diseases, and any cancers in the past 6 months. Please clarify this idea in this section.

Page 5, line 107: The authors must be described sequencing analyses.

Page 5, line 113: The authors must be added the OR value for the logistic regression analyses.

Page 5, section Data analysis: Some variable are showed in results, however it not describe in this section.

Page 5, line 118: The authors must be clarified the selection of males and female patients in this study. Please include this idea in the text.

Discussion section: Dyslipidemia is one of the most prevalent health problems in the modern era, and multiple factors are thought to be the etiology. In this study others etiology were evaluated?. The activity of 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl CoA reductase was determined?. This point is very important due to these factors could be surrogate variable. Please clarify this idea

Reviewer #2: Abstract:

• Please explain the term "mechanical correlations".

• Please explain „certain inclusion criteria“.

Participants and sample collection:

• „The people visiting the health examination center were fasted overnight and did not take medicines to control the previously diagnosed dyslipidemia for more than 12 hours“.

The effects of most lipid-lowering agents, such as statins, persist for many days. I am afraid that 12 hours without lipid-lowering medication is definitely too short.

Results:

• The separation of the study participants into non-dyslipidemia and dyslipidemia groups does not make sense (Table 1). I would suggest to make a „lipid-lowering treatment group“ and a „no lipid-lowering treatment group“, and analyze associations of SOD1 SNPs with lipid parameters within these groups.

• Reducing continous parameters (e.g. cholesterol level) to binary parameters (Hypercholesterolemia yes/no) should not be done. This diminishes the statistical Power and complicates the evaluation of SOD1 allele effects (Table S4 and S5).

• Logistic regression analysis should be used for categorial outcome (e.g. dead/alive). I must not be used for metric variables such as cholesterol levels.

• As stated above, it makes no sense to analyse associations of SNPs with lipid levels without taking account of lipid-lowering treatment.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Yaxsier de Armas Rodríguez

Reviewer #2: No

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Genetic polymorphisms of superoxide dismutase 1 are associated with the serum lipid profiles of Han Chinese adults in a sexually dimorphic manner

PONE-D-19-26611R1

Dear Dr. Zhou

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.

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With kind regards,

Graham R. Wallace

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

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: All comments have been addressed

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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: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

**********

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

**********

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: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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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: Yaxsier de Armas Rodríguez

Reviewer #2: No