Colchicine reduces lung injury in experimental acute respiratory distress syndrome

Jocelyn Dupuis; Martin G. Sirois; Eric Rhéaume; Quang T. Nguyen; Marie-Élaine Clavet-Lanthier; Genevieve Brand; Teodora Mihalache-Avram; Gabriel Théberge-Julien; Daniel Charpentier; David Rhainds; Paul-Eduard Neagoe; Jean-Claude Tardif

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0242318

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionSeptember 14, 2020
26 Oct 2020 Decision Letter - Ruud AW Veldhuizen, Editor PONE-D-20-28950 Colchicine reduces lung injury in experimental acute respiratory distress syndrome PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Dupuis, 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 can see from the reviewers comments below, the required changes are relatively minor. Upon reading the manuscript myself, I also noted a couple of minor issues, which are listed below as well. Please submit your revised manuscript by Dec 10 2020 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're 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. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Ruud AW Veldhuizen Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments: As the academic editor, I have two additional comments to those provided by the two reviewers. 1) Please include a short discussion regarding the limitation of utilizing pretreatment for ARDS. 2) Please include scale bars in the histological images. Journal Requirements: When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. 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 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] 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: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 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: No ****** 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: Jocelyn et al. investigated the role of Colchicine pre-treatment on oleic acid-induced lung injury in rats. They found that Colchicine reduced ALI and respiratory failure in experimental ARDS concerning reduced lung neutrophil recruitment and reduced circulating leukocyte activation. They also found that increased lung NETosis was also reduced by Colchicine administration therapy following oleic acid. This is an exciting study showing an essential role of neutrophil in the lung following oleic acid-induced injury. It would strengthen the studies and support the conclusions if the authors could employ alveolar macrophage-specific experiments. Overall, this paper attempts to answer some interesting questions, but does not provide new mechanistic insights into how Colchicine modulates host immune response. The manuscript is well written. Reviewer #2: The manuscript entitled “ Colchicine reduces lung injury in experimental acute respiratory distress syndrome” by Dupuis et al. explained Colchicine's role in reducing the acute respiratory distress syndrome in an animal model. They induced the ARDS by oleic acid, and they use three groups of rats and each group containing 8 rats. They examined the different biological markers in the sham, OA control and OA + colchicine groups. Finally, they found the protective effect of Colchicine in reducing the ARDS. I think the manuscript has substantial merit for publication after some minor revision. 1. The authors wrote, ‘ 2.5% isoflurance. Actually, it should be ‘isoflurane’. 2. Some grammatical errors are found throughout the manuscript that should be corrected. ****** 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: No Reviewer #2: Yes:** Mohammad Safiqul Islam [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.] 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 PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0242318.r001
Revision 1
29 Oct 2020 Author Response Response to reviewers. We would like to thank again both reviewers and academic editor for their interest to review our work and for providing thoughtful insight. We have performed modifications according to the comments received. We also decided to remove the statement that 6000 subjects will be recruited in the COLCORONA study as this number may change following interim analysis. Academic editor: 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 can see from the reviewers comments below, the required changes are relatively minor. Upon reading the manuscript myself, I also noted a couple of minor issues, which are listed below as well. As the academic editor, I have two additional comments to those provided by the two reviewers. 1) Please include a short discussion regarding the limitation of utilizing pretreatment for ARDS. 2) Please include scale bars in the histological images. Reply: We thank the academic editor for his review and comments on our paper. 1) We added the following paragraph to the “Limitations and perspective” section: “Our results must be interpreted in the specific context of pre-treatment with colchicine to prevent ARDS and cannot be extrapolated to efficacy for the treatment of florid ongoing ARDS.” 2) Fig 2 has been modified to include scale bars as requested. Reviewer #1: Jocelyn et al. investigated the role of Colchicine pre-treatment on oleic acid-induced lung injury in rats. They found that Colchicine reduced ALI and respiratory failure in experimental ARDS concerning reduced lung neutrophil recruitment and reduced circulating leukocyte activation. They also found that increased lung NETosis was also reduced by Colchicine administration therapy following oleic acid. This is an exciting study showing an essential role of neutrophil in the lung following oleic acid-induced injury. It would strengthen the studies and support the conclusions if the authors could employ alveolar macrophage-specific experiments. Overall, this paper attempts to answer some interesting questions, but does not provide new mechanistic insights into how Colchicine modulates host immune response. The manuscript is well written. Reply: We would like to thank the reviewer for this evaluation and interesting suggestion. We agree that our study would be further improved by additional mechanistic insight on the effect of colchicine on the innate immune response and that studying alveolar macrophages would be an interesting way to do so. We now recognize this in the: “Limitations and perspective” section as follows: “Although colchicine reduced lung neutrophils recruitment and activation, other potential mechanisms of action of colchicine on the innate immune host response, especially on alveolar macrophages, were not evaluated. These will require further studies.” Reviewer #2: The manuscript entitled “Colchicine reduces lung injury in experimental acute respiratory distress syndrome” by Dupuis et al. explained Colchicine's role in reducing the acute respiratory distress syndrome in an animal model. They induced the ARDS by oleic acid, and they use three groups of rats and each group containing 8 rats. They examined the different biological markers in the sham, OA control and OA + colchicine groups. Finally, they found the protective effect of Colchicine in reducing the ARDS. I think the manuscript has substantial merit for publication after some minor revision. 1. The authors wrote, ‘ 2.5% isoflurance. Actually, it should be ‘isoflurane’. 2. Some grammatical errors are found throughout the manuscript that should be corrected. Reply: We thank the reviewer for his revision and suggestion to improve the paper. 1) The typo has been corrected. 2) We reviewed the manuscript in order to correct grammatical errors and remove repetitions. We hope these modifications have improved the readability of our paper. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0242318.r002
2 Nov 2020 Decision Letter - Ruud AW Veldhuizen, Editor Colchicine reduces lung injury in experimental acute respiratory distress syndrome PONE-D-20-28950R1 Dear Dr. Dupuis, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. 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 help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- 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. Kind regards, Ruud AW Veldhuizen Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0242318.r003
Formally Accepted
4 Nov 2020 Acceptance Letter - Ruud AW Veldhuizen, Editor PONE-D-20-28950R1 Colchicine reduces lung injury in experimental acute respiratory distress syndrome Dear Dr. Dupuis: I'm 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 let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, 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. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Ruud AW Veldhuizen Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0242318.r004

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