Evaluation of plasma anti-GPL-core IgA and IgG for diagnosis of disseminated non-tuberculous mycobacteria infection

Arnone Nithichanon; Waraporn Samer; Ploenchan Chetchotisakd; Chidchamai Kewcharoenwong; Manabu Ato; Ganjana Lertmemongkolchai

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0242598

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionJuly 9, 2020
19 Aug 2020 Decision Letter - Frederick Quinn, Editor PONE-D-20-21272 Evaluation of plasma anti-GPL-core IgA and IgG for Diagnosis of Disseminated Non-tuberculous Mycobacteria Infection PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Lertmemongkolchai, 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. Please submit your revised manuscript. 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, Frederick Quinn Academic Editor PLOS ONE 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 2. Please provide additional details regarding participant consent. In the ethics statement in the Methods and online submission information, please clarify what type of consent you obtained (for instance, written or verbal, and if verbal, how it was documented and witnessed). If your study included minors, state whether you obtained consent from parents or guardians. 3. Please provide the catalog numbers for the anti-GPL core IgA ELISA kit and all antibodies used in the study. 4. Thank you for stating in your Funding Statement: "This study was supported in part by the Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED) (Grant number: JP20fk0108129, JP20fk0108139) to MA. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript." Please provide an amended statement that declares all the funding or sources of support (whether external or internal to your organization) received during this study, as detailed online in our guide for authors at http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submit-now. Please also include the statement “There was no additional external funding received for this study.” in your updated Funding Statement. Please include your amended Funding Statement within your cover letter. We will change the online submission form on your behalf. 5. Please include captions for your Supporting Information files at the end of your manuscript, and update any in-text citations to match accordingly. Please see our Supporting Information guidelines for more information: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/supporting-information. [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: Partly ******** 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: 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: Manuscript Review: PONE-D-20-21272 Evaluation of plasma anti-GPL-core 1 IgA and IgG for Diagnosis of Disseminated Non-tuberculous Mycobacteria Infection Arnone Nithichanon, Waraporn Samer, Ploenchan Chetchotisakd, Chidchamai Kewcharoenwong, Manabu Ato, Ganjana Lertmemonkolchai Key Results: In the manuscript the authors attempt to determine the efficacy of an anti-GPL-core ELISA kit, originally developed for detection of Mycobacterium avium species, in disseminated lymphadenopathy patients positive for non-tuberculous Mycobacteria (NTM) and anti-interferon gamma autoantibodies. Since the typical diagnosis of NTM does not have good sensitivity and is time consuming, this technique would improve the detection of NTM in patients in this region of the world. 137 plasma samples from a hospital in Khon Kaen, Thailand were analyzed along with control blood samples positive for M. tuberculosis, B. pseudomallei or healthy individuals. The study determined that the detection sensitivity of NTM was approximately 91% and specificity was 70%. Of those samples analyzed, results showed that only patients infected with NTM were positive for anti-IFN gamma autoantibody. Furthermore, anti-GPL-core IgA and IgG levels of NTM patients, including test sensitivities, were also higher than the control groups. When trying to determine if the test was able to distinguish between slow or rapid growing Mycobacteria, the study found that it was only able to distinguish between the two when immunoglobulin levels were at moderate levels; high levels showed no distinction. Overall, the study determined that using the kit does indeed improve the detection of NTM over current methods. Validity: Based on the methodology used in this study, I find the manuscript to be valid. Originality and Significance: I find the data presented in this study to be original and significant. If this study were to be expanded to other regions of the world and have the same results, it may shift the way testing for the infection occurs. Data and Methodology: This manuscript presented a straightforward data analysis based on data collected through analysis of blood samples. The methodology presented is commonly used and appropriate. Appropriate us of Statistics: Appropriate statistics were used throughout the study. Proper statistics were conducted, and variables were adjusted for when needed. Conclusions: Based on the statistics presented in the study, the conclusions appear to be valid and reliable. Suggested Improvements: None References: The references are valid. Clarity and context: The abstract, introduction and conclusions are clear, concise and appropriate. Scope of expertise: This manuscript is within the scope of my expertise. Reviewer #2: The aim of the manuscript was to evaluate surplus plasma samples from Thai patients suspected of disseminated NTM with an anti-GPL-core IgA kit and the modified kit to also detect IgG to compare the diagnostic potential of both isotypes. The authors' approach is interesting, however serology IgA-GPL has some limitation, that is import for clinicians. As described by the authors and others GLP is present in MAC, RGM, including M. abscessus, and IgA-GPL core ELISA cross-reactivity between MAC and RGM in pulmonary cases is reported. It is well known that the drug treatment regime is different for MAC and M. abscessus. However, both IgA and IgG tests failed to distinguish them in disseminated NTM cases. Even significantly higher IgG median reactivity was described for RGM the test weakness remains because the number of tested samples is too small. According to the reference cited by the authors, a meta-analysis study in the diagnostic accuracy of IgA-GPL core in MAC pulmonary diseases was 0.696 (95% CI 0.621–0.761) and 0.906 (95% CI 0.836–0.951), for sensitivity and specificity, respectively. Looking at the results of the present study the IgA sensitivity (61.7) and specificity (95) are similar if use a higher cut off for disseminated NTM cases. This shows the IgA-GPL core accuracy is consistent in pulmonary MAC and disseminated NTM diseases. This discussion is missed. On the other hand, the IgG test showed higher reactivity distribution in disseminated NTM samples, but the other infections disease and control also showed dispersion and cross-reactivity. As the number of MTB and BP samples is too small, thus may cause bias in the test specificity. How do the authors explain this cross-reactivity? All this makes the authors' assumption “Taken together, the application of anti-GPL-core antibody detection provides a novel additional option for clinicians to diagnose and manage disseminated NTM infected patients” speculative. The authors should discuss what can be the role of the biomarkers-based assays for the diagnosis of disseminated NTM and treatment management considering the limitations of the test. The major limitation of the study is the sample size of MTB and BP cases. With few subjects included is difficult to really assess the role of the IgG test, although for IgA the accuracy was consistent for both MAC pulmonary disease and disseminated NTM. Other comments: Line 104-104 - Consider to change: To detect anti-GPL-core IgG, the antigen adsorbed plate of the IgA kit was used to perform the modified test. Briefly, ..... Line 107 - Biotinylated ....anti-human IgG (BD Biosciences, USA). It was made in what animal? Line 112-113 - ... Results were analyzed with in-house standard curve and reported as arbitrary unit/ml (AU/ml). How did you that? Did you use the software? Manual mathematics calculation? Which plasma reference was used? Line 128 – 129 - --- biotinylated anti-human IFN-γ (BD Biosciences, USA). The conjugate was titrated? Seems that it was used surplus plasma samples of suspected disseminated NTM cases from a Hospital bio-repository and the control was freshly collected. However, the authors did not comment on the storage condition of the samples. This is an important issue in serology because Ab degradation can alter the ELISA results. Line 159 - .....plasma samples from routine assay were collected from storage at..... Inform the storage condiction (temperature? suffered freeze-thaw?) ****** 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: 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.] 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. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: CommentsGLP.pdf https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0242598.r001
Revision 1
11 Oct 2020 Author Response Manuscript Review: PONE-D-20-21272 Title: Evaluation of plasma anti-GPL-core 1 IgA and IgG for Diagnosis of Disseminated Non-tuberculous Mycobacteria Infection Authors: Arnone Nithichanon, Waraporn Samer, Ploenchan Chetchotisakd, Chidchamai Kewcharoenwong, Manabu Ato, Ganjana Lertmemonkolchai Reviewer #1: Key Results: Overall, the study determined that using the kit does indeed improve the detection of NTM over current methods. Validity: Based on the methodology used in this study, I find the manuscript to be valid. Originality and Significance: I find the data presented in this study to be original and significant. If this study were to be expanded to other regions of the world and have the same results, it may shift the way testing for the infection occurs. Data and Methodology: This manuscript presented a straightforward data analysis based on data collected through analysis of blood samples. The methodology presented is commonly used and appropriate. Appropriate use of Statistics: Appropriate statistics were used throughout the study. Proper statistics were conducted, and variables were adjusted for when needed. Conclusions: Based on the statistics presented in the study, the conclusions appear to be valid and reliable. Suggested Improvements: None References: The references are valid. Clarity and context: The abstract, introduction and conclusions are clear, concise and appropriate. Scope of expertise: This manuscript is within the scope of my expertise. The Authors: We are incredibly grateful and mostly appreciate the positive assessments. Reviewer #2: The aim of the manuscript was to evaluate surplus plasma samples from Thai patients suspected of disseminated NTM with an anti-GPL-core IgA kit and the modified kit to also detect IgG to compare the diagnostic potential of both isotypes. The authors' approach is interesting, however serology IgA-GPL has some limitation, that is import for clinicians. As described by the authors and others GLP is present in MAC, RGM, including M. abscessus, and IgA-GPL core ELISA cross-reactivity between MAC and RGM in pulmonary cases is reported. It is well known that the drug treatment regime is different for MAC and M. abscessus. However, both IgA and IgG tests failed to distinguish them in disseminated NTM cases. Even significantly higher IgG median reactivity was described for RGM the test weakness remains because the number of tested samples is too small. According to the reference cited by the authors, a meta-analysis study in the diagnostic accuracy of IgA-GPL core in MAC pulmonary diseases was 0.696 (95% CI 0.621–0.761) and 0.906 (95% CI 0.836–0.951), for sensitivity and specificity, respectively. Looking at the results of the present study the IgA sensitivity (61.7) and specificity (95) are similar if use a higher cut off for disseminated NTM cases. This shows the IgA-GPL core accuracy is consistent in pulmonary MAC and disseminated NTM diseases. This discussion is missed. The Authors: We mostly appreciate the comments and have revised the manuscript as kindly suggested: Line 293 – 299 “A meta-analysis study in the diagnostic accuracy of anti-GPL core IgA in MAC pulmonary diseases (MAC-PD) indicated 69.6% (95% CI 62.1 – 76.1%) sensitivity and 90.6% (95% CI 83.6 – 95.1) specificity [20]. Our analysis of anti-GPL core IgA for disseminated NTM cases resulted in 90% specificity and the sensitivity was 68.6% at the cut-off > 1.264 U/ml (Fig S2). This shows that the anti-GPL core IgA accuracy is consistent in pulmonary MAC and disseminated NTM diseases.” Additionally, we also modified the Supplementary Figure S2 to support the discussion as below. Supplementary Figure S2: Determination of positive cut-off for NTM diagnosis by detecting level of plasma anti-GPL core IgA or IgG. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was applied to determine area under curve (AUC) and positive cut-off for NTM infection diagnosis by detecting anti-GPL core IgA (A) or IgG level (B). Red arrow represents cut-off point on ROC curve at 90% sensitivity. Blue arrow represents cut-off point on ROC curve at 90% specificity. On the other hand, the IgG test showed higher reactivity distribution in disseminated NTM samples, but the other infections disease and control also showed dispersion and cross-reactivity. As the number of MTB and BP samples is too small, thus may cause bias in the test specificity. How do the authors explain this cross-reactivity? The Authors: We added more discussion that the other infectious diseases and control also showed dispersion and cross-reactivity IgG as following: Line 303 – 308 “In more details, our data showed that anti-GPL-core IgG had some reactivity in MTB, BP patients and healthy controls which could be explained with two possibilities; 1) plasma IgG against NTM could be pre-existing in people in the area due to exposure to NTM in environment [36, 37] and/or 2) interference signals due to polyreactive IgG since ELISA detected every IgG including specific and non-specific or polyreactive antibodies [38].” Regarding the comment that the number of MTB and BP samples may be too small. We analyzed the power of statistical comparison by post-hoc analysis and it resulted in 100% power, as shown below. In addition, the data in Supplementary Table S1: % specificity of the assay to distinguish disseminated NTM patients from all controls (MTB + BP + HC), MTB+BP, MTB, or healthy controls show 89.55%, 86.49%, 88.89% and 93.33%, respectively. These % specificities are remarkably close to each other. Therefore, the bias in the study could be minimal. All this makes the authors' assumption “Taken together, the application of anti-GPL-core antibody detection provides a novel additional option for clinicians to diagnose and manage disseminated NTM infected patients” speculative. The authors should discuss what can be the role of the biomarkers-based assays for the diagnosis of disseminated NTM and treatment management considering the limitations of the test. The Authors: We modified the discussion as suggested: Line 311 – 320 “According to the symptoms of disseminated NTM infection which are not specific, diagnosis of the patients requires a high degree of suspicion and can be improved by measuring serum antibodies [39]. Our data support the idea that targeting anti-GPL-core assay, especially IgG, is suitable for supportive diagnosis of disseminated NTM patients along with detection of anti-IFN-� autoantibodies due to the lack of sensitivity of NTM culture from clinical specimens. The other studies of anti-GPL-core IgA level in MAC-PD represents the disease activity which is useful for monitoring of the disease progression [15, 40, 41]. More studies of anti-GPL-core IgA and IgG in association with clinical progression of disseminated NTM infection should be further investigated.”. The major limitation of the study is the sample size of MTB and BP cases. With few subjects included is difficult to really assess the role of the IgG test, although for IgA the accuracy was consistent for both MAC pulmonary disease and disseminated NTM. The Authors: These issues are discussed above. Other comments: Line 104-104 - Consider to change: To detect anti-GPL-core IgG, the antigen adsorbed plate of the IgA kit was used to perform the modified test. Briefly, ..... The Authors: We modified the text as suggested: Line 104 – 105, “To detect anti-GPL-core IgG, the antigen adsorbed plate of the IgA kit was used to perform the modified test.” Line 107 - Biotinylated ....anti-human IgG (BD Biosciences, USA). It was made in what animal? The Authors: The monoclonal antibody was made in mice. The information of this antibody was clarified, Line 107 and 133 “biotinylated mouse anti-human IFN-γ (Cat. 555142, BD Biosciences, USA)”. Line 112-113 - ... Results were analyzed with in-house standard curve and reported as arbitrary unit/ml (AU/ml). How did you that? Did you use the software? Manual mathematics calculation? Which plasma reference was used? The Authors: We added the information: Line 113 – 117 “Results were analysed with in-house standard curve selected from a reference sample, concentrations 10, 7.5, 5, 2.5 and 1.25 Arbitrary unit/ml (AU/ml) and the unknow samples were interpolated from the standard curve by linear regression using GraphPad Prism (Fig S1). Any samples with anti-GPL-core IgG more than 10 AU/ml were diluted and repeated the assay.” Additionally, we also inserted the new Supplementary Figure S1 as below. Supplementary Figure S1: Human plasma anti-GPL-core IgG standard curve analyzed by linear regression. Human reference plasma was diluted at 10, 7.5, 5, 2.5, and 1.25 AU/ml. Optical density (O.D.) of each concentration was plotted before analyzing with linear regression by using Prism GraphPad Software. Line 128 – 129 - --- biotinylated anti-human IFN-γ (BD Biosciences, USA). The conjugate was titrated? The Authors: To quantify level of unbound human IFN-γ, we followed the protocol from manufacturer. The suggested dilution of each reagent was added: Line 121 “1:250 diluted human IFN-γ capture antibody (Cat. 555142, BD Biosciences, USA)”, and Line 133 – 134 “1:250 diluted biotinylated mouse anti-human IFN-γ (Cat. 555142, BD Biosciences, USA) and 1:250 diluted horseradish peroxidase conjugated streptavidin (Cat. 555142, BD Biosciences, USA)”. Seems that it was used surplus plasma samples of suspected disseminated NTM cases from a Hospital bio-repository and the control was freshly collected. However, the authors did not comment on the storage condition of the samples. This is an important issue in serology because Ab degradation can alter the ELISA results. The Authors: We declared a statement of plasma sample storage: Line 167 – 168 “Plasma samples were aliquoted, stored at -80oC and thawed only once at the day of the assay to avoid any freeze-thaw effect.”. Line 159 - .....plasma samples from routine assay were collected from storage at..... Inform the storage condiction (temperature? suffered freeze-thaw?) The Authors: As above. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: GPL200820_Point_by_point_reviewer_response_rev_201009.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0242598.r002
6 Nov 2020 Decision Letter - Frederick Quinn, Editor Evaluation of plasma anti-GPL-core IgA and IgG for Diagnosis of Disseminated Non-tuberculous Mycobacteria Infection PONE-D-20-21272R1 Dear Dr. Lertmemongkolchai, 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, Frederick Quinn 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 ******** 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: The authors addressed all of my comments in the previous version. I have no additional comments to add. Reviewer #2: The authors answered the questions clearly and appropriately. Rewrote parts of the original text and improved the discussion ****** 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: No Reviewer #2: No https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0242598.r003
Formally Accepted
17 Nov 2020 Acceptance Letter - Frederick Quinn, Editor PONE-D-20-21272R1 Evaluation of plasma anti-GPL-core IgA and IgG for Diagnosis of Disseminated Non-tuberculous Mycobacteria Infection Dear Dr. Lertmemongkolchai: 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. Frederick Quinn Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0242598.r004

Open letter on the publication of peer review reports

PLOS recognizes the benefits of transparency in the peer review process. Therefore, we enable the publication of all of the content of peer review and author responses alongside final, published articles. Reviewers remain anonymous, unless they choose to reveal their names.

We encourage other journals to join us in this initiative. We hope that our action inspires the community, including researchers, research funders, and research institutions, to recognize the benefits of published peer review reports for all parts of the research system.

Learn more at ASAPbio .