Peer Review History
| Original SubmissionOctober 29, 2020 |
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PONE-D-20-33989 The prion protein is not required for peripheral nerve repair after crush injury PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Aguzzi, 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 by Jan 15 2021 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:
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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 2.PLOS ONE now requires that authors provide the original uncropped and unadjusted images underlying all blot or gel results reported in a submission’s figures or Supporting Information files. This policy and the journal’s other requirements for blot/gel reporting and figure preparation are described in detail at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/figures#loc-blot-and-gel-reporting-requirements and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/figures#loc-preparing-figures-from-image-files. When you submit your revised manuscript, please ensure that your figures adhere fully to these guidelines and provide the original underlying images for all blot or gel data reported in your submission. See the following link for instructions on providing the original image data: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/figures#loc-original-images-for-blots-and-gels. In your cover letter, please note whether your blot/gel image data are in Supporting Information or posted at a public data repository, provide the repository URL if relevant, and provide specific details as to which raw blot/gel images, if any, are not available. Email us at plosone@plos.org if you have any questions. [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: Partly Reviewer #2: Partly ********** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: No 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: Schwann cell-specific loss of GPR126/Adgrg6 (for which PrPc is one interactor) results in a variety of defects in repair after peripheral nerve injury. In this work, Henzi and Aguzzi test the hypothesis that PRPc interactions with GPR126/Adgrg6 are responsible for some of these effects on peripheral nerve repair, by investigating the time course of demyelination and remyelination of the mouse sciatic nerve after crush injury in wt and PrPc null mice (PrnpZH3/ZH3). Examining demyelination, generation of “repair” Schwann cells, recruitment of macrophages to the injured nerve, and remyelination of axons 3mm from the crush site, they found no differences between wt and PrPc null animals up to 30 days after injury (except for a baseline difference in Schwann cell GFAP expression). The hypothesis tested is reasonable and clearly stated, and the data are carefully acquired and (mostly) clearly presented. The authors’ conclusion, that PrPc is not required for those aspects of repair that they studied, seems likely to be valid. For me, however, there are two main issues that should be addressed in order for this manuscript to be accepted. First, some experiments suffer from a lack of statistical power and other design/presentation issues, and second, a major aspect of nerve repair (axonal regeneration and NMJ re-formation) goes completely unexamined. Issues with study design: 1) Why did the authors choose females and not males? Why use two months old animals rather than adult (3-6 months) mice? (3 months old mice were used for the GPR126 study) 2) There are in general 3 animals/group; was this value of N chosen based on power analyses? If so, what were the effect sizes, variances, and desired power used in the analyses? This low value of N has implications for their conclusions. Some examples follow. 3) It is clear that they failed to find differences in Figure 1, but the variance is sufficiently high that one would guess a substantially higher N would need to be sampled to detect differences smaller than a few-fold; this is also true for Figure 2b (KI67 data). 4) In Figure 3, the idea that macrophage recruitment peaked at 10 days postcrush cannot be supported by the data presented; it appears that days 10 and 16 are indistinguishable and may (or may not) be different from day 5 and day 30, but these statistical comparisons are not made. 5) If the authors decide not to perform further experiments, they should perform power analyses and provide the results in the paper, so that the strength of their conclusions can be judged. 6) Minor note: I suggest plotting 95% confidence intervals rather than SEMs, which are not really meaningful for N=3. 7) Figure S2. The main purpose of providing whole blots for examination is to judge the degree to which one can be confident of antibody performance. This is quite difficult with the current figure. As one example, the calnexin blot shows a marked calnexin band near the bottom of the gel, even though this is a 90 kD protein. The entire gels should be shown, and the positions of all MW markers demarcated with arrows, rather than using an asterisk to denote the general area of the blot where the band of interest is said to migrate. Additionally, for reviewer purposes, these blots should be shown after incubation with a single primary antibody, not multiple antibodies. Finally, the methods used to validate the antibodies used are not described. A statement is made that the asterisks mark “specific” bands, but no justification is provided for the apparent assumption that bands migrating at different molecular weights from the asterisks are “non-specific” as opposed to specific but non-desired. Missing study elements: 8) The loss of GPR126/Adgrg6 function, specifically in Schwann cells, results in non-cell autonomous defects in axon regeneration and neuromuscular synapse formation. Clearly, axon regeneration is a sine qua non for peripheral nerve repair. However, neither axon regeneration nor NMJ reformation were examined in the current manuscript. Therefore, the statement that “PrP is dispensable for peripheral nerve repair” cannot be supported by the data provided. These experiments should be performed (ideally) or the conclusion statements should be modified. Reviewer #2: Major points 1.) previous results by the same group (e.g. Nuvolone et al 2016) are not sufficiently mentioned and discussed in the light of the new data 2.) the mouse model is not adequately introduced: I assume it is a constitutive mouse mutant with PrP deletion in all cell types? Where are deletion phenotypes expected? Neurons and/or Schwann cells? This has to be discussed carefully. 3.) Data frequently rely on only single markers, e.g. c-Jun used for repair Schwann cells. Other markers should be used to confirm this result. Same is true for inflammation markers: here e.g. Iba1 and CD45 could also be used 4.) The authors state that GFAP is used as a Schwann cell marker, a statement not referenced and not entirely true. Typically, it is used as marker for astrocytes. 5.) The authors show altered GFAP expression between wt and mutant for the baseline. An alternative explanation to the one given by the authors might be that Prp suppresses neuroinflammation in wt mice. Please comment. 6.) For the Ki67 no co-staining with cellular markers is provided, so it is unclear in which cell type cell proliferation occurs. Co-localization experiments should be performed. 7.) For the CD68 marker ,authors previously (Nuvolone et al) described differences between wt and ko in baseline (Fig. 3b). Why is this not observed in the current study? 8.) The authors do not employ any functional assays to monitor nerve regeneration which limits their data interpretation. This limitation should be clearly stressed. 9.) Results and quantification in Fig. 1e seem mainly to rely on unequal loading as depicted by calnexin. Please comment. 10.) Numbers of animals at each timepoint are rather low (e.g. N=3). For instance in Fig. 2b there are 3 animals with one clear outlier. However, I see the point that authors include several timepoints. Nevertheless, low N-number should be discussed. 11.) No quantification for data in Fig. 2c is provided which should be included. Minor points 1.) the introduction is overall very short and does not provide sufficient background 2.) In the figures author should designate mutant mice with mutant rather than simply ZH3 3.) Fig. 1b should also include uninjured even if values are zero ********** 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. 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| Revision 1 |
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The prion protein is not required for peripheral nerve de- and remyelination after crush injury PONE-D-20-33989R1 Dear Dr. Aguzzi, 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, Simone Di Giovanni Academic Editor PLOS ONE 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 #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 #2: Yes ********** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? 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 #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 #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 #2: The authors have addressed most concerns adequately and added words of caution when interpreting data so I am happy to suggest accepting the manuscript ********** 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 #2: No |
| Formally Accepted |
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PONE-D-20-33989R1 The prion protein is not required for peripheral nerve de- and remyelination after crush injury Dear Dr. Aguzzi: 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. Simone Di Giovanni Academic Editor PLOS ONE |
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