Prognostic and clinicopathological significance of GPRC5A in various cancers: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Lu Dai; Xiao Jin; Zheng Liu

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0249040

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionOctober 7, 2020
14 Jan 2021 Decision Letter - Hiromu Suzuki, Editor PONE-D-20-28866 Prognostic and clinicopathological significance of GPRC5A in various cancers: a systematic review and meta-analysis PLOS ONE Dear Dr. liu, 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. ============================== This manuscript was carefully reviewed by 2 experts, and both of them found several issues which need to be addressed before this manuscript becomes potentially accepted. For instance, reviewer 1 suggested revision of the main text including introduction and discussion. Reviewer 2 indicted English writing problems. Please respond to each of the reviewer comments. ============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by Feb 21 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: 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. 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Please note that supplementary tables should remain as separate "supporting information" files. 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: 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: No 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: The authors have worked with detail meta-analysis wiith large subgroup analysis The following commets are need to be corrected 1. Please update the introduction part wiht recent comments 2. Discussion part should be dicussed based on subgroup analsyis as well 3. strength and limitations of the study should be included 4 I couldnt see PRISMA statement. Kindly include the info regarding PRISMA guidleines 5. details on publication bias should be discussed on methodology and results section in detail 6. results on quality assessment should be discussed in detail Reviewer #2: English wording need to be improved Discussion should be improved in terms of structure and concept and comparison with the literature. The current discussion section is not strong enough to support the findings. ****** 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:** Shanthi Sabarimurugan 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. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249040.r001
Revision 1
5 Feb 2021 Author Response The details of our edits in the manuscript are outlined below. REVIEWER #1 The authors have worked with detail meta-analysis with large subgroup analysis The following comments are needed to be corrected • Our Response: We thank the reviewer for their comments and enthusiasm for our paper. • Comment 1: Please update the introduction part with recent comments • Our Response: We have updated the overall introduction section. Please see the revision in the second submission. Comment 2: .Discussion part should be discussed based on subgroup analysis as well • Our Response: We have added the discussion for subgroup analysis. • From text: “To assess the specific relationship between the GPRC5A and the OS of each cancer type, subgroup analysis showed high expression of GPRC5A was significantly associated with poor prognosis in the majority of solid cancers studied such as pancreatic, gastric, prostate, hepatocellular and esophageal cancer, but no significant effect was observed in colorectal and ovarian cancer. In lung and head and neck squamous cancer, high GPRC5A expression was associated with favorable prognosis. These findings suggest that GPRC5A expression may have clinical potential as an independent prognostic indicator for some types of cancer patients; however, the application CPRC5A may be different based on the type of cancers.” Comment 3. Strength and limitations of the study should be included • Our Response: We did include both strength and limitations in the first submission and we also updated them in this revision. • From text: Strength: “Although limitations were noted above, this was the first meta‐analysis to systematically assess the prognostic value of GPRC5A in human cancers. We enrolled 15 recent studies covering nine different types of cancers reported between 2010 and 2018 for our meta-analysis. In summary, our results suggest that GPRC5A can be a promising candidate for predicting medical outcomes and used for accurate diagnosis, prognosis prediction for patients with cancer; however, the predictive value of GPRC5A varies significantly according to cancer type.” Limitations: “The results of this study should be taken into consideration in the context of certain limitations. First, as only 15 studies were enrolled, the data were relatively insufficient to pool results by tumor type, which prevented us from obtaining more comprehensive results. Well-designed and large-scale cohort studies are needed to certify the clinical value of GPRC5A in multiple cancers. Second, all the studies enrolled in our meta-analysis were retrospective articles. Most of these reports were not meant to explore the prognostic influence of GPRC5A. The accuracy of the collected data related to OS is unknown. HR and 95% CI values were not available for many of the studies, and extraction of the data from survival curves may have led to minor statistical errors. Third, heterogeneity existed in our study and may have been a result of the different cutoff values, tumor types, sample sources and follow-up periods across the studies. Additionally, we only included studies in English and Chinese, and records reported in other languages were omitted. Finally, although our results showed that the predictive value of GPRC5A varies significantly according to cancer type, we did not further study the mechanisms of this. Further studies will be needed to reveal novel insights into application of GPRC5A in cancer..” Comment 4: I couldn’t see PRISMA statement. Kindly include the info regarding PRISMA Guidelines • Our Response: We did included PRISMA statement in the method section and we updated it in this revision. • From text: “This study followed the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines.” Comment 5: details on publication bias should be discussed on methodology and results section in detail • Our Response: We did include publication bias in the methods and result section in the first submission and we updated it in this revision. • From text: “Publication bias was assessed by Begg’s and Egger’s tests.” “Additionally, Begg’s funnel plots and Egger’s test showed no significant publication bias was found for OS (Fig. 6 Begg’sP ¼ 0.155 and Egger’s P ¼ 0.908).” Comment 6: results on quality assessment should be discussed in detail • Our Response: We did quality assessment in the first submission and we have added more details in this revision. • From text: “Two investigators separately gained the information and data from primary publications. The specific information and data were as follows: The first author’s name, publication year, country, cancer type, time of sample collection, sample capacity, outcome measures, method of detection, and Cut-off value. For the clinically relevant factors, Age, Sex, differentiation, tumor invasion depth, lymph node metastasis, and distant metastasis were extracted. The Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (NOS) was also utilized to assess the quality of studies in the meta-analysis, which ranges from 0-9. A score of 5 or higher indicates strong evidence; a score from 4 to 5 (not included) indicates medium evidence, and a score below 4 indicates weak evidence. Studies with strong evidence (NOS score ≥ 5 points) were included in this study.” REVIEWER #2 Comment 1: English wording need to be improved • Our Response: We have improved the overall English wording of this paper. This paper has been reviewed by a native English speaker. Please see the revision in the second submission. Comment 2: Discussion should be improved in terms of structure and concept and comparison with the literature. The current discussion section is not strong enough to support the findings. • Our Response: We have updated the overall discussion and added the discussion of subgroup analysis. Please see the revision in the second submission. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249040.r002
10 Mar 2021 Decision Letter - Hiromu Suzuki, Editor Prognostic and clinicopathological significance of GPRC5A in various cancers: a systematic review and meta-analysis PONE-D-20-28866R1 Dear Dr. liu, 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, Hiromu Suzuki, M.D., Ph.D. 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 ******** 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 ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: 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 ****** 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 ****** 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) ****** 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:** Shanthi Sabarimurugan https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249040.r003
Formally Accepted
22 Mar 2021 Acceptance Letter - Hiromu Suzuki, Editor PONE-D-20-28866R1 Prognostic and Clinicopathological significance of GPRC5A in various cancers: A systematic review and meta-analysis Dear Dr. Liu: 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. Hiromu Suzuki Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249040.r004

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