PONE-D-20-20194

NMR Analysis of the Correlation of Metabolic Changes in Blood and Cerebrospinal Fluid in Alzheimer Model Male and Female Mice

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Cuperlovic-Culf,

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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

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

Reviewer #1: No

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

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Reviewer #1: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

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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 Authors present a nice work in NMR analysis on blood and CSF samples in a Alzheimer mice model. A total of 30 samples (90 mice) were prepared and NMR spectra were recorded using NOESY and CPMG pulse sequences. Data were qualitatively and quantitatively analyzed and statistical analysis were performed. 51 metabolite were identified and correlations between metabolites in blood and CSF were determined.

I have few questions :

- Authors don’t use buffer to prepare the samples and never give the pH of the samples. For all samples the pH are the same ?

- Authors indicate that the region “0.5–9.5 ppm were included in the normalization and analysis”, but residual signal of water is present around 4.7 ppm ? Perhaps the information is in the sentence “…, removal of undesired areas, …’ data analysis section, but give more details please.

- Please give more information about the normalization procedure, it’s not clear.

- How many mice the authors have per group ? If it’s only 3, it’s very poor to give reliable results. I have never seem in this paper, the standard deviation on the results, why ?

minor correction

- table 1, Column Male/blood, Pantothenic acid and not pantothenicacid

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Reviewer #1: No

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PLOS ONE

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NMR Analysis of the Correlation of Metabolic Changes in Blood and Cerebrospinal Fluid in Alzheimer Model Male and Female Mice

PONE-D-20-20194R1

Dear Dr. Cuperlovic-Culf,

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Kind regards,

Stephen D. Ginsberg, Ph.D.

Section Editor

PLOS ONE

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

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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

**********

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: I thank the authors for their precision. This article can be accpet and publish in the PLOSONE journal.

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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.

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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