PONE-D-21-14806

A novel system for classifying tooth root phenotypes

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Gellis,

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.

You should give special attention to the following points:

1. The comments of Reviewer 1.

2. The observer error is important for readers to assess the ease in using the system.

2. The slice thickness query of Reviewer 2.

3. Moving the anatomical description section as suggested by Reviewer 2.

Additional corrections:

p. 3 line 52 'a world frequency' does not have a range; rephrase

p. 19, line 415: the first 'their' should be 'therefore'.

p. 21, line 449 has grammatical errors and missing words; rephrase

p, 25 line 584 phenotype permutations, not 'phenotypes'

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Lynne A Schepartz

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

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2. Please declare author Jason Gellis's former affiliation with PLOS ONE as a competing interest.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Partly

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

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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: Thanks for inviting me to review this work on a new scoring system of root variation in modern humans. The authors thoroughly stated the needs of developing a new system to capture maximally the large degree of variation presented by the dental roots, and they did provided a useful system, covering five key elements of external and internal morphologies. However, I’m worried that the orientation of each tooth, although the jaw was placed in an anatomical position, might affect the score of external and internal morphologies. For example, a round canal cross-section might be observed in an elliptical shape if an oblique slice was obtained. A completely-quantitative method, in 3D context, might overcome all the problems of qualitative scoring system. I also have two very minor comments as listed below.

1) In the legend of Figure 3, which level did the author get the cross-section? Indicate what "E, G, H, and P" means in the figure legend.

2) Figure 4 and 9 are the same, except for the labels.

Reviewer #2: The idea presented is novel and very interesting. There are a few areas which require attention:

In general there are a significant number of figures, which ideally could be condensed to reflect the most pertinent figures in the study. As this is a scientific article all references to "we" should be removed,

The introduction would benefit from including a short section discussing the potential genetic abnormalities associated with root morphology, particularly considering that the "normal" morphology of the roots is the subject under investigation.

Background: Pg 3, line 47, reference numbers can be condensed to reflect 12-26. In the legend for figure 1, line 77, specify which molars are being referenced to keep consistency with the rest of the legend. Pg. 5, Line 124, replace "Though" with "While", Line 127, insert references, particularly if you are talking about descriptions which appear in the literature. While considering the external root morphology was the possibility of enamel pearls considered?

Materials and methods: Please change specimens to individuals throughout. The SI and AMNH samples were scanned with a slice thickness of 1.0mm and reconstrcted while the DC sample had a slice thickness of 0.6mm and no reconstruction. Do you think the difference in slice thickness may have resulted in a loss of observed detail in the scans? No exclusion criteria is mentioned and should be included.

The tenses in this section need revision. As the article happens after the study the article should be written in the past tense. Please correct throughout. Pg 11. line 312, Anatomical descriptions should come earlier, preferrably straight after the CT section. No mention of observer error is mentioned at any point, this is problematic considering the proposal of novel system for classifying teeth.

Results: Pg 12 Lines 331 to 348 should ideally come under the materials and methods as it is an admixture of a sample description as well as data analysis. The results section requires extensive revision given that across various points in the results, i.e. Table 6 line 404, there appears to be a mixture of result reporting and discussion of the results. Strictly speaking the results section is where we present the observations made in the current study and the discussion section is where the current study's results are put into the context of the broader literature and any variances are discussed further. The redundancy of information section, line 547 should not be in the results section and ideally should form part of the discussion section

Discussion: The inclusion of tables and figures in the discussion section is irregular.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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A novel system for classifying tooth root phenotypes

PONE-D-21-14806R1

Dear Dr. Gellis,

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.

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Kind regards,

Lynne A Schepartz

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: