Peer Review History
| Original SubmissionFebruary 25, 2021 |
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PONE-D-21-06360 Efficacy of signal peptide predictors in identifying signal peptides in the experimental secretome of Picrophilous torridus, a thermoacidophilic archaeon PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Goel, 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 Jun 04 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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Please see the following video for instructions on linking an ORCID iD to your Editorial Manager account: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xcclfuvtxQ 3. 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: N/A 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: [Major comment] 1. It’s not clear why author predicted the N-terminal sequences and what is the take-home message from that analysis. 2.Results are poorly represented as the Figures. I recommend authors to show proteins domains in the 30 secretome proteins (e.g., stacked over each other) for better visualization, similar to how HMMER/Pfam/Interpro represent. Authors may also use CIRCOS plots to highlight functional domains of 30 proteins as a condensed representation. 3.Similarly, predicted N-terminal regions of interest may also be visualized. 4.Please provide phylogenetic comparison of secretome of P. torridus with known secretome of related archaea. 5.Is there any secreted protein (out of 30) for which 3D structure is available or can be predicted using current methods? A result Table with PDB-blast may help here. 6.Are there any effector proteins predicted? [Minor comments] 1.Line 98: The text describing the tools is not required in “introduction” section. Please move the text to the “method” section. 2.Line 142 and 174: Please explain how UniProtKB ID was assigned to filtrate proteins. Please cite UniProtKB. 3.Line 147: For STRING database, what parameters and sources were used for shortlisting interacting proteins. 4.Line 165: The section “Analysis of N-terminal signal sequences”, needs more details. It’s not clear what authors mean by “analysis” here. 5.Please use first letter in capital, whenever abbreviations are used, e.g., in Table 1 please use Trans Membrane. 6.Table 2. It should be - Protein accession number. Please use proper sentence case in other part of the manuscript too. 7.Line 232: Please use small paragraph heading. I think, name of the tools in heading is not required. 8.Line 237: Please do not write version number of interpro or pfam everywhere in the entire manuscript. Its sufficient to cite version number in method section only. 9.Line 353: Please remove the result hyperlink for PRED-SIGNAL. 10.Line 345: The section “Prediction efficacy of various SP predictors for the experimental secretome of P. torridus” should be in the result section (within the section “Identification of N-terminal signal sequences”), instead of discussion. Also results of this section must be presented as a separate Table or figure, as its too confusing to read and summarize the different variables. 11.A review from native English speaker may be required to fix minor grammatical errors. Reviewer #2: Authors generated the LC MS data of P. torridus and predicted the efficacy of signal peptide prediction software. Thought the work is of interest, following points should be addressed: # Authors should highlight 1-2 metabolic pathways in the abstract. # Authors conclude 3 possibilities in conclusion: “currently available SP prediction programs” SPP are insufficient / inefficient? N-ter SP absent in P. t. Alternative mech. of protein translocation in P. t. So “currently available SP prediction (SPP) programs” -- > “these 4 SP prediction programs” should be used to tone down the conclusion. Authors should include the latest methods e.g. How many software are available. Why did not use latest ones e.g. DeepSig What is rationale of using these 4 software. # Please make suppl. table or excel showing how many SPPs are based on archaea datasets to identify archaea SPs. Provide the very briefly basic details of the methods along with the data sample size especially archaea data used for machine learning model development. # Please provide some quantitative manner to show the “Efficacy of signal peptide predictors in identifying signal peptides”, e.g. %age of proteins found to have SP using 4 software. Additionally, authors should provide for all full 3 sets in supplementary file the prediction score of all 4 software. # Authors should order these SPPs based on some rationale. E.g. year of publish or performance? and be consistent in describing these methods all over in that order only. # on line 353, this thing is counter intuitive. "The supplementary information enlisted in PRED-SIGNAL indicated that 86 proteins of P. torridus were secretory proteins (http://bioinformatics.biol.uoa.gr/PRED-SIGNAL-results/). However, when the 30 experimentally derived secreted proteins were submitted to PRED-SIGNAL it identified signal peptides in only eight proteins, while trans membrane segments were identified in five proteins." Were your 30 sequences among 1535 seq mentioned on that page of signal-pep? If yes, then how only 8 are shown to have SPs? What input was given when you say "when the 30 experimentally derived secreted proteins were submitted to PRED-SIGNAL"? Was the sequence of your 30 proteins and their 30 out of 1535 proteins different or identical? Authors need to explain this section. # line 80, soluble in what? Water or lipid? # For Ref 17, what data was used to make prediction model. It is based on archaeal protein.? # Line 116, is there any reference for such protocol used in this section, authors may cite that. # protein pilot software is not mentioned in the text while suppl. table 1 mentions it. # Why CPU time and rates are missing for other rows in excel sheet Speed and Distribution Analysis in suppl file 1, sheet 1 # Why Global FDR is recommended at 5 and 10% unlike Global FDR fit at 1%? In protein FDR Summary sheet in supp. Tables # Authors should mention version of all software and databases used in the study. Which version of backend database was used for blast. # What is meaning of % Coverage (95) and Peptides (95%) in table 1 should be mentioned. # Authors should sort table 1 based on some criteria, so that it is easy for readers to comprehend. # Line 178: Pfam 32.0 failed to predict any domain in the hypothetical protein Q6L265? Did not find any protein with this name Q6L265. Also, what is the reason for not finding any domain? # Table 1 is least described in the text. Expand it like authors explain table 2. Table 1 is explained rather in discussion. # Table 1 contains 30 proteins while fig 1 contains 34? # Order fig 1 based on counts. # Fig 2, reorder based on counts. Also, the legend title is ‘Function’ for all the panels, it should be corrected. # line 226 "Here, due to the limitations of the Cytoscape software tool, we have shown only one pathway of multi-functional protein(s)". It is not clear. # Heading in lines 232/233 seem not in continuation. Please double check. # Fig 3, Text mentions protein id while figure contains gene ids, need to be consistent for proper interpretation of the figure. Mention about the size of nodes, length/thickness of edges if they mean anything or not. What grey color represents in fig 3. # Line 237. Be consistent in metnioning version name e.g. InterPro 74 and Pfam 32 # line 238 : "InterPro 74 and Pfam 32 could not find any domain, while CDD search predicted presence of a domain of Reo_sigmaC super family". But table 1 shows interpro finds a domain? # Section of text in 235-265 should also be available as an additional table or suppl table # Suppl files 1,2,3 need to be explained properly as they contain multiple sub sheets. Need to explain at least one suppl file with the related content and interpretation. # Line 297/298: “…proteins might have been missed in this study from proteomic identification, due to technical constraints like, detection limit of mass spectrometry.” What is that limit in this study’s experiment.? # English needs to be improved including semantic and grammatical errors e.g. in line 85 sp. Vs spp. artifacts vs technical artefacts, have read and approve -- > have read and approved ********** 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/. 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| Revision 1 |
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Efficacy of signal peptide predictors in identifying signal peptides in the experimental secretome of Picrophilous torridus, a thermoacidophilic archaeon PONE-D-21-06360R1 Dear Dr. Goel, 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, Dinesh Gupta 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: N/A ********** 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: No |
| Formally Accepted |
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PONE-D-21-06360R1 Efficacy of signal peptide predictors in identifying signal peptides in the experimental secretome of Picrophilous torridus, a thermoacidophilic archaeon Dear Dr. Goel: 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. Dinesh Gupta Academic Editor PLOS ONE |
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