PONE-D-21-18446

Impaired semen quality, an increase of sperm morphological defects and DNA fragmentation associated with environmental pollution in urban population of young men from Western Siberia, Russia

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Kleshchev,

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.

The study is very interesting and provides important information in relation to environmental pollution and sperm quality. The rationale and conclusions will be further strengthened by providing additional information on the exact pollution parameters in the two cities, co-morbidities of the analyzed population, life style habits (smoking, alcohol consumption, medication, etc) and rigorous statistical analyses. Correlations, if any, between the sperm quality and other parameters (life style) should be carefully analyzed.

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Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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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?

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: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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: No

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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

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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: This study discusses two cities with the same climate in different regions of Russia. Because of the different environmental pollution, the researchers compared the sperm quality data and DNA fragmentaion index of men in the two places. Researchers have found that in cities with high environmental pollution, abnormal sperm types, sperm quality, and sperm DNA fragmentation index will indeed deteriorate. The researchers attributed this observation to the results of different levels of pollution in the two cities.

The advantages of this research report are: It includes sperm morphology examination, DNA fragmentation examination is very complete, and the number of cases is sufficient, which is worthy of appreciation.

Disadvantages of this article:

1. No direct evidence related to sperm quality and environmental pollution has been provided. The researchers explained the two phenomena directly related to each other. Although the possibility is very high, as a scientific report, there should be objective evidence and related explanations. The explanation of relevance should be the most difficult part of this research. If it is not possible to directly explain the relationship between sperm type and environmental pollution, it is recommended that the author only needs to make an objective observation and analysis of the observation results of the two places.

2. Researchers should provide actual observational data on environmental pollution in the two places.

3. The reliability of sperm morphology observation will be inaccurate based on the examiner's subjective bias. Whether the inspections in the two cities have been verified. The author can provide a way of verification.

Reviewer #2: The authors reported on ‘Impaired semen quality, an increase of sperm morphological defects and DNA fragmentation associated with environmental pollution in urban population of young

men from Western Siberia, Russia’ with the male volunteers in Novosibirsk (n=278) and Kemerovo (n=258) were assessed for their environmental pollution impact on sperm morphology and sperm DNA fragmentation level. Specifically, we commend the author`s effort to investigate the sperm morphology and sperm DNA fragmentation (not sperm concentration or motility) associated with environmental pollution because there is lack of this topic. This point has a value on this article.

The authors have concluded that The residents of Kemerovo characterized by elevated DNA fragmentation, poor sperm morphology and increased incidences of pyriform, elongated, round heads, abnormal acrosome and vacuolated chromatin, asymmetrical neck insertion and ERC probably due to increased environmental pollution in Kemerovo.

I have a few comments:

Comment #1: The author suggested that spermiogenesis is sensitive to environmental conditions and lifestyle factors such as obesity, smoking, andrological disorders and chronic system illness that affect sperm morphology in introduction section. In study population, precise inclusion, exclusion criteria is mandatory (Varicocele, cryptorchidism, past history of genitalia surgery etc.).

In Table 1, adding detail demographic information such as smoking, DM, any infertile disease would be beneficial.

Comment #2: The two cities are located to same climatic condition

Please mention detail climatic condition of the city (Detail level of particulate matter). Are there any other confounding factors other than climatic condition which could cause detrimental impact on sperm morphology and sperm DNA fragmentation?

Kemerivi city was characterized by increased environmental pollution especially by particulate matter due to coal mining and the numerous metallurgical and chemical industries.

Compare the detail information coal mining and the numerous metallurgical and chemical industries between two cities.

Comment #3: Line 155 genial tract -> genital tract , Table 1 Heght ->Height

Mention abbreviations in all Tables, and describe exact number of P-values in Tables as well.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: Dae Keun Kim

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Impaired semen quality, an increase of sperm morphological defects and DNA fragmentation associated with environmental pollution in urban population of young men from Western Siberia, Russia

PONE-D-21-18446R1

Dear Dr. Kleshchev,

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.

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Kind regards,

Suresh Yenugu

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 #2: 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 #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

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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

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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 adequately addressed the comments in a previous round of review process.

There is no issues about dual publication, and research ethics.

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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.

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: Yes: Dae Keun Kim, e-mail: kdg070723@gmail.com