Assessment of in vitro activities of novel modified antimicrobial peptides against clarithromycin resistant Mycobacterium abscessus

Phantitra Sudadech; Sittiruk Roytrakul; Orawee Kaewprasert; Auttawit Sirichoat; Ploenchan Chetchotisakd; Sakawrat Kanthawong; Kiatichai Faksri

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0260003

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionJune 21, 2021
26 Jul 2021 Decision Letter - Iddya Karunasagar, Editor PONE-D-21-19959 Assessment of in vitro activities of novel modified antimicrobial peptides against clarithromycin resistant Mycobacterium abscessus PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Faksri, 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 address all reviewer comments point by point and revise the manuscript. ============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by Sep 09 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. 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The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf 2. Please provide additional details regarding participant consent to collect blood samples for isolation of RBC and PBMCs. In the Methods section, please ensure that you have specified how consent was obtained or whether the research ethics committee or IRB specifically waived the need for their consent. 3. We suggest you thoroughly copyedit your manuscript for language usage, spelling, and grammar. If you do not know anyone who can help you do this, you may wish to consider employing a professional scientific editing service. Whilst you may use any professional scientific editing service of your choice, PLOS has partnered with both American Journal Experts (AJE) and Editage to provide discounted services to PLOS authors. 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Upon resubmission, please provide the following: The name of the colleague or the details of the professional service that edited your manuscript A copy of your manuscript showing your changes by either highlighting them or using track changes (uploaded as a supporting information file) A clean copy of the edited manuscript (uploaded as the new manuscript file) 4. Thank you for stating the following financial disclosure: “The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.” At this time, please address the following queries: a) Please clarify the sources of funding (financial or material support) for your study. List the grants or organizations that supported your study, including funding received from your institution. b) State what role the funders took in the study. If the funders had no role in your study, please state: “The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.” c) If any authors received a salary from any of your funders, please state which authors and which funders. d) If you did not receive any funding for this study, please state: “The authors received no specific funding for this work.” Please include your amended statements within your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf. 5. Thank you for stating the following in the Funding Section of your manuscript: “This study was supported by the Invitation Research, Faculty of Medicine, Khon Kaen University (Grant number: IN62307) and Research and Diagnostic Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases (RCEID), Khon Kaen University, Khon Kaen, Thailand.” We note that you have provided additional information within the Funding Section that is not currently declared in your Funding Statement. Please note that funding information should not appear in the Acknowledgments section or other areas of your manuscript. We will only publish funding information present in the Funding Statement section of the online submission form. Please remove any funding-related text from the manuscript and let us know how you would like to update your Funding Statement. Currently, your Funding Statement reads as follows: “The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.” Please include your amended statements within your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf. Additional Editor Comments: The reviewer has raised number of questions for which clarifications/explanations are needed. Please revise considering all reviewer comments point by point. [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: Partly ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: 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 ****** 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 ****** 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 comments– M abscessus does exists as biofilms during infections and the resistance pattern of biofilm vs broth grown Mab are highly varied. Why have the authors restricted to the broth form of MAB. Line 312 talks about anti-biofilm effect of AMPs on Streptococcus. The in vitro synergism and anti-microbial effect may be very different from the clinical scenario unless screened on a biofilm model and warrants further investigation before moving forward. Discussion needs to throw light on specific aspects like treatment response and duration due to use of AMP. Please highlight other drug resistance if any identified through sequencing and any similarities and differences in mutation patterns among cluster of inducible or acquired resistant strains. Line 51 – Mention the duration of treatment Line 58 – Please mention which other bacteria and if any mycobacterial species were tested with AMPs Line 62 – “Polydim-I reduced 40 to 50% of Mab subsp. massiliense infected macrophage”. This sentence refers to mycobacteria or macrophages. It is confusing. Table2 shows MAB13 as acquired while it is increasing from day 3 to day 14 with respect to clarithromycin. Several typos and grammar improvement for discussion recommended – line 373 (regarding); 378 – patients and administration etc., ****** 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 [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.0260003.r001
Revision 1
13 Aug 2021 Author Response Response to reviewer comments Thank you very much for your comments and suggestions. We would like to answer your comments and suggestions as follows: Journal Requirements: When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf Answer: The manuscript formatting has been checked and the format revised accordingly. We hope that the revised version of the manuscript is according to PLOS ONE's style requirements. 2. Please provide additional details regarding participant consent to collect blood samples for isolation of RBC and PBMCs. In the Methods section, please ensure that you have specified how consent was obtained or whether the research ethics committee or IRB specifically waived the need for their consent. Answer: A sentence has been added to the Materials and methods section to state this information, as follows: (Lines 93-96) Informed consent was not required for this study. All specimens including isolates and blood samples were obtained from routine practice in which patient's information were deidentified. The study protocol was approved by the Khon Kaen University Ethics Committee for Human Research (HE611496). The document in which the IRB specifically waived the need for their consent is contained in the supplemental file. 3. We suggest you thoroughly copyedit your manuscript for language usage, spelling, and grammar. If you do not know anyone who can help you do this, you may wish to consider employing a professional scientific editing service. Whilst you may use any professional scientific editing service of your choice, PLOS has partnered with both American Journal Experts (AJE) and Editage to provide discounted services to PLOS authors. Both organizations have experience helping authors meet PLOS guidelines and can provide language editing, translation, manuscript formatting, and figure formatting to ensure your manuscript meets our submission guidelines. To take advantage of our partnership with AJE, visit the AJE website (http://learn.aje.com/plos/) for a 15% discount off AJE services. To take advantage of our partnership with Editage, visit the Editage website (www.editage.com) and enter referral code PLOSEDIT for a 15% discount off Editage services. If the PLOS editorial team finds any language issues in text that either AJE or Editage has edited, the service provider will re-edit the text for free. Upon resubmission, please provide the following: The name of the colleague or the details of the professional service that edited your manuscript A copy of your manuscript showing your changes by either highlighting them or using track changes (uploaded as a supporting information file) A clean copy of the edited manuscript (uploaded as the new manuscript file) Answer: English usage of the final version of this manuscript was reviewed by Emeritus Professor James A Will, University of Wisconsin-Madison for editing the MS via Publication Clinic KKU, Thailand (jawenator@gmail.com). He is the senior editor for the Faculty of Medicine and successfully edits 80-100 medical manuscripts for this Faculty a year. We will not make any changes after his editing without his further editing. The manuscript has further been revised for typos and grammatical errors. We hope this new version meets the high standards of PLOS ONE. 4. Thank you for stating the following financial disclosure: “The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.” At this time, please address the following queries: a) Please clarify the sources of funding (financial or material support) for your study. List the grants or organizations that supported your study, including funding received from your institution. b) State what role the funders took in the study. If the funders had no role in your study, please state: “The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.” c) If any authors received a salary from any of your funders, please state which authors and which funders. d) If you did not receive any funding for this study, please state: “The authors received no specific funding for this work.” Please include your amended statements within your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf. Answer: We added the funding on online submission form, as follows: This study was supported by the Invitation Research, Faculty of Medicine, Khon Kaen University (Grant number: IN62307) and National Research Council of Thailand (Grant number: NRC MHESI 483/2563). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. 5. Thank you for stating the following in the Funding Section of your manuscript: “This study was supported by the Invitation Research, Faculty of Medicine, Khon Kaen University (Grant number: IN62307) and Research and Diagnostic Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases (RCEID), Khon Kaen University, Khon Kaen, Thailand.” We note that you have provided additional information within the Funding Section that is not currently declared in your Funding Statement. Please note that funding information should not appear in the Acknowledgments section or other areas of your manuscript. We will only publish funding information present in the Funding Statement section of the online submission form. Please remove any funding-related text from the manuscript and let us know how you would like to update your Funding Statement. Currently, your Funding Statement reads as follows: “The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.” Please include your amended statements within your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf. Answer: We removed funding-related text and the information of competing interests from the manuscript and these sentences are stated in the online submission form. Reviewer #1: Q#1 M abscessus does exists as biofilms during infections and the resistance pattern of biofilm vs broth grown Mab are highly varied. Why have the authors restricted to the broth form of MAB. Answer: The broth state of the experiment is the easiest way to control environmental condition of the experiment and drug exposure to the pathogens. The point that the experimental condition does not cover the biofilm producing state is the limitation of our study. We have added this limitation in the last paragraph of the Discussion section as follows: (Lines 409-417) Mab is a prolonged intracellular pathogen with varied ability to produce biofilm, biofilm-forming smooth morphotypes and non-biofilm forming rough morphotypes [63]. Although various Mab isolates of both rough and smooth morphotypes were included in these experiments, DST were not determined in the biofilm producing state of Mab. DST were not determined in the biofilm producing state of Mab. These experiments were only under in vitro conditions; the in vivo response of AMPs and CLA could be varied depending on the host environment. Additional studies that investigate the in-depth assessment with a larger number of isolates, including the biofilm producing state and an in vivo experiment are likely warranted. Q#2 Line 312 talks about anti-biofilm effect of AMPs on Streptococcus. The in vitro synergism and anti-microbial effect may be very different from the clinical scenario unless screened on a biofilm model and warrants further investigation before moving forward. Discussion needs to throw light on specific aspects like treatment response and duration due to use of AMP. Answer: Mab is a prolonged intracellular pathogen with varied ability to produce biofilm, biofilm-forming smooth morphotypes and non-biofilm forming rough morphotypes [63]. Although various Mab isolates of both rough and smooth morphotypes were included in these experiments, DST were not determined in the biofilm producing state of Mab. DST were not determined in the biofilm producing state of Mab. This is the limitation of our study. We stated this as the limitation in the discussion (Lines 409-413). Q#3 Please highlight other drug resistance if any identified through sequencing and any similarities and differences in mutation patterns among cluster of inducible or acquired resistant strains. Answer: The isolates that we included are the CLA-resistant Mab isolates. The susceptibility test for amikacin which is another important drug for treatment of Mab infection is also available. We have included the susceptibility results of the additional drug in the Table 2. The drug susceptibility test based on WGS analysis is still pending as the mutation database is not compete and the analysis take very long time to finish. Then we have separated this objective out of the scope of this study. Q#4 Line 51 – Mention the duration of treatment Answer: A new text has been added to the Introduction section to state, as follows: (Lines 51-52) The duration of treatment for Mab infection depends on the clinical syndrome and lasts from 4 weeks to 12 months. Q#5 Line 58 – Please mention which other bacteria and if any mycobacterial species were tested with AMPs Answer: In this study, no other Mycobacterium species was tested but references are provided to our work. A new text has been added to the Introduction section to state and the references have been added, as follows: (Lines 61-64) Several research teams have reported AMPs activity against Mycobacterium tuberculosis [10-27] and other NTMs such as Mycobacterium avium [12, 19, 28, 29], Mycobacterium smegmatis [12, 20, 30], Mycobacterium vaccae [31], Mycobacterium bovis [32] and Mycobacterium marinum [33]. Q#6 Line 62 – “Polydim-I reduced 40 to 50% of Mab subsp. massiliense infected macrophage”. This sentence refers to mycobacteria or macrophages. It is confusing. Answer: This sentence refers to macrophages. We have modified this sentence as follows: (Lines 67-69) Polydim-I treatment of macrophages infected with different Mab subsp. massiliense strains reduced the bacterial load by 40 to 50% [35]. Q#7 Table2 shows MAB13 as acquired while it is increasing from day 3 to day 14 with respect to clarithromycin. Answer: Inducible resistance was inferred by changes in MIC values from “susceptible” at day 3 to “resistant” at day 14. Isolates that were resistant on day 3 and thereafter were regarded as demonstrating acquired resistance. Therefore, MAB13 had resistance from day 3 to day 14, which was defined as acquired resistance. Q#8 Several typos and grammar improvement for discussion recommended – line 373 (regarding); 378 – patients and administration etc., Answer: English usage of the final version of this manuscript will be reviewed by Emeritus Professor James A Will, University of Wisconsin-Madison for editing the MS via Publication Clinic KKU, Thailand (jawenator@gmail.com). The current revised version of the manuscript has further been revised for typos and grammatical errors. We hope this new version meets the high standards of PLOS ONE. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to reviewer_FINAL.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260003.r002
25 Oct 2021 Decision Letter - Iddya Karunasagar, Editor PONE-D-21-19959R1Assessment of in vitro activities of novel modified antimicrobial peptides against clarithromycin resistant Mycobacterium abscessusPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Faksri, 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 Dec 09 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. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Iddya Karunasagar Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: 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. Additional Editor Comments: Please address minor comments of the reviewer [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] 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: Partly ****** 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: No ****** 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: 1. Please add "The drug susceptibility test based on WGS analysis is still pending as the mutation database is not compete and the analysis take very long time to finish. Then we have separated this objective out of the scope of this study" to the main text. 2. Please add reference to "The duration of treatment for Mab infection depends on the clinical syndrome and lasts from 4 weeks to 12 months" in line 51 3. Spell check to be rigorously done ****** 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 [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.0260003.r003
Revision 2
27 Oct 2021 Author Response Response to reviewer comments Thank you very much for your comments and suggestions. We would like to answer your comments and suggestions as follows: Journal Requirements: 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. Answer: Thank you very much for your suggestions. We checked the references have been corrected and completed. The reference list has been rearranged because two references have been added according to the reviewer suggested as follows: (Lines 450-455) 6. Strnad L, Winthrop KL. Treatment of Mycobacterium abscessus Complex. Semin Respir Crit Care Med. 2018;39(3):362-76. https://doi.org/10.1055/s-0038-1651494 PMID: 30071551 7. Weng YW, Huang CK, Sy CL, Wu KS, Tsai HC, Lee SS. Treatment for Mycobacterium abscessus complex-lung disease. J Formos Med Assoc. 2020;119 Suppl 1:S58-S66. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfma.2020.05.028 PMID: 32527504 Comments to the Author ________________________________________ 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: 1. Please add "The drug susceptibility test based on WGS analysis is still pending as the mutation database is not compete and the analysis take very long time to finish. Then we have separated this objective out of the scope of this study" to the main text. Answer: We have added these sentences as the limitation in the Discussion section as follows: “The drug susceptibility test based on WGS analysis is still pending as the mutation database is not completed and the analysis take very long time to finish. Then, we have separated this objective out of the scope of this study.” (Lines 405-407). 2. Please add reference to "The duration of treatment for Mab infection depends on the clinical syndrome and lasts from 4 weeks to 12 months" in line 51 Answer: The reference has been added, as follows: The duration of treatment for Mab infection depends on the clinical syndrome and lasts from 4 weeks to 12 months [6, 7]. (Lines 52-53) 6. Strnad L, Winthrop KL. Treatment of Mycobacterium abscessus Complex. Semin Respir Crit Care Med. 2018;39(3):362-76. https://doi.org/10.1055/s-0038-1651494 PMID: 30071551 7. Weng YW, Huang CK, Sy CL, Wu KS, Tsai HC, Lee SS. Treatment for Mycobacterium abscessus complex-lung disease. J Formos Med Assoc. 2020;119 Suppl 1:S58-S66. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfma.2020.05.028 PMID: 32527504 3. Spell check to be rigorously done Answer: Thank you very much for your suggestions. Before submission, the final version of this revised manuscript was reviewed by Emeritus Professor James A Will, University of Wisconsin-Madison for editing the MS via Publication Clinic KKU, Thailand. The spelling check have been done. All typographical errors have been corrected. ________________________________________ Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to reviewer_Final.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260003.r004
2 Nov 2021 Decision Letter - Iddya Karunasagar, Editor Assessment of in vitro activities of novel modified antimicrobial peptides against clarithromycin resistant Mycobacterium abscessus PONE-D-21-19959R2 Dear Dr. Faksri, 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, Iddya Karunasagar Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): All reviewer comments have been addressed satisfactorily. 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: Partly ****** 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: The manuscript has addressed major concerns raised and most of the typographical errors have been corrected ****** 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 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260003.r005
Formally Accepted
4 Nov 2021 Acceptance Letter - Iddya Karunasagar, Editor PONE-D-21-19959R2 Assessment of in vitro activities of novel modified antimicrobial peptides against clarithromycin resistant Mycobacterium abscessus Dear Dr. Faksri: 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. Iddya Karunasagar Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0260003.r006

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