PONE-D-22-05056Composition and thermal processing evaluation of yeast ingredients as thiamin sources compared to a standard vitamin premix for canned cat foodPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Aldrich,

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. I AGREE WITH BOTH REVIEWERS THAT THERE ARE USEFUL DATA IN THIS BODY OF WORK. HOWEVER, AUTHORS NEED TO ADDRESS THE VARIOUS COMMENTS CAREFULLY AND REVISE THE PAPER ACCORDINGLY. IF SOME OF THE DATA REPORTED DO NOT DIRECTLY ADDRESS THE STATED OBJECTIVES, THEN I SUGGEST TP MOVE IT TO A SUPPLEMENTAL FILE. THAT SHOULD HELP STREAMLINE THE PAPER.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Jun 10 2022 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,

Juan J Loor

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

1. When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements.

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

2. Thank you for stating in your Funding Statement: 

(Ingredient and analytical costs were supported by Simmons Pet Food, Inc. They assisted with the study design, data collection, and preparation of the manuscript but imposed no restrictions.)

Please provide an amended statement that declares *all* the funding or sources of support (whether external or internal to your organization) received during this study, as detailed online in our guide for authors at http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submit-now.  Please also include the statement “There was no additional external funding received for this study.” in your updated Funding Statement. 

Please include your amended Funding Statement within your cover letter. We will change the online submission form on your behalf.

3. Thank you for stating the following in the Competing Interests:

We note that one or more of the authors have an affiliation to the commercial funders of this research study : (I have read the journal's policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests: A.N.D. was employed by Simmons Pet Food Inc. as a paid intern prior to conducting this research project; M.F.M. Jr., B.W., and L.L. were employed by Simmons Pet Food while this research project was conducted; C.G.A. has no competing interests to declare.)

a. Please provide an amended Funding Statement declaring this commercial affiliation, as well as a statement regarding the Role of Funders in your study. If the funding organization did not play a role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript and only provided financial support in the form of authors' salaries and/or research materials, please review your statements relating to the author contributions, and ensure you have specifically and accurately indicated the role(s) that these authors had in your study. You can update author roles in the Author Contributions section of the online submission form.

Please also include the following statement within your amended Funding Statement. 

“The funder provided support in the form of salaries for authors [insert relevant initials], but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The specific roles of these authors are articulated in the ‘author contributions’ section.”

If your commercial affiliation did play a role in your study, please state and explain this role within your updated Funding Statement. 

b. Please also provide an updated Competing Interests Statement declaring this commercial affiliation along with any other relevant declarations relating to employment, consultancy, patents, products in development, or marketed products, etc.  

Within your Competing Interests Statement, please confirm that this commercial affiliation does not alter your adherence to all PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials by including the following statement: ""This does not alter our adherence to  PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.” (as detailed online in our guide for authors http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/competing-interests). If this adherence statement is not accurate and  there are restrictions on sharing of data and/or materials, please state these. Please note that we cannot proceed with consideration of your article until this information has been declared.

Please include both an updated Funding Statement and Competing Interests Statement in your cover letter. We will change the online submission form on your behalf.

4. 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: Partly

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

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: PONE-D-22-05056 Composition and thermal processing evaluation of yeast ingredients as thiamin sources compared to a standard vitamin premix for canned cat food

I found the manuscript to be thorough and the procedures well conducted. I think there is some useful information here but I cannot recommend acceptance of the manuscript in its present form. There are a number of issues relative to the data presented and the clarity of interpretation that should be clarified before resubmission.

Line

64 “the first definition is” I found this confusing in that there is really only one definition. Please reword for clarity.

68 Delete “the form”

69 Suggest thiamin in different forms.

85 You describe 6 yeasts, then in Table 2 show their composition. I have two isses; 1) if you want to include all of their compositions then it should be Table 1. 2) Somewhere you chose 3 of the 6 to include in the foods? I could never understand where or why you chose the yeasts you used?

Tables 3-7 There is a lot of info presented that I am not sure all has much value. I would suggest provide the pre-retort values (Table 5) and then in the text address any nutrients that were affected by retort. Because it is the premise of the paper, thiamin could be dealt with in a separate table where all values could be viewed simultaneously. Other data if desired could be added as an appendix where it could be qavailable to others but is really not a part of the results.

240 As presented, the outcomes are confounded by design. To report a change in thiamin concentration is inappropriate. The outcome is predetermined by the thiamin content which was not equal. I suggest you express these as the fraction surviving retort. I think this would be more meaningful.

277-342 I do not see the point of this discussion as it pertains to the objectives of the paper.

Reviewer #2: Yeast ingredients are examined in this manuscript as possible sources of thiamin in canned cat food. The purpose of this contribution is to clarify the potential use of an alternative source of thiamin for canned cat food in the pet food industry. There is good writing throughout and the experiment has some merit.

Even though it is an important topic, the study fails to present a scenario that is similar to an industrial production line. As, diets failed to achieve the minimum recommended by AAFCO; the humidity of the diets was not similar to the humidity found in commercial products, and the processing time was longer than what would be expected in an industrial setting.

Due to the effect that moisture content has on heat penetration, producing a diet with a higher moisture content and processing time compared to market-standard diets could lead to a greater degradation of thiamine than would be seen in daily practice.

Further, the authors mention that sulfites can lead to thiamine degradation but fail to mention whether this is an expected industry practice or if only a minority of products include sulfites. Accordingly, if sulfites are used as an industry practice, the results of this study do not correspond to a commercially expected outcome.

Furthermore, the study does not provide relevant information about the ingredients used. Although the study focused on the level of thiamine in the diet and its degradation, it is evident that other characteristics of the ingredient can negatively affect the quality of the diet as well. During the discussion, the authors discuss all the points that would need to be reviewed, considering that before being accepted for publication, it will be recommended to analyze the ingredients in terms of their amino acid characteristics, their minerals, and their fiber content (soluble and insoluble). Further, the use of crude fiber constrains the scientific discussion, because it has been noted that it is not a common method for measuring fiber in different industries and that many studies have shown that it is also not the ideal method for testing fiber in pet food and ingredients.

The discussion is also repetitive and with little explanation of the reason for the differences found between the ingredients, with many paragraphs listing the fact that the vitamin premix was not effective in preventing the loss of thiamine.

In spite of being a matter of interest, the authors fail to answer questions that are relevant to industrial production.

**********

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/. 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.

Composition and thermal processing evaluation of yeast ingredients as thiamin sources compared to a standard vitamin premix for canned cat food

PONE-D-22-05056R1

Dear Dr. Aldrich,

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,

Juan J Loor

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: 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: (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

**********