PONE-D-22-07546The anti-aging effects of the product including both collagen and ascorbic acid: in vitro, ex vivo and pre-post intervention clinical trialsPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Kang,

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Parasuraman Padmanabhan, Ph.D

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Additional Editor Comments:

Reproducibility of In vitro & Ex vivo experiments will be repeated and new results may be added.

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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: No

Reviewer #2: Partly

Reviewer #3: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: 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: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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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

Reviewer #3: 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: A clinical trial was conducted which aimed to study the effect of TEENIALL on improving skin wrinkles, skin lifting, and pigmentation areas after 2 and 4 weeks of using the product. Skin wrinkling, sagging, and pigmentation decreased after TEENIALL usage.

Major revisions:

Provide summary tables of results. Include precise p-values instead of “p<0.05” or “p< 0.001.”

Minor revisions:

1- The standard statistical term for average is mean.

2- Study procedure: State precisely the total number of subjects enrolled and analyzed instead of vaguely indicating “over 20 subjects.”

3- Safety Evaluation: Provide an interpretation for “Range of response = 0.00.”

4- State and justify the study’s target sample size with a pre-study statistical power calculation. The power calculation should include: sample size, alpha level (indicating one or two-sided), minimal detectable difference and statistical testing method.

5- To assist in the review process, add line numbering to the document.

Reviewer #2: Reproducibility of In vitro & Ex vivo is not easy as the given details of the methods used/adopted is not sufficient for a scientific journal and its readers.

The source of the cell lines are not given.

Use of generic names for the evaluated products/ details of components could make it of better use for the scientific community to advance science.

Reviewer #3: The manuscript “The anti-aging effects of the product including both collagen and ascorbic acid: in vitro, ex vivo and pre-post intervention clinical trials” by Ryu et.al. elaborates the use of TEENIALL to enhance the synergetic effect between collagen and ascorbic acid, tested to decrease skin wrinkles and hyperpigmentation in humans within 40 to 59 years. The research had focused on use of TEENIALL in reducing aging effects, with visible results after the first use. These findings should thus motivate further research and would deserve publication. However, I do not think that this paper is publishable in its present form and that at least one round of minor revision is needed.

In the introduction, page 2, the sentence starting with “Ascorbic acid is a representative….” can be given as a separate paragraph.

The products Naticol ® and Quali®-C, are mentioned as “raw materials” in most of the places. Please change that to “products” or any other word of similar meaning.

In the study procedure the sentences” In this study, treatment was applied once, 2 and 4 weeks, the study was conducted as a single test. Over 20 subjects meeting the inclusion and exclusion criteria were enrolled” and “For 4 weeks, the product was applied to subjects on a daily basis around the whole face after washing the face twice a day” are unclear and misleading.

Please correct the grammatical errors in the manuscript. There are several grammatical errors found.

The English language is generally unsatisfactory.

I suggest rewriting the conclusion. The line starting with “In summary….can be corrected”

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: PONE-D-22-07546.docx

The antiaging effects of a product containing collagen and ascorbic acid: In vitro, ex vivo, and pre-post intervention clinical trial

PONE-D-22-07546R1

Dear Dr. Kang,

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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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,

Parasuraman Padmanabhan, Ph.D

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Please addressed by the reviewer raised comments. Follow the journal guidelines.

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: (No Response)

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 #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

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 #1: Yes

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 #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: 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: Minor revisions: (Page numbers refer to those in the tracked changes version of revision 1.)

1- Line 165: Indicate the statistical testing method which attains 95% power.

2- In line 176, "product" is misspelled.

3- Line 187: Consider replacing "around" with "over."

4- Line 254: Drop the word "The" from the beginning of the sentence. Replace "using kurtosis and skewness" with "by examining the kurtoisis and skewness."

5- Line 256: Distinguish between the results in which p<0.05 and p<0.001 were considered statistically significant.

6. Within the text, replace "p<0.05” or “p<0.001” with more precise p-values.

Reviewer #2: Line 65-66 - rephrase to avoid redundant use of word `increase'.

Line 156 - `Product' spelling incorrect

Line 250-251 - Verify if the group without UV irradiation is the control instead of BLANK

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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 #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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