Association between serum periostin levels and the severity of arsenic-induced skin lesions

Moriom Khatun; Abu Eabrahim Siddique; Abdus S. Wahed; Nazmul Haque; Selim Reza Tony; Jahidul Islam; Shahnur Alam; Md. Khalequzzaman Sarker; Isabela Kabir; Shakhawoat Hossain; Daigo Sumi; Zahangir Alam Saud; Aaron Barchowsky; Seiichiro Himeno; Khaled Hossain

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0279893

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionOctober 1, 2022
2 Nov 2022 Decision Letter - J. Christopher States, Editor PONE-D-22-27210Association between serum periostin levels and the severity of arsenic-induced skin lesionsPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Hossain, 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 17 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, J. Christopher States Academic Editor PLOS ONE 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 2. We note that Figure 1 in your submission contain copyrighted images. All PLOS content is published under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which means that the manuscript, images, and Supporting Information files will be freely available online, and any third party is permitted to access, download, copy, distribute, and use these materials in any way, even commercially, with proper attribution. For more information, see our copyright guidelines: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/licenses-and-copyright. We require you to either (1) present written permission from the copyright holder to publish these figures specifically under the CC BY 4.0 license, or (2) remove the figures from your submission: a. You may seek permission from the original copyright holder of Figure 1 to publish the content specifically under the CC BY 4.0 license. We recommend that you contact the original copyright holder with the Content Permission Form (http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=7c09/content-permission-form.pdf) and the following text: “I request permission for the open-access journal PLOS ONE to publish XXX under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CCAL) CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Please be aware that this license allows unrestricted use and distribution, even commercially, by third parties. Please reply and provide explicit written permission to publish XXX under a CC BY license and complete the attached form.” Please upload the completed Content Permission Form or other proof of granted permissions as an ""Other"" file with your submission. In the figure caption of the copyrighted figure, please include the following text: “Reprinted from [ref] under a CC BY license, with permission from [name of publisher], original copyright [original copyright year].” b. If you are unable to obtain permission from the original copyright holder to publish these figures under the CC BY 4.0 license or if the copyright holder’s requirements are incompatible with the CC BY 4.0 license, please either i) remove the figure or ii) supply a replacement figure that complies with the CC BY 4.0 license. Please check copyright information on all replacement figures and update the figure caption with source information. If applicable, please specify in the figure caption text when a figure is similar but not identical to the original image and is therefore for illustrative purposes only. 3. 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: There are several suggestions made by the reviewers to improve the presentation of the data, as well as the clarity and transparency of the methodology. Incorporating these suggestions and answers to the reviewer queries is essential in a revised manuscript. [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: 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: No ****** 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: The manuscript entitled, “Association between serum periostin levels and the severity of arsenic-induced skin lesions” (PONE-D-22-27210) investigated the correlation between serum periostin levels, serum levels of type 2 cytokines and skin lesion severity in a highly arsenic exposed population from Bangladesh. The manuscript is well written, and the methods are described with clarity. The statistical analyses are described and justified in sufficient details as well as conducted with impeccable rigor. The conclusions are derived properly from the in-depth data analysis. Overall, this manuscript adds novel and critical information to the literature on effects of arsenic exposure. There are a few minor points that need to be clarified and data presentation can be improved through the following modifications. 1. The authors should include information on the response rate for the sample collection. This information is missing from this article, as well as the earlier article that they cite in relation to sample collection. 2. What measures were adopted to quantify and eliminate recall bias of the study participants during the generation of questionnaire based demographic data? 3. This manuscript will benefit from better visualization of the data rather than tabulation. As such, I suggest that the authors move tables 2 and 6 to the supplementary data and replace them with box and whisker plots showing individual data points for all samples in the main manuscript for better clarity. Additionally, they should also update the box plot in Figure 2 to show all the individual data points in each group in addition to the box plots. Reviewer #2: Major comments 1. The odds ratios reported for periostin seem very large. Is there prior research with regard to the association between periostin and other health outcomes that could demonstrate the plausibility of these values? Can some information be added to assist with interpretation, given that the periostin values were log-transformed? 2. Given that the mediation analysis is one of the highlighted findings in this manuscript, the methods used for the mediation analysis need to be described in more detail. There are several different methods use to perform mediation analysis, including more traditional methods (which are not recommended) as well as more advanced, sophisticated methods. At least a discussion of the possibility of residual confounding between the exposure and mediator and the mediator and outcome should be mentioned. A formal mediation analysis also requires a prospective study ideally, and this limitation should also be mentioned in the context of the mediation analysis. Minor comments 1. Why not add periostin to Table 2? 2. It is not described, how the covariates were modeled/controlled for. For example, was education treated in categories or continuously? It is commonplace to add this information to table footnotes. 3. Please use a consistent number of decimal places in text and tables. Even if the final decimal place is a zero, it should be included to show the degree of precision. Typos 1. Table four, odds ratio should be “odds ratios” 2. Bottom of p. 10 (line 218), n=112 represents ¼ of the total participants, not ¼ of the participants with skin lesions. 3. A 2.3-fold increase (line 248) does not correspond to an odds ratio of 9.87. 4. Line 265, “lesions in low-exposure area” should be “lesions in the low-exposure area. 5. Line 281, “…without skin lesions, early-stage and advanced-stage…” should be “…without skin lesions, to those with early-stage and advanced-stage…” 6. No comma is needed after “approximately” in line 389. ****** 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: Yes: Mayukh Banerjee 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. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0279893.r001
Revision 1
4 Dec 2022 Author Response Responses to the reviewers’ comments Reviewer # 1 1. The authors should include information on the response rate for the sample collection. This information is missing from this article, as well as the earlier article that they cite in relation to sample collection. Response: For this study and our two previous studies [Tony et al., 2022; Rahman et al., 2021], we could not calculate the response rate as we did not recruit any new individuals. Study participants recruitment was done in our previous study [Siddique et al., 2020] which showed the association between arsenic exposure and characteristic features of asthma. The overall response rate of that study [Siddique et al., 2020] was 92% (93% from arsenic-endemic areas, and 91% from non-endemic area). We have included this information in the “Materials and methods” section (please see lines: 127-130) of the revised manuscript. 2. What measures were adopted to quantify and eliminate recall bias of the study participants during the generation of questionnaire based demographic data? Response: The demographic information collected through questionnaires were age, sex, occupation, education, personal income, and smoking and used them as variables in our study. These variables are generally known not to be affected by recall bias. 3. This manuscript will benefit from better visualization of the data rather than tabulation. As such, I suggest that the authors move tables 2 and 6 to the supplementary data and replace them with box and whisker plots showing individual data points for all samples in the main manuscript for better clarity. Additionally, they should also update the box plot in Figure 2 to show all the individual data points in each group in addition to the box plots. Response: As per reviewer’s suggestion, we have included Tables 2 and 6 in the supplement and included their graphical representation in the main manuscript (please see Fig 2 and Fig 4 in the revised manuscript). Additionally, individual data points have been included in Fig 3 (Fig 2 in the previous manuscript). Reviewer # 2 Major comments 1. The odds ratios reported for periostin seem very large. Is there prior research with regard to the association between periostin and other health outcomes that could demonstrate the plausibility of these values? Can some information be added to assist with interpretation, given that the periostin values were log-transformed? Response: We used log transformed periostin value in our regression model to examine the association between periostin levels and the risk of skin lesion (Table 3 and Table 5 in the previous manuscript) to improve the estimation quality. If we don’t use log transformed values of periostin, the odds ratios will be small but corresponded well with the other studies showing the association between periostin and other health outcomes [Elhady et al., 2017; Yavuz et al., 2021; Ji et al., 2017]. We have included one statement in the discussion section regarding the similarities of our results with other studies on different health outcomes (please see lines: 334-335). Since periostin is a covariate here, normality assumption is not needed. We have revised Table 3 and Table 5 (Table 2 and Table 4 in the revised manuscript) with original (without log transformed) values of periostin. 2. Given that the mediation analysis is one of the highlighted findings in this manuscript, the methods used for the mediation analysis need to be described in more detail. There are several different methods used to perform mediation analysis, including more traditional methods (which are not recommended) as well as more advanced, sophisticated methods. At least a discussion of the possibility of residual confounding between the exposure and mediator and the mediator and outcome should be mentioned. A formal mediation analysis also requires a prospective study ideally, and this limitation should also be mentioned in the context of the mediation analysis. Response: Thank you for the valuable suggestion. We represented the causal relationship using direct, and indirect (mediated through periostin) effects which were estimated using the standard Baron-Kenny regression-based approach [Valeri and Vanderweele, 2013; VanderWeele and Vansteelandt, 2014]. We have postulated a directed acyclic graph (DAG) which has been included in the revised Manuscript (Fig S2). We have provided a short description on the mediation analysis in the “Statistical analysis” section (please see lines: 197-210) of the revised manuscript. We have also included the limitation of the analysis in the discussion section (please see lines: 396-400). Minor comments 1. Why not add periostin to Table 2? Response: The reviewer #1 has suggested that we move Table 2 into supplementary (Table S1 in the revised manuscript) and replace them with box and whisker plots. If we add periostin data to Table S1 (Table 2 in the previous manuscript) and present them with box and whisker plots, it will be redundant to another Figure (Fig 3A in the revised manuscript). To avoid the redundancy, the periostin data have not been presented in Table S1 and Fig 2. 2. It is not described, how the covariates were modeled/controlled for. For example, was education treated in categories or continuously? It is common place to add this information to table footnotes. Response: We described how the covariates were modeled in the statistical section (please see lines: 189-192 in the revised manuscript). We used education as categorical variable which was mentioned in the statistical section (please see lines: 177-179 in the revised manuscript). We also added this information to the table footnotes (Table 2, 3, and 4 in the revised manuscript). 3. Please use a consistent number of decimal places in text and tables. Even if the final decimal place is a zero, it should be included to show the degree of precision. Response: We have revised the text and tables according to the suggestion of the reviewer. Typos 1. Table four, odds ratio should be “odds ratios” Response: We have fixed the error (Table 3 in the revised manuscript). 2. Bottom of p. 10 (line 218), n=112 represents ¼ of the total participants, not ¼ of the participants with skin lesions. Response: We have revised it (please see lines: 230-231 in the revised manuscript). 3. A 2.3-fold increase (line 248) does not correspond to an odds ratio of 9.87. Response: We have revised it (please see line: 259 in the revised manuscript). 4. Line 265, “lesions in low-exposure area” should be “lesions in the low-exposure area. Response: We have revised it (please see line: 277 in the revised manuscript). 5. Line 281, “…without skin lesions, early-stage and advanced-stage…” should be “…without skin lesions, to those with early-stage and advanced-stage…” Response: We have revised it (please see line: 292 in the revised manuscript). 6. No comma is needed after “approximately” in line 389. Response: We have removed the comma (Please see line: 405 in the revised manuscript). Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0279893.r002
19 Dec 2022 Decision Letter - J. Christopher States, Editor Association between serum periostin levels and the severity of arsenic-induced skin lesions PONE-D-22-27210R1 Dear Dr. Hossain, 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, J. Christopher States 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 Reviewer #2: 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 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 ****** 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 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: (No Response) Reviewer #2: The web address given for data availability under Figshare led to a dataset from an unrelated manuscript. Please correct the address or provide more detailed instructions for how to access and search Figshare from a typical web browser. ****** 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: Yes: Mayukh Banerjee Reviewer #2: No ******** https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0279893.r003
Formally Accepted
26 Dec 2022 Acceptance Letter - J. Christopher States, Editor PONE-D-22-27210R1 Association between serum periostin levels and the severity of arsenic-induced skin lesions Dear Dr. Hossain: 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 J. Christopher States Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0279893.r004

Open letter on the publication of peer review reports

PLOS recognizes the benefits of transparency in the peer review process. Therefore, we enable the publication of all of the content of peer review and author responses alongside final, published articles. Reviewers remain anonymous, unless they choose to reveal their names.

We encourage other journals to join us in this initiative. We hope that our action inspires the community, including researchers, research funders, and research institutions, to recognize the benefits of published peer review reports for all parts of the research system.

Learn more at ASAPbio .