PONE-D-22-34334Staphylococcus aureus binding to Seraph® 100 Microbind® Affinity Filter: Effects of surface protein expression and treatment durationPLOS ONE

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PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments:

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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

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: I Don't Know

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: PONE-D-22-34334

Abstract section

1. Please include the level of significant in the abstract section. i.e The result obtained shows a significant effect of ……………………….. (p ≤ 0.05).

2. I therefore suggest that the abstract should be rewritten in the following pattern to illuminate on key finding from this study.

a. Brief introduction

b. Aim and objectives

c. Key and most important results

d. Conclusion and contribution to knowledge.

e. Please provide a more quantitative data rather more descriptive data.

Introduction

1. Please kindly recast this sentence ‘Sepsis is a serious worldwide health threat and affects annually 30 to 50 million people worldwide’’. You can change it to Sepsis is a serious worldwide health threat that has been reported to affects annually 30 to 50 million people worldwide.

2. Please kindly recast this ‘’Hence, the WHO ranks sepsis a “key issue for global health”

3. Please kindly recast this and don’t start a sentence with ‘’Increasing’’ from this sentence ‘’Increasing antibiotic resistance in bacteria further complicates treatment of these infections.’’

4. Please kindly recast this ‘’Staphylococcus aureus is one of the most frequent and dangerous pathogens that, in addition to mild skin and soft tissue infections, can cause systemic infections as pneumonia, endocarditis or sepsis’’

5. Please kindly recast this ‘’Patients after surgery or those receiving continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis or hemodialysis have a higher risk to get infected with this pathogen’’

6. The authors needs to clearly states the aims and objective of this study very clearly. You need to start this in a new paragraph.

Result

6. Please kindly provide a recent reference to support the following experiment by saying this experiment was carried out using the methodology developed by (Ten et al., 2023)

a.S. aureus binding experiments with miniaturized Seraph adsorbers (micro columns)

b.S. aureus binding experiments with Seraph® 100 Microbind® Affinity blood adsorber

c.Bacteria cell counting and enumeration assay

7. I would like to encourage the author's to clarify the experimental design. A clear experimental design with the treatments and replicates clearly described is mandatory for the acceptance of the manuscript. The statistical analysis and corresponding results also need to be clearly presented. Please add the F values, the degrees of freedom and the precise p values obtained. The assumptions of ANOVA were tested? The software was manufactured in which year?

8. The author should try to better show the results of the statistical analysis, at least indicating the higher significant p-value obtained for each test (e.g. p ≤ 0.0…) throughout the result section.

9. Please improve the quality and the resolution of figures. Some of them are very hard to read/see-.Most especially figure 2,34.

10. Please include the level of stastical analysis at the figure caption of each figures most especially figure

11. Please provide a more quantitative data rather more descriptive data.

12. Please include the level of significant in figure and also Please include the level of stastical analysis at the figure caption of each figures most especially the figures

13. Please replace the old references

14. Please provide the geographical location where the experiment was carried out i.e town (8°8′0″N, 4°16′0″E).

Discussion section

1. The author need to relate the results obtained during this study with relevant discussion and compare the results obtained to previously results from other researchers

2. The manuscript is based on a very good concept methodologically executed but poorly written. The methods failed to align with the result with the discussion. Authors need to surrender this paper to serious editorial review by an English expert or language skilled colleague. This would illuminate the manuscript and makes it more comprehensive.

References

The authors should check the reference if they are in accordance with the format stipulated by the journal.

Reviewer #2: The study describes the binding affinity of Staphylococcus aureus to the Seraph® 100 Microbind® Affinity Filter, and analyzed the effects of surface protein expression and treatment duration on the rate of binding and population reduction in the original substrate.

The manuscript was generally well written, and the methods used were appropriate.

The introduction section was well written and captures the background of the study appropriately.

Again the materials and methods were explained in detailed and allows for reproducibility.

However, the result section was not explicit enough as a lot of the methods were repeated, and a significant amount of the data generated were left out, and not comprehensively expressed in the result section.

Also, inferences that should be explained and discussed in the discussion section were expressed under results.

The discussion also could be more explicit to drive home the points and findings of the authors.

The figures and tables were adequate and explanatory.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Prof Charles Oluwaseun Adetunji

Reviewer #2: No

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: PONE-D-22-34334_reviewed.pdf

Staphylococcus aureus binding to Seraph® 100 Microbind® Affinity Filter: Effects of surface protein expression and treatment duration

PONE-D-22-34334R1

Dear Dr. Susanne Engelmann,

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.

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Kind regards,

Awatif Abid Al-Judaibi, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE