PONE-D-23-32117Time-course analysis of liver and serum galectin-3 in acute liver injury after alpha-galactosylceramide injectionPLOS ONE

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Reviewer #1: Partly

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

Reviewer #1: No

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Reviewer #1: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

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Reviewer #1: This paper follows galectin-3 expression, fibrosis and inflammatory markers in liver and serum after injection with aGalCer in mice. The focus on an early time course and a very specific type of liver injury is very interesting and worthwhile. The authors also compare with two chronic models: NASH and primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC). The data are convincing and interesting, and well discussed. However a main point and some smaller need to be addressed.

The number of mice used needs to be mentioned for each experiments, e.g. in figure and table legends, and also what the error shown (+/- in Table, bars in figures) is, e.g. SD or SEM. and statistics. As this reviewer understands, aGalCer was injected ip only once, and then the mice followed. Does it give liver injury every time ? Or were there any cases of no (or too little effect) and were these also included in the results, or were they deleted as failed (no take) experiments?

In Fig 3, 4A and B and 5 B and C it would be better to show mean and individual data pouts instead of error bars as now.

The correlation in Fig. 4C is not very striking and convincing, but worth showing more for the lack of correlation.

In head of Table 1, it says ug/ml for serum Gal-3, but should perhaps be ng/ml as said in legend?

Some more recent up to date overview of galectins would be nice to include in reference list besides Ref 1-3.

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Reviewer #1: No

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Time-course analysis of liver and serum galectin-3 in acute liver injury after alpha-galactosylceramide injection

PONE-D-23-32117R1

Dear Dr. Matsuo,

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,

Lu-Gang Yu, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE