Jolkinolide B inhibits the progression of hepatocellular carcinoma by regulating Musashi-2 protein

Tianchun Wu; Han Yang; Jinjin Li; Hongbo Fang; Xiaoyi Shi; Jie Li; Liushun Feng

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0299920

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionNovember 7, 2023
11 Dec 2023 Decision Letter - Kishor Pant, Editor PONE-D-23-36751Jolkinolide B inhibits the progression of hepatocellular carcinoma through regulating musashi-2 proteinPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Wu 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 Jan 25 2024 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. 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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: Based on the information presented in the study, the following concerns are proposed as prospective enhancements: Major revision. The manuscript represents the role of Jolkinolide B in the progression of hepatocellular carcinoma through the regulation of Musashi-2 protein; however, the authors did not investigate the mechanism in detail. They may detect changes in the survival signaling pathways such as STAT3, p53, AP-1, ATF6, or PI3K/AKT pathways. Minor revision. 1. The manuscript is standard English, though some errors should be rectified. 2. In the legends of Figures 3 and 4, gapdh should be GAPDH, and also in materials and method of RT-qPCR. 3. Project No. in the funding section needs to be included. Reviewer #2: The manuscript entitled “Jolkinolide B inhibits the progression of hepatocellular carcinoma through regulating musashi-2 protein” provides new insights that, Jolkinolide B as a potential candidate against hepatocellular carcinoma. It needs major revision to make the suitable for publication. 1. IC50 value of Jolkinolide B should be calculated. 2. Authors should confirm the apoptosis induced by Jolkinolide B, Annexin V or Tunnel assay in both lines. 3. In figure 2 legend, authors should mention concentration of JB and time of treatment of better understanding. 4. Similarly in Figure 3 and 4 legend, mention the treatment time. 5. Authors also should include the effect of JB on normal hepto cell lines. 6. All Western blots in manuscript should be quantified. ****** 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. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: PONE-D-23-36751_comments.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0299920.r001
Revision 1
3 Feb 2024 Author Response Dear Editor and Reviewer: Thank you for your letter and for the reviewer’s comments concerning our manuscript entitled “Jolkinolide B inhibits the progression of hepatocellular carcinoma by regulating Musashi-2 protein”. We very much appreciate all of the comments received in the review. Those comments are all valuable and very helpful for revising and improving our paper, as well as the important guiding significance to our researchers. We have studied these comments carefully and have made corrections accordingly. Our responses are given in a point-by-point manner below. Changes to the manuscript are shown with track changes. We hope the revised version is now suitable for publication and look forward to hearing from you in due course. Responds to the reviewer’s comments: Reviewer #1: Based on the information presented in the study, the following concerns are proposed as prospective enhancements: Major revision. The manuscript represents the role of Jolkinolide B in the progression of hepatocellular carcinoma through the regulation of Musashi-2 protein; however, the authors did not investigate the mechanism in detail. They may detect changes in the survival signaling pathways such as STAT3, p53, AP-1, ATF6, or PI3K/AKT pathways. Reply: We thank the reviewer’s question and following the reviewer’s suggestion, as p53 protein having an important role in inhibiting cancer progression, we have now detected the p53 protein expression in Jolkinolide B-induced HCC cell lines in Supplementary information. Minor revision. The manuscript is standard English, though some errors should be rectified. Reply: We thank the reviewer’s question. We have now reviewed and revised our manuscript with the help of native English-speakers. In the legends of Figures 3 and 4, gapdh should be GAPDH, and also in materials and method of RT-qPCR. Reply: We thank the reviewer’s question. We have now revised the writings in the manuscript. 3. Project No. in the funding section needs to be included. Reply: We thank the reviewer’s question. The project number in the funding section has been included in the revised manuscript. Reviewer #2: The manuscript entitled “Jolkinolide B inhibits the progression of hepatocellular carcinoma through regulating musashi-2 protein” provides new insights that, Jolkinolide B as a potential candidate against hepatocellular carcinoma. It needs major revision to make the suitable for publication. IC50 value of Jolkinolide B should be calculated. Reply: We thank the reviewer’s question and the IC50 values of Jolkinolide B in HCC cell lines have been calculated. 2.Authors should confirm the apoptosis induced by Jolkinolide B, Annexin V or Tunnel assay in both lines. Reply: We thank the reviewer’s question. We have detected the apoptosis of HCC cell lines treated by DMSO or Jolkinolide B administration by flow cytometry. 3. In figure 2 legend, authors should mention concentration of JB and time of treatment of better understanding. Reply: We thank the reviewer’s question and we are sorry for having not described the experiments more clearly. We have now provided the description of Jolkinolide B concentration and time of treatment in the revised manuscript. 4. Similarly in Figure 3 and 4 legends, mention the treatment time. Reply: We thank the reviewer’s question and we are sorry for having not described the experiments more clearly. We have now provided more precise description of Jolkinolide B’s treatment time in the revised manuscript. 5. Authors also should include the effect of JB on normal hepto cell lines. Reply: We thank the reviewer’s question and we now have detected the effect of Jolkinolide B on normal hepto cell line. 6. All Western blots in manuscript should be quantified. Reply: We thank the reviewer’s question and following the reviewer’s suggestion, we have quantified the normalized intensity band ratios of all western blots in revised manuscript. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewer.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0299920.r002
19 Feb 2024 Decision Letter - Kishor Pant, Editor Jolkinolide B inhibits the progression of hepatocellular carcinoma by regulating Musashi-2 protein PONE-D-23-36751R1 Dear Dr. Wu, 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, Kishor Pant Academic Editor PLOS ONE 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: (No Response) ******** 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: (No Response) ****** 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: (No Response) Reviewer #2: Manuscript looks good after revision and authors have made necessary changes according to reviewer's comments. So I would recommend for publication. ****** 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 ******** https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0299920.r003
Formally Accepted
5 Apr 2024 Acceptance Letter - Kishor Pant, Editor PONE-D-23-36751R1 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Wu, I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now being handed over to our production team. At this stage, our production department will prepare your paper for publication. This includes ensuring the following: * All references, tables, and figures are properly cited * All relevant supporting information is included in the manuscript submission, * There are no issues that prevent the paper from being properly typeset If revisions are needed, the production department will contact you directly to resolve them. If no revisions are needed, you will receive an email when the publication date has been set. At this time, we do not offer pre-publication proofs to authors during production of the accepted work. Please keep in mind that we are working through a large volume of accepted articles, so please give us a few weeks to review your paper and let you know the next and final steps. Lastly, 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 customercare@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. Kishor Pant Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0299920.r004

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