Diet modulates strongyle infection and microbiota in the large intestine of horses

Noémie Laroche; Pauline Grimm; Samy Julliand; Gabriele Sorci

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0301920

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionDecember 19, 2023
22 Feb 2024 Decision Letter - Harvie P. Portugaliza, Editor PONE-D-23-42676Diet modulates strongyle infection and microbiota in the large intestine of horsesPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Laroche, 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 Apr 07 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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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. 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(Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: Dear Authors Concerning your manuscript PONE-D-23-42676 Article Type: Research Article “Diet modulates strongyle infection and microbiota in the large intestine of horses”, I believe it is a very interesting field of applied parasitology and microbiology of domestic and wild equids, namely because horse’s feed/food may promote and/or interfere with both. Besides, since the research on this sense is in need, this paper comes in a good timing, so that countries more prone to horse production can have access to this type of data, since its main conclusions can drive veterinarians, horse producers and owners for a more comprehensive work together, towards a more assertive way of managing horse feeding and its consequences on both gastrointestinal parasitic disease and gut microbiology, which can impact seriously the digestion, gut health and performance. Besides what will be pointed out, namely that your manuscript has potential to be published, the final decision on the publication of your manuscript at PLOS ONE, depends on the Editor final statement. Regarding my reviews and comments, they are as follows: Key-words As long as there is a specific limit for this item, I suggest adding the word “horse”. Introduction Page 3 – You focused too much your attention on the impacts of parasites and their consequences in ruminants. Taken that your manuscript deals with horse parasites, you should write something on this sense, regarding the impact of parasites on their health, production and anthelmintic resistance. Page 4, Lines 82-84 – I don’t see the need of inserting here this citation regarding a protozoan, a blood parasite, from mice, when previously you mentioned the importance of food in host’s resistance and tolerance to helminths. Therefore I recommend to remove it, because it can also be confusing for the reader. Materials and Methods Page 9 Lines 181-182 – It is not clear the way you collect the L3 from the cultures: the Petri dishes were washed? The Whatman filter paper with culture are inverted and placed in a Baermann apparatus? Please be more specific. Results Pages 20, Line 428 – Instead of “…Volatil Fatty Acids…”, write “…Volatile Fatty Acids…”. Discussion Page 25, Line 551 – Instead of “…infesting larvae…”, you should write “…infective larvae…”. Limitations Page 26 – You should give a perspective of an ideal or optimal timespan for a longer field trial like this using a Latin Square Design to assess the same factors in horse parasitism level, both for each period and for the whole extent of the trial, eg., 2 months instead of 21 days and 1 year, instead of 4 months. It would be interesting also to mention the economical part of such an important set of experiments like these ones you performed with horses, because I feel that available animals and funding is crucial for such a complex study like the one you did. Therefore, perhaps it would be important that you could share your thoughts on this matter, namely if the industry connected with horse production and private horse stud farms should be more engaged in funding this sort of research that is applied, but at the same time fundamental, regarding horse’s health and welfare. Conclusions Page 26, Line 590 – Instead of “…level of infection of the pasture…”, write “…level of the pasture contamination…”. The grass/herbage, does not get infected, but just contaminated. Page 27, Lines 596 – 602 – Although your statements here are very important, this is not a direct conclusion from your work, therefore I advise one of two things: a) Change the title to Conclusions and Future perspectives; or b) Create a a new title after the Conclusions one for Future perspectives and besides other thoughts, move the ones between lines 596 and 602 to this new chapter. References Check if all Latin names, whether from parasites or hosts, are well written and/or in italic, because they must. See for instance references 7 and 8. Best regards and good luck with your amendments. Reviewer Reviewer #2: The Manuscript entitled: “Diet modulates strongyle infection and microbiota in the large intestine of horses” is interesting, fits the journal's profile but needs some explanations. In Introduction is a lack of hypothesis of the study, please add. I suggest moving the information from l.111 – l.115 to another place in the text, maybe to Material and Methods. Was the nutritional value of the feed analyzed or are these values calculated (Table 1)? Please provide detailed information on which microscope the measurements were taken. What was the internal standard used for the VFAs analyses? What column was used, please provide precise parameters? What was the carrier gas used? In the discussion, I would suggest more references to current literature. ****** 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. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0301920.r001
Revision 1
8 Mar 2024 Author Response Reviewer #1 Key-words As long as there is a specific limit for this item, I suggest adding the word “horse”. Response : Done. Introduction Page 3 – You focused too much your attention on the impacts of parasites and their consequences in ruminants. Taken that your manuscript deals with horse parasites, you should write something on this sense, regarding the impact of parasites on their health, production, and anthelmintic resistance. Response: We agree with this comment. We have added information about the impact of intestinal parasitism on horses' health and anthelmintic resistance in this species. (references added: 4,6, 9,13) Page 4, Lines 82-84 – I don’t see the need of inserting here this citation regarding a protozoan, a blood parasite, from mice, when previously you mentioned the importance of food in host’s resistance and tolerance to helminths. Therefore, I recommend to remove it, because it can also be confusing for the reader. Response: We agree with this suggestion, and we removed it. Materials and Methods Page 9 Lines 181-182 – It is not clear the way you collect the L3 from the cultures: the Petri dishes were washed? The Whatman filter paper with culture are inverted and placed in a Baermann apparatus? Please be more specific. Response : We explained this method with more detail in the manuscript (line 181-182 in the revised manuscript with track changes). Results Pages 20, Line 428 – Instead of “…Volatil Fatty Acids…”, write “…Volatile Fatty Acids…”. Response: Corrected. Discussion Page 25, Line 551 – Instead of “…infesting larvae…”, you should write “…infective larvae…”. Response: Corrected. Limitations Page 26 – You should give a perspective of an ideal or optimal timespan for a longer field trial like this using a Latin Square Design to assess the same factors in horse parasitism level, both for each period and for the whole extent of the trial, eg., 2 months instead of 21 days and 1 year, instead of 4 months. Response: Thank you for this suggestion. We have included a perspective in that direction from lines 587 to 589 in the revised manuscript with track changes. It would be interesting also to mention the economical part of such an important set of experiments like these ones you performed with horses, because I feel that available animals and funding is crucial for such a complex study like the one you did. Therefore, perhaps it would be important that you could share your thoughts on this matter, namely if the industry connected with horse production and private horse stud farms should be more engaged in funding this sort of research that is applied, but at the same time fundamental, regarding horse’s health and welfare. Response : Following the referee's suggestion, we have included our thoughts on the importance of the funding of this type of experiments in our “Conclusions and Future perspectives” from line 609 to 612 in the revised manuscript with track changes. Conclusions Page 26, Line 590 – Instead of “…level of infection of the pasture…”, write “…level of the pasture contamination…”. The grass/herbage, does not get infected, but just contaminated. Response: Corrected. Page 27, Lines 596 – 602 – Although your statements here are very important, this is not a direct conclusion from your work, therefore I advise one of two things: a) Change the title to Conclusions and Future perspectives; or b) Create a new title after the Conclusions one for Future perspectives and besides other thoughts, move the ones between lines 596 and 602 to this new chapter. Response: The title has been changed to 'Conclusions and Future Perspectives'. References Check if all Latin names, whether from parasites or hosts, are well written and/or in italic, because they must. See for instance references 7 and 8. Response: Done. Reviewer #2 In Introduction is a lack of hypothesis of the study, please add. Response: We agree with this comment, and we have included our predictions at the end of the introduction from line 120 to line 123 in revised manuscript with track changes. I suggest moving the information from l.111 – l.115 to another place in the text, maybe to Material and Methods. Response: We have merged this paragraph with the predictions at the end of the introduction, which helps understanding the aims of our study. Was the nutritional value of the feed analyzed or are these values calculated (Table 1)? Response: The nutritional value of each raw material was analyzed by Dairy One laboratory (Ithaca, USA). We added this information to line 158 in the revised manuscript with track changes. Please provide detailed information on which microscope the measurements were taken. Response: We have added the microscope references in the revised manuscript with track changes at lines 177, 184, and 258. What was the internal standard used for the VFAs analyses? What column was used, please provide precise parameters? What was the carrier gas used? Response: We have added this information from line 237 to 240 in the revised manuscript with track changes. In the discussion, I would suggest more references to current literature. Response: The following references have been added to provide more references to current literature: 48, 54, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 65 and 66. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.pdf https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0301920.r002
25 Mar 2024 Decision Letter - Harvie P. Portugaliza, Editor Diet modulates strongyle infection and microbiota in the large intestine of horses PONE-D-23-42676R1 Dear Dr. Laroche, 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 will be generated when your article is formally accepted. Please note, if your institution has a publishing partnership with PLOS and your article meets the relevant criteria, all or part of your publication costs will be covered. Please make sure your user information is up-to-date by logging into Editorial Manager at Editorial Manager® and clicking the ‘Update My Information' link at the top of the page. If you have any questions relating to publication charges, 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, Harvie P. Portugaliza, D.V.M., Ph.D. Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0301920.r003
Formally Accepted
29 Mar 2024 Acceptance Letter - Harvie P. Portugaliza, Editor PONE-D-23-42676R1 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Laroche, 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. Harvie P. Portugaliza Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0301920.r004

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