PONE-D-24-13758CagA toxin and risk of Helicobacter pylori-infected gastric phenotype: A meta-analysis of observational studiesPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Naing,

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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?

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Partly

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: No

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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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: No

Reviewer #3: No

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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: Dear Editorial office

It is my honour to read and review this nicely entitled paper by salomon et al “CagA toxin and risk of Helicobacter pylori-infected gastric phenotype: A meta-analysis of observational studies” submitted to Plos one. In principle I found it suitable for publication here pending your corrections.

1- The title seems fine and no change warranted.

2- Abstract is too general-like, so please enrich it

3- Abstract “To confirm these findings, well-designed studies with sufficient samples are recommended.” Is not absolutely a good text for here, remove it.

4- Page 4, line 76, why there are two major types of reference methods? “epithelial cells [4],4 which” revise it for revision.

5- Introduction section sentence “This reflects that, in

addition to its urease activity, H. pylori possesses additional virulence factors that are required to enable it to colonize and survive in the stomach's acid environment.” We need the below text references

** Abadi, A. T. B. (2017). Strategies used by helicobacter pylori to establish persistent infection. World journal of Gastroenterology, 23(16), 2870.

*** Israel, Dawn A., and Richard M. Peek Jr. "The role of persistence in Helicobacter pylori pathogenesis." Current opinion in gastroenterology 22.1 (2006): 3-7.

6- Prisma check list and other related files are fine and I have no word. The total writing style in this paper is good actually.

7- Publication bias and its likely impact should be well-indicated in the revised version.

8- While i am reading the discussion, I can not find the exact novelty of this research although I know how precious IS THIS research. Please indicate all novelty points of this research in new version.

9- Some of the references are outdatred, please revise them all.

10- Hpylori should be italic throughout the paper.

11- A minor polish for English is also needed.

Reviewer #2: Dear authors,

This is a meta-analysis dealing with the prevalence of CagA toxin and risk of Helicobacter pylori-infected gastric phenotype in Indo-Pacific region. The authors came to the conclusion that the distribution of CagA in Helicobacter pylori-infected gastric disorders varies throughout the eight Indo-Pacific countries, and CagA has a role in the development of gastric cancer.

The article is well-written however it does not add any new findings to the well known evidence regarding the relationship of Helicobacter pylori infection and gastric cancer.

Reviewer #3: I congratulate the authors for a good work, though it requires some modifications which I have included in the manuscript. Authors should also revise the introduction and make it a background and not sort of discussion.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: Yes: JAMES Joseph YAHAYA

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: PONE-D-24-13758 (1) MANUSCRIPT WITH REVIEW COMMENTS.docx

CagA toxin and risk of Helicobacter pylori-infected gastric phenotype: A meta-analysis of observational studies

PONE-D-24-13758R1

Dear Dr. Naing,

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.

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Kind regards,

Tomasz M. Karpiński, Prof.

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

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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

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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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

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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

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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: well done

all revisions can help the authors to present the better version of the paper

now I have no extra comments for the authors

Reviewer #2: Dear authors, thank you so much for your efforts. The quality of the manuscript had improved muchly in the current version.

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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

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