PONE-D-24-00404Evaluation of the mechanical properties of porcine kidneyPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Tan,

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Nitin Kumar Sharma, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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- Material characterization of the pig kidney in relation with the biomechanical analysis of renal trauma - https://doi.org/10.1016/S0021-9290(98)00180-8

- Sample, testing and analysis variables affecting liver mechanical properties: A review - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actbio.2016.08.055

- A unified viscoelastic model of progressive damage and failure for solid propellants - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijplas.2023.103765

- Multiscale viscoelastic constitutive modeling of solid propellants subjected to large deformation - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijsolstr.2022.112084

- Constitutive modeling of solid propellants for three dimensional nonlinear finite element analysis - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ast.2017.06.025

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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: Partly

Reviewer #2: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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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

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: 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: The paper titled "Evaluation of the Mechanical Properties of Porcine Kidney" by Zhao Zhang, Xianglong Tan*, Mengyang Li, Wubuliaisan Ma, Shangjian Zeng, and Yanqing Wu* investigates the mechanical properties of fresh porcine kidneys, focusing on their viscoelastic material behavior. I am having a hard time to figure out the novelty of this paper!

1) The term "fracture" for soft biological tissues does not seem accurate. Maybe rupture or tissue failure would be a better choice.

2) While the introduction well acknowledged the work that has been done so far, I am still confused what has been missing in the field that you try to address in this paper? just different strain rates? just different material models? I do not think all this is original enough for a publication!

3) What made you to choose such different strain rates? from 1 mm/min to 100 mm/s? you sure that is not a typo?

4) Abaqus has all these material models and can calculate these properties so why did you add to this?

5) Why even we need to know about the "fracture" of this tissue? You do not have any information in the paper that why do we need to know about this?

6) Could not find any limitation section?

Reviewer #2: Zhang et al show an interesting study on physical characteristics of porcine kidney based on experimental data (on tension, compression and relaxation) supported by constitutive modeling. However, poor presented/substantiated methodology and findings make it difficult to understand and impair overall impact of the work. Below are few comments to guide authors.

1. Abstract too long and conclusions may be made concise

2. Triaxial compression tests, how such a loading rate was selected and it compares to physiological values??

3. Uniaxial tension tests, why three strain rate values were selected and they compare to physiological values?

4. Relaxation tests: Why 20 mins and 3 mm (not less or more) for relaxation tests?

5. A lot of raw data is shown in but the relation among results obtained by different techniques (including effect of strain rate), and statistical caparison is missing (maybe bar chart?)

6. L197: Where did you calculate elastic modulus and which elastic modulus (E or K)?

7. L204: The justification for constitutive model selection is not provided, and physical significance of the selected parameters may be provided for better interpretation of the findings.

8. L266, L271,L272: Which strength?

9. Figs title may elaborate the fig to guide the reader.

10. Fig.1: Color contrast may be adjusted to improve contrast; Fig.2 & 3: units missing

11. Discussion fails to compare obtained modulus values to existing values in literature (e.g. ~ 1-10kPa range for Kidney). While authors obtain ~30kPa, such difference exists may be discussed…

12. Introduction may mention about the difference among tissues from different species….

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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PONE-D-24-00404R1Evaluation of the mechanical properties of porcine kidneyPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Tan,

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 Jul 13 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.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

• A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'.
• A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.
• An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Nitin Kumar Sharma, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

Additional Editor Comments:

Dear Authors,

Thanks for your efforts in revising the manuscript. After careful observation and looking in to the reviewers comments, I found that your findings are valuable in the field of biomedical science. However, there are few comments raised by the reviewers. You are welcome to address these comments and submit the revised version for further consideration. The comments are as given below;

Since the revised version don’t seem to provide sufficient literature references indicating physiological values that has been used by authors as a basis for their experiments and the edits made by authors based on suggestions seem unclear in the revised manuscript version (e.g edits in response to each comment need to be clearly indicated by corresponding Line numbers in manuscript), I would seek a major revision. The below points are merely indicative, and the authors should carefully revise the manuscript to significantly improve the reader’s confidence.

1. Triaxial compression tests, how such a loading rate was selected and it compares to physiological values??

“The strain rate equal or below 0.001/s can be viewed as static manner, …”

Is it percent strain rate may be clarified?

2. Uniaxial tension tests, why three strain rate values were selected and they compare to physiological values?

3. Three three strain rates selected here vary by two orders of magnitude and still considered quasistatic by authors.

4. Material and Methods: Contains a paragraph (L137- L149) that seems more like introductory.

5. Limitations of the study may be clarified

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

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)

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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: No

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

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: No

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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: (No Response)

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: (No Response)

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: Since the revised version don’t seem to provide sufficient literature references indicating physiological values that has been used by authors as a basis for their experiments and the edits made by authors based on suggestions seem unclear in the revised manuscript version (e.g edits in response to each comment need to be clearly indicated by corresponding Line numbers in manuscript), I would seek a major revision. The below points are merely indicative, and hence, the authors should carefully revise the manuscript to significantly improve the reader’s confidence.

1. Triaxial compression tests, how such a loading rate was selected and

it compares to physiological values??

“The strain rate equal or below 0.001/s can be viewed as static manner, …”

Is it percent strain rate may be clarified?

2. "Uniaxial tension tests, why three strain rate values were selected

and they compare to physiological values?"

Three three strain rates selected here vary by two orders of magnitude but still considered quasistatic by authors.

3. Material and Methods: Contains a paragraph (L137- L149) that seems more like introductory.

4. Limitations of the study may be clarified

**********

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

**********

[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

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Submitted filename: Review report_PONE-D-00404_R1.docx

Evaluation of the mechanical properties of porcine kidney

PONE-D-24-00404R2

Dear Dr. Tan,

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,

Nitin Kumar Sharma, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: