PONE-D-24-40118In vitro and in vivo evaluation of Ulva lactuca for wound healingPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Tai,

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Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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“•          Initials of the authors who received each award：Kuo-Feng Tai; Chien-Hsing Wang

•            Grant numbers awarded to each author：TCCT-1111A13

•            The full name of each funder：Tzu Chi University

•            URL of each funder website：https://rnd.tcust.edu.tw/?Lang=zh-tw

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

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: Yes

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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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

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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 manuscript is about investigating wound healing, antioxidation, anti-inflation and cell profanation. There are a suite of tools that they used to reach their conclusion. Although the authors claimed that there is a lack in the information about the role of Ulva, they mentioned several similar studies in the Discussion. They should mention exactly in which ways their work is different

1- Line 34: should start with a capital letter

2- why did the authors used the phosphate-buffered saline solution instead of the ointments used normally for the injury to compare the effect with what is used normally?

3- it would be useful to have information about using the combination of the two extracts

4- several sentences in the introduction part need references to validate them, especially the first 3 sentences, and the line 70-73

5- In Material and Methods: Please mention the type of the flask the seaweed powder and the ethanol were put in, because at 60 ethanol will evaporate. Also mention the concentration of the ethanol used

6- line 167: remove the extra word “ethanol”

7- please justify the use of only female mice

8- Results: line 203: add “extract” after the aqueous

9- In the caption of figure 1, please add the number of replicates

10- Please add the scale for the bar on the images

11- Line 257-260: should be in the materials and the methods

12- It would be more informative if the photos were analyzed using image processing tool to validate the measurements

13- The Discussion section needs more information to elaborate further on the possible causes that enhanced the recovery. Which are the potential active compounds that could contribute to the healing?

14- The conclusion part needs to be reformulated and should be to the point giving the take-home message, and not repeating the results.

Reviewer #2: This study investigates the effects of the seaweed Ulva lactuca (U. lactuca) extracts on wound healing, encompassing both in vitro and in vivo experiments. The research topic is novel and holds practical value. The experimental design is mostly sound, and the data analysis methods are appropriate. However, several issues require further improvements.

1. The introduction lacks sufficient background information on U. lactuca. It is recommended to supplement it with more extensive literature reviews on its components and bioactivity to provide a stronger theoretical basis for the study.

2. In the results section, the statistical analysis for Figure 2 should include significance indicators in the figure legends. The results of the cell migration assay in Figure 4 should be quantitatively analyzed, providing data on migration rates.

3. It is suggested that the discussion section compares the findings of this study with other research on seaweed-promoted wound healing, highlighting similarities and differences.

Overall, while this study presents interesting findings on the wound healing properties of U. lactuca extracts, addressing the above points would significantly enhance the manuscript's quality and impact. The authors are encouraged to carefully consider these suggestions in their revision.

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Reviewer #1: Yes:

Reviewer #2: Yes: 

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In vitro and in vivo evaluation of Ulva lactuca for wound healing

PONE-D-24-40118R1

Dear Dr. Tai,

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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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,

Satheesh Sathianeson, Ph.D

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: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: The authors have well addressed the reviewers' concerns. I have no other comments. The revised paper can be accepted.

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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: Yes:

Reviewer #2: Yes: 

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