Potential benefits of advanced chelate-based trace minerals in improving bone mineralization, antioxidant status, immunity, and gene expression modulation in heat-stressed broilers

Taher Mohammadizad; Kamran Taherpour; Hossein Ali Ghasemi; Hassan Shirzadi; Fatemeh Tavakolinasab; Mohammad Hassan Nazaran

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0311083

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionJune 21, 2024
20 Aug 2024 Decision Letter - Ewa Tomaszewska, Editor PONE-D-24-23790Potential benefits of advanced chelate-based trace minerals in improving bone mineralization, oxidative status, humoral immunity, and gene expression modulation associated with antioxidation and immunity in heat-stressed broilersPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Taherpour, 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 Oct 04 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. 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Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: 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: The authors address an important on heat stress in poultry The manuscript is generally well written A few comments to address 1 The title is so wordy and complicated. Can the authors simplify the title and keep the words to about twenty The abstract requires an introductory statement on the topic of study instead of the “42 day experiment” Line 231 what is the reference gene? What are the limitations of the study? What is the strength of the study? ****** 6. 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Revision 1
26 Aug 2024 Author Response Dear Editor, “PLOS ONE” Journal Thank you very much for giving us an opportunity to revise our manuscript (PONE-D-24-23790). Following the reviewer's suggestion, we have shortened the paper's title to "Potential benefits of advanced chelate-based trace minerals in improving bone mineralization, antioxidant status, immunity, and gene expression modulation in heat-stressed broilers." We responded to the reviewer's comments individually, indicating exactly how we addressed each comment and describing the changes we made. The authors want to extend their appreciation for taking the time and effort necessary to provide such insightful guidance. Additionally, the points offered by the journal have been carefully considered. All authors have approved the revisions and used MS Word's "Track Changes" option to mark changes related to reviewer comments and structural changes. Formatting changes in accordance with the journal guidelines and the "PLOS ONE style templates" have been marked with yellow highlighting to better differentiate them. We hope that this revision improves the paper so that you and the reviewer deem it worthy of publication. Reviewer #1: The authors address an important on heat stress in poultry. The manuscript is generally well written. A few comments to address Response: Dear Reviewer, Thank you very much for your valuable comments on our manuscript. The authors have tried to be responsive to your comments and also responded to your comments. The lines mentioned in the parentheses are related to the highlighted version of the revised manuscript (with track change). 1 - The title is so wordy and complicated. Can the authors simplify the title and keep the words to about twenty Response: According to this comment, the length of the tile has been reduced to 21 words (L 4-7). 2- The abstract requires an introductory statement on the topic of study instead of the “42 day experiment” Response: Thank you for this comment. The following sentence has been added at the beginning of the abstract: (L 21-23) “Organic sources of trace minerals (TM) in broiler diets are more bioavailable and stable than inorganic sources, making them particularly beneficial during challenging periods such as heat stress (HS) conditions.“ 3- Line 231 what is the reference gene? Response: Addes as requested (L 225). 4- What are the limitations of the study? Response: Thank you for bringing up this important query. Insufficient funding is indeed a major limitation in conducting research, especially when it comes to exploring cellular and molecular details. In these areas, the higher costs associated with laboratory work often limit the scope of research. In this particular study, the researchers attempted to examine immune and antioxidant responses by analyzing the genes involved in active pathways. However, a more comprehensive analysis of all genes involved in these cases, as well as the examination of multiple tissues, would require additional funding. Additionally, conducting challenging studies like heat stress with complex instructions and following study protocols can be challenging and costly, which is a common limitation in these kinds of studies. 5- What is the strength of the study? Response: The strength of this study lies in its investigation of an organic trace mineral supplement using modern methods as a substitute for inorganic products. The study explores different replacement levels of inorganic supplements with organic supplements, as well as higher dietary supplemental levels of these supplements under stressful conditions. This is important because in commercial settings, feed is typically formulated with recommended levels of inorganic supplements. By comparing the effects of different dietary levels of organic supplements to the commercial levels of inorganic supplements, the study provides valuable insights into the potential benefits of using advanced chelate technology in improving bird performance and health in heat-stressed broilers. Additionally, the study uses a variety of measures to evaluate bone health, immune function, and oxidant/antioxidant status, which further strengthens its findings. Overall, this study highlights the potential benefits of advanced chelate technology in improving bird performance and health in heat-stressed broilers. Again, we appreciate all of your insightful comments. We hope our revision meet your approval. Best Regards, Authors Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0311083.r002
12 Sep 2024 Decision Letter - Ewa Tomaszewska, Editor Potential benefits of advanced chelate-based trace minerals in improving bone mineralization, antioxidant status, immunity, and gene expression modulation in heat-stressed broilers PONE-D-24-23790R1 Dear Dr. Kamran Taherpour, 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, Ewa Tomaszewska, DVM 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 ******** 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 ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: 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 ****** 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 ****** 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: the authors need to include the strength and limitations of the study they presented in the rebuttal letter in the discussion section ****** 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: ESTER LILIAN ACEN ******** https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0311083.r003
Formally Accepted
23 Sep 2024 Acceptance Letter - Ewa Tomaszewska, Editor PONE-D-24-23790R1 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Taherpour, 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 Professor Ewa Tomaszewska Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0311083.r004

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