PONE-D-24-18526Extended spectrum-lactamase (ESBL)-producing E. coli causing urinary tract infection among adult and pediatric patients in public hospitals in northern JordanPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. al-magableh,

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.

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Please submit your revised manuscript by Aug 18 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,

Tebelay Dilnessa, MSc

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements.

1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at 

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and 

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf

2. We noticed you have some minor occurrence of overlapping text with the following previous publication(s), which needs to be addressed:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=40114

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0924857903002334?via%3Dihub

In your revision ensure you cite all your sources (including your own works), and quote or rephrase any duplicated text outside the methods section. Further consideration is dependent on these concerns being addressed.

3. Please include captions for your Supporting Information files at the end of your manuscript, and update any in-text citations to match accordingly. Please see our Supporting Information guidelines for more information: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/supporting-information.

Additional Editor Comments:

• The paper raises a critical public health importance even though it was written carelessly. Totally, I share the two reviewers’ concern. At this time, I do not give you a point-by-point comment, rather thinking that the paper will be improved and to be written to the scientific standard, and PLOS ONE manuscript writing protocol I generously give you the chance to revise the paper extensively.
• The laboratory method should be written properly.
• Tables and figures descriptions should be well explanatory in terms of person, place and time.
• The citations were not correct and follow the protocol of PLOS ONE.
• Conclusion and/or recommendation was required.
• Figures should be prepared without description in tif and uploaded. The descriptions and legends should be placed within the text where you cited.
• The following should be added:Funding, Availability of data and materials , Competing interests, Acknowledgments (if any), etc.

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

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: No

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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: No

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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: No

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: Reviewer comment

Although the paper focuses on an important public heath problem and used advanced methods for gene detection it has major problems as follows:

Generally in the material and method section

The paper does not put the study area; study design and study period; source population; study population; inclusion and exclusion criteria of participants clearly.

The sample collection, bacterial identification and antibiotic susceptibility test are not described in detail and clear manner.

The reference guideline (CLSI or…) used for to say resistance, intermediate and sensitive is not mentioned.

The pcr condition, cycles, volumes …… totally not described.

The data analysis, quality control not included

In result section

The results written for each section is too shallow please elaborate more.

The tables for AST result (4 and 5) only described in percentage please include the number or frequency

The table title for table 4 it should be above the table

All the table titles and figure legends are too shallow. The tables and figures should be self explanatory.

No conclusion after the discussion

In general the manuscript has many problems which are difficult to comment line by line.

Reviewer #2: I have reviewed the manuscript entitled “Extended spectrum-lactamase (ESBL)-producing E. coli causing urinary tract infection among adult and pediatric patients in public hospitals in northern Jordan” submitted for possible publication in the journal “PlosOne”. Although the study provides a very important topic and addresses a global issue, it lacks the authentication of study. No doubt that the authors have done great efforts, but I will strongly suggest to add more data and the resubmit it. Because the results in the current form are very less and basic which needs to be improve. Some of my comments are:

1. Line 86-88: Time duration should be increase to get more number of isolates.

2. Line 87: Why only pregnant women and children? The authors should clarify and inclusion criteria and then amend the title accordingly.

3. Line 92: correct “°C”.

4. The bacterial identification criteria were not mentioned. Mention the exact criteria of bacterial identification or otherwise put the references.

5. Line 100: Why after the bacterial lawning, air dried the plates for 15 minutes? Any reference ?

6. Line 99: 0.5% McFarland standard.

7. Line 115-117: mention the bacterial species e.g., A. baumannii etc.

8. Line 119: here the authors has mentioned “Adults” but in methods “pregnant women” please clarify.

9. The authors have not mentioned about the CLSI or any other guidelines for AST testing which reduces the strength of study. Many of the drugs mentioned in table 4 and 5 are currently not using for all of the mentioned bacterial isolates. Please refer to any recent CLSI guidelines.

10. There is no conclusion section.

11. Figure 1: redundant with tables. Also according to the figure legend it should be age-wise groups.

12. Figure 2: redundant with tables.

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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: Yes:  Dr. Naveed Ahmed

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[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

Attachment

Submitted filename: Reviewer comment for PLOS ONE.docx

PONE-D-24-18526R1Extended spectrum-lactamase (ESBL)-producing E. coli causing urinary tract infection among pregnant women and pediatric patients in public hospitals in northern JordanPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. al-magableh,

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 Jan 11 2025 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,

Tebelay Dilnessa, MSc

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments:

• The manuscript was significantly improved, but it requires a through revision.
• In the abstract, use at least the two versions at the same time for abbreviations, e.g, Urinary tract infections (UTI),…….
• There was no ‘objective’ of the study in the abstract part
• When, where and from whom the study was conducted? It should be included in both the abstract and the methods part.
• How could you collect the sample? What type of urine sample was collected?
• In the abstract and result, the absolute number (numerator and denominator) is needed together with the percentage. For example, in the abstract for E. coli A/B (71.4%).
• Your conclusion is explanation. Please make it conclusion, and try to decrease the numbers.
• All key words are abbreviations, please write their long form
• Paragraphing was needed throughout the document, especially in the introduction and discussion part.
• It is better you organize the ‘Materials and Methods’ part as follows

Materials and Methods

Study area and setting

Study design and period

Study population

Sample size determination and sampling technique (if any)

Samples collection and bacterial isolation

Ethical Considerations

• A separate ‘Ethical consideration’ statement is needed.
• Table 1 was not needed. You can write it as a statement. The antimicrobials used were ampicillin (AMP, 10µg), norfloxacin (NOR, 10µg), ……………..
• Line 123: Bacterial isolates, not bacterial isolation and identification
• Line 124: A sentence cannot start by number and abbreviation. ‘70 bacterial isolates were identified…..’ It is better written as, ‘Seventy bacterial isolates were identified…..’
• Line 150: The following should be below the tables. R: Resistant; S: Susceptible; I: Intermediate.
• Line 160: Table 6: MAR values for all tested isolates. Please write the long form of “MAR” and the description should be full in terms of person, place and time.
• Line 163: ……was the most frequent (n= 26, 52%) followed by ESβLCTXM (N= 19, 38%) (Figure 1 & 2).
• Critically revise citations of figures and tables.
• Funding, Availability of data and materials, Competing interests and Acknowledgments should be written in standard English.
• Tables are too poor and you have to prepare them properly.
• The references were not written properly. All references should be written correctly according to Vancouver style.
• Use the alignment ‘Justify’ for the text throughout the manuscript
• The reference writing was not correct and need revision
• Follow the standard binomial nomenclature, italize journal name and the word ‘et al’
• Follow the guideline for manuscript writing protocol for PLoS One.

[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: (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: Partly

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

Reviewer #1: 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

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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

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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: Reviewer comment

The authors have addressed most of the previous reviewer comments; however, the manuscript still has many problems.

Line 1: insert symbol for beta before word lactamase

Line 23-24: remove this sentence “and is responsible for 60-80% of these infections.”

Line 24-25: replace this sentence “UTI is classified based on clinical presentation and diagnosis into upper UTI and lower UTI” with this: “based on the clinical presentation and diagnosis UTI classified into upper and lower UTI”

Line 32,33,39 ,126,127,133 and other parts of the manuscript write the scientific name of bacterial isolates correctly: species name is not started in capital letter: write Klebsiella pneumoniae correctly

"Line 40 states, 'Multiple antibiotic resistance.' What does it mean? Does it refer to 'multidrug resistant'?"

Line 41: “0.62” change it in to percentage

Line 37-44: The conclusion section in the abstract appears to present specific results rather than a conclusion. Please provide a general conclusion of the study based on your results.

I started assessing the manuscript line by line, but I couldn’t reach the end because it is full of errors

General comments

Some scientific name of bacterial isolates note written correctly.

There no definition or criteria for multidrug resistance isolates

Conclusion statement in the abstract and the conclusion section are completely different.

In the method section

The ethical statement is included in the study design section

Please list the names of the antibiotics used in a statement rather than in a table.

There no reference putted for the for CLSI in the method section

Please provide the detailed PCR conditions in a statement rather than in a table, starting from the initial denaturation to the final extension.

The author comparing the prevalence of bacterial isolates and antibiotic resistance results among different groups without including statistical significance values

In some cases, the author uses only the genus, while in others, species of isolates are used. See Tables 4, 5, 6, and others.

Finally, although this study used advanced methods like VITAKE and PCR, the authors need a well-experienced microbiologist to understand the results and rewrite the manuscript. Moreover, the author needs individuals for proofreading in English for grammar, spelling, coherence, and flow of sentence.

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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

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[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

Attachment

Submitted filename: Reviewer comment aftrer revision.docx

PONE-D-24-18526R2Extended spectrum β-lactamase (ESβL)-producing E. coli causing urinary tract infection among pregnant women and pediatric patients in public hospitals in northern JordanPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. al-magableh,

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 Feb 13 2025 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,

Tebelay Dilnessa, MSc

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

- It is expected the author critically see the comments and incorporate or respond to the comments.

- Follow critically the submission guideline, specially the declariation part. It should be formal as follows.

Funding

This research received no specific fund.

Availability of data and materials

All data information generated in this study was included in the manuscript.

Competing interests

Authors declare that they have no competing interests.

[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: (No Response)

Reviewer #3: (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: Partly

Reviewer #3: Partly

**********

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

Reviewer #1: N/A

Reviewer #3: 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

Reviewer #3: 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: No

Reviewer #3: No

**********

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: Although the authors addressed some of my previous comments, the manuscript still requires significant revisions. Many sections need to be rewritten by a medical microbiologist to ensure accuracy and clarity. Below are some comments; however, it is challenging to fully assess the manuscript due to its current state.

• The gel picture is snipped one put picture that show the ends of the gel

• Figure2 is not labeled like ladder (label as 100bp, 200bp, 300bp… up to the target gene)

• Genes detected not labeled in the figure (look other publications)

• Discussion should start by explaining your work not others

• Line 185-191 shows the comparison of others work without even indicating your work

• The result of molecular work not well written both in the result and discussion section

• Figure 1 only shows result of two genes what about the other two even if they were not detected they should be indicated as zero in frequency or percentage

• Table titles are not included the study area and time.

• The term "multiple antibiotic resistance" is incorrect and should be replaced with "multidrug resistance (MDR)." Please use the provided reference for identifying and counting MDR isolates.

o (Magiorakos A-P, Srinivasan A, Carey RB, Carmeli Y, Falagas M, Giske C, et al. Multidrug-resistant, extensively drug-resistant and pandrug-resistant bacteria: an international expert proposal for interim standard definitions for acquired resistance. Clinical microbiology and infection. 2012;18(3):268-81.)

Reviewer #3: Abstract

1. Background: The sentence "Based on the clinical presentation and diagnosis, UTI is classified into upper and lower UTI" should be removed. Instead, focus on the main gaps identified that led to the selection of the study title.

2. Methodology: The methodology section is underdeveloped. Please expand it to include the total number of study participants, the sampling technique used, and the methods for data entry and analysis.

3. Results: Acceptable as is.

4. Conclusion: The conclusion section is fine, but it is recommended to remove any percentage descriptions.

Introduction

1. The introduction does not provide a clear explanation of extended spectrum β-lactamase (ESβL)-producing E. coli in relation to urinary tract infections (UTIs) among pregnant women and pediatric patients. Revise to make this connection clearer.

2. Clarify how the study title was selected. What specific gaps or issues prompted this title?

3. Provide scientific reasoning or evidence to explain the occurrence of UTI relapse in the study population.

4. Use updated references to strengthen the introduction.

5. Overall, rewrite the introduction to improve clarity and focus on the study's objectives and significance.

Methods

1. The ethical considerations should not be included under "Study Setting and Population". Please move it to a separate section for clarity.

2. Key sections are missing, including source and study population, sample size determination, sampling technique, and data analysis methods. Include a description of the data collection procedure, along with details on data entry and data analysis.

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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 #3: 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.

PONE-D-24-18526R3Extended spectrum β-lactamase (ESβL)-producing E. coli causing urinary tract infection among pregnant women and pediatric patients in public hospitals in northern JordanPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. al-magableh,

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 Mar 09 2025 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,

Tebelay Dilnessa, MSc

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:

• Line 27: Methods: This study was conducted in Public-Teaching Hospitals in……
• Why you use outdated CLSI guidelines (ref. 32 and 33) than updated CLSI, 2023 and 2024 guidelines
• These must be changed by updated one. ‘32. CLSI. Performance Standards for Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing. 27th ed. CLSI supplement M100. Wayne, PA: Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute; 2017; 33. CLSI. Performance Standards for Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing. 23th ed. CLSI supplement M100. Wayne, PA: Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute; 2013’.
• Tables and figures descriptions should be well explanatory in terms of person, place and time.
• Figure 2 should be prepared without title/figure description (It said Figure 1: Detection of ESBL in E. coli isolates. Even the figure is number 2, but you said Figure 1.
• You did not give response to the editor. I repeatedly told you that you have to follow the journal manuscript writing protocol.

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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 #3: (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 #3: Yes

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

Reviewer #3: 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 #3: (No Response)

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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 #3: Yes

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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 #3: (No Response)

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Reviewer #3: Yes:  Abebe Fenta (MSc in Medical parasitology & vector control, MPH in Epidemiology)

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: 2nd Review report for Plose one.pdf

Extended spectrum β-lactamase (ESβL)-producing E. coli causing urinary tract infection among pregnant women and pediatric patients in public hospitals in northern Jordan

PONE-D-24-18526R4

Dear Dr. al-magableh,

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,

Tebelay Dilnessa, MSc

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

-The descreption of figures should be also included below the reference lists.

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 #3: 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 #3: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #3: 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 #3: 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 #3: 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 #3: All my concerns were addressed. Dear author l, please check the similarities from previous researchers through plagiarism checker.

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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 #3: No

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