PONE-D-24-06231Antimicrobial-resistance of Escherichia coli in dogs and cats: A scoping reviewPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Ojasanya,

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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ACADEMIC EDITOR:Revise the manuscript as per comments from the reviewers.==============================

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

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Naveed Ahmed, Ph.D

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Additional Editor Comments:

Revise the manuscript as per comments.

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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: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Not Applicable.

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

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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: Figures 1,2,3 and 4 are not visible. Those must be incorporated accordingly. Data in Tables is shown in some tables as n(%) while in Table-4 n(%) is mentioned in the title. All tables must be symetric.

Reviewer #2:

I have reviewed the manuscript entitled “Antimicrobial-resistance of Escherichia coli in dogs and cats: A scoping review” submitted for possible publication in the journal “PlosOne”. The manuscript highlights a very important topic which is AMR. The authors have done great efforts in compiling all of the relevant literature in the manuscript, However, it needs some correction before it can be considered for further processing. My specific comments are:

1. Because the study is more towards systematic search, I would like to recommend to put “Systematic and a scoping review” at the end of article title.
2. In the search strategy, the authors should use “Enterobacteriaceae ; Enterobacterales ” in order to make sure that there is no article left for E. coli .
3. At the end of introduction section, the authors should provide the sudy rationale and justification. What is the need to conduct study on E. coli only? There are plenty of other organism related to the animals.
4. In the articles included, did the authors found any information regarding the type of cats and dogs, which means whether they were pets or street animals?
5. The use of abbreviations is appropriate. The authors should carefully check again the use of abbreviations throughout the manuscript. for example, at line 50 and 51 the word “antimicrobial resistance” is used twice but the abbreviation was mentioned on the second time while any abbreviation should be mentioned at it’s first appearance.
6. The authors should carefully check the organism’s name and follow the same throughout the manuscript. For example, at some place they mentioned full form of Escherichia coli , and at certain levels only E. coli .
7. Line 52-53: The authors should mention the background only related to the companion animals. Remove the irrelevant background.
8. Line 73: Mention about how the protocol was prepared.
9. Line 88-89: Remove the sentence “this review has one…..”
10. In eligibility criteria, what type of studies were considered for this article? I mean whether any case series etc.?
11. Table 1: This table is not necessary and can be removed. Also, the number of studies not matching with the final studies included in the article.
12. Table 3, 4: replace the legend with “n: number of studies”.
13. Table 5 is very confusing. The authors are recommended to redesign the table and split in 3 or 4. Some of the information can be described in the text.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Naveed Ahmed

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PONE-D-24-06231R1Antimicrobial-resistance of Escherichia coli in dogs and cats: a scoping reviewPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Ojasanya,

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.

==============================

ACADEMIC EDITOR:Please revise the manuscript as per the comments given in "Additional Editor Comments"==============================

Please submit your revised manuscript by Mar 22 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,

Naveed Ahmed, Ph.D

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:

1. Table 1 Line 116: needs to be removed and replace with the text (a paragraph).

2. Figure 3: Mention the data numbers on each bar.

3. Figure 1 and 2: The resolution need to increased.

4. Figure 4: The error bars needs to be consistent. Either put the error bars of all, or else remove it.

5. Table 1 Line 271, Table 2 and Table 3: The table legends needs to be set.

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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.

Antimicrobial-resistance of Escherichia coli in dogs and cats: a scoping review

PONE-D-24-06231R2

Dear Dr. Ojasanya,

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,

Naveed Ahmed, Ph.D

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: