Dear Dr. Al-Qahtani,

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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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Chandrabose Selvaraj, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS One

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“This research work was funded by the Institutional Fund Projects under grant number IFPNC: 009-117-2020. The authors gratefully acknowledge technical and financial support from the Ministry of Education and King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.”

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Additional Editor Comments:

One of the reviewers has suggested citations that may not be directly relevant to the manuscript. The authors are encouraged to decline such recommendations, ensuring that all referenced works remain closely aligned with your research contributions. Declining these suggested citations will not affect the editorial decision on the manuscript.

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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?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: N/A

Reviewer #2: Yes

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

The PLOS Data policy

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Dear Authors,

I read your manuscript, and it is wonderful. The work is very interesting, and at the same time, the way you presented figures, tables, and formatted the manuscript made it very easy to read and follow. However, there are still some changes or improvements that you need to make before it is accepted.

1. Mention the number of compounds taken for the docking in the Abstract, and do not make keywords go in italics.

2. Provide the list of abbreviations at the end of the manuscript in a single subheading.

3. Add a dedicated heading for the limitations and future directions of the work.

4. The conclusion has too much data to understand. Can you make the line 1096-1100 a bit smaller and clearer?

5. Funding and Acknowledgements should be in different points.

6. The supplementary file has too much data to report, but it is not cited in the manuscript. Authors are also recommended to cite the sheets.

7. RMSD, RMSF, and other abbreviations are explained multiple times. Keep the full form only at the first occurrence, then use the shorter form thereafter.

In my opinion, after addressing the above points, the manuscript is ready for acceptance.

Reviewer #2: Compare the HOMO-LUMO gap energy with biologically active molecules in the literature (10.1134/S0036024425701249, 10.1080/00387010.2024.2432331, 10.55730/1300-0527.3702).

Support the active site found by molecular docking and molecular dynamics calculations with experiments or literature.

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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: Sefa Celik

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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.]

To ensure your figures meet our technical requirements, please review our figure guidelines: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/figures

You may also use PLOS’s free figure tool, NAAS, to help you prepare publication quality figures: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/figures#loc-tools-for-figure-preparation.

NAAS will assess whether your figures meet our technical requirements by comparing each figure against our figure specifications.

Precision Screening Identifies Mitoxantrone as a Multitarget Inhibitor in Ageing-Associated Cancers with Extensive Computational Validation and Doxorubicin Comparison

PONE-D-25-58708R1

Dear Dr. Al-Qahtani,

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. For questions related to billing, please contact billing support .

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,

Chandrabose Selvaraj, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS One

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

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??>

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: N/A

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

The PLOS Data policy

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: The authors has resolved all of my comments by citing the supp sheets, providing list of abbreviations, adding a completed dedicated section for the Limitations and future work and many others.

Therefore I mark this paper to be accepted by PlosOne. Congratulations.

Reviewer #2: The authors have implemented the requested revisions.

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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

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