Dear Dr. wang,

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Nejat Mahdieh

Academic Editor

PLOS One

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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: 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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

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

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: The article entitled “Multidimensional analysis of screening results of deafness susceptibility genes in 3066 newborns of different altitudes and nationalities in Xining, Qinghai” describes carrier genetic screening of deafness variants. The authors defined carrier frequency of each variant in different regions. It is a very interesting study within a large population. However, with extended follow-up and the inclusion of additional samples, the variants identified in each region may change.

A few suggestions:

- There are too many figures in the manuscript. Some of them are not essential, as readers can understand the information from the text alone. These figures could be moved to the supplementary materials, while only the most important figures should be retained in the main article. In addition, data on regions, variants, frequencies, sex, ethnicity, and related variables could be summarized in tables, which would allow for easier comparison.

-Table 3, GJB2, GJB3 instead of CJB2,…

- The regional distribution and provincial divisions may be familiar to Chinese readers but not to international audiences. Providing clearer explanations or contextualization of the regional distribution would make the manuscript more accessible and beneficial to a broader readership.

- In this study, only selected loci and variants were screened. The criteria used for gene and variant selection should be clearly stated. In addition, since the reported frequencies are based only on the selected regions, this limitation should be explicitly explained in the manuscript.

Reviewer #2: Figures 1 and 2 - please remove the lines joining the points - it is not relevant as there is not a logical order that requires the lines to be connecting the points. Add 95% confidence intervals to the rates.

Figure 4-13, 14B, 15, 18, and other similar figures etc: - add 95% confidence intervals to the rates.

This is a long paper - some figures could be combined to deliver the same information in a smaller number of figures.

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what does this mean? ). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: 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.]

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.

Dear Dr. wang,

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 11 2026 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.

• A 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 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,

Nejat Mahdieh

Academic Editor

PLOS One

Journal Requirements:

1. If the reviewer comments include a recommendation to cite specific previously published works, please review and evaluate these publications to determine whether they are relevant and should be cited. There is no requirement to cite these works unless the editor has indicated otherwise.

2. 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.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

**********

2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions??>

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

The PLOS Data policy

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

Reviewer #2: Thanks for the alterations - I can see some improvement, but would still like some changes to the plots for easier interpretation between groups - show the uncertainty on the plot (rather than in the text or label alone).

The addition of "The

95% confidence interval (95% CI) for the overall detection rate ranged from 0.0464 to 0.0624" to Figure 2 is not necessary. The request was intended for every box in the similar plots to show the 95% confidence intervals for their rates - not just the overall estimate repeated as text in a figure heading.

The aim is to show the uncertainty in the estimates made in this paper for every rate - and for example in figure 4, to show that there isn't a difference in rates among patients of different groups - even if it may seem like it from the estimates alone - this is not shown in the current plots (but can be deduced from the figure label now, so that is better).

Figure 15 doesn't have enough detail for all the estimates uncertainties - it could be added to the plot rather than figure label as numbers.

**********

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 #2: 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.]

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.

Multidimensional analysis of screening results of deafness susceptibility genes in 3066 newborns of different altitudes and nationalities in Xining, Qinghai

PONE-D-25-52340R2

Dear Dr. Wang,

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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Kind regards,

Nejat Mahdieh

Academic Editor

PLOS One

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

**********

2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions??>

Reviewer #2: No

**********

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

Reviewer #2: No

**********

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

The PLOS Data policy

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

Reviewer #2: Thanks for showing the confidence intervals, but this illustrates that some of the claims are now too strong.

For example, in figure 7 there are overlapping confidence intervals for all the groups - thus the conclusion could be that there is no difference in the detection rates among different groups. However, the opposite conclusion is made. Was there a test done to test the claim?

Similar comments for fig 8, 11, 14B, 15, 18, 20, 22, 23, 25,

There could be no evidence for any difference among groups in these figures - yet the opposite conclusion is made.

Please leave this possibility clearly in the manuscript - present these findings as descriptive, rather than evidence of differences between groups, as there may be no evidence of differences with these results.

**********

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 #2: No

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