Shiftwork and Light at Night Negatively Impact Molecular and Endocrine Timekeeping in the Female Reproductive Axis in Humans and Rodents

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

Your manuscript „ Shiftwork and light-at-night negatively impact molecular and endocrine timekeeping in the female reproductive axis in humans and rodents“ is well written, informative and deal with interesting and important topics. The theme is logically presented, and it would be of great value for those interested in human fertility and light at night or shift work impact. I recommend the review manuscript to publication in present form.

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for the feedback. We have done minor edits to the review, and added a short section on melatonin (Lines 127-147), as well as added several citations, which are now included in Table 1. In addition, English edits have been made to improve readability.

Table 1 has new references added

Figure 2 has been amended to better reflect the changes in the manuscript

Reviewer 2 Report

This work seems to me well written and rather original. The figures are clear and the summary tables are also useful. The review is supported by the right bibliography. I have not much to report. The only suggestion I would like to point out to the authors is to give more emphasis to the hormone melatonin and the pineal gland, as they are among the main regulators of the light-reproduction biological clock.

Author Response

We thank for the reviewer’s comments, which have significantly strengthened this review.  We have made the following revisions to the paper.

We have revised several sections to better emphasize the influence of pineal melatonin and its relevance to this topic.

These sections include:

Abstract: Lines 2 and 23-24

Lines 40-52. Part of this edit is a section that has been moved from another section of the paper, and thus been reworded to improve the flow.

Lines 127-147. This section includes a new paragraph on melatonin.

Lines 174-179: Updated wording for the exclusion/inclusion criteria for the literature search.

Lines 222-238: Updated wording on shiftwork impact on menstrual cycle and melatonin.

Lines 283-292; 296-302 and 238-240: Updated wording about pregnancy, incorporating studies assessing melatonin levels

Lines 357-366: Updated wording on the role of melatonin in labor and birth.

Lines 461-465: Updated wording on endometriosis

Table 1 has new references added

Figure 2 has been amended to better reflect the changes in the manuscript