What Is the Relevance of Murburn Concept in Thalassemia and Respiratory Diseases?
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This perspective by Manoj presents the Murburn concept and its relevance in thalassemia. It is of interest as the author explains a different perspective on the pathogenesis of thalassemia, beyond the genetic background.
The paper is well-written and sounds clear and organized to the readers.
The literature sustained the discussion very well although the number of self-citations is a bit excessive (40 out of 68 ). I understand that the author introduced the discussed concept, but I think is, anyway, too much. I suggest eliminating the useless reference or substituting some of them, particularly the less recent ones.
Author Response
I thank this reviewer for taking the time to review my write-up and for offering inputs.
In the light of the reviewer's (and editorial staff's) inputs, I have expanded upon the background and introduced an image to present the central idea (murburn concept) in detail.
I have also re-read the paper and made a few language/typo corrections.
I request the referee to kindly see that the self-citing references are necessary because they are very significant towards the building of murburn concept, which was coined in 2016 (but the foundations of the same started from 1999). My group is the only one advocating this idea currently and even though this explanation is sound, it is not being cited by others (although the viewership and downloads are very high!). Therefore, when someone unfamiliar comes across the work, they need to have the cross-references to make holistic sense of the writing.
Finally, I thank the reviewer once again for supporting this article's publication prospects.
Reviewer 2 Report
The originality of this perspective is hard to disclose since already proposed in PMID: 33998971. Please focus better on the novelty of this hypothesis.
Author Response
I thank this reviewer for taking the time to review my write-up and for offering inputs.
1. In the light of the reviewer's (and editorial staff's) inputs, I have expanded upon the background and the reasoning trail to arrive at the ideas, and also introduced an image to present the central idea (murburn concept) in detail.
2. I have also re-read the paper and made a few language/typo corrections.
3. I request the referee to kindly see that the self-citing references are necessary because they are very significant towards the building of murburn concept, which was coined in 2016 (but the foundations of the same started from 1999). If someone unfamiliar with murburn concept comes across the article, they need to have the cross-references to make holistic sense of the writing.
4. In the article, I have brought together the following three fundamental insights that are quintessential to understanding the context of the malady/therapeutic regime of thalassemia and redox/respiratory diseases.
A. Oxygen is needed to make diffusible reactive species, which explains why it is acutely needed for life (via multiple papers we published, for example- DOIs: 10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2021.05.010 & 10.1002/cbin.11746 ). B. The tetrameric and tensed form of hemoglobin (Hb) synthesizes ATP, a novel function for Hb that we unleashed last year with the paper quoted by the reviewer (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33998971/). This also accounts for multiple posttranslational modifications (phosphorylation, glycation, etc.) seen in erythrocytes, as given by my paper published in Jan 2023- DOI: 10.1002/jcp.30954. C. The murburn purview provides a tangible explanation for how erythrocytes could survive for 3-4 months, without nucleus and mitochondria. This is supported by my paper published in March 2023- DOI: 10.1002/jcp.31000 I claim that it is for the first time an article puts these holistic and profound arguments together. Therefore, the article presents fundamental and reorienting insights. In the light of the referee's inputs, I have added some contents to highlight the originality of the writings/findings.Finally, I thank the reviewer once again for supporting this article's publication prospects.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors properly answered my comments.
Reviewer 2 Report
The author did a great job. The replies are satisfying.
