Scatter Irradiation of Rat Brain Triggers Sex- and Brain Region-Specific Changes in the Expression of Non-Coding RNA Fragments
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear author,
In the abstract they specify too much about what they have observed and what they have not (in my opinion for an abstract), justifying that you have a very important role, but at the same time they end up saying that they could only partially explain the differences observed. Likewise, in the results, you find almost no significance. Therefore they argue that they cannot conclude that the changes observed may have a greater or lesser effect on one of the sexes or on a specific region of the brain or another (which is the supposed objective of the paper and others). made the title).
Anyway, you used several types of analysis, and the screening is very large and very good. In addition, the subject and the study of the fragments in the brain (according to what they explain about the liver) seems novel. If you had found results, I would find it very cool, but I think you presented it in a way that leaves you with the feeling that they have not been able to obtain anything.
Finally, I detected relevant plagiarism with another manuscript that you published before in epigenomes. Please revised.
Sex-Specific Expression of Non-Coding RNA Fragments in Frontal Cortex, Hippocampus and Cerebellum of Rats
Affiliations expand- PMID: 35466186
- PMCID: PMC9036230
- DOI: 10.3390/epigenomes6020011
Free PMC article
Author Response
In the abstract they specify too much about what they have observed and what they have not (in my opinion for an abstract), justifying that you have a very important role, but at the same time they end up saying that they could only partially explain the differences observed. Likewise, in the results, you find almost no significance. Therefore they argue that they cannot conclude that the changes observed may have a greater or lesser effect on one of the sexes or on a specific region of the brain or another (which is the supposed objective of the paper and others). made the title).
Anyway, you used several types of analysis, and the screening is very large and very good. In addition, the subject and the study of the fragments in the brain (according to what they explain about the liver) seems novel. If you had found results, I would find it very cool, but I think you presented it in a way that leaves you with the feeling that they have not been able to obtain anything.
Our response:
We have changed the abstract, removing some details of the results and we also emphasize our findings more – focusing on what specific differences we found. We also modified the Conclusion section, emphasizing our findings.
Finally, I detected relevant plagiarism with another manuscript that you published before in epigenomes. Please revised.
Our response:
We have changed the text in the Introduction, Figure Legends and Methods as much as we could. It should be noted, however, that Methods used were identical in both papers, so there will be some redundancy in the texts.
Reviewer 2 Report
1. The abstract part should be as brief as possible. Please shorten the current one.
2. It will be more helpful if the authors can provide more background knowledge of the roles of ncRNA in the brain.
3. For some reason, I did not find supplementary results in the manuscript I download from the review report form page.
4. Figure 1 A and B are a bit confusing, is it possible to present them in a better way?
5. Could figure 2, 3 and 4 be replaced with tables?
6. Labels in Figure 8, 9 and 10 are too small to see.
7. Result 2.1 paragraph 1, some differences observed in FC of male, or female, or both?
Author Response
1. The abstract part should be as brief as possible. Please shorten the current one.
Our response:
We have shortened the abstract.
2. It will be more helpful if the authors can provide more background knowledge of the roles of ncRNA in the brain.
Our response:
We provided more information about the role of ncRNAs in the brain. The following was added: ncRNAs are involved in precise regulation of temporal and special response of brain transcriptome to physiological and pathological stimuli (11). miRNAs, such as miR-124 is involved in regulation of differentiation of neural progenitor cells into neurons (12). lncRNA Rhabdomyosarcoma 2-associated transcript (RMST) regulates neurogenesis (13). ncRNA such as miRNAs, lncRNAs and circRNAs are dysregulated in various neuropsychiatric disorders such as Alzheimer’s Disease, Parkinson’s Disease, Autism and many more (reviewed in 14).
3. For some reason, I did not find supplementary results in the manuscript I download from the review report form page.
Our response:
We have included the Sup data in the previous submission and we have included them in the current submission.
4. Figure 1 A and B are a bit confusing, is it possible to present them in a better way?
Our response:
Figure 1A-B shows the number of mapped reads in the brain of females and males (Y axis), together with the percentage of mapped reads (on the top of the bars) – this is just to demonstrate that most reads mapped and the difference between samples is not large. We have added a better description in the text.
5. Could figure 2, 3 and 4 be replaced with tables?
Our response:
Potentially it could, but each figure is very complex and would have tables that are larger than one page. For example, Fig. 2 would have 18 entries, for three tissues of males and females for Ct and SC – 648 sample/entries. It would also be difficult for Fig. 4, for example to show SD, median, quartiles, minimums, maximums etc. if we were to use table style. We moved Figure 3 into the Supplementary figures so.
6. Labels in Figure 8, 9 and 10 are too small to see.
Our response:
We have increased the font of X axis.
7. Result 2.1 paragraph 1, some differences observed in FC of male, or female, or both?
Our response:
Yes, there were significant differences in the % of mapped reads between Ct and Sc for both sexes in FC.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear authors, after those corrections the manuscript has improved a lot.
Please check the gene names that you have to add in italics and a few more mistakes.
Best regards,
