Title: Gut Microbiota Analyses of Inflammatory Bowel Diseases from a representative Saudi
Population
Version: 7 Date: 24 Mar 2023
Reviewer's report:
Alsulaiman et al. reported the characteristics of the gut microbiota of IBD patients in Saudi. As
they described in the Introduction, few gut microbiota studies were reported in this area and
numbers of subjects (IBD patients: 219, Controls: 124) were very large, so this study is very
important in this field. However, they have to modify the manuscript prior to publication as
described below.
Major comments
1. They reported that two genera, Veillonella and Lachnoclostridium showed significant
association with CD versus controls. This is new and important in IBD study. Thus, I want
more detailed analyses about it. For example, what species are abundant in IBD or controls, or
what is the characteristics of those who have high abundances of these genera? I think that you
can specify bacteria at species-level by QIIME2. The present data look quite superficial. These
analyses will help deeper discussion.
2. In the Introduction, they described “considering the lack of microbiome studies
in Saudi populations”, but a few studies have been already reported (i.e. https://
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36695274/ ). They should refer such previous reports and discussed
the difference between the present and previous ones.
3. Please check whether Supplementary figures are correct. For example, in the manuscript, they
described that sequence reads counts were shown in Fig S1, but actually FigS1 showed alpha-
diversity.
4. I felt that the explanation of Fig2 was incomplete. Please describe the result of Fig2 clearly
in the manuscript. In addition, age difference among three groups will influence the results of
gut microbiota comparison. I want to suggest that they should select the subjects in the same
age categories from three groups, and compare the microbiota of controls and patients in all the
age categories.
5. In the conclusion section, they described “we have shown that there key differences in gut
microbiota between this study and previous studies of larger Western populations”.However,
they did not present such data.
Minor comments:
Abstract,”Results”
“significant diversity” should be modified in an appropriate expression.
“observe” should be changed to “observed”.
Methods, “Study Populations”, line12:
Add “period” in the word “H. pylori”
Title: Gut Microbiota Analyses of Inflammatory Bowel Diseases from a representative Saudi
Population
Version: 7 Date: 24 Mar 2023
Reviewer's report:
Alsulaiman et al. reported the characteristics of the gut microbiota of IBD patients in Saudi. As
they described in the Introduction, few gut microbiota studies were reported in this area and
numbers of subjects (IBD patients: 219, Controls: 124) were very large, so this study is very
important in this field. However, they have to modify the manuscript prior to publication as
described below.
Major comments
1. They reported that two genera, Veillonella and Lachnoclostridium showed significant
association with CD versus controls. This is new and important in IBD study. Thus, I want
more detailed analyses about it. For example, what species are abundant in IBD or controls, or
what is the characteristics of those who have high abundances of these genera? I think that you
can specify bacteria at species-level by QIIME2. The present data look quite superficial. These
analyses will help deeper discussion.
2. In the Introduction, they described “considering the lack of microbiome studies
in Saudi populations”, but a few studies have been already reported (i.e. https://
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36695274/ ). They should refer such previous reports and discussed
the difference between the present and previous ones.
3. Please check whether Supplementary figures are correct. For example, in the manuscript, they
described that sequence reads counts were shown in Fig S1, but actually FigS1 showed alpha-
diversity.
4. I felt that the explanation of Fig2 was incomplete. Please describe the result of Fig2 clearly
in the manuscript. In addition, age difference among three groups will influence the results of
gut microbiota comparison. I want to suggest that they should select the subjects in the same
age categories from three groups, and compare the microbiota of controls and patients in all the
age categories.
5. In the conclusion section, they described “we have shown that there key differences in gut
microbiota between this study and previous studies of larger Western populations”.However,
they did not present such data.
Minor comments:
Abstract,”Results”
“significant diversity” should be modified in an appropriate expression.
“observe” should be changed to “observed”.
Methods, “Study Populations”, line12:
Add “period” in the word “H. pylori”
Please review this paper.
user
Title: Gut Microbiota Analyses of Inflammatory Bowel Diseases from a representative Saudi
Population
Version: 7 Date: 24 Mar 2023
Reviewer's report:
Alsulaiman et al. reported the characteristics of the gut microbiota of IBD patients in Saudi. As
they described in the Introduction, few gut microbiota studies were reported in this area and
numbers of subjects (IBD patients: 219, Controls: 124) were very large, so this study is very
important in this field. However, they have to modify the manuscript prior to publication as
described below.
Major comments
1. They reported that two genera, Veillonella and Lachnoclostridium showed significant
association with CD versus controls. This is new and important in IBD study. Thus, I want
more detailed analyses about it. For example, what species are abundant in IBD or controls, or
what is the characteristics of those who have high abundances of these genera? I think that you
can specify bacteria at species-level by QIIME2. The present data look quite superficial. These
analyses will help deeper discussion.
2. In the Introduction, they described “considering the lack of microbiome studies
in Saudi populations”, but a few studies have been already reported (i.e. https://
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36695274/ ). They should refer such previous reports and discussed
the difference between the present and previous ones.
3. Please check whether Supplementary figures are correct. For example, in the manuscript, they
described that sequence reads counts were shown in Fig S1, but actually FigS1 showed alpha-
diversity.
4. I felt that the explanation of Fig2 was incomplete. Please describe the result of Fig2 clearly
in the manuscript. In addition, age difference among three groups will influence the results of
gut microbiota comparison. I want to suggest that they should select the subjects in the same
age categories from three groups, and compare the microbiota of controls and patients in all the
age categories.
5. In the conclusion section, they described “we have shown that there key differences in gut
microbiota between this study and previous studies of larger Western populations”.However,
they did not present such data.
Minor comments:
Abstract,”Results”
“significant diversity” should be modified in an appropriate expression.
“observe” should be changed to “observed”.
Methods, “Study Populations”, line12:
Add “period” in the word “H. pylori”
assistant