Reviewer's report
Title:Co-culture of primary human tumor hepatocytes from patients with
hepatocellular carcinoma with autologous peripheral blood mononuclear cells:
Study of their in vitro immunological interactions.
Version: 1Date:14 August 2012
Reviewer: Svenja Sydor
Reviewer's report:
The manuscript of Doumba et al. deals with the establishment of a functional cell
culture system of primary human tumorous hepatocytes and non-tumorous
hepatocytes from patients suffering from HCC (hepatocellular carcinoma).
Immune response plays a crucial role within the development and progression of
HCC and many studies suggest that HCC-patients show up a defective or
ineffective immune response thus promoting HCC progression. In the first
experiments the authors evaluated metabolic functionality by e. g. albumin
expression and the purity of the isolated cells by cell sorting analyses. To
analyze cell-to-cell interactions and to evaluate the role of immune response
mechanisms within different HCC derived cells the authors designed different
co-culture systems including tumorous and non-tumorous hepatocytes as well as
peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs).
In this study resected liver tissues as well as blood samples from 11 patients
were used to obtain different hepatocytes and PBMCs. Co-culture experiments
could show effective immune response against HCC-derived cells but this
response was lower in tumorous cells compared to non-tumorous hepatocytes.
This work shows a clear and well organized structure with adequate and well
established experiments and methods. Although the results did not always show
up statistical significance the differences between the individual groups exhibited
obvious tendencies. This might be due to the small study group of only 11
patients. In this case additional cell preparations from furhter patients could
improve this work.
Minor comment:
The shown graphs do not depict standard deviation (SD) as described in
methods passage. The authors should check this issue and complete their
graphical illustration with this information.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests.
Reviewer's report
Title:Co-culture of primary human tumor hepatocytes from patients with
hepatocellular carcinoma with autologous peripheral blood mononuclear cells:
Study of their in vitro immunological interactions.
Version: 1Date:14 August 2012
Reviewer: Svenja Sydor
Reviewer's report:
The manuscript of Doumba et al. deals with the establishment of a functional cell
culture system of primary human tumorous hepatocytes and non-tumorous
hepatocytes from patients suffering from HCC (hepatocellular carcinoma).
Immune response plays a crucial role within the development and progression of
HCC and many studies suggest that HCC-patients show up a defective or
ineffective immune response thus promoting HCC progression. In the first
experiments the authors evaluated metabolic functionality by e. g. albumin
expression and the purity of the isolated cells by cell sorting analyses. To
analyze cell-to-cell interactions and to evaluate the role of immune response
mechanisms within different HCC derived cells the authors designed different
co-culture systems including tumorous and non-tumorous hepatocytes as well as
peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs).
In this study resected liver tissues as well as blood samples from 11 patients
were used to obtain different hepatocytes and PBMCs. Co-culture experiments
could show effective immune response against HCC-derived cells but this
response was lower in tumorous cells compared to non-tumorous hepatocytes.
This work shows a clear and well organized structure with adequate and well
established experiments and methods. Although the results did not always show
up statistical significance the differences between the individual groups exhibited
obvious tendencies. This might be due to the small study group of only 11
patients. In this case additional cell preparations from furhter patients could
improve this work.
Minor comment:
The shown graphs do not depict standard deviation (SD) as described in
methods passage. The authors should check this issue and complete their
graphical illustration with this information.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests.
Please review this paper.
user
Reviewer's report
Title:Co-culture of primary human tumor hepatocytes from patients with
hepatocellular carcinoma with autologous peripheral blood mononuclear cells:
Study of their in vitro immunological interactions.
Version: 1Date:14 August 2012
Reviewer: Svenja Sydor
Reviewer's report:
The manuscript of Doumba et al. deals with the establishment of a functional cell
culture system of primary human tumorous hepatocytes and non-tumorous
hepatocytes from patients suffering from HCC (hepatocellular carcinoma).
Immune response plays a crucial role within the development and progression of
HCC and many studies suggest that HCC-patients show up a defective or
ineffective immune response thus promoting HCC progression. In the first
experiments the authors evaluated metabolic functionality by e. g. albumin
expression and the purity of the isolated cells by cell sorting analyses. To
analyze cell-to-cell interactions and to evaluate the role of immune response
mechanisms within different HCC derived cells the authors designed different
co-culture systems including tumorous and non-tumorous hepatocytes as well as
peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs).
In this study resected liver tissues as well as blood samples from 11 patients
were used to obtain different hepatocytes and PBMCs. Co-culture experiments
could show effective immune response against HCC-derived cells but this
response was lower in tumorous cells compared to non-tumorous hepatocytes.
This work shows a clear and well organized structure with adequate and well
established experiments and methods. Although the results did not always show
up statistical significance the differences between the individual groups exhibited
obvious tendencies. This might be due to the small study group of only 11
patients. In this case additional cell preparations from furhter patients could
improve this work.
Minor comment:
The shown graphs do not depict standard deviation (SD) as described in
methods passage. The authors should check this issue and complete their
graphical illustration with this information.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests.
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