Title: Identification and Validation of Necroptosis-related Prognostic Gene Signature and
Tumor Immune Microenvironment Infiltration Characterization in Esophageal Carcinoma
Version: 2 Date: 07 May 2022
Reviewer's report:
This study successfully constructed a 3-gene necroptosis-related prognostic model in EC.
However, this study should be improved in the following aspects:
(1) This study should add external validations such as independent dataset analysis or experiment
validations. The fact that all the used 173 samples were from UCSC Xena database will
undermine the study’s reliability and generalization ability.
(2) The description of the method part should be more detailed and clearer to make readers fully
understand. For example, in the DEG analysis, the cut-off of the logFC was missing, which will
make it impossible for others to repeat. What’s more, in the statistical analysis part, author said
“The correlation between particular variables was validated using the Spearman's correlation
analysis or Pearson correlation analysis”. However, authors did not explain the scenarios and
conditions under which the different methods are used.
(3) The authors should examine the figures more carefully. For example, Figure S2 is exactly
same as the Figure 2C-D. And the description for the Figure 2C-D in the main text is obviously
confused. As for the Figure 3E and 4E, the P column in the table still has the Excel format. And
all figures should have relative expositions in the main text which is Figure 2B missing.
(4) At last, the authors did not express the significance of the results deeply enough. For example,
in Figure 5A, the author found that there was co-expression pattern among the three genes.
However, the significance of this phenomenon is missing. The author should answer the question
that is it reasonable to establish a prognostic model with three co-expressed genes. Will this
make the information included in this model too little? And the results from the two methods
(Cibersort and Timer) for estimating immune cell infiltration in the Figure 8A-B are inconsistent,
the author should make more in-depth discussion.
Title: Identification and Validation of Necroptosis-related Prognostic Gene Signature and
Tumor Immune Microenvironment Infiltration Characterization in Esophageal Carcinoma
Version: 2 Date: 07 May 2022
Reviewer's report:
This study successfully constructed a 3-gene necroptosis-related prognostic model in EC.
However, this study should be improved in the following aspects:
(1) This study should add external validations such as independent dataset analysis or experiment
validations. The fact that all the used 173 samples were from UCSC Xena database will
undermine the study’s reliability and generalization ability.
(2) The description of the method part should be more detailed and clearer to make readers fully
understand. For example, in the DEG analysis, the cut-off of the logFC was missing, which will
make it impossible for others to repeat. What’s more, in the statistical analysis part, author said
“The correlation between particular variables was validated using the Spearman's correlation
analysis or Pearson correlation analysis”. However, authors did not explain the scenarios and
conditions under which the different methods are used.
(3) The authors should examine the figures more carefully. For example, Figure S2 is exactly
same as the Figure 2C-D. And the description for the Figure 2C-D in the main text is obviously
confused. As for the Figure 3E and 4E, the P column in the table still has the Excel format. And
all figures should have relative expositions in the main text which is Figure 2B missing.
(4) At last, the authors did not express the significance of the results deeply enough. For example,
in Figure 5A, the author found that there was co-expression pattern among the three genes.
However, the significance of this phenomenon is missing. The author should answer the question
that is it reasonable to establish a prognostic model with three co-expressed genes. Will this
make the information included in this model too little? And the results from the two methods
(Cibersort and Timer) for estimating immune cell infiltration in the Figure 8A-B are inconsistent,
the author should make more in-depth discussion.
Please review this paper.
user
Title: Identification and Validation of Necroptosis-related Prognostic Gene Signature and
Tumor Immune Microenvironment Infiltration Characterization in Esophageal Carcinoma
Version: 2 Date: 07 May 2022
Reviewer's report:
This study successfully constructed a 3-gene necroptosis-related prognostic model in EC.
However, this study should be improved in the following aspects:
(1) This study should add external validations such as independent dataset analysis or experiment
validations. The fact that all the used 173 samples were from UCSC Xena database will
undermine the study’s reliability and generalization ability.
(2) The description of the method part should be more detailed and clearer to make readers fully
understand. For example, in the DEG analysis, the cut-off of the logFC was missing, which will
make it impossible for others to repeat. What’s more, in the statistical analysis part, author said
“The correlation between particular variables was validated using the Spearman's correlation
analysis or Pearson correlation analysis”. However, authors did not explain the scenarios and
conditions under which the different methods are used.
(3) The authors should examine the figures more carefully. For example, Figure S2 is exactly
same as the Figure 2C-D. And the description for the Figure 2C-D in the main text is obviously
confused. As for the Figure 3E and 4E, the P column in the table still has the Excel format. And
all figures should have relative expositions in the main text which is Figure 2B missing.
(4) At last, the authors did not express the significance of the results deeply enough. For example,
in Figure 5A, the author found that there was co-expression pattern among the three genes.
However, the significance of this phenomenon is missing. The author should answer the question
that is it reasonable to establish a prognostic model with three co-expressed genes. Will this
make the information included in this model too little? And the results from the two methods
(Cibersort and Timer) for estimating immune cell infiltration in the Figure 8A-B are inconsistent,
the author should make more in-depth discussion.
assistant