Reviewer's report
Title:Early stage transplantation of bone marrow cells markedly ameliorates
copper metabolism and liver function in Wilson's disease mice
Version: 1Date:19 October 2010
Reviewer: George J Brewer
Reviewer's report:
This paper, by Chen et al, is a followup to the work in ref 13 that shows that bone
marrow embryonic stem cells can improve liver function in the toxic milk mouse
model of Wilson's disease, and also to this group's own work showing that
embryonic hepatocytes can do the same.
Here they use embryonic bone marrow stem cells to evaluate the timing of
engraftment, and find that engraftment at 2 months gives better results than 5
months. The work is properly done and the paper adequately written except for
the following:
Minor essential revisions:The authors are very loose with their phraseology, often
saying Wilson's disease when they are referring to the mouse and other animal
models of Wilson's disease. For example this happens in the abstract
conclusions section. They should correct this throughtout the paper.
Major compulsory revision: A serious misstatement occurs in the first paragraph
of background where they imply that liver transplantation is useful for the
neurologic symptoms of Wilson's.
Transplantation will correct neurologic symptoms, but only to the extent that
anticopper drugs would correct them, which is much cheaper and safer.
Transplantation should never be done for neurologic reasons.
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:Early stage transplantation of bone marrow cells markedly ameliorates
copper metabolism and liver function in Wilson's disease mice
Version: 1Date:19 October 2010
Reviewer: George J Brewer
Reviewer's report:
This paper, by Chen et al, is a followup to the work in ref 13 that shows that bone
marrow embryonic stem cells can improve liver function in the toxic milk mouse
model of Wilson's disease, and also to this group's own work showing that
embryonic hepatocytes can do the same.
Here they use embryonic bone marrow stem cells to evaluate the timing of
engraftment, and find that engraftment at 2 months gives better results than 5
months. The work is properly done and the paper adequately written except for
the following:
Minor essential revisions:The authors are very loose with their phraseology, often
saying Wilson's disease when they are referring to the mouse and other animal
models of Wilson's disease. For example this happens in the abstract
conclusions section. They should correct this throughtout the paper.
Major compulsory revision: A serious misstatement occurs in the first paragraph
of background where they imply that liver transplantation is useful for the
neurologic symptoms of Wilson's.
Transplantation will correct neurologic symptoms, but only to the extent that
anticopper drugs would correct them, which is much cheaper and safer.
Transplantation should never be done for neurologic reasons.
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:Early stage transplantation of bone marrow cells markedly ameliorates
copper metabolism and liver function in Wilson's disease mice
Version: 1Date:19 October 2010
Reviewer: George J Brewer
Reviewer's report:
This paper, by Chen et al, is a followup to the work in ref 13 that shows that bone
marrow embryonic stem cells can improve liver function in the toxic milk mouse
model of Wilson's disease, and also to this group's own work showing that
embryonic hepatocytes can do the same.
Here they use embryonic bone marrow stem cells to evaluate the timing of
engraftment, and find that engraftment at 2 months gives better results than 5
months. The work is properly done and the paper adequately written except for
the following:
Minor essential revisions:The authors are very loose with their phraseology, often
saying Wilson's disease when they are referring to the mouse and other animal
models of Wilson's disease. For example this happens in the abstract
conclusions section. They should correct this throughtout the paper.
Major compulsory revision: A serious misstatement occurs in the first paragraph
of background where they imply that liver transplantation is useful for the
neurologic symptoms of Wilson's.
Transplantation will correct neurologic symptoms, but only to the extent that
anticopper drugs would correct them, which is much cheaper and safer.
Transplantation should never be done for neurologic reasons.
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.
assistant