Reviewer's report
Title:Proteomics analysis of serum protein profiling in pancreatic cancer patients
by DIGE: up-regulation of mannose-binding lectin 2 and myosin light chain
kinase 2
Version: 3Date:3 February 2010
Reviewer: Paula Meleady
Reviewer's report:
The manuscript is much improved from the original version of the manuscript.
However a number of items need to be addressed before it is acceptable for
publication.
Minor essential revisions
Abstract
Line 5 – high amount should be ‘highly abundant’ and remove ‘the’ before
immuno-affinity
Line 16 – remove ‘numerous’, as the authors only identified 8 differentially
regulated proteins, you cannot say ‘numerous’ proteins were identified as
differentially regulated in their study.
Materials and Methods – Western blot
Clarify that immuno-depleted serum was used for western analysis – this is not
clear from the study. How much protein was loaded onto each gel? Were these
proteins detectable in non-depleted serum? Was this tried – please comment on
this.
Include company details for the b-actin antibody and clarify that it was used as a
‘loading control’ for western blots.
Results
Section on – ‘Up-expression of serum MBL2 and MLCK2 in pancreatic cancer’
Use different phrase to ‘up-expression’!
The authors need to be careful how they refer to the ‘Controls’. For example, in
lines 6/7 of this section, ‘… showed the western blot results of 16 pairs of the
pancreatic cancer sera and their controls ..’ These are not patient ‘matched’
cancer and control samples which are suggested by the way the sentence is
phrased. A similar example is in the Conclusions section where the following
phrase is used incorrectly ‘… and its cancer –free controls’ .
Discussion
Second paragraph – rewrite the first sentence – difficult to read and understand.
Third paragraph, line 10 – ‘antibodies’ and not ‘anti-bodies’!
Last paragraph – many grammatical errors – please recheck for accuracy
Figures and Tables
Remove Figure 1A – it is unnecessary and adds nothing to the manuscript
Legend for Figure 2 – what gel is represented? Is it a Cy2 gel containing the
pooled samples – this needs to be clear in the legend.
Table 2 - Accession no. is spelt incorrectly
Table 3 – Change ‘Cover rate’ to ‘Sequence coverage’
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
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:Proteomics analysis of serum protein profiling in pancreatic cancer patients
by DIGE: up-regulation of mannose-binding lectin 2 and myosin light chain
kinase 2
Version: 3Date:3 February 2010
Reviewer: Paula Meleady
Reviewer's report:
The manuscript is much improved from the original version of the manuscript.
However a number of items need to be addressed before it is acceptable for
publication.
Minor essential revisions
Abstract
Line 5 – high amount should be ‘highly abundant’ and remove ‘the’ before
immuno-affinity
Line 16 – remove ‘numerous’, as the authors only identified 8 differentially
regulated proteins, you cannot say ‘numerous’ proteins were identified as
differentially regulated in their study.
Materials and Methods – Western blot
Clarify that immuno-depleted serum was used for western analysis – this is not
clear from the study. How much protein was loaded onto each gel? Were these
proteins detectable in non-depleted serum? Was this tried – please comment on
this.
Include company details for the b-actin antibody and clarify that it was used as a
‘loading control’ for western blots.
Results
Section on – ‘Up-expression of serum MBL2 and MLCK2 in pancreatic cancer’
Use different phrase to ‘up-expression’!
The authors need to be careful how they refer to the ‘Controls’. For example, in
lines 6/7 of this section, ‘… showed the western blot results of 16 pairs of the
pancreatic cancer sera and their controls ..’ These are not patient ‘matched’
cancer and control samples which are suggested by the way the sentence is
phrased. A similar example is in the Conclusions section where the following
phrase is used incorrectly ‘… and its cancer –free controls’ .
Discussion
Second paragraph – rewrite the first sentence – difficult to read and understand.
Third paragraph, line 10 – ‘antibodies’ and not ‘anti-bodies’!
Last paragraph – many grammatical errors – please recheck for accuracy
Figures and Tables
Remove Figure 1A – it is unnecessary and adds nothing to the manuscript
Legend for Figure 2 – what gel is represented? Is it a Cy2 gel containing the
pooled samples – this needs to be clear in the legend.
Table 2 - Accession no. is spelt incorrectly
Table 3 – Change ‘Cover rate’ to ‘Sequence coverage’
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
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:Proteomics analysis of serum protein profiling in pancreatic cancer patients
by DIGE: up-regulation of mannose-binding lectin 2 and myosin light chain
kinase 2
Version: 3Date:3 February 2010
Reviewer: Paula Meleady
Reviewer's report:
The manuscript is much improved from the original version of the manuscript.
However a number of items need to be addressed before it is acceptable for
publication.
Minor essential revisions
Abstract
Line 5 – high amount should be ‘highly abundant’ and remove ‘the’ before
immuno-affinity
Line 16 – remove ‘numerous’, as the authors only identified 8 differentially
regulated proteins, you cannot say ‘numerous’ proteins were identified as
differentially regulated in their study.
Materials and Methods – Western blot
Clarify that immuno-depleted serum was used for western analysis – this is not
clear from the study. How much protein was loaded onto each gel? Were these
proteins detectable in non-depleted serum? Was this tried – please comment on
this.
Include company details for the b-actin antibody and clarify that it was used as a
‘loading control’ for western blots.
Results
Section on – ‘Up-expression of serum MBL2 and MLCK2 in pancreatic cancer’
Use different phrase to ‘up-expression’!
The authors need to be careful how they refer to the ‘Controls’. For example, in
lines 6/7 of this section, ‘… showed the western blot results of 16 pairs of the
pancreatic cancer sera and their controls ..’ These are not patient ‘matched’
cancer and control samples which are suggested by the way the sentence is
phrased. A similar example is in the Conclusions section where the following
phrase is used incorrectly ‘… and its cancer –free controls’ .
Discussion
Second paragraph – rewrite the first sentence – difficult to read and understand.
Third paragraph, line 10 – ‘antibodies’ and not ‘anti-bodies’!
Last paragraph – many grammatical errors – please recheck for accuracy
Figures and Tables
Remove Figure 1A – it is unnecessary and adds nothing to the manuscript
Legend for Figure 2 – what gel is represented? Is it a Cy2 gel containing the
pooled samples – this needs to be clear in the legend.
Table 2 - Accession no. is spelt incorrectly
Table 3 – Change ‘Cover rate’ to ‘Sequence coverage’
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
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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