Reviewer's report
Title:Early stage transplantation of bone marrow cells markedly ameliorates
copper metabolism and liver function in Wilson disease mice
Version: 2Date:13 December 2010
Reviewer: Elke Roeb
Reviewer's report:
Major Compulsory Revisions:
1. Although mentioning the critical point in the first review the authors did not
include an additional control group. On the contrary they used D-hanks, a quite
different saline solution than in the control group as saline. From my point of view
this issue weakens the whole story. The authors cannot exclude that their effects
depends on the transplantation procedure itself. Therefore the Tx from Wilson
disease mice into Wilson disease mice is mandatory. It is clear that theoretically
there would be no effect but practically these experiments would exlude side
effects of Tx on the one hand or they show that Tx itself might include a kind of
treatment effect on the other hand.
The injection of saline does not represent an adequate control group. The
transplantation of BM cells in D-hanks from Wilson disease mice (toxic milk mice)
into Wilson disease mice, would be the right control in addition to the super
control (saline).
2. The statistical analysis should be recalculated by a testing appropriate for not
normally distributed data (e.g. Mann-Whitney-U-Test). Alternatively the authors
should show a normal distribution before using the Students t test. In the revised
version the authors tell about a normal distribution of their data. The test used
however is not mentioned. And is hard to believe that data are normally
distributed with n=6.
Minor Essential Revisions:
3. Still the manuscript seems to be too descriptive since the effect of BM
transplantation on the amelioration of liver function is far from being explained.
4. Also in the revised version the authors did not demonstrate whether liver
fibrosis (collagen, hydroxyprolin or sirius red staining) is influenced by
BM-transplatation in toxic milk mice. HE staining is not the appropiate staining. A
collagen staining would be adaequate. During the last two decades appropriate
papers including these techniques have been published by J. Iredale, R.
Weiskirchen, E. Roeb, D. Schuppan, or MP Arthur and others.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report.
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 disease mice
Version: 2Date:13 December 2010
Reviewer: Elke Roeb
Reviewer's report:
Major Compulsory Revisions:
1. Although mentioning the critical point in the first review the authors did not
include an additional control group. On the contrary they used D-hanks, a quite
different saline solution than in the control group as saline. From my point of view
this issue weakens the whole story. The authors cannot exclude that their effects
depends on the transplantation procedure itself. Therefore the Tx from Wilson
disease mice into Wilson disease mice is mandatory. It is clear that theoretically
there would be no effect but practically these experiments would exlude side
effects of Tx on the one hand or they show that Tx itself might include a kind of
treatment effect on the other hand.
The injection of saline does not represent an adequate control group. The
transplantation of BM cells in D-hanks from Wilson disease mice (toxic milk mice)
into Wilson disease mice, would be the right control in addition to the super
control (saline).
2. The statistical analysis should be recalculated by a testing appropriate for not
normally distributed data (e.g. Mann-Whitney-U-Test). Alternatively the authors
should show a normal distribution before using the Students t test. In the revised
version the authors tell about a normal distribution of their data. The test used
however is not mentioned. And is hard to believe that data are normally
distributed with n=6.
Minor Essential Revisions:
3. Still the manuscript seems to be too descriptive since the effect of BM
transplantation on the amelioration of liver function is far from being explained.
4. Also in the revised version the authors did not demonstrate whether liver
fibrosis (collagen, hydroxyprolin or sirius red staining) is influenced by
BM-transplatation in toxic milk mice. HE staining is not the appropiate staining. A
collagen staining would be adaequate. During the last two decades appropriate
papers including these techniques have been published by J. Iredale, R.
Weiskirchen, E. Roeb, D. Schuppan, or MP Arthur and others.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report.
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 disease mice
Version: 2Date:13 December 2010
Reviewer: Elke Roeb
Reviewer's report:
Major Compulsory Revisions:
1. Although mentioning the critical point in the first review the authors did not
include an additional control group. On the contrary they used D-hanks, a quite
different saline solution than in the control group as saline. From my point of view
this issue weakens the whole story. The authors cannot exclude that their effects
depends on the transplantation procedure itself. Therefore the Tx from Wilson
disease mice into Wilson disease mice is mandatory. It is clear that theoretically
there would be no effect but practically these experiments would exlude side
effects of Tx on the one hand or they show that Tx itself might include a kind of
treatment effect on the other hand.
The injection of saline does not represent an adequate control group. The
transplantation of BM cells in D-hanks from Wilson disease mice (toxic milk mice)
into Wilson disease mice, would be the right control in addition to the super
control (saline).
2. The statistical analysis should be recalculated by a testing appropriate for not
normally distributed data (e.g. Mann-Whitney-U-Test). Alternatively the authors
should show a normal distribution before using the Students t test. In the revised
version the authors tell about a normal distribution of their data. The test used
however is not mentioned. And is hard to believe that data are normally
distributed with n=6.
Minor Essential Revisions:
3. Still the manuscript seems to be too descriptive since the effect of BM
transplantation on the amelioration of liver function is far from being explained.
4. Also in the revised version the authors did not demonstrate whether liver
fibrosis (collagen, hydroxyprolin or sirius red staining) is influenced by
BM-transplatation in toxic milk mice. HE staining is not the appropiate staining. A
collagen staining would be adaequate. During the last two decades appropriate
papers including these techniques have been published by J. Iredale, R.
Weiskirchen, E. Roeb, D. Schuppan, or MP Arthur and others.
Level of interest: An article of importance in its field
Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being
published
Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests.
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