Title: Tumor mutation burden-related long non-coding RNAs is predictor for prognosis and
immune response in pancreatic cancer
Version: 2 Date: 13 Jun 2022
Reviewer:  Livia Archibugi
Reviewer's report:
The paper by Wang et al. reports an in silico analysis of tumor mutational burden-related
lncRNAs able to classify patients into high risk and low risk patients. Despite the topic is of
interest, I have some concerns about the quality of the paper and therefore recommend the
following corrections/improvement:
- there are many english mistakes and typos: the paper has to be carefully corrected by a native
speaker
- concerning the model evaluation and validation it is not clear whether the TCGA-PAAD cohort
(even just in part) was used both for training and test and therefore overlapping between the two
sets. This should be clarified as, if overlapping, the performances of the model are not trustable
- in the results section the authors refer to the "malignant grade of the T stage" as if it is
comparable to an advanced T stage of the tumor. This is misleading and should be corrected.
- in Suppl Fig 1 the authors report a subgroup analysis of high vs low risk group in terms of
prognosis for same-stage patients. This is one of the most relevant figures and results of the
paper and should not be in the suppl section
- in the results the risk score by the authors resulted being the only independent factor associated
with prognosis; this is worrisome as it represents there must be a selection bias in the cohort as
at least stage should be associated to prognosis too. How can the authors explain this result?
- in the conclusion the authors refer as these findings offering a new "thought for diagnosis
biomarker". This should be corrected as this is not related at all to the diagnosis of pancreatic
cancer but to the prognosis.
- references should be updated, as there are many from more than 5 years ago and on low-impact
journal despite being reviews
Title: Tumor mutation burden-related long non-coding RNAs is predictor for prognosis and
immune response in pancreatic cancer
Version: 2 Date: 13 Jun 2022
Reviewer:  Livia Archibugi
Reviewer's report:
The paper by Wang et al. reports an in silico analysis of tumor mutational burden-related
lncRNAs able to classify patients into high risk and low risk patients. Despite the topic is of
interest, I have some concerns about the quality of the paper and therefore recommend the
following corrections/improvement:
- there are many english mistakes and typos: the paper has to be carefully corrected by a native
speaker
- concerning the model evaluation and validation it is not clear whether the TCGA-PAAD cohort
(even just in part) was used both for training and test and therefore overlapping between the two
sets. This should be clarified as, if overlapping, the performances of the model are not trustable
- in the results section the authors refer to the "malignant grade of the T stage" as if it is
comparable to an advanced T stage of the tumor. This is misleading and should be corrected.
- in Suppl Fig 1 the authors report a subgroup analysis of high vs low risk group in terms of
prognosis for same-stage patients. This is one of the most relevant figures and results of the
paper and should not be in the suppl section
- in the results the risk score by the authors resulted being the only independent factor associated
with prognosis; this is worrisome as it represents there must be a selection bias in the cohort as
at least stage should be associated to prognosis too. How can the authors explain this result?
- in the conclusion the authors refer as these findings offering a new "thought for diagnosis
biomarker". This should be corrected as this is not related at all to the diagnosis of pancreatic
cancer but to the prognosis.
- references should be updated, as there are many from more than 5 years ago and on low-impact
journal despite being reviews
Please review this paper.
user
Title: Tumor mutation burden-related long non-coding RNAs is predictor for prognosis and
immune response in pancreatic cancer
Version: 2 Date: 13 Jun 2022
Reviewer:  Livia Archibugi
Reviewer's report:
The paper by Wang et al. reports an in silico analysis of tumor mutational burden-related
lncRNAs able to classify patients into high risk and low risk patients. Despite the topic is of
interest, I have some concerns about the quality of the paper and therefore recommend the
following corrections/improvement:
- there are many english mistakes and typos: the paper has to be carefully corrected by a native
speaker
- concerning the model evaluation and validation it is not clear whether the TCGA-PAAD cohort
(even just in part) was used both for training and test and therefore overlapping between the two
sets. This should be clarified as, if overlapping, the performances of the model are not trustable
- in the results section the authors refer to the "malignant grade of the T stage" as if it is
comparable to an advanced T stage of the tumor. This is misleading and should be corrected.
- in Suppl Fig 1 the authors report a subgroup analysis of high vs low risk group in terms of
prognosis for same-stage patients. This is one of the most relevant figures and results of the
paper and should not be in the suppl section
- in the results the risk score by the authors resulted being the only independent factor associated
with prognosis; this is worrisome as it represents there must be a selection bias in the cohort as
at least stage should be associated to prognosis too. How can the authors explain this result?
- in the conclusion the authors refer as these findings offering a new "thought for diagnosis
biomarker". This should be corrected as this is not related at all to the diagnosis of pancreatic
cancer but to the prognosis.
- references should be updated, as there are many from more than 5 years ago and on low-impact
journal despite being reviews
assistant