The Role of Escherichia coli Autotransporters in Urinary Tract Infections and Urosepsis

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear editor

Concerning the MS The role of Escherichia coli autotransporters in urinary tract infections and urosepsis

Comments

-The data requires more organizations, and more subtitles need to be added such as the Serine Protease Autotransporter need to be classified into subtitles.

-Also, among all the mentioned protein, there is no indications how the protein host pathogen interaction was detected.

 

-Is there any evidence on clinical cases or using mutant isolates to confirm the effects

 

• Does immunization against single transporter protein provide protection or against group p of proteins and what is the percentage of success.

 

Minor

All E. coli should be italic and G for gram should be capitalized.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is a timely, focused review of E. coli autotransporters (SPATEs, TAAs, AIDA-I family) in UTI and urosepsis. It gathers useful functional and vaccine-relevance data and will interest readers in pathogenesis and translational vaccinology. A few targeted edits will greatly sharpen the message.

Major points

1. Many statements mix in-vitro, animal, and epidemiologic findings as if equal. Please label findings as (a) in vitro/cell data, (b) animal protection/knockout data, or (c) clinical/epidemiologic associations. e.g. for SinH and Sat say explicitly which results come from murine challenge studies vs human isolate prevlence, this makes translational claims honest and clearer.
2. Autotransporter distribution varies by lineage (B2, D, ST131 etc). Briefly note when functions were shown in canonical UPEC strains (CFT073, UTI89) versus other ExPEC/animal isolats, and cite prevalence studies (or add a one-line percent if available). This affects vaccine coverage interpretation.
3. Rephrase any “X causes bloodstream survival => sepsis” lines to be cautious (e.g., “may contribute” or “is associated with”). If there’s direct knockout/challenge evidence for bloodstream survival or mortality, highlight that explicitly, otherwise keep it associative.
4. Add a short critical para on antigenic variability and immune correlates: mention sequence heterogenity of passenger domains (limits cross-protection), whether mucosal immunity (urine IgA/IgG) is likely needed vs systemic IgG, and practical delivery/adjuvant challenges for urinary vaccines.

Minor / editorial points

• Table 1: add columns for strain/model (in vitro / mouse) and evidence level (association vs functional vs vaccine protection).
• be consistent (gene italics vs protein caps — e.g., sinH vs SinH) and standarize SPATE names (Sat, Pic, Vat).
• Do a quick proofread to remove duplicated sentences and a couple small numeric mismatches.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Accepted in present form

Thanks for implementing my proposed comments.