Niosomal Nanocarriers for Enhanced Dermal Delivery of Epigallocatechin Gallate for Protection against Oxidative Stress of the Skin

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

For me is very strange the form to present the references.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you so much for taking the time to review our manuscript! References have been amended please see attached updated manuscript.

Yours sincerely,

Shuo Chen

Reviewer 2 Report

In the present study, epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) was used to develop an EGCG-loaded niosomal system as an antioxidant material. The experimental design is appropriate and the presented data are organized. However, many figures are of poor quality and hard to see, need more improvements. 

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thank you so much for taking the time to review our manuscript! The figures in the manuscript have been improved, please see the updated manuscript. 

Yours sincerely,

Shuo Chen 

Reviewer 3 Report

 This manuscript (pharmaceutics-1598390) submitted by Dr. Danhui Lia, et al. was described that several factors affected encapsulated efficiency of EGGC into niosomal were optimized by computational chemistry method, and biological usefulness of the EGCG-ninosome for skin application was evaluated. This fractional factorial design study was very attractive and was thought to be able to adapt to extensive optimized investigations. Although I thought that those contents were able to publish, there were some difficult descriptions to understand, mistake of results, and critical mistypes,

First of all, when EGCG-niosome was evaluated for some properties such as DSC, FTIR, drug releasing test, skin penetration and biological activity, the formulation of used EGCG-niosome should be clearly presented (Factors X₁-₆). X₂ (1.4 mg) and X₃ (0.9) was clearly stated in the text, but the optimal values of other factors (X₁ and X₄-₆) were unclear. I know that the influence of other factor for FF% was less. I propose that all of them will represent as a table. And what formulation (composition) for ECGC-niosome preparation was used for the experiments of particle size and zeta potential analysis?

 

at next, Figure 5 was showed the amount of drug permeated into skin at the time. However, the value in the text (30.02, 29.00, 69.0 and 54.38 µg/cm2) was not matched to figure 5. Please confirm those values and figure.

 

Finally, there were many following critical mistakes. L141: with 2 µmol DCP, L334: 1 X10⁵cells/ml, L390: Six formulation variables, L395: 2.3 to 49.0%, L434: drug amount(X₂), L436: drug amount (X₂), CH to surfactant (X₃), Table 7: X₂-drug amount, X₃-Molar ratio of CH, L531: effect of EGCG-niosomes.

 

Following are minor points:

The full name of abbreviations (MDA, SOD and GSH-px) should be described at first appearance (L123-4).

Some letters should be superscript. L275 and 365: ², L329 and 382: ^®, L329 and 382: ^®.

The company name and its country regarding to Pierce BCA protein assay kit and CITI-Fluor should represent.

In DSC analysis, the result of cholesterol was not able to find in Figure 3a. And the endothermic peaks were disagreed to figure. Especially, 53°C was out of measurement range.

In L514, the unit (µmg/cm²) was mistake to µg/cm².

In figure 7c and d, lower legend was disappeared. And I request clear graph with more high resolution.

Figure 8 was drawn by bar-graph. The other type of graph (line-graph) was requested to easily understand.

In references, at least the family name of authors would like to be provide.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for taking the time to review our manuscript, please see the attachment for a point by point response to reviewer's comments. 

Yours sincerely,

Shuo Chen

Author Response File: Author Response.docx