Diet-Induced Early Inflammatory Response of Visceral Adipose Tissue in Healthy Male Wistar Rats
, Teodora Stankova 1, Penka Angelova 2, Nikolay Boyadjiev 2, Katerina Georgieva 2, Ivica Dimov 1, Anelia Bivolarska 1, Milena Draganova 3,4, Fanka Gerginska 5, Elena Daskalova 5, Vilian Gramatikov 6 and Slavi Delchev 5Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsHow do you justify using so many rats? How was the size of the study group calculated?
Have you heard about: Directive 2010/63/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 September 2010 on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes Text with EEA relevance? What conditions were the animals kept in? Why were only male rats used?
Did the animal body weights at randomization differ between groups (C vs. E)? What was the age of the animals when they entered the study?
It is worth adding a graphic diagram of the study
Line 89 – the word "index" is missing for BMI
Why are statistically significant values not marked in Table 1?
Once you calculated the animals' BMI, what standards did you use to interpret the result?
How was animal body length measured?
In Figure 1, it is worth marking statistically significant values with an asterisk
The markings (e.g. 17, 15, 12, 33) present in Figure 2 are not very visible and incomprehensible
In Figure 1 and 2, it is worth changing the order of the results - first, those results which were marked after 14 weeks of the study, then those marked after 18 weeks
The markings (e.g. 4, 18, 13) present in Figure 3 are not very visible and incomprehensible
How can you be sure that adipose tissue is responsible for the increased CRP? Has it been verified that the animals were healthy?
What were the limitations of the study?
The conclusions (lines 300-305) seem not entirely justified. Since only males were tested, the result cannot be extrapolated to all animals. Maybe in female rats, estrogen would prevent CRP from increasing?
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for your time, reviewing our manuscript!
Please, find the response to your comments as an attached file.
Kind regards,
Iliyan Dimitrov
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis study investigated diet-induced early inflammatory response of visceral adipose tissue in healthy Wistar rats. They demonstrated that high fat diet-induced inflammatory response in adipose tissue could be recovered by changing to regular diet. However, it seems that these results were obvious and well-known. I hope the authors could provide some new mechanism-related results, not just some simple observations. In addition, the staining quality of the figures was poor, and the authors should provide the staining from each group and show them together to compare. The authors should also compare the changes in inflammatory signaling pathways in the EE and EC groups to reveal the potential mechanism response for the attenuated inflammatory response in the adipose tissue.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for your time, reviewing our manuscript!
Please, find our response to your comments as an attached file.
Kind regards,
Iliyan Dimitrov
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsComments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for your comment! The central arrow illustrates the timeline of the experiment with focus on weeks 14 and 18 when the samples were collected. We reckoned that this is a clearer illustration of the duration of the experiment, avoiding repetition of the labels (week 14 and week 18) on the group lines. We would like to present to your attention a revised diagram without the central line (revised manuscript).
Kind regards,
The Authors
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe manuscript has been improved. Howver, the scale bar of the staining should be included.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Thank you for your comment on our manuscript. We took it under consideration and added the information requested - lines 104-108 in the section "Materials and methods", as well as in the section "Results". All changes are highlighted in yellow.
Kind regards,
the Authors
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
