Pluripotent Stem Cells for Transgenesis in the Rabbit: A Utopia?
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The review by Samruan et al. aims to provide an overview on the state of the art of pluripotent stem cells from rabbit. I found it interesting for possible applications of these cells, e.g. disease modeling, and for increasing our basic understanding of early developmental stages in non-primate and non-rodent mammals.
I only suggest minor corrections in the text:
Line 15: change “germlines” with “germ layers”
Line 21 and 200: “germline competent chimera”
Line 36: the term “mouse” is repeated twice
Line 45-46: Naïve PSCs are sustained by both LIF and BMP, or LIF and 2i (as specified below), not by LIF alone. Please specify this point.
Line 47: SMAD2-3, not 1-2. Please correct also in other parts of the text.
Figure 2: change “reprogrammation” with “reprogramming”
Line 277: “embryoid bodies”
Line 309: change “species” with “experimental model”. Define “OSKM for non-experts
Line 383-384: “…produced rabbit cell capable of…”
Author Response
What do you want to do ? New mailCopy Please see the attachementsAuthor Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
This review paper by Samruan et al describes in detail the current state of knowledge of rabbit stem cells, both embryonic and pluripotent, and the barriers to producing germline chimeric rabbits and transgenic rabbits.
It is very well-written and gives a very concise yet comprehensive picture of the research field and knowledge gaps.
In my opinion, this work is a valuable addition to the existing literature. Thanks to the authors for their work putting this together.
I only have some minor, mostly editorial, comments if these are helpful:
Title: I suggest adding ‘the’ before rabbit. It should be ‘a utopia’ (the word is said phonetically as ‘yu’-topia and therefore the consonant sound ‘yu’ should be preceded by a, not an).
Abstract – A lot of the information is also covered in the introduction. Perhaps some of this could be replaced by additional information specifically around rabbits and the applications of rabbit stem cells. Although this is covered in the last two sentences it may be helpful to expand on this.
The plural of chimera is chimeras – this should be changed throughout.
Line 39 – remove ‘of’ after reprogramming
Line 98 – remove ‘as’ before described
Line 115 – the acronym PKC should be explained
Line 121 – add a comma after self-renewal
Both rbPSC and rbiPSC are used throughout the manuscript. One acronym should be used consistently.
Line 167 – remove ‘state’ before closer to the naïve state.
Line 196 – add a comma after rodents
Line 217 – add ‘of’ after upwards
Line 221 – should this be 0.9%?
Line 222 – add ‘were’ after apparently
Line 241 – ‘In vitro’ should be italicised
Line 344 – add a comma after molecule
Line 383 – I suggest adding rabbit after produced, to make this absolutely clear
Line 397 – I suggest saying ‘organoid lines’ rather than ‘organoid production’
The discussion could be expanded to provide more information about the potential uses of transgenic rabbits, for example, discussing further the bioreactor concept introduced early in the manuscript. It would be worthwhile spending some time to compare and contrast the benefits of transgenic rabbits compared to mice and/or other species.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
What do you want to do ? New mailCopyAuthor Response File: Author Response.docx
