Toll-Like Receptors 1/2/4/6 and Nucleotide-Binding Oligomerization Domain-Like Receptor 2 Are Key Damage-Associated Molecular Patterns Sensors on Periodontal Resident Cells

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Line 131; line 452; line 504; line 511; 513; 519; 534 - "our previous report" ; "we reported the";  we postulate" ; "We speculated that"; "we..."; "our in vitro study"; "In our research, we noticed" - Please don't personalize the scientific writing, it should be in third person.

The authors are missing some material description. Some are described with the supplier company, but not all. 

The reference(s) for the cell culture protocol 2.3, for 2.4 and 2.5 and 2.6 is missing.

A table describing the explained protocol in 2.3 could improve the comprehension.

The table 1 only has one reference, number 26 that belongs to the authors (Li, J.‐P.; Chen, Y.; Ng, C.H.C; Fung, M.L.; Xu, A.; Cheng, B.; Tsao, S.W.; Leung WK. Differential expression of Toll‐like receptor 4 in healthy and diseased human gingiva. J. Periodontal Res. 2014, 49, 845‐854. doi:10.1111/jre.12173). Why doesn't it have more references?

Line 280 - "were recruited and signed (for minors, their guardian) written informed consent to participate" - It is already mentioned previously in the methods part, the repetition is unnecessary.

Line 286-292 - A table would improve this description.

Line 330 and line 331 - "significantly lower"; "seemed significantly higher than"- It should be given a number of measure in order to be more specific. 

Line 401 - 402 - "TLRs transcript expressions in HGK/HGF with LPS and hypoxia stimulation were reported in the previous research [26,27]". This section is about describing results and the authors don't use any others references in this section. 

Line 497 - "the present group was not overtly surprised by the results observed" - This conclusion is not very scientific. Please be more objective.

Line 511- "We speculated that" - In order to be rigorous and scientifically objective don't use the term "speculate". Speculations are more appropriate for other fields. "Hypothesize" should be used in a scientific paper.

The title could be improved contemplating the biggest achievement of this work and not just the protocol used.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

This submission is a very high quality research with a complete and very well described methodology.

Please could you precise few points:

• Inclusion criteria: what was the age of the participants?
• Table 1: Please add hybridization temperature
• Did you perform qRT-PCR and RT-PCR in duplicate... ?
• How was the sample size calculated?
• Please specify your study design (cross-sectional?) and add the CONSORT ? checklist
• Line 282 "no subject was on systemic antibiotics 6 months prior to tissue biopsy" . Was this an exclusion criterion?

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx