Variation in Interleukin-4, -6, and -10 in Mastitis Milk: Associations with Infections, Pathogens, Somatic Cell Counts, and Oxidative Stress

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors assessed the effects of perinatal nutritional supplementation and early weaning on serum biochemistry, reproductive performance, and metabolomics in yak dams, and the following questions need to be addressed with respect to this manuscript:

1. The manuscript describes the control group as a grazing form, how were the other two experimental groups fed?

2. How did the SF and SW groups make additional nutrient additions if they were also grazing?

3. Please add the time of blood collection to the material approach.

4. Metabolomics sequencing should indicate the name of the specific sequencing company

5. Poor clarity of images, unable to see detailed information in diagrams; different fonts in diagram notes (e.g., lines 858, 867)

6. There are erroneous details in the manuscript, such as spaces between numbers and units, whether the manuscript should be aligned at both ends, etc., so please check them in full.

7. The conclusion suggests summarizing the two paragraphs into one.

8. What is the exact amount of TMR added to the nutrient supplementation group and how was it determined?

Comments on the Quality of English Language

The English language needs to be slightly modified.

Author Response

The authors appreciate all of the reviewers' comments and corrections, as well as the editor's considerations. Regarding the feedback from reviewer 1, those comments pertain to another manuscript. Therefore, our responses are focused on addressing the comments from Reviewer 2 and Reviewer 3.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

General information:

This study has shown how the immune system of animals reacts to mastitis and some parameters appear in the milk. Investigating such problems is extremely important because mastitis occurs on all dairy farms. However, I was hoping that this study would provide some clues about the possibility of early detection of mastitis before it occurs. The question is: Can interleukin-4, interleukin-6 and interleukin-10 provide clues for the early detection of mastitis?

 

 

Some comments on the manuscript:

·       In line 30, the first letter at the beginning of the sentence (all mastitis quarters...) must be capitalized.

·       In line 54, a reference (Keane et al.) has no serial number. Why?

·       In line 87, the concentration of somatic cells (800x103 cells/mL) must be written correctly, for example as 800 x 1000.

·       In line 94, the manufacturer of this bucket milking machine was not mentioned and which milking parameters were used, vacuum level, pulsation rate and pulsation ratio. Such parameters play an important role in udder health and production of qualitative and quantitative milk.

·       In line 95 it was mentioned that 200,000 somatic cells/ml in milk represent the limit for healthy or subclinical or clinical mastitis. Today we know that a healthy udder produces fewer than 100,000 somatic cells/ml in milk. If this physiological SCC value is exceeded, subclinical or clinical mastitis may be present. The question is: Why did the authors use 200,000 somatic cells/ml?

·       In line 119 of the statistical analysis, it was not specified which statistical model was used and which variable and fixed factors were used in the model for each parameter studied.

·       Lines 135 to 146 should contain a table with data such as the number of infected quarters and the type of microbes.

·       In line 299, reference 17, the date must be written in bold.

 

I hope that such comments will be taken into consideration.

Author Response

The authors appreciate all of the reviewers' comments and corrections, as well as the editor's considerations. We believe the revised manuscript is more understandable and useful to the reader. All corrections were presented below based on all comments. We emphasized that all changes requested by reviewers were accepted, addressed, and corrected individually.

For a point-by-point response to the reviewer’s comments, Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

 

Broad comments:

This study is focusing on practical relevances of mastitis diagnostics. It is fairly written, its aims are clear the methods used were appropriate, the results were properly presented and discussed.

 

Specific comments:

L30: All...

L41: IL-4.

L87, 95, 147, 149: 10˄3 (3 in superscript)

L107: (Foss, Hilleroed, Denmark)

L113:... according to Fenaille et al. [16].

L114-5: (Shimadzu Biotech, Kyoto, Japan)

L133: usually a statistical trend is indicated when P value is greater than 0.05 but lower than 0.10.

L154:...interleukins...

 

References: Authors should carefully check the entire list by accurately following the Instructions of Veterinary Sciences. Eg. abbreviated journal names appear more often with a dot, but several times without it.

 

 

Author Response

The authors appreciate all of the reviewers' comments and corrections, as well as the editor's considerations. We believe the revised manuscript is more understandable and useful to the reader. All corrections were presented below based on all comments. We emphasized that all changes requested by reviewers were accepted, addressed, and corrected individually.

For a point-by-point response to the reviewer’s comments, Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf