The Applications of Microphysiological Systems in Biomedicine: Impact on Urologic and Orthopaedic Research

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I have reviewed the manuscript titled "Implementing microphysiological-systems in urologic and orthopaedic research" submitted to encyclopedia journal of MDPI. Overall, authors have tried to capture the research in microphyisological systems and how they aim to alleviate the need for animal testing by providing tissue-mimicking platforms with built-in microfluidics. Here are my comments

1. Even though the manuscript title has 'urologic' MPS, authors have not provided a comprehensive review on the urologic systems. Authors have cited only 3 references to the topic. Authors must provide some more examples of the urologic MPS.
2. Authors should tabulate all the MPS systems for orthopedic and urologic systems in a tabular format along with their research findings (commercial or research based) and provide the readers a sense of how the field is advancing.

Author Response

Esteemed reviewer,

We are thankful for the comprehensive review of our manuscript and have improved it considering your comments.

1. Further reference of urological models relating to prostate and bladder were added. It is noteworthy the fact that there is limited literature on MPS model of urologic organs other than the kidney. This point is made in our manuscript and it is also our objective to make this fact clear.
2. A new table (table 1) is added to the manuscript, listing all the relevant MPS models discussed in our manuscript.

With kind regards,

Pedro Pinto      

Reviewer 2 Report

Microphysiological-systems (MPS) are very useful for the medical study bridging the in vitro and the in vivo. Currently they can be advanced as the imaged in vivo platform for the pre-study for the optimization of drug effects and treatment therapy by mimicking the real tissues and their complex physiological and/or pathological microenvironment, This article does a brief summary on the microphysiological-systems for the development of bone and kidney complex systems for urologic and orthopaedic research. Firstly, the authors give a brief introduction of the development of this field and then do the following summary and discussion: microphysiological-systems and applications including the perspectives on MPS applications in drug development and in biomedical research. .Finally, the authors give some conclusions and prospects for this field. The entry is generally written good. However, there are some suggestion for authors to consider for the improvement of the manuscript.

1.      It is better to give 4-5 figures to show the typical microphysiological-systems or key parts of these systems for the drug development and the biomedical research, particularly in the field of urologic and orthopaedic reseach.

2.      The section for drug development and for the biomedical research can be divided in to several parts again and do more deep analysis and discussion by using some examples.

3.      Please pay attention to the typo errors, For example, there is a repeated section number In page 2: 2.1 Perspective on MPS applications in drug development and in Page 3: 2.1 Perspective on MPS applications in biomedical research.

Author Response

Esteemed reviewer,

We are thankful for the comprehensive review of our manuscript and have improved it considering your comments.

1. A new figure (figure 1) that depicted the designs of commonly used and commercially available MPS models is now added to our manuscript.
2. All types and grammatical errors have been reviewed and corrected.   

With kind regards,

Pedro Pinto      

Reviewer 3 Report

Pedro Caetano Pinto and Janosch Schoon discussed and summarized current developments in microphysiological-systems in urologic and orthopaedic studies. The reviewed topic of development and research microphysiological-systems and their implementation in biomedicine has high importance in biomedical science and therapeutics development. This short entry is well described the current state of the field.

Comments:

It is misleading – in the title is stated “implemented in urologic and orthopaedic research” however in the manuscript is discussed MPS implementation in various biomedical researches. To this regard is more appropriate to replace urologic and orthopaedic to biomedicine, or indicate in subtitles - 1) Perspective on MPS applications in drug development or urological diseases. 2) Perspective on MPS applications in orthopaedic research.

Numeration of paragraphs is the same 2.1 – (lines 93 and 141)

The title should be corrected to 2. Microphysiological-systems and THEIR applications (line 74).

It would be more informative and visually to represent one summarizing schematic figure about MPS implementation in various biomedical studies. This is optional for the entry type of articles.

There is misprint in the abstract “in vivo and in vivo” – (line 15).

Correct abbreviation for induced pluripotent stem cells – iPSCs, (line 36).

Correctly - Drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics (DMPK), (line 95).

Reference 22 needs to be corrected.

It needs to give explanation for abbreviations:   FDA, EMA, HUMIMIC, PDMS

[REF] should be corrected (line 214).

Please double check all text for misprints and errors.

Author Response

Esteemed reviewer,

We are thankful for the comprehensive review of our manuscript and have improved it considering your comments.

We have changed the title of our manuscript to better reflected our objective in discussing MPS models in biomedical sciences and their impact in urologic and orthopaedic research. A new figure and table were added to make the manuscript more comprehensive.

All types, misleading references and grammatical errors have been reviewed and corrected   

With kind regards,

Pedro Pinto      

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

I agree with the revised manuscript and recommend it for publication pending any grammatical revisions.

Reviewer 2 Report

Now this article is in its good shape and can be processed further.

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you.

The authors performed a good job to improve the manuscript. The visual representation of current developments in MPS systems and the summary table are excellently improve perception and supplement of the described issues of the article. In the current version of the manuscript there are no references to the figure and the table. It needs to be corrected. Also, on the figure 1E is better to place properly "bone morrow scaffold".