Review for 10.1186/1471-230X-11-2 (2011)

Reviewer's report
Title:Effect of butyrate and cancer progression on keratin 8 expression in the
colon
Version: 1Date:25 June 2010
Reviewer: Leah Cosgrove
Reviewer's report:
Our Ref: BioMed Review 1838892078394865
Adrian Aldcroft, BA(Hons)
Assistant Scientific Editor
BioMed Central
Floor 6, 236 Gray's Inn Road
London, WC1X 8HL
24th June 2010
Dear Dr Aldcott
Re: 'Effect of butyrate and cancer progression on keratin 8 expression in the
colon'
Abdul Q Khan, Jonathan P Bury, Steven Brown, Stuart A Riley and Bernard M
Corfe BMC Gastroenterology Research article
I have reviewed the above manuscript for submission to BMC Gastroenterology
and find it acceptable for publication after minor essential revisions.
1. Is the question posed by the authors well defined?
The premise of this manuscript is that butyrate modulates the expression of
Keratin 8 in normal and colorectal cancer. In order to investigate this the authors
measured butyrate levels in normal colon and cancer and correlated this to the
levels of keratin as measured by immunohistochemistry and western blot
analysis. The main conclusion is that butyrate appears to downregulate the
expression of keratin 8 in colorectal cancer. This does not appear to have been
described before and is novel.
2. Are the methods appropriate and well described? Yes, the methods are
appropriate and sound. The only issue in regards to this is the specificity of the
Keratin 8 antibody. Does it cross react to any other keratins? Also with the
authors data for the western blot where they aligned this to butyrate expression
there appears to be a number of different bands. Is this due to cross reactivity or
different phosphorylated forms of keratinThis was highlighted by the following
publication
These authors found the absolute levels of Keratin 8 (the non- phosphorylated
forms of keratin 8 did not change with progression of disease but the
phosphorlyation did. Was there a loading control for this western? Also the
western ran very skewed and there were a number of different bands in some
track but this was not commented on by the authors.
3. Are the data sound? The data is sound, only the western data needs to be
commented on.
4. Does the manuscript adhere to the relevant standards for reporting and data
deposition? Yes, this manuscript adheres to the relevant standards required.
5. Are the discussion and conclusions well balanced and adequately supported
by the data?
Yes, the overall conclusions are solid and not overstated.
6. Are limitations of the work clearly stated? Yes especially in the scoring issues
relating to immunohistochemistry.
7. Do the authors clearly acknowledge any work upon which they are building,
both published and unpublished?
The only publication that requires citing is the publication inserted in question 2.
8. Do the title and abstract accurately convey what has been found? Yes
9. Is the writing acceptable? The manuscript is written in a clear and concise
way.
Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely
related research interests
Quality of written English: Acceptable
Statistical review: No, the manuscript does not need to be seen by a
statistician.
Declaration of competing interests:
I declare that I have no competing interests