Title: Differential molecular pathway expression according to chemotherapeutic response in
ovarian clear cell carcinoma
Version: 2 Date: 18 Apr 2023
Reviewer's report:
General comments:
Ovarian clear cell carcinoma is a rare subtype of ovarian cancer. The authors collected ovarian
samples from 24 patients with this subtype and performed pan-cancer panel analysis, providing
valuable evidence for clinical anti-cancer therapy. Therefore, the authors' study is interesting.
However, as a comprehensive scientific publication, there are still some shortcomings in the
content. The manuscript needs careful and extensive major revisions before it can be accepted.
General improvements:
The materials and methods part is not comprehensive. It needs major revisions and additions.
It is recommended that the author write the methods section into 3-4 paragraphs, which include
patient information collection and ethical procedures, sample collection and processing, RNA
extraction and pan-cancer panel detection, bioinformatics analysis methods, software, and
statistical analysis, etc.
Detailed comments:
1. Please follow the submission guidelines, revise the line and page numbering, and use double
line spacing.
2. Please correct grammatical errors and eliminate redundancies in the English expression to
make the sentence more fluent.
3. Please check all punctuation to ensure it is in English half-width.
4. Check and ensure that there is a space before each citation.
5. Please mark the full name of NACT "neoadjuvant chemotherapy" in the main text when
it is first mentioned. Check that all abbreviations are marked with their full name when first
mentioned.
6. Have the statistical data of the patients been matched?
7. The images are not aesthetically pleasing. To make the research paper more complete, it is
recommended to add a reasoned pathway diagram to the discussion part. For example, in the
second paragraph of the discussion, "Most dysregulated genes are mainly involved in the PI3K,
Cell Cycle-Apoptosis, and MAPK pathways." can be identified using images. See Fig4, and 5
in the following literature:
Balasubramaniam, S. D., Balakrishnan, V., Oon, C. E., & Kaur, G. (2022). Gene expression
profiling of HPV-associated cervical carcinogenesis in formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded
(FFPE) tissues using the NanoString nCounterTM platform. Gene, 825, 146385. https://
doi.org/10.1016/j.gene.2022.146385
8. Results 3.1: It is recommended to put the definition of R0, R1, and R2 at the end of Table 1
as the annotation of the table. Not in the text.
9. Table 1 needs additional information. The author can add specific chemotherapy regimens,
duration of treatment, CA125 data, FIGO stage, number of patients who underwent initial tumor
debulking surgery, and whether there were differences in the surgical approach. The details can
be described in the results section or included in the supplementary information, but the relevant
information should be presented in the manuscript. See the reference:
Marijo Bilusic, Daniel Girardi, Yan Zhou, Kyungsuk Jung, Jianming Pei, Michael Slifker,
Qingrong Chen, Daoud Meerzaman, Katherine Alpaugh, Denise Young, Douglas Flieder,
Phillip Gray, Elizabeth Plimack, Molecular Profiling of Exceptional Responders to Cancer
Therapy, The Oncologist, Volume 26, Issue 3, March 2021, Pages 186–195, https://
doi.org/10.1002/onco.13600
10. It is recommended to add subheadings to the discussion section, with each heading being as
simple and understandable as possible.
11. The conclusion is too long. As a relatively simple study, you should use 1-2 simple sentences
to summarize the overall value of the article as the conclusion, rather than a “results’ abstract”.
Please note that the conclusion of a scientific paper should not simply state the results, but should
be one or two sentences that summarize the value of the entire study. Therefore, the conclusion
can be quantitative or qualitative.