Chlamydiaceae: Diseases in Primary Hosts and Zoonosis
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
See uploaded document.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
OUR REPLY TO REVIEWER 1’S COMMENTS
We thanked the reviewer for valuable comments which help to improve the current manuscript’s content and writing. We have addressed all the comments as advised.
1. Line 33-35: We have corrected the statement to ‘Persistence and asymptomatic nature of the Chlamydiaceae infection in humans often lead to underdiagnosis and delayed treatment, causing increased global burden of chlamydial diseases.’
2. Table 1, C. abortus row, second column: The word ‘small’ has been added before ‘ruminants e.g. sheep and goats’.
3. Table 1, C. abortus row, fourth column: Sentence has been corrected by adding ‘with infected tissues’.
4. Table 1, C. pecorum row, second column: The word ‘ewes’ has been replaced with ‘sheep’.
5. Table 1, C. suis row, fourth column: There were no reported clinical signs and symptoms in human who were screened positive C. suis infection. We have added the statement ‘no reported symptoms’ for clarification.
6. Line 99: The word ‘evidence’ has been corrected.
7. Line 114-115: We have revised the sentence to ‘Although non-human models such as mice are currently being used in genital infection study, C. trachomatis is considered an exclusive human pathogen and there is no evidence to suggest that natural infection takes place in the animals.’
8. Line 161, 163-164: We have deleted the phrase ‘pregnant mothers’, and added the information ‘Infectious arbortion caused by C. arbortus occurs during primary infection but it does not affect subsequent pregnancies.’
9. Line 168: Sentence has been modified to ‘…exposure to infected tissues from small ruminants…’.
10. Line 177: The word ‘is’ has been changed to ‘can be’. We have added ‘close contact transmission’ in addition to ‘sexual transmission’ as the ocular infections can occur in guinea pigs.
11. Line 180: We have removed the word ‘Traces’., to avoid reflecting quantification rather than detection.
12. Line 184-186: We have added references for multiple reports (Ref 14, 17), and a reference for an individual report detailing a case with an unidentifiable source of infection (Ref 19).
13. Line 195: We have added the reference for clinical signs of C. felis infection in cats (Ref 21).
14. Line 196: We have stated ‘experimental infection of the reproductive tract’.
15. Line 200: We have added references for the seroprevalence of C. felis in various countries (Ref 139-143).
16. Line 242: The word ‘inclusion’ has been changed to plural ‘inclusions’.
17. Line 246: The word ‘with’ has been changed to ‘in’.
18. Line 243-246: We have clarified the requirement of hormone manipulation and high bacteria doses in mouse model, by adding a sentence ‘Although the reproductive tract of rodent is not a natural site of chlamydial infection, C. muridarum can cause pathology in mice that are hormonal manipulated through progesterone injection few days prior to intravaginal innoculation with high doses of bacteria’.
19. Line 261: We have added ‘inapparent intestinal infection’ for C. pecorum.
20. Line 303-308: The word ‘pig’ has been changed to ‘porcine’ throughout the text.
21. Line 306-307: Workers at the abattoir reported no clinical sign related to C. suis infection. We have added a sentence to clarify this ‘Zoonotic transmission of C. suis has been described among farmers in the porcine slaughterhouse through screening, although there is no clear signs of a symptomatic infection’.
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript by Cheong et al provides a comprehensive and general view of the Chlamydia species that can infect humans and animals. Although this review is not particularly innovative and neither provides ground breaking new information, it nicely recapitulates all these organisms and their importance in disease in a wide range of hosts.
The language is generally acceptable, but in some instance the use of certain word sis puzzling. For example, on page 3, lines 68 - 70, there is a reference to" young employed women", "education attainment" and "Chlamydia is incriminated in a broad spectrum". These are merely 3 examples, but throughout the manuscript there are many more instances of inappropriate use of words and adjectives. Please correct
Author Response
OUR REPLY TO REVIEWER 2’S COMMENTS
We thanked the reviewer for generous comments. We have addressed the comments as below:
1. Line 78-80: We have corrected these puzzling words to ‘young working women’, ‘poor education standard’ and ‘can result in broad spectrum of urogenital tract pathologies’.
2. The manuscript has been checked thoroughly to avoid inappropriate usage of words and adjectives.
