Sarcomeres Morphology and Z-Line Arrangement Disarray Induced by Ventricular Premature Contractions through the Rac2/Cofilin Pathway
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This is a very interesting paper looking at the role of disarrayed sarcomere morphology and Rac2/cofilin pathway in a pig model of VPCs.
Apart from some minor inaccuracies in the writing and punctuation, outlined below, the study represents a carefully planned and performed research worthy of publication.
- references in square brackets shall be moved before the pagsemicolon/point
- 3, Figure 2B, to change LVFM with LVFW
- 4, line 111, to change LVF with LVFM
- 4 (lines 136,138,139) and pag. 11 (line 37), typeface needs to be aligned to test for underlined words
- in legends of Figures 4, 5 and 7 the P values are missing
- 11, test from line 37 to 49 needs to be formatted
- 13, line 105, “alteration” instead of “ alternation”
- 13, line 115, reference [8] does not seem to represent the latter information about the heart
- 13, line 121, “by the increased” instead of “by increased the”
- 5 paragraph typeface needs to be aligned to test
- In legends of Figures with western it needs to add “PC:positive control”
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
This is an important experimental study in animal models to determine the underlying pathology of PVCs.
I congratulate authors to conduct this experiment. There are few reservations on this study.
- Study conclusion can not be generalized as it is limited to 6 animals.
- The stimulus used is electrical current for 6 months which produced significant changes in the myocardium, which is not the case in isolated PVC's.
- The authors have studied the effect on actin myofilaments along the Z line, but not studied the beta receptors, whether there is any upregulation or down regulation of beta receptors
- The findings of RAc2 played a crucial role has not been confirmed in knock out model, which limits the study outcomes.
- Although Rac2?cofilin was found in this study to be important, other pathways or mechanisms are not studied.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf