The Prevalence of Escherichia coli Derived from Bovine Clinical Mastitis and Distribution of Resistance to Antimicrobials in Part of Jiangsu Province, China
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
1 - The title of this study, I think, is not determined in a specific area or addressed a problem in this area, and therefore it is the my opinion for authors to consider making the title open for future studies by removing " in part of Jiangsu Province, China"
With sufficiency in identifying them in the materials and methods.
2 - Why not use lines to facilitate the review of the manuscript?
3 - The Abstract is good, but the authors need a slight revision of the language?
4 - Make a space between the references and the sentence in all the manuscript (for example " ........the dairy industry [1, 2].)
5 - figure 1: Bacteria names should be in italics with its unification throughout the manuscript with or without abbreviation.
6 - table 2 and 3: Iso. ? it should be unificate abbreviation.
7 - The authors mentioned (M&M; Isolation and identification) that "the samples were collected from the milk of clinical mastitis-incidence dairy cows with the total amount of 156 during July to October in 2021". Also, "all strains isolated from the selected farms were in three regions (Xinyi, Sihong, and Huai’an) of Jiangsu Province in China".
Is there a justification for not using appropriate statistical analysis for this?
8 - "Finally, the obtained sequences from the PCR products
were analyzed by searching a BLAST sequence on the database of NCBI for species identification".
Primers sequences ?.
Add (table 1).
To confirm whether it was designed or taken from references, also refer to that in Table 1.
9 - "The antimicrobial susceptibility of E. coli isolates"
During analysis of pathogenic bacteria strains of mastitis, Klebsiella spp. and Staphylococcus spp. what is its role in mastitis and why was it not tested for sensitivity?
10 - The E. coli ATCC 25,922 strain was taken as the reference ?
11 - The results of zone diameter for each disks during determination of antimicrobial susceptibility
Is there a repeat for each dish? If so, I think a statistical analysis should be used
12 - Staphylococcus spp. (20.07%) ? differ as in Figure 1.
13 - The reference strains of ATCC25922 were taken for PCRs as well ?
14 - "The visible band on the gel images were to
identify the presence of each targeted genes".
On what basis was it expressed as proportionof isolates?. Please, clearly explain.
15- General remark – the help of native speaker is required in some places.
Author Response
1 - The title of this study, I think, is not determined in a specific area or addressed a problem in this area, and therefore it is the my opinion for authors to consider making the title open for future studies by removing " in part of Jiangsu Province, China"
With sufficiency in identifying them in the materials and methods.
RE: Thanks for the suggestion. However, since the samples were collected from the specific region in Jiangsu Province, it would be convinced to state the location of the sampling the prevalence which may reflect only in the sampled area.
2 - Why not use lines to facilitate the review of the manuscript?
RE: We apologize for the missing of the lines number.
3 - The Abstract is good, but the authors need a slight revision of the language?
RE: Thanks for the suggestion, we have revised on the slight language issues.
4 - Make a space between the references and the sentence in all the manuscript (for example " ........the dairy industry [1, 2].)
RE: The space has been added in between text and reference throughout the paper.
5 - figure 1: Bacteria names should be in italics with its unification throughout the manuscript with or without abbreviation.
RE: Bacteria names have been made italics in Figure 1.
6 - table 2 and 3: Iso. ? it should be unificate abbreviation.
RE: The abbreviation has been spelled out.
7 - The authors mentioned (M&M; Isolation and identification) that "the samples were collected from the milk of clinical mastitis-incidence dairy cows with the total amount of 156 during July to October in 2021". Also, "all strains isolated from the selected farms were in three regions (Xinyi, Sihong, and Huai’an) of Jiangsu Province in China".
Is there a justification for not using appropriate statistical analysis for this?
RE: Samples were collected from three independent farms for analysis of prevalent bacteria. All strains were taken for proportion of each species. There is no need to apply statistics for this matter.
8 - "Finally, the obtained sequences from the PCR products
were analyzed by searching a BLAST sequence on the database of NCBI for species identification".
Primers sequences ?.
RE: The primers sequences have been added in the Table 1.
Add (table 1).
To confirm whether it was designed or taken from references, also refer to that in Table 1.
9 - "The antimicrobial susceptibility of E. coli isolates"
During analysis of pathogenic bacteria strains of mastitis, Klebsiella spp. and Staphylococcus spp. what is its role in mastitis and why was it not tested for sensitivity?
RE: As analyzed in the current study, E.coli is the most isolated species as compared to the other mastitis derived pathogenic bacteria, such as Klebsiella and Staphylococcus. Actually, we have published the detailed analysis of Klebsiella characteristics in a recent paper. Hence, the antimicrobial susceptibility of E. coli has been put to the main position to analyze.
10 - The E. coli ATCC 25,922 strain was taken as the reference ?
RE: This has been revised in the updated version.
11 - The results of zone diameter for each disks during determination of antimicrobial susceptibility
Is there a repeat for each dish? If so, I think a statistical analysis should be used
RE: The triplicate were made to the antimicrobial susceptibility test for each dish. However, the average was made for the determination of resistance of the antibiotics disks, not for the real statistics. Anyway, thanks for the suggestion.
12 - Staphylococcus spp. (20.07%) ? differ as in Figure 1.
RE: Thanks for pointing out the mistake. We have made this revision in the updated version.
13 - The reference strains of ATCC25922 were taken for PCRs as well ?
RE: Yes, ATCC25922 were taken for the reference.
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear authors, the paper is good
However, you need to clarify and to determine the originality of the work.
CMT (Californian Mastitis Test) basically used for subclinical mastitis.
For clinical mastitis, there are general and local symptoms, so preferably to precise these symptoms in your experimental design.
Author Response
Dear reviewer
Thanks for the careful review of our paper, we have made changes accordingly in the revised manuscript.
With regards
