Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Manuscript entitled “Impaired carbohydrate metabolism and excess of lipid accumulation in offspring of hyperandrogenic mice” addresses pathophysiological aspects of polycystic ovary syndrome with focus on pregnancy and the offspring in mouse model. 

 

I found the work interesting, well structured, documented and without substantial errors. Provided statistics is adequate. I suggest including power of study analysis and recommend the paper for publication. Here is a relevant reference:

 

Thomas, L. 1996. Monitoring long-term  Retrospective power analysis. Conservation Biology 11.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

In this manuscript, the authors demonstrated that maternal hyperandrogenism-induced oocyte changes may impart the glucose and lipid metabolism of offspring in polycystic ovary syndrome-like mouse models.

The manuscript is well written in general and the types of analysis performed are adequate. However, one big pitfall of the study is that only 3 mice per group were used, which could be the potential reason for the observed no significant changes in a number of parameters. Could the authors provide a justification for the number of animals used?

 

Please find my suggestions for improvements as follows.

1.     It is not clear to me what the research question of the whole project is from the Abstract.

2.     Line 76 - The hypothesis sentence needs to be rewritten. There is too much information in that single sentence to digest. In fact, the hypothesis should be simple, straightforward, and to the point of filling the research gap stated in this paragraph. It was not clear to me where the research gap is, i.e. the rationale of the study design is weakly described and needs improvement.

3.     Line 79 – The introduction should only include the rationale, hypothesis, and a brief study plan in the last paragraph. No findings should be described here.

4.     What is the basis of only three animals per group used in the study?

5.     More details should be included in the statistical analysis section, such as under what conditions are t-test or one-way ANOVA being used? For one-way ANOVA, what was the posthoc test used?

6.     Figure 1 legend – what do you mean by “12 measurements from different animals”? What is the CV of measurements from the same animal?

7.     N number of each parameter measured should be clearly stated in the figure legends as well as in the paragraphs.

 

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Thanks for the responses. I have no further comments.