Clinical Investigation of Leukocyte DNA Damage in COVID-19 Patients

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article “Clinical Investigation of Lymphocyte DNA Damage in COVID-19 Patients” by Doğan at al. is of good quality and clear. The manuscript showed that the NLR was associated with the presence and progression of COVID-19. I recommend this paper to be published in the journal. Here are some suggestions:

1: In “Introduction”, the authors should enrich the related articles published between 2021 and 2022. In fact, this “Introduction” (References 1-29) only cites one literature published in 2022, which is not allowed.

2: The post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection is an important public health issue that can have a long-term impact on pulmonary and multiple extrapulmonary tissues and organs (doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.908757; doi: 10.1016/s2213-2600(21)00385-4). The authors should add relevant contents in the introduction part (after reference 4) of revised manuscript.

3: In “Introduction”, “Many studies have confirmed that increased proinflammatory cytokines play a critical role in the induction of lymphopenia.” Please add relevant references.

4: In “Discussion”, the whole paragraph “The COVID-19 pandemic has affected many domains, including daily life, and caused many deaths. In this context, knowing and understanding the structure of the COVID-19 virus is important for vaccine studie.…..In this respect, this study can be a foundation for postCOVID-19 DNA and genetic studies. Thus, the study makes an important contribution to the literature.” should move to the “Introduction” to highlight the novelty of this work clearly.

5: The “Discussion” of the manuscript should be more concise.

6: Take “COVID-19 virus” for example, the authors should carefully reviewed the manuscript to unify as “SARS-CoV-2”.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thanks for the review, suggestions, and corrections.

Kind regards.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript presented a neat analysis of DNA damage in COVID-19 patients and their correlation to the peripheral blood mononuclear cells. The manuscript clearly defined the patients included in the study and the criteria for evaluations. The conclusions are unambiguous that COVID-19 patients tend to have different blood cell counts and ratios, a higher hemoglobin level, and an increased degree of DNA damage; and the tail moment and the olive moment were affected variously by COVID-19. The data were clearly presented to support the conclusion.

One thing to point out is the manuscript’s title. The authors mentioned that the DNA damage was based on analyzing the total PBMCs instead of the lymphocytes due to the low lymphocyte count in the COVID-19 inflammation status. Therefore it is misleading to title the manuscript as the investigation of “lymphocyte DNA damage” in COVID-19 patients. It’s better to use a different term to eliminate confusions and set correct expectations for the audience.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thanks for the review, suggestions, and corrections.

Kind regards.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx