The Role of Microbiota-Related Co-Metabolites in MASLD Progression: A Narrative Review

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

While the manuscript is well-written, it may benefit from a more personal touch and additional content. Including the discussion section of a paragraph on the progress and prospects related to studies establishing a connection or addressing the pathologies associated with MASLD would have been advantageous. This information could help in identifying microbiota-related co-metabolites in MASLD progression and in suggesting a diagnostic and therapeutic approach targeting the microbiome and MASLD progression.

 

 

Author Response

Dear Editor,

Thank you very much for your comments; they have been very helpful in improving the review.

We have modified both the introduction and various paragraphs to clarify the concept of MASLD, its induction in animal models, its relationship with the gut microbiota, and why these studies have been chosen (all of them induce MASLD and show alterations in different metabolites).

Additionally, we have added more references in the introduction ([6] & [7]) and text ([70] & [72]), as also recommended by the other reviewer, to make clear the MASLD relationship.

We have also included a paragraph before the conclusions as you recommended us. Consequently, we have modified the conclusions to emphasize the key points of the review and, as suggested, to emphasize the need to consider these metabolites in the diagnosis of the disease.

Finally, we have reviewed the article's formatting. The references' numbering in the text was in "Calibri" font and not "Palatino Linotype" like the rest of the text. We apologize for not noticing this earlier, but it has now been corrected. Furthermore, we detected some spaces between the number of references and the text that has also been eliminated.

We hope these changes are sufficient and aligned with your suggestions.

Thank you once again,

Maria and Daniel

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dr. Martin-Grau and Dr. Daniel Monleón prepared a manuscript on the role of microbiota in MASLD progression. The manuscript is prepared rather carefully and concerns an important topic from a clinical point of view.

I am attaching comments to the paper below:

1. please remove the dot after the affiliation numbers of the last author,

2. I would emphasize in the title that the work is a review, at the moment this title slightly suggests a research work, for example, I would add a narrative review,

3. in the introduction I would add exactly what elements will be discussed in the following subsections,

4. I have no major comments on the text of the work, it is extremely carefully prepared, thought out with great care,

5. the figures are excellent, they allow a great understanding of the topic,

6. the references must be expanded:

https://doi.org/10.3390/cancers15205100

https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms25094901

https://doi.org/10.3390/nu16081173

https://doi.org/10.3390/nu16111668

https://doi.org/10.3390/metabo14060324

https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms25084387

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

First, thank you very much for all the comments and suggestions that have contributed to the improvement of this review.

1. Thank you for pointing out that we needed to remove the dot after the last author's affiliations; we had not noticed this.
2. We greatly appreciate the suggestion and completely agree with specifying in the title that this is a narrative review to avoid confusion and ensure more accurate searches by other authors.
3. Thank you again for the suggestion. Evidently, the introduction did not correctly mention the sections that would be followed. We have modified this part to properly introduce the subsequent subsections.
4. Thank you very much for the comment.
5. Thank you very much for the appreciation.
6. Thank you for all the proposed references. We have thoroughly reviewed all of them and believe that only two of them fit perfectly in our review ([70] and [72]). We have expanded the list of references and included the suggested ones. Regarding the others, we consider them very interesting, we will keep them in mind for future papers. We have also added two other references to complete a paragraph the other reviewer proposed to us. Finally, we have added 4 new references: [6], [7], [70], and [72].

Finally, we have reviewed the article's formatting. The references' numbering in the text was in "Calibri" font and not "Palatino Linotype" like the rest of the text. We apologize for not noticing this earlier, but it has now been corrected. Furthermore, we detected some spaces between the number of references and the text that has also been eliminated.

Again, thank you very much for your comments, suggestions, and corrections.

Maria and Daniel