Is ALDH1L1 Elevated in Lung Cancer? Comment on: Lee, S.-H.; et al. “The Combination of Loss of ALDH1L1 Function and Phenformin Treatment Decreases Tumor Growth in KRAS-Driven Lung Cancer” Cancers 2020, 12, 1382

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

1. It’s recommended to provide detailed information (e.g. sequences of PCR primers and validation data of the in-house antibody) of experimental materials used in the present comment.
2. In Fig 1a and 1b. The patterns of pre-stained protein ladders are so different.
3. Fig 1c is a quantitative result of ALDH1L1 mRNA. However, the figure legend was described as “twenty μg of total protein was loaded in panel c”.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The comment made on the article  Lee, S.-H.; et al. “The Combination of
Loss of ALDH1L1 Function and Phenformin
Treatment Decreases Tumor Growth in KRAS-Driven
Lung Cancer” Cancers 2020, 12, 1382. is interesting.

- I agree with the authors as the original article did not perform antibody specificity experiments. 

- The molecular size of the protein is missing in the western blots that was presented in the original article.

• Most of the data is based on the IHC data in the article.

Based on the data shown in Sergey Krupenko and Jaspreet Sharma comment article. I would suggest the following to strengthen the comment.

1. The authors could choose ALDH1L1 expressing RT-4 cell line, and perform Knockout experiments with an siRNA show the knockout and specificity of the protein.
2. As a rescue experiment, the authors can reintroduce ALDH1L1 in the knockout cells or another cell line that is deficient of ALDH1L1. 
3. It would interesting to know the ALDH1L1 mRNA expression in these cells.

By this way the authors could show the specificity of the ALDH1L1 antibody.

Author Response

See the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf