PPATHOGENS-D-24-02439

Systemic infection by Candida albicans  requires FASN-α subunit induced cell wall remodeling to perturb immune response

PLOS Pathogens

Dear Dr. Zhao,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS Pathogens. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS Pathogens's publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Please submit your revised manuscript within 30 days Feb 09 2025 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plospathogens@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/ppathogens/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:

* A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. This file does not need to include responses to any formatting updates and technical items listed in the 'Journal Requirements' section below.

* A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'.

* An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'.

If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, competing interests statement, or data availability statement, please make these updates within the submission form at the time of resubmission. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter.

We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

David R. Andes

Academic Editor

PLOS Pathogens

Michal Olszewski

Section Editor

PLOS Pathogens

Sumita Bhaduri-McIntosh

Editor-in-Chief

PLOS Pathogens

orcid.org/0000-0003-2946-9497

Michael Malim

Editor-in-Chief

PLOS Pathogens

orcid.org/0000-0002-7699-2064

Additional Editor Comments :

The reviewers appreciate the response to prior reviews and manuscript edits. A few issues remain that we are hopeful you will be able to address.

Journal Requirements:

1) Please ensure that the CRediT author contributions listed for every co-author are completed accurately and in full.

At this stage, the following Authors/Authors require contributions: Yajing Zhao, Zhishan Zhou, Guiyue Cai, Dandan Zhang, Xiaoting Yu, Dongmei Li, Shuixiu Li, Zhanpeng Zhang, Dongli Zhang, Jiyao Luo, Yunfeng Hu, Aili Gao, and Hong Zhang. Please ensure that the full contributions of each author are acknowledged in the "Add/Edit/Remove Authors" section of our submission form.

The list of CRediT author contributions may be found here: https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/s/authorship#loc-author-contributions

2) Please provide an Author Summary. This should appear in your manuscript between the Abstract (if applicable) and the Introduction, and should be 150-200 words long. The aim should be to make your findings accessible to a wide audience that includes both scientists and non-scientists. Sample summaries can be found on our website under Submission Guidelines:

https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/s/submission-guidelines#loc-parts-of-a-submission

3) We noticed that you used the phrase 'unpublished ' in the manuscript. We do not allow these references, as the PLOS data access policy requires that all data be either published with the manuscript or made available in a publicly accessible database. Please amend the supplementary material to include the referenced data or remove the references.

4) We do not publish any copyright or trademark symbols that usually accompany proprietary names, eg ©,  ®, or TM  (e.g. next to drug or reagent names). Therefore please remove all instances of trademark/copyright symbols throughout the text, including:

- TM on page: 40.

5) Please upload all main figures as separate Figure files in .tif or .eps format. For more information about how to convert and format your figure files please see our guidelines: 

https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/s/figures

6) We have noticed that you have uploaded Supporting Information files, but you have not included a list of legends. Please add a full list of legends for your Supporting Information files after the references list.

7) Some material included in your submission may be copyrighted. According to PLOS copyright policy, authors who use figures or other material (e.g., graphics, clipart, maps) from another author or copyright holder must demonstrate or obtain permission to publish this material under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License used by PLOS journals. Please closely review the details of PLOSu2019s copyright requirements here: PLOS Licenses and Copyright. If you need to request permissions from a copyright holder, you may use PLOS's Copyright Content Permission form.

Please respond directly to this email and provide any known details concerning your material's license terms and permissions required for reuse, even if you have not yet obtained copyright permissions or are unsure of your material's copyright compatibility. Once you have responded and addressed all other outstanding technical requirements, you may resubmit your manuscript within Editorial Manager. 

Potential Copyright Issues:

i) Figure 7A. Please confirm whether you drew the images / clip-art within the figure panels by hand. If you did not draw the images, please provide (a) a link to the source of the images or icons and their license / terms of use; or (b) written permission from the copyright holder to publish the images or icons under our CC BY 4.0 license. Alternatively, you may replace the images with open source alternatives. See these open source resources you may use to replace images / clip-art:

- https://commons.wikimedia.org

- https://openclipart.org/.

8) We note that your Data Availability Statement is currently as follows: "All data are available in the main text or the supplementary materials.". Please confirm at this time whether or not your submission contains all raw data required to replicate the results of your study. Authors must share the “minimal data set” for their submission. PLOS defines the minimal data set to consist of the data required to replicate all study findings reported in the article, as well as related metadata and methods (https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/data-availability#loc-minimal-data-set-definition).

For example, authors should submit the following data: 

1) The values behind the means, standard deviations and other measures reported;

2) The values used to build graphs;

3) The points extracted from images for analysis..

Authors do not need to submit their entire data set if only a portion of the data was used in the reported study.

If your submission does not contain these data, please either upload them as Supporting Information files or deposit them to a stable, public repository and provide us with the relevant URLs, DOIs, or accession numbers. For a list of recommended repositories, please see https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/recommended-repositories. 

If there are ethical or legal restrictions on sharing a de-identified data set, please explain them in detail (e.g., data contain potentially sensitive information, data are owned by a third-party organization, etc.) and who has imposed them (e.g., an ethics committee). Please also provide contact information for a data access committee, ethics committee, or other institutional body to which data requests may be sent. If data are owned by a third party, please indicate how others may request data access.

9) Please amend your detailed Financial Disclosure statement. This is published with the article. It must therefore be completed in full sentences and contain the exact wording you wish to be published.

1) Please clarify all sources of financial support for your study. List the grants, grant numbers, and organizations that funded your study, including funding received from your institution. Please note that suppliers of material support, including research materials, should be recognized in the Acknowledgements section rather than in the Financial Disclosure

2) State the initials, alongside each funding source, of each author to receive each grant. For example: "This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health (####### to AM; ###### to CJ) and the National Science Foundation (###### to AM)."

3) State what role the funders took in the study. If the funders had no role in your study, please state: "The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.".

10) Your current Financial Disclosure states, "The author(s) received no specific funding for this work."

However, your funding information on the submission form indicates seven grants. Please ensure that the funders and grant numbers match between the Financial Disclosure field and the Funding Information tab in your submission form. Note that the funders must be provided in the same order in both places as well. 

Please indicate by return email the full and correct funding information for your study and confirm the order in which funding contributions should appear. Please be sure to indicate whether the funders played any role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Reviewers' Comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Part I - Summary

Please use this section to discuss strengths/weaknesses of study, novelty/significance, general execution and scholarship.

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: The manuscript by Zhao et al presents data on the role of fatty acid synthase gene FAS2 in Candida albicans virulence. The FAS2 gene has previously been shown to be essential for systemic as well as oropharyngeal candidiasis. In the present study the authors have attempted to uncover the mechanisms behind avirulent phenotype of fas2�/� null mutant. The authors show that the survival of fas2�/� mutant strain in immunocompetent mice was abolished in cyclophosphamide treated mice. From a series of experiments the authors show that neutrophils are the primary cell type that mediate C. albicans fas2�/� killing. The role of neutrophils in increased fas2�/� killing was further supported by increased b-glucans exposure. Finally, the authors performed experiments to show the vaccine potential of FAS2. Overall, the findings of this work are interesting, and may help better understand the contributions of FAS2 in fungal pathogenesis. The manuscript is well written. The methodology is sound and in most cases the results justify the conclusions.

**********

Part II – Major Issues: Key Experiments Required for Acceptance

Please use this section to detail the key new experiments or modifications of existing experiments that should be absolutely required to validate study conclusions.

Generally, there should be no more than 3 such required experiments or major modifications for a "Major Revision" recommendation. If more than 3 experiments are necessary to validate the study conclusions, then you are encouraged to recommend "Reject".

Reviewer #1: The group did not address the concern from prior review about the use of female mice only.

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

**********

Part III – Minor Issues: Editorial and Data Presentation Modifications

Please use this section for editorial suggestions as well as relatively minor modifications of existing data that would enhance clarity.

Reviewer #1: The group discusses the use of live Candida as a vaccine in the discussion. Prior review recommended that this be edited as the feasibility for a live Candida vaccine is low.

Reviewer #2: 1. Figure 6C, In the Mkc1 and Cek1 phosphorylation western blots the mkc1�/� and cek1�/� null mutant control strains are missing. The tubulin loading control also needs to be repeated.

2. Figure 6E, the quality of Rho1 western blot is very poor.

**********

PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean? ). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy .

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

Figure resubmission:

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. If there are other versions of figure files still present in your submission file inventory at resubmission, please replace them with the PACE-processed versions.

Reproducibility:

To enhance the reproducibility of your results, we recommend that authors of applicable studies deposit laboratory protocols in protocols.io, where a protocol can be assigned its own identifier (DOI) such that it can be cited independently in the future. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option to publish peer-reviewed clinical study protocols. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols

Dear Dr. Zhao,

We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript 'Systemic infection by Candida albicans  requires FASN-α subunit induced cell wall remodeling to perturb immune response' has been provisionally accepted for publication in PLOS Pathogens.

Before your manuscript can be formally accepted you will need to complete some formatting changes, which you will receive in a follow up email. A member of our team will be in touch with a set of requests.

Please note that your manuscript will not be scheduled for publication until you have made the required changes, so a swift response is appreciated.

IMPORTANT: The editorial review process is now complete. PLOS will only permit corrections to spelling, formatting or significant scientific errors from this point onwards. Requests for major changes, or any which affect the scientific understanding of your work, will cause delays to the publication date of your manuscript.

Should you, your institution's press office or the journal office choose to press release your paper, you will automatically be opted out of early publication. We ask that you notify us now if you or your institution is planning to press release the article. All press must be co-ordinated with PLOS.

Thank you again for supporting Open Access publishing; we are looking forward to publishing your work in PLOS Pathogens.

Best regards,

David R. Andes

Academic Editor

PLOS Pathogens

Michal Olszewski

Section Editor

PLOS Pathogens

Sumita Bhaduri-McIntosh

Editor-in-Chief

PLOS Pathogens

orcid.org/0000-0003-2946-9497

Michael Malim

Editor-in-Chief

PLOS Pathogens

orcid.org/0000-0002-7699-2064

***********************************************************

The authors have adequately addressed the queries and requested new information.

Reviewer Comments (if any, and for reference):