11-16 Writing and Publishing Scientific Articles
study was begun in 1999, when Y-12 was the only commercially available Y antibody and was nearly universally used for Western blotting of the Y protein. In 2002, Y-12, which was manufactured by ABA Antibodies, was replaced by Y-83, which also detects a smaller band (Y-related protein) as well as Y. ABA Antibodies has assured its customers that results from Y- 12 and Y-83 can be compared if only the major band detected by Y-83 is considered (see Lee and Hernandez, BioTechniques 85:25-31, 2002). [Cite references in your response, if they are necessary to support your contentions.] Our conclusions about Y expression are therefore based only on the intensity of the major (Y) band, and we feel that we do not need to repeat the experiments with just one antibody. In the original manuscript we did cite the Biotechniques paper as a rationale for comparing results from the two antibodies, but I see now that we did not make this point clear enough. In the revised manuscript, we explained the use of two antibodies in more detail, in the second paragraph on page 7. [Give locations of all changes — page number and paragraph number (or line number).] 2. Exclusion criteria: None of the patients, including those from the San Antonio hospitals, had received previous treatment. We have now listed the exclusion criteria, on page 6 of the revised manuscript. 3. Figure 3: Figure 3 has been deleted, and the results are described as “Northern blotting showed that the one subject with Y underexpression produced intact, full- length Y mRNA (data not shown)” on page 11, line 3. 4. Percentage of samples overexpressing Y: We believe the difference in the percentages of Y-overexpressing samples in our study and previous ones is partly due to ethnic differences, as we are the first to examine this in Mexican-American subjects, and very few of their samples overexpressed Y. We have expounded on this in the Discussion (last paragraph, page 20).
Minor comments:
1 and 2. [It is OK to combine similar comments.] Too- long Introduction and Discussion sections: We shortened the Introduction and Discussion as recommended. The
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