From the journal RSC Chemical Biology Peer review history
Red-light modulated ortho-chloro azobenzene photoswitch for peptide stapling via aromatic substitution
Round 1
Manuscript submitted on 18 sep. 2023![](https://www.rsc-cdn.org/pubs-core/2022.0.147/content/NewImages/icon-letter.png)
![](https://www.rsc-cdn.org/pubs-core/2022.0.147/content/NewImages/chevron-down.png)
Berlin, 3 October 2023
Dear Dr Spring:
Manuscript ID: CB-ART-09-2023-000176
TITLE: Visible-light modulated <i>ortho</i>-chloro azobenzene photoswitch for peptide stapling via aromatic substitution
Thank you for your submission to RSC Chemical Biology, published by the Royal Society of Chemistry. I sent your manuscript to reviewers and I have now received their reports which are copied below.
After careful evaluation of your manuscript and the reviewers’ reports, I will be pleased to accept your manuscript for publication after revisions.
Please revise your manuscript to fully address the reviewers’ comments. When you submit your revised manuscript please include a point by point response to the reviewers’ comments and highlight the changes you have made. Full details of the files you need to submit are listed at the end of this email.
Please submit your revised manuscript as soon as possible using this link :
*** PLEASE NOTE: This is a two-step process. After clicking on the link, you will be directed to a webpage to confirm. ***
https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/rsccb?link_removed
(This link goes straight to your account, without the need to log in to the system. For your account security you should not share this link with others.)
Alternatively, you can login to your account (https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/rsccb) where you will need your case-sensitive USER ID and password.
You should submit your revised manuscript as soon as possible; please note you will receive a series of automatic reminders. If your revisions will take a significant length of time, please contact me. If I do not hear from you, I may withdraw your manuscript from consideration and you will have to resubmit. Any resubmission will receive a new submission date.
All RSC Chemical Biology articles are published under an open access model, and the appropriate article processing charge (APC) will apply. Details of the APC and discounted rates can be found at https://www.rsc.org/journals-books-databases/about-journals/rsc-chemical-biology/#CB-charges.
RSC Chemical Biology strongly encourages authors of research articles to include an ‘Author contributions’ section in their manuscript, for publication in the final article. This should appear immediately above the ‘Conflict of interest’ and ‘Acknowledgement’ sections. I strongly recommend you use CRediT (the Contributor Roles Taxonomy, https://credit.niso.org/) for standardised contribution descriptions. All authors should have agreed to their individual contributions ahead of submission and these should accurately reflect contributions to the work. Please refer to our general author guidelines https://www.rsc.org/journals-books-databases/author-and-reviewer-hub/authors-information/responsibilities/ for more information.
The Royal Society of Chemistry requires all submitting authors to provide their ORCID iD when they submit a revised manuscript. This is quick and easy to do as part of the revised manuscript submission process. We will publish this information with the article, and you may choose to have your ORCID record updated automatically with details of the publication.
Please also encourage your co-authors to sign up for their own ORCID account and associate it with their account on our manuscript submission system. For further information see: https://www.rsc.org/journals-books-databases/journal-authors-reviewers/processes-policies/#attribution-id
Please note: to support increased transparency, RSC Chemical Biology offers authors the option of transparent peer review. If authors choose this option, the reviewers’ comments, authors’ response and editor’s decision letter for all versions of the manuscript are published alongside the article. Reviewers remain anonymous unless they choose to sign their report. We will ask you to confirm whether you would like to take up this option at the revision stages.
I look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.
Yours sincerely,
Prof. Dr. Roderich Süssmuth
Technische Universität Berlin
Faculty II - Mathematics and Natural Sciences
RSC Chemical Biology Associate Editor
************
![](https://www.rsc-cdn.org/pubs-core/2022.0.147/content/NewImages/icon-comments.png)
![](https://www.rsc-cdn.org/pubs-core/2022.0.147/content/NewImages/chevron-down.png)
Reviewer 1
This will be a useful addition to the journal.
I can see that it narrowly missed out on Chem Sci and that the reviewers' comments were addressed.
A few comments:
Avoid repetition:
"stapled peptide SP1 for MDM2, a competitive fluorescence polarisation (FP) assay was carried out"........
"were determined using a competitive fluorescence polarisation assay with the FP tracer peptide. "
"the linear peptide P1 was found to have a reduced binding affinity, as expected upon the introduction of two cysteine residues"
-please elaborate. Because it is linear or because of the 2 Cys? Why?
The final statement about incomplete cis/trans conversion and a comparison with R/S-ibuprofen needs to be elaborated/caveated; 1. you don't have a final drug, this would need many cycles of development/assays/trials to reach market. 2. There are many instances of toxicity with mixtures of enantiomers, cf. thalidomide.
![](https://www.rsc-cdn.org/pubs-core/2022.0.147/content/NewImages/icon-response.png)
![](https://www.rsc-cdn.org/pubs-core/2022.0.147/content/NewImages/chevron-down.png)
Re: Response to reviewer comments of “Visible-light modulated ortho-chloro azobenzene photoswitch for peptide stapling via aromatic substitution”
Dear Prof. Roderich Süssmuth,
Thank you very much to you and the reviewer for the feedback on the manuscript. The feedback is much appreciated, and we firmly believe it improved the manuscript.
Please find our point-to-point response below.
Reviewer #1
Avoid repetition:
"stapled peptide SP1 for MDM2, a competitive fluorescence polarisation (FP) assay was carried out"........
"were determined using a competitive fluorescence polarisation assay with the FP tracer peptide. "
We want to thank the reviewer for the suggestion, we have emended the sentence structure in the revised manuscript to avoid repetition.
“the linear peptide P1 was found to have a reduced binding affinity, as expected upon the introduction of two cysteine residues"
-please elaborate. Because it is linear or because of the 2 Cys? Why?
The results observed were elaborated in more detail in the revised version of the manuscript. The reduced binding affinity is attributed to a change in helical content which was observed for P1, compared to that of PMI which was previously reported and cited in the revised manuscript.
The final statement about incomplete cis/trans conversion and a comparison with R/S-ibuprofen needs to be elaborated/caveated; 1. you don't have a final drug, this would need many cycles of development/assays/trials to reach market. 2. There are many instances of toxicity with mixtures of enantiomers, cf. thalidomide.
We have deleted this statement in the revised manuscript because we only intended to highlight that the difference between the two different isomers may not be a major concern, but we agree that the example might not be the most representative for what we wanted to show.
Lastly, the title has been modified from "visible" to "red" light following Chem Sci reviewer suggestions.
Yours sincerely,
David Spring
Round 2
Revised manuscript submitted on 03 oct. 2023![](https://www.rsc-cdn.org/pubs-core/2022.0.147/content/NewImages/icon-letter.png)
![](https://www.rsc-cdn.org/pubs-core/2022.0.147/content/NewImages/chevron-down.png)
Berlin, 5 October 2023
Dear Dr Spring:
Manuscript ID: CB-ART-09-2023-000176.R1
TITLE: Red-light modulated <i>ortho</i>-chloro azobenzene photoswitch for peptide stapling via aromatic substitution
Thank you for submitting your revised manuscript to RSC Chemical Biology. I am pleased to accept your manuscript for publication in its current form. I have copied any final comments from the reviewer(s) below.
You will shortly receive a separate email from us requesting you to submit a licence to publish for your article, so that we can proceed with the preparation and publication of your manuscript.
All RSC Chemical Biology articles are published under an open access model, and the appropriate article processing charge (APC) will apply. Details of the APC and discounted rates can be found at https://www.rsc.org/journals-books-databases/about-journals/rsc-chemical-biology/#CB-charges.
You can highlight your article and the work of your group on the back cover of RSC Chemical Biology. If you are interested in this opportunity please contact the editorial office for more information.
Promote your research, accelerate its impact – find out more about our article promotion services here: https://rsc.li/promoteyourresearch.
If you would like us to promote your article on our Twitter account @rsc_chembio please fill out this form: https://form.jotform.com/213543900424044.
We are offering all corresponding authors who are not already members of the Royal Society of Chemistry one year’s Affiliate membership as part of their APC. If you would like to find out more please email membership@rsc.org, including the promo code OA100 in your message. Learn all about our member benefits at https://www.rsc.org/membership-and-community/join/#benefit.
By publishing your article in RSC Chemical Biology, you are supporting the Royal Society of Chemistry to help the chemical science community make the world a better place.
With best wishes,
Prof. Dr. Roderich Süssmuth
Technische Universität Berlin
Faculty II - Mathematics and Natural Sciences
RSC Chemical Biology Associate Editor
![](https://www.rsc-cdn.org/pubs-core/2022.0.147/content/NewImages/icon-comments.png)
![](https://www.rsc-cdn.org/pubs-core/2022.0.147/content/NewImages/chevron-down.png)
Reviewer 1
Perfect responses, all good, please accept.
John Spencer
Transparent peer review
To support increased transparency, we offer authors the option to publish the peer review history alongside their article. Reviewers are anonymous unless they choose to sign their report.
We are currently unable to show comments or responses that were provided as attachments. If the peer review history indicates that attachments are available, or if you find there is review content missing, you can request the full review record from our Publishing customer services team at RSC1@rsc.org.