Molecular Systems Biology Peer Review Process File Common Dysregulation Network in the Human Prefrontal Cortex Underlies Two Neurodegenerative Diseases Transaction Report

(Note: With the exception of the correction of typographical or spelling errors that could be a source of ambiguity, letters and reports are not edited. The original formatting of letters and referee reports may not be reflected in this compilation.) Thank you again for submitting your work to Molecular Systems Biology. We have now heard back from two of the three reviewers who agreed to evaluate your manuscript. As you will see from the reports below, the referees raise substantial concerns on your work, which, I am afraid to say, preclude its publication in Molecular Systems Biology. Both reviewers acknowledged the substantial amount of new data presented in this work; however, both independently indicated that were not convinced that this work offered the kind of depth of biological insight or conclusiveness that would be expected in Molecular Systems Biology. The reviewers found the novel conceptual insights into the molecular systems specifically underlying Alzheimer's or Huntington's disease to be modest, and indicated that these data deserved deeper functional investigation and more rigorous validation. In addition, both reviewers had clear concerns regarding the conclusiveness of the mouse model expression profiling results. The second reviewer also raised important technical concerns regarding the statistical analyses, which s/he felt were sufficient to case doubt on some of the results of this study. Given these concerns, and the low-level of support from the reviewers, I see no other choice than to return the manuscript with the message that we cannot offer to publish it.