Reviewed by Taofik Sunmonu Title: Toxicological evaluation of Terminalia paniculata bark extract and its protective effect against CCl₄-induced liver injury in rodents Version: 1 Date: 12 February 2013 Reviewer:

Reviewer's report Title: Toxicological evaluation of Terminalia paniculata bark extract and its protective effect against CCl₄-induced liver injury in rodents Version: 1 Date: 20 March 2013 Reviewer: JI-SHU QUAN Reviewer's report: In this paper the authors reported the toxicological evaluation of Terminalia paniculata bark extract and its protective effect against CCl4-induced liver injury in rodents. They concluded that the extract was nontoxic, and elicited significant hepatoprotection against CCl4-induced liver toxicity by mechanisms involving antioxidant and anti-apoptotic potentials in liver. The experimental design is lucid and the project was well executed and the conclusion is justified by the objective and results of the experiment. However the authors need to address some points: 1. Abstract dose not describe all the results. And the methods are not well described. 2. JC-1 staining was done in isolated mitochondria, not in rat hepatocytes. (page 2, page 16) 3. I think that you’d better add a statement about parameters in introduction. 4. GSH, MDA are not detoxifying enzymes. (page 17) 5. Page 17, the “therapeutic” should be changed to “preventive”. 6. Tables 5,6: Group II should be “CCl4 control”. 7. Groups in Table 7 is not in agreement with “2.5.2” on page 7. 8. The authors should discuss more compactly and clearly. Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely related research interests Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being published Statistical review: Yes, but I do not feel adequately qualified to assess the statistics. Declaration of competing interests: I declare that I have no competing interests.

Taofik TO Sunmonu Reviewer's report: Title: The tile is okay as it reflects the scope and content of the work done. Abstract: The abstract is concise and adequate. Introduction: The introduction is quite informative. Kindly effect these little corrections: Line 2, page 3: remove “the” and replace “which” with “that” Line 7, page 3: replace “has” with “have” Line 8, page 3: remove “in” before “menstrual disorders” Materials and methods Section 2.2, page 4: cite appropriate reference and briefly describe the preparation. Section 2.3.1: - put the correct spelling for “cytotoxicity” - Briefly describe the procedure as indicated in references [9] and [10] Section 2.4 (page 5) Line 1: replace ‘were’ with ‘was’ Line 3: indicate the number of groups Section 2.5.1: Animals (page 6): Recast the first sentence to read “Twenty four Wistar albino rats were used in experimental model ................................... Section 2.5.2 (page 7): - Line 3: You need to justify why distilled water only was not used for the control. - Line 4: Group 2 should have been given distilled water p.o. as well - You need to state clearly how blood was collected Section 2.5.4, Line 2 (page 8): replace ‘glutamate pyruvate transaminase’ with ‘alanine aminotransferase’ I suggest the authors remove Sections 2.4, 2.4.1 and 2.4.2 as they have no direct relevance the study. Results The results are well presented in Tables and Charts with appropriate statistical analysis. Discussion The data generated are well discussed with appropriate literature backing. Level of interest: An article whose findings are important to those with closely related research interests Quality of written English: Needs some language corrections before being published Statistical review: Yes, and I have assessed the statistics in my report. Declaration of competing interests: 'I declare that I have no competing interests