Three New Phthalide Glycosides from the Rhizomes of Cnidium officinale and Their Recovery Effect on Damaged Otic Hair Cells in Zebrafish

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript deals with the isolation, structural elucidation of 3 new phthalides from Cnidium officinale rhizomes and their effect on damaged otic hair cells in zebrafish. The manuscript falls within the scope of the journal Molecules and meets its high standards. There are some minor remarks:

Page 2, line 62, replace “molecular ion peak (MIP)” with “protonated molecule (PM)”. Repeat this where is appropriate.

Mass spectra, as well as 2D NMR experiments of the compounds, should be given as Supplementary materials.

Author Response

Molecules  

Manuscript number:  Molecules-1462248

Title: Three new phthalide glycosides from the rhizomes of Cnidium officinalis and  their recovery effect on damaged otic hair cells in zebrafish

 Dear Editor in Chief, Molecules and Reviewers 1 and 2;

Thank you for your kind letter, with regard to our manuscript together with comments. We are thankful to you for the very valuable suggestions through the whole manuscript. Thank you again for your kind considerations.

We tried to revise the manuscript as much as possible in line with suggestion made by the reviewers. The corrected was expressed in blue in the revised manuscript. I am herewith enclosing improved manuscript.

Our incorporation of reviewer’s suggestions is as follow.

Reviewer’s comments

Reviewer 1

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript deals with the isolation, structural elucidation of 3 new phthalides from Cnidium officinale rhizomes and their effect on damaged otic hair cells in zebrafish. The manuscript falls within the scope of the journal Molecules and meets its high standards. There are some minor remarks:

Page 2, line 62, replace “molecular ion peak (MIP)” with “protonated molecule (PM)”. Repeat this where is appropriate.

→ The corresponding terms were corrected as suggested.

Mass spectra, as well as 2D NMR experiments of the compounds, should be given as Supplementary materials.

→ Yes I absolutely agree to your indication to present MS spectra including high resolution MS. However, my student got the data but discarded the spectra themselves. However, if you recommend to present the spectra, first I will ask the institute, which measured the MS, whether they have the files yet. If not, we will measure MS again. In that case, please give us more days. And 2-D NMR spectra were added as supplementary materials.

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Review on Kim et al

 

1. General: The article of Kim et al. needs major work before it is published. Although the data obtained are very good, the analysis, presentation and discussion are very poor.

 

1. Major concerns:
2. The abstract should be written in the form of text without 1,2,3,4 for background, methods, results, conclusions. Please see section of how to write an abstract from MDPI.
3. In the introduction there is no discussion about work of others on that topic.
4. The parameters of the NMR spectra in the experimental are not shown. Please print the NMR with all the parameters shown so that the reader know how the coupling constants were calculated.
5. In the structure determination, the NMR peaks should be explained in a graphic that shows the functional groups (using arrows from the peaks to the groups) and how this correspond to the peaks.
6. The discussion is essentially missing from the paper although the results are presented. Major work is needed to discuss the results.

Author Response

Molecules  

Manuscript number:  Molecules-1462248

Title: Three new phthalide glycosides from the rhizomes of Cnidium officinalis and   their recovery effect on damaged otic hair cells in zebrafish

 Dear Editor in Chief, Molecules and Reviewers 1 and 2;

Thank you for your kind letter, with regard to our manuscript together with comments. We are thankful to you for the very valuable suggestions through the whole manuscript. Thank you again for your kind considerations.

We tried to revise the manuscript as much as possible in line with suggestion made by the reviewers. The corrected was expressed in blue in the revised manuscript. I am herewith enclosing improved manuscript.

Our incorporation of reviewer’s suggestions is as follow.

Reviewer’s comments

Reviewer 2

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Review on Kim et al

1.General: The article of Kim et al. needs major work before it is published. Although the data obtained are very good, the analysis, presentation and discussion are very poor.

→ Some sentences are added as discussion in ‘Introduction’,’Results’, and ‘Conclusion’ sections.

       

1. Major concerns:

2. The abstract should be written in the form of text without 1,2,3,4 for background, methods, results, conclusions. Please see section of how to write an abstract from MDPI.

→ I feel very sorry to make such absurd error. I corrected as indicated.

 

3. In the introduction there is no discussion about work of others on that topic.

→ Short discussion for other research to deal with phthalide glycosides is added.

 

4. The parameters of the NMR spectra in the experimental are not shown. Please print the NMR with all the parameters shown so that the reader know how the coupling constants were calculated.

→ With the exception of special case such as a mixing time in measurement of HMBC, usually the parameter for NMR measurement is not presented, because a little difference in parameter does not exhibit significant change. I believe no body confuses in calculation of coupling constant, even though any parameter is not given. I hope the detailed for NMR measurement to be referred to the presented literature.

 

5. In the structure determination, the NMR peaks should be explained in a graphic that shows the functional groups (using arrows from the peaks to the groups) and how this correspond to the peaks.

→ As suggested, all the peaks (signals) in the 1H and 13C-NMR spectra were expressed by each carbon and proton number. Please check the Figures S1, S2 and S3.

 

6. The discussion is essentially missing from the paper although the results are presented. Major work is needed to discuss the results.

→ As indicated, discussion is added to ‘Results’ and ‘Conclusion’ section.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

I am fine with the manuscript after the corrections.