Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

 

In the proposed manuscript, the phenomenon by which amphibious plants change leaf form to adapt to surrounding environmental factors is considered. If plants are submerged in water, their leaves have narrower leaf blades. At the same time, leaf thickness is increased. The authors showed that the leaf thickness grows upon submergence via expansion of the mesophyll cell size. One of the suppressors of the submergence effect is blue light. Under blue light conditions, leaf cell structure showed terrestrial-like characteristics, even under submergence. In the work, the expression of genes regulating cell proliferation, adaxialization and abaxialization was analyzed. I believe that this work can be published in IJMS.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 2 Comments

Thank you for your review. We updated manuscript according to comment and suggestion from reviewers. We hope that revised manuscript is suitable for publication in International Journal of Molecular Sciences.

Reviewer 2 Report

In this work, the authors demonstrate heterophylly in Rorippa aquatica in response to environmental signals such as submergence and such effects were inhibited in the presence of blue light. The authors also demonstrate the role of AN3/GRF pathway involved in this process by looking at the expression of candidate genes. I have some comments (below) to improve the current content.

Fig. 1A: please add the scale unit for the microscopic pics.

 

Line 78: Was any quantification of leaf thickness (along with statistics), cell size etc. performed and stats done besides the pictures taken?

Lines 80-83; 91-101: These sentences could be used in the discussion. The ‘Results’ section should solely focus on the findings. This may be applicable throughout the text.

Figs. 3 and 4: Are there gene locus IDs available for the genes whose expression are reported in this work?

‘Y’ axis title (Normalized expression!) for Figs. 3 and 4 are missing.

Line 241: delete the gap between ‘30’ and ‘°C’.

Lines 245-247: An experimental set up picture (if available) in the supplemental might help the readers to visualize.

Line 264: ‘Six premature leaves’: young leaves? Are these coming from 6 different individuals?

Line 270: The authors should mention the methods by which normalized expression of genes were obtained and presented.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf