Prolonged Exposure to High Temperature Inhibits Shoot Primary and Root Secondary Growth in Panax ginseng
, Ick-Hyun Jo 3, Tae-Jin Yang 4, Donghwan Shim 2,* and Hojin Ryu 1,*Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The introduction is well written with many references related to the objectives of this research. The materials and methods of the paper should be moved before the Results chapter. Some parts in the results chapter are actually materials and work methods, so those sentences should also be moved. I commend the modern way of presenting the obtained results and statistical analysis as well as the supplementary files. You lack conclusions based solely on established results. The work is important from the aspect of global climate changes with increasing air temperature, which negatively affect the cultivation of Panax ginseng, a very valuable species for human nutrition and health. These studies can be of great benefit to growers of this species, but also a good basis for understanding the growth and development of the above-ground and underground parts of ginseng at the phenotypic and molecular level. In the paper, I praise all the scientific equipment used to identify genes that are responsible for certain physiological processes in the plant, such as photosynthesis, drought stress, organization of the cell wall and internal control. I am looking for a small correction. All comments are presented in the paper.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Response to Reviewers' comments:
Reviewer 1.
The introduction is well written with many references related to the objectives of this research. The materials and methods of the paper should be moved before the Results chapter. Some parts in the results chapter are actually materials and work methods, so those sentences should also be moved. I commend the modern way of presenting the obtained results and statistical analysis as well as the supplementary files. You lack conclusions based solely on established results. The work is important from the aspect of global climate changes with increasing air temperature, which negatively affect the cultivation of Panax ginseng, a very valuable species for human nutrition and health. These studies can be of great benefit to growers of this species, but also a good basis for understanding the growth and development of the above-ground and underground parts of ginseng at the phenotypic and molecular level. In the paper, I praise all the scientific equipment used to identify genes that are responsible for certain physiological processes in the plant, such as photosynthesis, drought stress, organization of the cell wall and internal control.
I am looking for a small correction. All comments are presented in the paper.
Our response : Thank you so much for the reviewer’s positive comments and suggestions. We addressed the reviewer’s comments in the manuscript. However, the material and method part requested by the reviewer is not re-assigned above the result part according to the instructions for the author of the ijms journal.
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors analsed the response Ginseng plants to different temperature regimes. The core information is obtained by differential genetic analyses. I like the statistical methods used to bring this huge data set into a readable form. This ought to be the route that is followed with such data sets althogh some details in methodology may differ. What I really like is the general approach. The findings from moleclar work is corroborated by histological findings. Over all the response of Ginseng is complex and we end up with the conclusion that high temperatures are detrimental to Ginseng. The thermal tolerance of Ginseng appears to be very narrow at all.
The main question is, if molecular methods help to identify processes of heat tolerance and heat damage. The research is interesting being a detail to ginseng biology and secondly by the methods employed.
Sure, the orginality may be questionable.
Author Response
Reviewer 2.
The authors analsed the response Ginseng plants to different temperature regimes. The core information is obtained by differential genetic analyses. I like the statistical methods used to bring this huge data set into a readable form. This ought to be the route that is followed with such data sets althogh some details in methodology may differ. What I really like is the general approach. The findings from moleclar work is corroborated by histological findings. Over all the response of Ginseng is complex and we end up with the conclusion that high temperatures are detrimental to Ginseng. The thermal tolerance of Ginseng appears to be very narrow at all.
The main question is, if molecular methods help to identify processes of heat tolerance and heat damage. The research is interesting being a detail to ginseng biology and secondly by the methods employed. Sure, the originality may be questionable.
Our response : Thank you for these critical comments. We are confident that the network analysis of heat stress-related genes and physiological responses based on genomic data would significantly enhance the advancement of ginseng breeding and growing techniques. In addition, the physiological and genetic methodologies used in this study are thought to be highly innovative in relation to the ongoing high-temperature stress that ginseng could suffer due to climate change. These issues were covered in the discussion section.
