Picea wilsonii Transcription Factor PwNAC38 Promotes Drought and Salt Tolerance in Transgenic Arabidopsis and Apple Calli

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Minor edits are there in the manuscript which are marked in the text.

Please correct them.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Point 1: Minor edits are there in the manuscript which are marked in the text.

Response 1: Thanks for the comments. We have checked the manuscript carefully and made modifications according to the marks in the text. The detail information was shown in the revised manuscript.

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper is so carelessly written that I was not able to read it to the end. There is why I  could not rate it and answer the question: Are the conclusions supported by the results? Some errors or bad wordings are marked in attached file.

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Point 1: The paper is so carelessly written that I was not able to read it to the end. There is why I could not rate it and answer the question: Are the conclusions supported by the results? Some errors or bad wordings are marked in attached file.

Response 1: We really appreciate the detailed comments and suggestions, and we are apologized for the errors in the manuscript. We have checked the manuscript and corrected the errors and bad wordings according to the comments, the detail information was shown in the revised manuscript.

Reviewer 3 Report

Title. The title is appropriate to the subject, informative, and concise.

 

Abstract. The abstract is concise, provides a clear overview, includes essential facts for the paper, and concludes with a final point that places the work described in a broader context.

 

Keywords. These are enough for the topic.

 

Introduction. The introduction includes background to provide an appreciation for the context of the work presented and also states the rationale and problem that the researchers attempted to answer through their experiments.

Line 72 — Authority name must be included in the scientific name.

 

Material and methods.  In this section, the authors describe the correct steps that followed during conducting their study, but there are some aspects that must be complemented.

Lines 180-183 ― In order to support that the statistical test is appropriate for the data, I recommend checking (and reporting) the statistical assumptions due to survival rates and flowering time being no parametric data.

 

Results and discussion. This section was well written and shows all data with good descriptions. The results say about the objective that motivates the research, and the authors take a broad look at their findings and examine the work in the larger context of the field.

Lines 234-236 — These results must be written after checking statistical assumptions.

 

Conclusion. This section included the major conclusions, which were briefly written.

 

Figures.

 

Figures 3c, 4b, 5b, 6b, 7b, and 7e — These figures must be corrected if the statistical assumptions have been violated.

Author Response

Point 1: Line 72 — Authority name must be included in the scientific name.

Response 1: Thanks for the comments, we have corrected the latin name to Picea wilsonii Mast. in the revised manuscript.

Point 2: Lines 180-183 ― In order to support that the statistical test is appropriate for the data, I recommend checking (and reporting) the statistical assumptions due to survival rates and flowering time being no parametric data.

Response 2: Thanks for the suggestion. In this study, the SPSS software version 18.0 was used for statistical analysis and the data were performed by Dunnett’s test. The difference was considered to be significant if P < 0.05. In order to statistics the survival rates and flowering time, the plants with severe curling, wilting, browning and finally stunted growth were identified as dead plants under drought stress. The plants with severe wilting and yellowing rosette leaves were identified as dead plants under salt stress. While the plants after premature bolting and flower bud differentiation, inflorescence began to scatter was identified as the signal of flowering. We also made a supplementary explanation in Materials and Methods section (Line 154-162) of the revised manuscript. The statistical analysis of survival rates was shown in Figure 4B and Figure 6B, and the statistical analysis of flowering time was shown in in Supplement Figure 2.

Point 3: Line 234-236 — These results must be written after checking statistical assumptions.

Response 3: Thanks for the comments. The germination percentage referred to the final germination condition, and the germination rate referred to the germination condition within a set time. Germinated seedlings were counted every day for seven days. Seeds were considered to be germinated when radicles were at least 2 mm long. This information has been added in Materials and Methods section of the revised manuscript.

Point 4: Figures 3c, 4b, 5b, 6b, 7b, and 7e — These figures must be corrected if the statistical assumptions have been violated.

Response 4: Thanks for the suggestion. We have confirmed the statistical assumptions of Figures 3c, 4b, 5b, 6b, 7b, and 7e, and made a supplementary explanation in Materials and Methods section, these results are reliable.