Superior Antioxidant Capacity and Auxin Production Promote Seedling Formation of Rice Seeds under Submergence Stress

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I have gone through the manuscript. Superior Antioxidant Capacity and Auxin ProductionPromote3 Seedling Formation of Rice Seeds under Submergence stress. Overall, this manuscript is well written.  I think this manuscript can only be published after addressing minor comments as following:

-         The Introduction part must contains the whole background regarding the targeted problem and how to solve that problem with comparison with literature review; please check and revised accordingly.

-         The novelty of the study needs to be highlighted compared to other similar studies.

-         More explanation should be given about the ZZ39 and LS273 cultivars'. It is better to mention it in detail

-         On line 87, it says 2. Materials and Methods I think it's wrong. Please review it carefully

-         More details should be mentioned about the dates of sampling and in what part of the plant they were taken?

-         Materials and methods section must contain recent and related references with more details to be beneficial to broad scientific readers.

-         Figures not clear. The quality of Figures should be improved

-         Discussion part needs to recheck since no deep discussion with related studies had been mentioned.

-         Conclusion part must contain the importance of paper, the future work and novelty.

Author Response

No.agronomy-2056045

12/14/2022

Title:Superior Antioxidant Capacity and Auxin Production Promote Seedling Formation of Rice Seeds Under Submergence stress 

Dear Reviewer, 

We would like to thank you for your efforts in reviewing our manuscript titled "Superior Antioxidant Capacity and Auxin Production Promote Seedling Formation of Rice Seeds Under Submergence stress", and providing many helpful comments and suggestions, which will all prove invaluable in the revision and improvement of our paper, as well as in guiding our research in the future.  

We have studied your comments point by point, revised the manuscript accordingly. The amendments are highlighted in red in the revised manuscript. All authors have approved the response letter and the revised version of the manuscript. At the same time, I will answer your questions.

To question 1:

It has been revised according to the review comments.

To question 2:

It has been revised according to the review comments.

Discussion content was added, embodying the novelty of the study.

To question 3:

It has been revised according to the review comments.

To question 4:

It has been revised according to the review comments.

To question 5:

It has been revised according to the review comments.

To question 6:

It has been revised according to the review comments.

To question 7:

It has been revised according to the review comments. 

Updated typesetting and clarity of Figure 6.

To question 8:

It has been revised according to the review comments.

Discussion content was added and discussion of relevant studies was added.

To question 9:

It has been revised according to the review comments.

The discussion is added, and the novelty of the study is discussed, along with perspectives for the future.

We hope that the revised version of the manuscript is now acceptable for publication in Agronomy. If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Thank you again for your valuable comments and suggestions. I look forward to hearing from you soon in due course. 

Yours sincerely,

Haoyu Lu, first author

E-mail address: [email protected]

Yuzhu Zhang, corresponding author

E-mail address: [email protected]

State Key Laboratory of Hybrid Rice, Hunan Hybrid Rice Research Center, Changsha, Hunan, 410125, China

Author Response File: Author Response.doc

Reviewer 2 Report

The results of this work are interesting. There is a good and logical discussion of data.

The authors showed that the components of the antioxidant system and IAA, along with ethylene (it is generally accepted), are involved in the formation of resistance to flooding in rice seedlings. The auxin content affects rice's ability to escape from water under submergence stress.

However, some questions are to be mentioned:

1. Why was RNA isolated on the 7th day after seeding, and not on the 9th day, simultaneously with the determination of the phenotype?

2. Tables - should be added (based on what statistical test?  specify in table footnotes).

3. Give a transcript at the first mention “Gene Ontology” (GO).

4. Figure 1B. If the graph is based on average values, then the standard deviation is needed.

5. Figure 1C and Table 1 (Shoot length, mm; Root length, cm) – repetition. Apparently, figure 1C should be deleted.

6. Figure 1A, Figure 1C and Table 1 (Root length, cm) - the root length of LS273-Air and ZZ39-Air is more than 25 cm. This does not correspond to Figure 1A (foto).

7. Figure 2A An increase in the content of MDA by 18.09%, and even more so - by 9.73%, does not indicate the development of oxidative stress. These changes in the content of MDA apparently are not reliable.

L. 94 The authors write about the growth rate of the shoot, however, in figure 1B and in the methods, the absolute value is indicated - the length of the shoot.

L. 87 and L.526 – identical. Replace “2.Materials and Methods” with “2. Results”.

L. 289-290 The authors write that “SOD, CAT, and POD are the enzyme systems that mainly scavenge superoxide ions”. However, only SOD neutralizes superoxide.

L. 400 The methods do not indicate a study to investigate the effect of flooding on the inhibition of root hair and lateral shoot growth. Or is it a visual analysis of the authors?

L. 535. The time of sterilization in sodium hypochlorite should be indicated.

L. 562. A comma should be placed after ascorbic acid.

L. 563 You need to add the following: “For rapid visualization ..........., we used the toluidine blue test.” For Toluidine blue, the correct abbreviation is TB, not NBT. The abbreviation NBT is used for nitroblue tetrazolium.

 

Author Response

No.agronomy-2056045

12/14/2022

Title:Superior Antioxidant Capacity and Auxin Production Promote Seedling Formation of Rice Seeds Under Submergence stress 

Dear Reviewer, 

We would like to thank you for your efforts in reviewing our manuscript titled "Superior Antioxidant Capacity and Auxin Production Promote Seedling Formation of Rice Seeds Under Submergence stress", and providing many helpful comments and suggestions, which will all prove invaluable in the revision and improvement of our paper, as well as in guiding our research in the future.  

We have studied your comments point by point, revised the manuscript accordingly. The amendments are highlighted in red in the revised manuscript. All authors have approved the response letter and the revised version of the manuscript. At the same time, I will answer your questions.

To question 1:

I think the difference at the phenotype level will be later than that at the transcription level. It takes time for genes to translate into proteins and then into phenotypes. Therefore, the time for transcriptome sequencing was set at 7 days, and the time for phenotype determination was set at 9 days.

To question 2:

It has been supplemented statistical test and specified in the table footnote.

To question 3:

It has been revised according to the review comments.

To question 4:

It has been revised according to the review comments.

To question 5:

It has been revised according to the review comments.

To question 6:

We used the LA-S Plant Roots Analyzer (L.592), which can scan total roots and calculate the total root length. Therefore, Figure 1A does not intuitively show the root length of LS273-Air and ZZ39-Air. Figure 1C has been updated to reflect this issue by adding the root scanning diagram. I have changed the root length in Table 1 to the total root length.

To question 7:

It has been revised according to the review comments.

To L.94:

It has been revised according to the review comments.

To L.87 and L.526:

It has been revised according to the review comments.

To L.289-290:

It has been revised according to the review comments.

To L.400:

We used the LA-S Plant Roots Analyzer (L.592), which can scan total roots and calculate the total root length. Therefore, we can see the decrease of total roots and lateral roots after flooding stress through scanning results. This result is reflected by adding the root scanning diagram to Figure 1C.

To L.535:

It has been revised according to the review comments.

To L.562

It has been revised according to the review comments.

To L.563

It has been revised according to the review comments.

We hope that the revised version of the manuscript is now acceptable for publication in Agronomy. If you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Thank you again for your valuable comments and suggestions. I look forward to hearing from you soon in due course. 

Yours sincerely,

Haoyu Lu, first author

E-mail address: [email protected]

Yuzhu Zhang, corresponding author

E-mail address: [email protected]

State Key Laboratory of Hybrid Rice, Hunan Hybrid Rice Research Center, Changsha, Hunan, 410125, China

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx