Micropropagation of Duboisia Species: A Review on Current Status

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Xue et al. have attempted to review the micropropagation of Duboisia Species. Questions I have as a reviewer:

- The most important question that authors should answer is why most of the references are old? (only 10-20% of the references are after 2018).
A large number of references are related to the 20th century, which raises the question of whether the micropropagation of Duboisia species isn't important? or you did not use new references?

- Table information must be independent. Full scientific names should be written.

- Table one: a bunch of N.A. on one of the columns. Why?

- Table five, The third column; Light condition? how much intensity? write information, generally

- This is a review, a graphic abstract that can help encourage more readers

 

Author Response

Please refer to the document

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

 The authors have sufficiently supplemented the data on the micropropagation of Duboisia species in comparison with the previous work by Luanratana [1997] on the same subject. They also added some new information about recently discovered species and newly obtained interspecific hybrids and about advances in their biotechnology. The part of manuscript devoted to micropropagation was written in a somewhat chaotic manner. Reading the chapter ‘Recent advances in meristem culture for commercial micropropagation of Duboisia ‘leaves a great insufficiency. L The authors claim that they have significantly improved the micropropagation of Duboisia and attach photos that illustrate its stages. Pictures alone are not enough. I think the authors should disclose at least basic information about  media compositons and other conditons of micropropagation.

 

 

Some other comments:

 

v.22 There are the same words in the title and in keywords. What about: corkwood,  in vitro cultures, biotechnology?

v.116 ‘Propagation of such elite selections while preserving the genetic stability’    and epigenetic stability? ; low risk of somaclonal variation?

v.161 ‘Both meristem  and nodal culture are direct organogenesis methods where alteration of parental genetics …’ - parental genotypes? 

v.168 ‘Over the past three decades, all three techniques have been  attempted for micropropagation of Duboisia species with limit success’. - limited success?

v.181 ‘With respect to Duboisia the only reported attempt on meristem culture has been by  Lin [19], who inoculated 2–4 mm shoot  tips…’  I’m afraid  it is not meristem culture but propagation through shoot explants (shoot tips, nodal ones).

v>186 2.2.Nodal culture  Some information applies to other techniques, i.e. propagation through adventitious shoots/direct organogenesis. Another subsection?

v.279-295; Tab.2. The section on media types covers the different micropropagation techniques and stages. Another subsection?

Tab.2. ‘Revised-tobacco’ medium? - What composition? Maybe another name of MS medium?

v.299 ‘Plant growth regulators (PGRs) are chemical substances that influence the growth and development of plants.’ - ?  Too simplified definition of PGR. On the other hand the definitions and division of PGRs onto groups is well known for people interested in micropropagation, thus is unnecessary.

v.301 auxins? cytokinins?

v.390 (J.H.B personal communication). Who is J.H.B?

v.325 ‘Root induction is the most? critical and difficult step in woody plant tissue culture.’ - Hm, the others claim that initiation of in vitro cultures ‘is the most critical and difficult step in woody plant tissue culture’……

v.359 ‘For Duboisia species, most cultures were  reported to be maintained at the temperature of 25 ± 2 °C with a 12 to 16 h photoperiod’ -  Do you mean: 12h/12h - 16h/8h  (d/n) photoperiods?

Tab. 5 Convert lux to µmol m^-2 s^-1 PPFD ; intensity?

v. 364 ‘Acclimatisation or, in other words hardening is a critical process which determines  the success of any micropropagation process [116]’.  A nie jedno po drugim?

Hmm, acclimatization (or acclimation) is the first step right after taking the plantlets out of in vitro, while hardening is the second step done on the acclimatized plantlets/liners before planting in the field?

 

References. - double numbering

[120] - incomplete source data

 

In conclusion, the manuscript needs improvement.  Its value will increase significantly after giving details of the micropropagation protocol of Duboisia ssp. the authors elaborated.

Author Response

Please refer to the document

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

In this paper the authors provide an overview of the current status of research on Duboisia species. The industrial uses are presented in the introduction, and techniques for in vitro propagation of plant material are discussed and analyzed step by step, also listing a number of protocols available in literature. The crucial points for each step are explained and discussed.

The species of the Duboisia genus are subject to intense exploitation for pharmaceutical purposes, the setting up of efficient protocols for mass propagation and high-quality production (in terms of metabolite content) are crucial. This review provides a useful state of the art on the topic.

I would suggest some minor revisions in order to further improve the manuscript, listed below line by line:

L32: SPECIES should be GENUS

L65: what do you mean by WHICH INTERN INCREASES? Did you mean WHICH IN TURN INCREASES?

L90: the Latin specific name is AGROBACTERIUM RHIZOGENES

L211: the plural for CALLUS is CALLI

L246-249: this sentence lacks a verb

L272-274: The content of this sentence is obvious; in my opinion it’s unnecessary

Overall, there are some typing errors which should be corrected, as well as some grammar errors. It’s not my task to revise them, but I suggest an accurate revision of English before resubmission.

Author Response

Please refer to the document

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

The authors reported a comprehensive review on tissue culture techniques applied to Duboisia species. The manuscript is very well written, logically structured, well-illustrated, and well discussed. It also addresses a subject that is of great interest in the scientific community, especially concerning the medicinal/economic interests of the genus. However, there are some questions, and suggestions, that, in my opinion, would improve the scientific quality of the manuscript:

MAJOR COMMENTS:

1.- What is the literature search strategy followed to perform the review? In this regard, to include a section (such as Material and Methods) describing the period of time surveyed, databses checked, the search equations used, as well as inclusion/exclusion criteria defined will improve the accuracy (and reproducibility) of the work. 

2.- The asssessment of genetic stability (somaclonal variation) among in vitro regenerated plants is nowadays a required step for the validation of micropropagation protocols (at least to publish them in Q1/Q2 Journals). In this regard, little is mentioned in the review. Maybe it was not developed in the experimental works revised, or maybe this information is asymmetrically available in the literature, and the authors decided not to include. In any case, to write on the current state of knowledge on this field will be also important to establish the state-of-art and propose future research lines. In this regard, I would encourage authors to include some lines discussing whether somaclonal variation was assessed in micropropagation protocols or not (and the necessity or not to include these type of studies), what type of markers were employed (RAPDs, ISSR, AFLP, etc.), to analyze the suitability of these approaches for the aim of the published works, and to provide any additional information on the stabilty of the in vitro cultured plants (morphological measurements, phytochemical composition, etc.) when compared to the donnor plants, if available (if it is not available, please state this as it could be also a future research line proposed). 

MINOR COMMENTS: 

- The name Duboisia can be abbreviated after the first mention in the text (Abstract, and Main Text). For instance, from line 27 you can write D. myoporoides.

- Although Duboisia is not a spcies-rich genus, its internal taxonomy is still under revision. Therefore, it would be certainly interesting to include the authorities of the species (or specimens) mentioned in each work in order to gain accuracy. For this, you can check the published works, and confirm the authority using these nomenclatural databases:The International Plant Names Index (ipni), The Plant List, or World Flora Online. 

- Line 29: a space between "nations" and "(Aboriginal)" is needed. 

- Line 354: the term "light reginegime" is not a familiar term for me. Maybe the authors wanted to state "light regime". Please, check and confirm. 

 

 

Author Response

Please refer to the document

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Although contrary to the opinion of the authors, I believe that an open-access review article should include more figures to describe clearly, especially the graphical abstract, in general, the article looks acceptable.