Excavation of Genes Response to Heat Resistance by Transcriptome Analysis in Bottle Gourd (Lagenaria siceraria (Mol.) Standl.)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

To my opinion, authors in the their paper did absolutely essential work. It is vital to increase the amount of functional information for plant genomes. But the paper has several flaws devoted to the method section:

1) Authors need to add information on versions of used software packages. It is crucial for the possibility of reproducing the author's result.

2) I don't find names of raw read filtering software and software used for estimating DE genes.

3) I think, It is a good idea to add a list of DEG genes as supplementary material with q-value and fold-change values.

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Editors and Authors,

Here, I submit file with my comments and observations. Thank you. Regards

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

I have the following comments regarding the manuscript:

The choice of title and Abstract are appropriate.

The Introduction chapter mainly contains references from earlier literature (not in the last 5 years). Therefore, I ask the authors to significantly expand and modify the chapter. The presentation of the species Lagenaria siceraria is not enough, I ask the authors to expand this with any other results achieved with the species, or I ask the authors to write more about its significance.

The Materials and Methods chapter is correct.

In the Results chapter, the figure intertextual references are not followed by the figures themselves. I ask the authors to correct this for the sake of the text's coherence.

The Conclusion chapter is short. I ask the authors to expand this with forward-looking thoughts, more distant plans, global impact, and the like.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I don't have additional comments. 

Author Response

Thank you very much.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

In general, the manuscript was improved. Here, I describe some comments for the authors:

Lines 88-93: I think that the objective of the work it is not clear yet. It seems that the authors mention yours findings (results and conclusion).

Lines 99-100: I have meant that the authors should be describe the history briefly how these varieties were selected for this study. 

Lines 298-312: I think that the idea was be clearer, not omit information valuable like number of Bioproject and validation assay of qRT-PCR. I have meant that the authors could be improve the información.

Lines 378-380: Do you mean table S6? in table S7 are indicated the primers.

Lines 391-394: What do you mean with LD conditions? I guess that you mean to normal conditions (ck). Please, correct

Author Response

Dear Reviewer:

Thank you very much for your suggestion. We have revised the whole manuscript according to the advice in detail.

In general, the manuscript was improved. Here, I describe some comments for the authors:

1, Lines 88-93: I think that the objective of the work it is not clear yet. It seems that the authors mention yours findings (results and conclusion).

Response: Thank you very much for your suggestion, we have changed it to “However, little genes have been explored related to HS resistance in bottle gourd, which restricts crucial genes application in heat resistance genetic breeding of bottle gourd. Our study aims to explore some important genes response to heat stress by transcriptome sequencing, which would not only provide insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying HS responses in bottle gourd, but also highlight the involvement of genes in conferring heat tolerance.”

2, Lines 99-100: I have meant that the authors should be describe the history briefly how these varieties were selected for this study. 

Response: Thank you very much for your question. We have added “In 2018, a total 120 bottle gourd varieties were exposed to high temperature for 7 days (45℃/40 ℃ in day/night) for 7 days in phytotron room. Combing plant phenotype and survival rate, we obtained several heat resistant and sensitive varieties including MF and LL (data unpublished). ”

3, Lines 298-312: I think that the idea was be clearer, not omit information valuable like number of Bioproject and validation assay of qRT-PCR. I have meant that the authors could be improve the información.

Response: Thank you very much for your suggestion. This validation assay of qRT-PCR is added in this Figure 4. And a total of 21 genes were randomly selected by selecting its expression with the absolute value Log2 fold change>1 after HS treatment.

4, Lines 378-380: Do you mean table S6? in table S7 are indicated the primers.

Response: We have changed all the supplemental table orders, and showed in the revised manuscript.

5, Lines 391-394: What do you mean with LD conditions? I guess that you mean to normal conditions (ck). Please, correct

Response: Sorry for that. It should be the normal condition, which have also changed in the legends of Figure 6 and Figure 7.

 

 

Best Wishes

Min Wang

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf