Membrane-Fluidization-Dependent and -Independent Pathways Are Involved in Heat-Stress-Inducible Gene Expression in the Marine Red Alga Neopyropia yezoensis

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors analyzed heat stress-induced gene expression in Neopyropia. Heat stress responses in seaweeds are not well-studied and the work will significantly contribute to this field of study. They found that the heat stress response in Neopyropia involves membrane fluidization-dependent and -independent pathways. Overall, the work was presented well and I have no objections to it being published in its current form. 

Author Response

We are happy by hearing your positive evaluation of our manuscript.

Reviewer 2 Report

I am commenting on "Membrane fluidization-dependent and -independent pathways are involved in heat stress-inducible gene expression in the marine red alga Neopyropia yezoensis"
The authors have carried out a lot of work and evaluated a series of relevant parameters. 
Furthermore, the topic is highly novel, as heat stress analyses are extremely rare in red algae.
Overall, this is a very good piece of work.

I think it is important to highlight that (a) a lot of what we know about plant model systems like Arabidopsis (which is not a crop) and (b) that these responses appear evolutionarily conserved. Indeed, some responses can be found across the land plant tree of life and even in the losest algal relatives of land plants. 
Please read and cite "Heat stress response in the closest algal relatives of land plants reveals conserved stress signaling circuits" doi: 10.1111/tpj.14782 -- Plant J 2020 Aug;103(3):1025-1048
As well as
"On the evolution of plant thermomorphogenesis" doi: 10.1093/jxb/erab310 -- Journal of Experimental Botany, erab310

In the context of metabolic changes in plants challenged with heat / acclimating to heat, the accumulation and function of lipid droplets is an important aspect -- see "Accumulation of extra-chloroplastic triacylglycerols in Arabidopsis seedlings during heat acclimation" (doi: 10.1093/jxb/erv226). Indeed, as very relevant to the evolutionary aspects discussed in this manuscript, this potentially is a response that might have even occurred in the earliest land plants "Ties between Stress and Lipid Droplets Pre-date Seeds" (doi: 10.1016/j.tplants.2020.07.017 ).

Indeed, various metabolic changes occur upon heat stress across green algae and plants.
See and cite:
Rieseberg TP, Dadras A, Fürst-Jansen JMR, Dhabalia Ashok A, Darienko T, de Vries S, Irisarri I, de Vries J. 2022. Crossroads in the evolution of plant specialized metabolism. Seminars in Cell & Developmental Biology: S1084952122000738.

Author Response

We appreciate the Reviewer 2 providing valuable comments useful for manuscript revision. According to these comments, we revised the second paragraph of the Introduction (Lines 47-51 in the revised manuscript) by citing all of manuscripts mentioned. By these changes, we added “However,” at line 59. In addition, the numbers of references were corrected in the text and the References by adding new references (11-15 in the revised manuscript).