Studies of the Variability of Sugars, Vitamin C, and Chlorophylls in Differently Fermented Organic Leaves of Willowherb (Chamerion angustifolium (L.) Holub)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to our journal.

The paper described the vitamin C, sugars and chlorophyll content of willowherb leaves according to the fermentation conditions.

There are several points to be revised;

[1] It seems to be needed for proper English editing;

in some part, the sentences are not clear nor scientific.

ex. Line 40, It is very important to ~ get the best result.

--> It should be written for clear meaning.

 (Check for the Lines 52, 133-135, 151,197-198, 249, etc)

[2] Materials and Methods

Line 68 (SPF) process

Line 86 analytical method should be written in organized form.

ex. mobile phase; acetic buffer (mention the composition how it was made, with the concentration)

Is it isocratic mode? The analytical method should be mentioned more detail. or put the reference if you cited.

Line 95, mark reference if you adopted, otherwise describe more detail about why you choose the extraction solvent 80% acetone for sugar analysis rather than water.

Line 113, each solvent phase composition should be clearly mentioned.

ex. Methanol:acetonitrile = #:** (phase A)

Line 123, LSD full name?

[3] Result

Foot note of each Table, p value should be written in Italic

Improper "," has been used in several sentences in the Result.

ex. Line 146, 159, 161

[4] Discussion

Is there willowherb processed (fermented) product in the market?

Please add the meaning of this research on the industry.

[5] Conclusions

Line 251, remove the space before the sentence

 

Overall, it is recommended to show the novelty of this study. 

Thanks

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.doc

Reviewer 2 Report

This manuscript reported the change of the sugar, Vc and chlorophylls contents under the different fermentation conditions applied to the leaves of willowherbs. The major parameters are the fermentation durations and the fermentation conditions with or without oxygen. In the end, PCA analysis was applied on the data collected. Overall, this is an interesting study, with a focus of three primary metabolites. As far as I am concerning, this manuscript can be assigned as major revision.

 

Here are my questions and concerns.

 

1. It is concluded that 72 h is the optimal time for the fermentation. However no more time was collected, how about 96 h? Based on the 24h, 48h, and 72h, is there a model can be used to predict the trend?

 

2. Noticing that under the anaerobic condition, the content of all the analyst displayed a decrease, followed by an increase at 24, 48, and 72 h time point. What is the possible reason for that? It is high recommended to make a discussion.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.doc

Reviewer 3 Report

Studies of the Variability of Sugars, Vitamin C and Chlorophylls in Different Methods Fermented Organic Leaves of Willowherb (Chamerion angustifolium (L.) Holub)

 

The authors have studied the effect of anerobic and aerobic fermentation on the variability of Vitamin C, sugars and chlorophyll in Willowherb, which is a very popular plant in Lituhania and all over the word. The authors have described the analysis performed and have discussed the results using PCA statistical analysis.

The study is original and do provide an advance in the current knowledge on processing techniques e.g. fermentation effect on some nutritional parameters (e.g. Vitamin C). The scientific study is well designed. The results are significant and discussed appropriately, however, they should be better presented, for instance, the results and discussions paragraph should be merged. The English level is good, however, I do advise the authors to review carefully the manuscript and correct any typing/English mistakes. I think with minor changes, this article could be suitable for publication.

Please find below some comments:

Line 23. Mention what kind of parameters are measured.

Line 63. Does the author mean by “example” a “sample”? If yes, better to modify it.

Line 66-67. It is not clear if the mentioned amount is used for all the three duration conditions, or for each.

Line 78-92. The author should add a sentence at the beginning of this paragraph mentioning clearly that a HPLC coupled to a spectrometer UV-VIS was used for this analysis. Same for sugar analysis and chlorophylls analysis paragraph. The author has mentioned the brand and country of origin of the HPLC, and then he should mention the brand and country of origin of the detector as well, preferably at the beginning of each paragraph.  I also advise the author to add a section called: “Chemicals and reagents”, were he can mention all the reagents used, and remove the sentences from paragraph 2.3, 2.4 and 2.5.

Line 126. Once again, the author should mention what kind of parameters he is talking about, if not in the abstract, at least in this section.

Line 137. Correct this sentence. “The highest amounts of dehydroascorbic acid were determined after 24 h aerobic fermentation at 200.11 mg. 100 g⁻¹ DW and after 24 h and 72 h anaerobic fermentation at 137 189.69 mg. 100 g⁻¹ DW and 193.39 mg. 100 g⁻¹ DW, respectively.” I suggest that the author recalculate the concentration in 1g and express the results in mg.g^-1, it will be less confusing.  Additionally, an explanation is missing, but then I could see the author has a discussion paragraph, and better to merge these paragraphs.

Line 138. Correct this sentence. “L-ascorbic acid was mainly found in the control (unfermented leaves) at a concentration of 496.44 mg. 100 g⁻¹ DW, which is significantly higher compared to leaves fermented in all experiment variants.” Again, express the results in mg.g^-1. Additionally, an explanation is missing, but then I could see the author has a discussion paragraph, and better to merge these paragraphs.

Line 140 and line 155. Before mentioning table 1 and table 2 between brackets, the author should write a description about table 1 and 2.

Table 1 and table 2. It is not clear what a,b,c,d, and e refer to.

Table 1 and 2. Express the results in mg.g^-1 unless some guidelines use concentration in 100g instead of in 1 g and for comparaison.

Line 179. The author should write a description about figure 1 in the text.

In the overall text, it is not mentioned in the text whether it is good or bad to have low amount of chlorophyll and other studied parameters in the consumed product.

I would highly recommend to merge the two paragraphs results and discussions, first to avoid repetition e.g. line 203-204, and second for better follow up of the results. For instance I suggest to move lines 189 to 212 to the paragraph in the results were the results of vitamins C are described, and so on for the other parameters.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.doc

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

The author has addressed my questions, thus it can be accepted in the present form.