Impact of Ultraviolet Radiation on the Pigment Content and Essential Oil Accumulation in Sweet Basil (Ocimum basilicum L.)
, Alexandr A. Smirnov 1,*, Alina S. Ivanitskikh 1, Andrey Yu. Izmailov 1, Alexey S. Dorokhov 1, Yuri A. Proshkin 1, Denis V. Yanykin 2, Ruslan R. Sarimov 2, Sergey V. Gudkov 1,2 and Narek O. Chilingaryan 1
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The authors used 3 UV lights on sweet basil to increase productivity and improve essential oils. The effect of UV rays on plant growth, pigment content and essential oils was studied. UV-A and UV B showed 90 % growth and 2.3% Essential oil content increment. UV-A increases plant growth, UV-A and UV-B increase the chlorophyll contents. 21 essential oils were identified (3-4 % unidentified oils) with significant change under UV light. The combined use of UV-A and UV-B will improve the sweet basil in terms of plant yield and essential oil content.
Positive points
Overall, the manuscript is well written and drafted. The paper was statistically sound and the results are fine.
Negative points
Even though the authors performed all the experimental work related to this topic. The response of UV rays is a well-known concept. The current manuscript followed a similar response to earlier reports published. Novelty is missing in this research work.
Authors must include the mechanism or pathway of essential oils and metabolites production under UV light.
Authors may check the antioxidant activity to justify the UV light effect or influence
Authors include graphical abstracts and experimental evidence or plant comparisons (images) must be furnished.
Few typos and grammatical errors
Line no 151, is that 5 nm used to measure chlorophyll content from sweet basil?
In Figure 1, the data label is FL+(UC-V) or FL+(UV-C), rectify the error.
Author Response
We would like to thank the reviewers for their work and useful comments. We appreciate your help.
Response to reviewers’ comments:
Even though the authors performed all the experimental work related to this topic. The response of UV rays is a well-known concept. The current manuscript followed a similar response to earlier reports published. Novelty is missing in this research work.
We thank the reviewer for a valuable remark. Indeed, the effect of ultraviolet radiation on plants has been well studied in early works. The novelty of this work lies in a comprehensive study of the effect of ultraviolet radiation on the growth and development of basil, the pigment composition and the content of essential oils in order to select the optimal irradiation spectral composition for agricultural plant growth in indoor farming.
Authors must include the mechanism or pathway of essential oils and metabolites production under UV light.
Thank you very much for your comments. We included the summarized scheme on UV effect on essential oil production and extended the discussion part.
Authors may check the antioxidant activity to justify the UV light effect or influence
Your comment is very interesting and will be of great help to our future research. Unfortunately, we will not be able to do additional research during the time allotted for revision of the manuscript.
Authors include graphical abstracts and experimental evidence or plant comparisons (images) must be furnished.
Plant comparisons (images) were furnished.
Few typos and grammatical errors
Typos and grammatical errors were corrected.
Line no 151, is that 5 nm used to measure chlorophyll content from sweet basil?
The wavelength 440,5 was changed on 440.5 nm
In Figure 1, the data label is FL+(UC-V) or FL+(UV-C), rectify the error.
The error in Figure 1 was rectified.
Reviewer 2 Report
Review remarks on the manuscript entitled “Impact of ultraviolet radiation on the pigments content and essential oils accumulation in sweet basil” is submitted by Semenova et al. to Applied Science Journal. The manuscript is well-written and devoted to the actual problem – the response of UV radiation in photosynthetic pigments and essential oil accumulation on sweet basil plants.
The following points must be corrected or described in the detail:
Line 15: What do you mean by main growth light?
Line 14-15: Sentence error, plz revise
Line 14-30: Please improve, some sentence meaning is not clear
Line 29: Plz write the main growth light intensity
Line 34: Plz italic the plant botanical name
Line 36: plz correct as…………… which can be divided into three categories, i.e., monoterpenes, sesquiterpenes, and oxygenated terpenes.
Line 34-38: Plz add the reference
Line 41: Plz correct as ……. essential oil content [1-4]
Line 42: What do you mean …………….. external action??
Line 47-48: This sentence is important for the present article??
Line 53: Plz correct as ……. decrease the plant growth rate and gross yield of essential oil [14]
Line 65: Plz italic the plant botanical names
Line 68-70: Plz rewrite the sentence
Line 78-82: Plz improve the sentences
Line 101-103: Need improvement
Line 105: What do you mean …….. general??
Line 109: after seed sowing, how many days plants grow??
Line 109-110: If possible, plz provide the experiment/ growth photographs in the Supplementary file
Line 137-138: Plz correct as ………. Table 1. Spectral properties of radiation sources. The values are mean ± standard error (SE, n = 5). FL = ???? (plz abbreviate)
Photon flux density (μmol photons·m–2·s–1)
Line 150-151: 100% acetone is correct?, 440,5 or 440.5 nm? plz check
Table 2. In the table, all values are average, plz remove the average, write as FM/ plant (g), and abbreviate FM = fresh mass in the table caption…. For all
Line 205: Improve Table 2 presentation
Line 214: Revise Figure 1 Y-axis as Photosynthetic pigments (mg g-1). Check figure caption, sentence error
Line 233: Plz correct as Table 2, For example, Total oil content (%) and Essential oil proportion (%) like this
Line 237-257: Plz improve and update
Line 290: Plz abbreviate CPL………..
Line 313-319: The conclusion section is very weak, plz revise carefully, and remove irrelevant information
After incorporation of these changes, the article can be acceptable for the publication in Applied Science journal.
Author Response
We would like to thank the reviewers for their work and useful comments. We appreciate your help.
Response to reviewers’ comments:
The following points must be corrected or described in the detail:
Line 15: What do you mean by main growth light?
We meant the light of fluorescent lamps (FL). This information was added.
Line 14-15: Sentence error, plz revise
Sentence errors were corrected.
Line 14-30: Please improve, some sentence meaning is not clear
The text of the abstract has been improved.
Line 29: Plz write the main growth light intensity
The main growth light intensity was added.
Line 34: Plz italic the plant botanical name
The plant botanical name was italicized.
Line 36: plz correct as…………… which can be divided into three categories, i.e., monoterpenes, sesquiterpenes, and oxygenated terpenes.
The sentence was corrected.
Line 34-38: Plz add the reference
The references were added.
Line 41: Plz correct as ……. essential oil content [1-4]
The references were corrected.
Line 42: What do you mean …………….. external action??
I mean adverse environmental factors. The sentence was corrected.
Line 47-48: This sentence is important for the present article??
This sentence is not very important for the present article, so I deleted it from the manuscript.
Line 53: Plz correct as ……. decrease the plant growth rate and gross yield of essential oil [14]
The sentence was corrected.
Line 65: Plz italic the plant botanical names
The plant botanical names were added and italicized.
Line 68-70: Plz rewrite the sentence
The sentence was rewritten.
Line 78-82: Plz improve the sentences
The sentences were rewritten.
Line 101-103: Need improvement
The sentence was improved.
Line 105: What do you mean …….. general??
I meant “main”, but we refused from this clarification.
Line 109: after seed sowing, how many days plants grow??
After seed sowing, the plants were grown 60 days till flowering (I wrote 4 weeks, but it was my mistake, because we meant the period before the first data capture). We have changed it in the manuscript.
Line 109-110: If possible, plz provide the experiment/ growth photographs in the Supplementary file
The experiment photographs were added in the Supplementary file.
Line 137-138: Plz correct as ………. Table 1. Spectral properties of radiation sources. The values are mean ± standard error (SE, n = 5). FL = ???? (plz abbreviate)
Photon flux density (μmol photons·m–2·s–1)
Table 1 was corrected.
Line 150-151: 100% acetone is correct?, 440,5 or 440.5 nm? plz check
100% acetone is correct, it was used to extract pigments and after they were calculated according to Holm-Wettstein for 100% acetone. The wavelength 440,5 was changed on 440.5 nm
Table 2. In the table, all values are average, plz remove the average, write as FM/ plant (g), and abbreviate FM = fresh mass in the table caption…. For all
Table 2 was corrected.
Line 205: Improve Table 2 presentation
Table 2 presentation was improved.
Line 214: Revise Figure 1 Y-axis as Photosynthetic pigments (mg g-1). Check figure caption, sentence error
Y-axis in Figure 1 was changed into “Photosynthetic pigments (mg g-1)”, The sentence error was corrected.
Line 233: Plz correct as Table 2, For example, Total oil content (%) and Essential oil proportion (%) like this
Table 2 was corrected.
Line 237-257: Plz improve and update
The text was improved and updated.
Line 290: Plz abbreviate CPL………..
The abbreviation has been replaced by the full name “Regulation of the European parliament and of the Council”
Line 313-319: The conclusion section is very weak, plz revise carefully, and remove irrelevant information
The text was improved and updated.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Accepted in the present form.
Reviewer 2 Report
Authors incorporated all the corrections/ suggestions nicely. No further corrections are required.
