Proximate Composition and Antioxidant Activity of Selected Morphological Parts of Herbs
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
There is a large introduction referring to in vivo conditions of stress and importance of phytochemicals, and one would expect to see such kind of thests and eventually the tests applied are common in vitro ones.
The aim of the study is very brief and no obvious novelty is described nor in the introduction seems that there is a gap that is going to be covered by the present study
Why these plants and not others (criterion of selection)
The paper seems like a screening work and data reporting. At least the most potent extracts require chemical characteriztion of the major bioactives
Since the authors discuss proximate analysis, ascorbic acid content may be important
Author Response
January 8th, 2023
Answers to the comments Reviewer 1
Authors are grateful for suggestions and comments. The changes in manuscript were made in following: the red color of font on the yellow background when information were added; black font and yellow background when information has been removed.
Answers:
There is a large introduction referring to in vivo conditions of stress and importance of phytochemicals, and one would expect to see such kind of thests and eventually the tests applied are common in vitro ones.
In Introduction section authors have added the information concerning the methods which are frequently used for the evaluation of antioxidant activity of various morphological parts of plants. Lines 89-93.
The aim of the study is very brief and no obvious novelty is described nor in the introduction seems that there is a gap that is going to be covered by the present study
In Introduction section the explanation regarding the selection of plants was added. What is more these plants were selected for project in which not only healthy properties are evaluated by chemical analyses but also in cell culture study and animal study, for example selected plants were evacuated as the herbal bar for horses. In this manuscript we present a part of results
Why these plants and not others (criterion of selection)
Explanation above.
The paper seems like a screening work and data reporting. At least the most potent extracts require chemical characteriztion of the major bioactives
Authors are grateful for these comments. Albeit characterization of major bioactives for selected plants was not objective of this research.
Since the authors discuss proximate analysis, ascorbic acid content may be important
In case of the ascorbic acid during the planning of research authors decided do not measure vitamin C concentration because for study we have used plant material dried in room temperature in light condition. Based on own experiences and knowledge about the stability of vitamin C under this condition the loses of vitamin C can be about 100%.
Sincerely,
Aneta Kopeć and co-authors
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The article is very informative and it has implications for the application of herbs products in the field of antioxidants. But the English language and formatting needs to be improved.
1. The dry weight and DM need to be expressed consistently in the abstract.
2. Why did you choose 70% denatured ethanol instead of analytical grade ethanol? The denatured ethanol contains many impurities. How do you ensure the purity of the extracts?
3. The statistical symbol is incorrectly written in Section 2.3. You should italicize p. The expression (p = 0.05) is ambiguous, please consider modifying the sentence.
4. Please check the writing and formatting carefully. For example, The unit (mL) writing is wrong. The reference format needs to be modified in Section 4.1 Basic nutrients. Fe2+ should be superscript in Section 4.5 Antioxidant Activity Measured by the FRAP Method.
5. The definition of FRAP is faulty in Table 2. Carefully check the definition of FRAP.
6. Does EE refers to crude fat in Table 2? Please express consistently.
Author Response
January 8th, 2023
Answer to the comments of the Reviewer 2
Authors are grateful for suggestions and comments. The changes in manuscript were made in following: the red color of font on the yellow background when information were added; black font and yellow background when information has been removed.
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
The article is very informative and it has implications for the application of herbs products in the field of antioxidants. But the English language and formatting needs to be improved.
The English language and formatting in manuscript was improved.
The dry weight and DM need to be expressed consistently in the abstract.
These information were added.
- Why did you choose 70% denatured ethanol instead of analytical grade ethanol? The denatured ethanol contains many impurities. How do you ensure the purity of the extracts?
For the extraction the 70% of methanol analytical grade was used. In “2.2 Methods” section the word ethanol was used mistakenly. The mistake was corrected. Using the analytical grade methanol and dd water gives the purity of extract.
- The statistical symbol is incorrectly written in Section 2.3. You should italicize p. The expression (p = 0.05) is ambiguous, please consider modifying the sentence.
It was corrected.
- Please check the writing and formatting carefully. For example, The unit (mL) writing is wrong. It was corrected.
The reference format needs to be modified in Section 4.1 Basic nutrients. It was corrected the years was changed for the numbers.
Fe2+ should be superscript in Section 4.5 Antioxidant Activity Measured by the FRAP Method. It was corrected.
- The definition of FRAP is faulty in Table 2. Carefully check the definition of FRAP.
It was corrected.
- Does EE refers to crude fat in Table 2? Please express consistently. Yes crude fat was expressed as the EE (ether extract of fat) because abbreviation CF is the crude fibre.
Sincerely,
Aneta Kopeć and co-authors
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
January 8th, 2023
Answers to the Reviewer 3 comments
Authors are grateful for suggestions and comments. The changes in manuscript were made in following: the red color of font on the yellow background when information were added; black font and yellow background when information has been removed.
Comments to the Authors
Manuscript ID: applsci-2137539
General remarks:
The authors examined a quite number of plant material, fruits and seeds in terms of proximate composition, phenolics compounds content and antioxidant activity. Performed analysis are relevant in the field, although major concern represents standard used in the phenolic compounds determination (chlorogenic acid) and expression of results which consequently rises issues when comparing the obtained results with results in literature (missing here). In addition, the method of extraction for results used for comparison in all conducted analysis must be included since that represents an important factor in the quantification of phenolic content and antioxidant activity. If the extraction method was the same as applied in this study (conventional extraction with ethanol), this can be neglected. In summary, discussion section needs serious improvements in terms mentioned above as well as inclusion of possible explanations regarding observed differences.
English editing is necessary, considering typographical errors as well as sentence construction in several places in the manuscript.
Specific comments are listed below.
Title
Title should be improved. Herbs give the association on herbal plants such as nettle etc. while experiment are conducted on different fruits, plants etc. Suggestion is to somehow include the herbs used in the experiments in the title, classified in several groups.
The title was changed to: “Proximate composition and antioxidant activity of selected morphological parts of herbs”.
Abstract
Line 5: Please remove the hyphen between Pomeranian. It was corrected.
Line 16: Please change the order. Put the total content of polyphenolic compounds in front of the antioxidant activity since the antioxidant activity mainly originates from present polyphenolic and other similar compounds. Furthermore, please include which plant material was examined. It was corrected.
Because there are 27 different samples, try to classified them in similar groups (fruits, herbs, seeds…) and then list the groups here. The classification was made in table 1.
Line 18: Please include the in front of Association of Official Analytical Chemists, and also include an s at the end of Association of Official Analytical Chemists.
It was corrected.
Line 20: Is there any special reason for using chlorogenic acid as a standard instead of gallic acid which is more commonly used. Chlorogenic acid is usually used as standard in samples such as plums where it is naturally present.
Authors are grateful for this comment. Albeit in our research team we use the chlorogenic acid for the long time as the standard. In the future we plan to add other standard for the expression of phenolic compounds.
Keywords
Please change some of the keywords to avoid repetition (botanicals, herbs) and more closely describe the experiment. Replace basic nutrients with proximate composition.
Keywords were corrected. Please see lines 32-33. In manuscript body the “basic nutrients” was changed to the “proximate composition”.
Manuscript
Lines 39: Please include free radicals in the sentence because it is a new paragraph. The second sentence can begin with These compounds… The sentence was improved. Please see lines 42-44.
Line 72: Please revise the part working in concert.
The sentence was revised and improved. Please see lines 76-78.
Line 81: Please put the total content of polyphenolic compounds in front of the antioxidant activity. The authors can also introduce an abbreviation TPC for total phenolic content.
It was corrected.
Line 90: Please delete and.
It was corrected.
Lines 91: Instead of numbered please use listed because there are no numbers in Table 1. as it stands it is only a list of samples without appropriate abbreviation.
It was corrected.
Line 109: Please revise to Association of Official Analytical Chemists. An abbreviation AOAC can also be introduced here. It was corrected.
Line 109-114: Please include the adequate AOAC method number for every conducted method. It was corrected.
Lines 122: Please include the type and producer of the filter paper. It was corrected.
Line 124: Please include that the obtained extracts were used for subsequent polyphenols content determination and antioxidant analysis. It was corrected.
Line 130: Please indicate here and for every conducted analysis the number of replicates, since results in Table 2 are regarded as means. In the subchapter 2.3 Statistical analyses the sentence “All analyses were done duplicate (proximate composition) and in triplicate (total polyphenols and antioxidant activity)” was added.
Line 162: Please revise to of dry matter while. The sentence was revised.
Line 165: Please include the numeric values for all the results mentioned in section 3.1 and also refer to Table where the results are presented.
The values of the measured compounds were added in the section of 3.1.
Line 172-173: Please revise the sentence in terms of English. It was corrected.
Lines 170, 181 and 189: Please order the samples in descending order. It was changed.
Line 174: Please include here after milk thistle in parentheses the numerical value for total phenolics content and delete the last sentence in the paragraph It was corrected and last sentence was deleted.
Line 212: Please include adequate terms in front of used abbreviations, because this is their first mention. It was corrected.
Line 213: Please check this sentence. aa seems like a mistake. Furthermore, please uniform through the manuscript basic nutrients or proximate composition as it is stated on Figure 1. The sentence was revised and improved.
Line 258: Please add and between fat and proteins. It was corrected.
Line 259: Please revise to A lower content was determined in the present study. It was corrected.
Line 265 and 268: Please revise the sentence. Most likely it is except instead of expert. It was corrected.
Lines 276-278: Please revise the sentence in terms of English. The sentence was revised and improved
Line 283: Please revise to lower compared to this study. It was corrected.
Line 295: Please check the sentence, cleacers seems wrong. It was corrected.
Line 320: Please revise to differ significantly regarding statistic. It was changed.
Line 322: Please revise 2+ in upper case. It was corrected.
Tables
Please add standard deviation for listed results in Table 2. Furthermore, add in the footnote that the letters represent differences in rows or columns. Please also check the numbers, in some places comma is used instead of full stop (column 3 last row).
Authors decided to divided table 2 in two parts. In table 2 the results concerning the proximate composition were presented. In table 3 results concerning antioxidant activity were presented. In Table 2 and 3, standard deviation (SD) value was added.
Figures
To ensure the understanding of the Figure 1A without text, please include the full terms of abbreviations on it in the figure caption below.
The figure caption definitely needs improvement. Nutritional value seems as un adequate term please use proximate composition as stated in figures. Also please use antioxidant activity instead of aa. Figure caption is not good place to use abbreviations which are not previously mentioned.
Required information were added. The changes also were made. The font in Fig 1B was changed.
Sincerely,
Aneta Kopeć and co-authors
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 4 Report
In extraction: the methanolic extract must be obtained with methanol, not ethanol?
In figure 1, graph B, the scientific names of plants must be in italics.
In line 254 and line 256, review the references should be [23] and [24] respectively.
On line 261, it must be reference [26].
On line 266, it must be reference [28].
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
January 8th, 2023
Answers to the comments of Reviewer 4
Authors are grateful for suggestions and comments. The changes in manuscript were made in following: the red color of font on the yellow background when information were added; black font and yellow background when information has been removed.
Comments for authors.
- In extraction: the methanolic extract must be obtained with methanol, not ethanol? It was corrected. The methanol was used for the extraction process.
- In figure 1, graph B, the scientific names of plants must be in italics.
It was changed
- In line 254 and line 256, review the references should be [23] and [24] respectively. It was changed.
- On line 261, it must be reference [26]. It was changed.
- On line 266, it must be reference [28]. It was changed.
Sincerely,
Aneta Kopeć and co-authors
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Most of my responses were adequately answered, therefore, I agree with the manuscript acceptance
Author Response
Authors are grateful for the comments.
Reviewer 2 Report
no
Author Response
Authors are grateful for all comments.
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments for author File: Comments.docx
Author Response
January 16th, 2023
Answers to the comments Reviewer 3
Authors are grateful for suggestions and comments. The changes in manuscript were made in following: the red color of font on the yellow background when information were added; black font and yellow background when information has been removed the text has been crossed out.
Minor corrections regarding typographical errors are still required. Suggestion is to proof read the manuscript again. It was corrected
Specific comments are listed below.
Suggestion is to upgrade the title to:
Proximate composition and antioxidant activity of selected morphological parts of culinary and medicinal herbs . It has been not corrected. Explanation: The authors decided not to change the title of the manuscript, because such a division of the studied species does not occur in the study. Therefore none of the studied features in the context of such a division was analyzed.
Line 20: Please remove full stop from DM. It has been corrected
Line 127: Please remove ; from the abbreviation for crude fiber It has been corrected.
Line 193: Please delete were from the sentence. It has been corrected.
Line 196: Please revise p value in italics like at previous mention. Do it here and throughout the manuscript as well. It has been corrected through the manuscript.
Line 201 and 210: Please revise to Table 3 because new table was created with these results. Check this through the manuscript. It has been corrected.
Lines 214 and 222: To avoid confusion, better would be to use comma instead of -, before obtained values. It has been corrected.
Lines 227-228: Please revise again. After deletion it sound as uncomplete sentence. It has been corrected.
Line 291: Please check psyllium. It has been corrected.
Line 333: Please revise to are different. It has been corrected.
Line 363: Please revise to Trolox. It has been corrected
Line 375: Please use same paragraph formatting as in previous ones. It has been corrected
Sincerely,
Aneta Kopeć and co-authors.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
