Properties and Functionality of Cereal Non-Starch Polysaccharides in Breadmaking
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
I am grateful to recommend it for publication in present form.Author Response
KB: Thank you for your positive comments.
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript entitled "Properties and role of non-starch polysaccharides in breadmaking" aimed to present the properties and role of the most common NSPs in bread baking. This is interesting and could provide a valuable information for the application of NSPs on breadmaking. Some revisions should be made as follows:
(1) The paper summarized the properties of NSPs including arabinoxylans, b-glucans, galactomannans, arabinogalactans and pectin. However, only the effect of arabinoxylans and b-glucans on bread properties were reviewed.
(2) Are guar gum, carrageenan, xanthan gum, konjac glucomannan, inulin non-starch polysaccharides? Many studies have investigated the effects of these non-starch polysaccharides on bread quality.
(3) The title was “Properties and role of non-starch polysaccharides in breadmaking”, but the paper mainly focused on arabinoxylans and b-glucans. The title needs to be revised.
Author Response
KB: We have focused our paper on non-starch polysaccharides occurring in cereals, therefore the effect of other polysaccharides (including particularly popular in gluten-free breadmaking polysaccharides such as guar gum, carrageenan, xanthan gum, konjac glucomannan, inulin) was not reviewed in detail. Moreover, information concerning the effect of cereal non-starch polysaccharides other than arabinoxylans and beta-glucans on bread properties is limited.
We have clarified that the review concern mainly cereal non-starch polysaccharides in the title, abstract, and the whole manuscript.
Reviewer 3 Report
My recommendation is attached.
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
KB: Thank you for your detailed and positive comments. Appropriate changes were included.
Reviewer 4 Report
The article entitled "Properties and role of non-starch polysaccharides in breadmaking" consists of two main parts which are (1) Summary of several type of non-starch polysaccharides; and (2) Summary of the effect of non-starch polysaccharides in breadmaking. My comments are as follow prior to acceptance to this journal:
General comment for improvement: The article seems just a compilation of previous published articles. A review should be more than a compilation of the results reported in literature. It should in fact be a critical assessment of knowledge with some clear conclusions what all these results mean, and what are the perspectives and directions for future research. The idea of a review is that the reader should afterwards be able to make decisions about what directions to go, what has already been shown not promising and what looks promising. It should be a source of inspiration and not just be a collection of facts. It should contribute discussion in the field, to be critical and thus result in improving the field. I recommend the author to add more discussion and critical assessment to the results previously reported in literature.
Specific comments:
1. Title: consider change the term of "role" to "functionality"
2. Abstract: Please add the significance of this review article and give a brief perspective of future potential studies/application based on this review.
3. Introduction: Introduction must contain "State of the art" of this literature review, including background and problem statement as well as goal of this study. Explanation of different types of NSPs shall be in the next section. Also, I don't see any discussion regarding bread making as the part of background of this study in this section. It must be elaborated.
4. Table 2: What does HPSEC stand for? It may be better to make a newtable discussing about HPSEC, as you have a lot of data regarding this parameter.
5. The section of "Modifications of NSPs": Is that relevant in this review?Does it have significant impact on the breadmaking? Please discuss.
6. The section of "The role of NSP in bread making": Any possible negative effect of NSPs in the bread making shall be covered as well in this discussion.
7. Table 3 must summarize all the parameters discussed in the text, not only the water addition to dough
8. Conclusion: Please add perspective and direction for further research.
Author Response
The article entitled "Properties and role of non-starch polysaccharides in breadmaking" consists of two main parts which are (1) Summary of several type of non-starch polysaccharides; and (2) Summary of the effect of non-starch polysaccharides in breadmaking. My comments are as follow prior to acceptance to this journal:
General comment for improvement: The article seems just a compilation of previous published articles. A review should be more than a compilation of the results reported in literature. It should in fact be a critical assessment of knowledge with some clear conclusions what all these results mean, and what are the perspectives and directions for future research. The idea of a review is that the reader should afterwards be able to make decisions about what directions to go, what has already been shown not promising and what looks promising. It should be a source of inspiration and not just be a collection of facts. It should contribute discussion in the field, to be critical and thus result in improving the field. I recommend the author to add more discussion and critical assessment to the results previously reported in literature.
KB: Thank you for your comments. Appropriate changes were included.
Specific comments:
1. Title: consider change the term of "role" to "functionality"
KB: Appropriate changes were included.
2. Abstract: Please add the significance of this review article and give a brief perspective of future potential studies/application based on this review.
KB: Appropriate changes were included.
3. Introduction: Introduction must contain "State of the art" of this literature review, including background and problem statement as well as goal of this study. Explanation of different types of NSPs shall be in the next section. Also, I don't see any discussion regarding bread making as the part of background of this study in this section. It must be elaborated.
KB: Appropriate changes were included.
4. Table 2: What does HPSEC stand for? It may be better to make a newtable discussing about HPSEC, as you have a lot of data regarding this parameter.
KB: HPSEC is an abbreviation for chromatographic technique i.e. (High Performance) Size Exclusion Chromatography dedicated to determining the molar mass of macromolecules. The abbreviation SEC is most commonly used for this technique. Appropriate explanations were added.
5. The section of "Modifications of NSPs": Is that relevant in this review?Does it have significant impact on the breadmaking? Please discuss.
KB: The section is relevant because we wanted to point out that revealing and characterizing of possible modifications of NSPs is very important. The mentioned modifications have a strong impact on the molecular properties of NSPs. Moreover, the modifications of NSPs may also occur naturally in dough during the breadmaking process because the modifying agents are naturally present in dough ingredients. Observing the strong impact of such modifications on the molecular properties of NSPs it may be expected that it may have a high effect on the process and properties of the final product. However, further research is needed to reveal and characterize the modifications, their mechanism, and their impact on the whole process of breadmaking.
In this review, we wanted to point out that the studies revealing possible interaction of NSPs (cross-linking) are very complicated and still scarce, similar to the studies which show the impact of the same NSP but of different molecular structures.
Appropriate changes were included in text.
6. The section of "The role of NSP in bread making": Any possible negative effect of NSPs in the bread making shall be covered as well in this discussion.
KB: Appropriate changes were included.
7. Table 3 must summarize all the parameters discussed in the text, not only the water addition to dough
KB: Appropriate changes were included.
8. Conclusion: Please add perspective and direction for further research.
KB: Appropriate changes were included.
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript entitled "Properties and role of non-starch polysaccharides in breadmaking" aimed to present the properties and role of the most common NSPs in bread baking. This is interesting and could provide a valuable information for the application of NSPs on breadmaking.
