Nanoparticles as Novel Elicitors to Improve Bioactive Compounds in Plants

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The review article entitled “Production of bioactive compounds in plants cells induce with nanoparticles” submitted by Rivero-Montejo and collaborators the article addresses the effect of nanoparticles on the production of bioactive compounds by plants.

The subject of the work is very interesting and up-to-date, but presents a number of issues, which I have divided into major and minor, that need to be clarified and/or changed.

Major issues:

• The authors propose to present a review of the bibliography regarding the effect of nanoparticles on the production of bioactive compounds. However, they have chosen to include a section (section 2. Current Options to Elicitors for Eustress in Plants) that is not directly related to the subject of the article. Furthermore, it presents some inaccuracies, described in the minor issues. Therefore I suggest that this section be removed in the final version of the manuscript.
• The authors present only 15 references in the table that summarizes the effects of nanoparticles in the production of bioactive compounds (table 1). This number is quite small and does not represent, at the date this review was sent, all available information. A quick search allowed me to find many more articles that should have been included in the manuscript. Just as an example a) https://doi.org/10.1049/iet-nbt.2018.5212; b) https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-014-2822-y; c) https://doi.org/10.1007/s00709-014-0738-5
• The authors present only the effects of nanoparticles on the production of bioactive compounds, not detailing the negative effects of NP on the plants themselves and on human health, including only a sentence at the end of the manuscript (lines 349-350). These effects are of extreme importance, as they may condition the use of NP on a large scale and deserve further discussion in this work.
• The text of the manuscript is generally written in a very fragmented form, which makes it difficult to read. There are many loose sentences with statements not supported by references. Authors should carefully review the text.

Minor issues

• Introduction line 33 “Bioactive compounds are known as phytochemicals”. The expression used by the authors is not correct since not all bioactive compounds have a plant origin.
• Lines 50, 51 “protection of plants from attack by insects, animals, and pathogens, or the survival to other biotic or abiotic stresses”. Insects are animals. Perhaps it should say Insects and other animals.
• Line 87 and 89 – The use of the terms “three-section” and “four-section” does not seem to be the most correct. It may be preferable to use terms such as section three or third section.
• Section 2.1, Lines 94 and following. The authors refer at the beginning of the paragraph "Generally, abiotic eustress". Wouldn't they like to indicate biotic eustress? In addition, this whole paragraph is very confusing. Authors should better explain the meaning of HAMPs. DAMPs, MAMPs and PAMPs .
• Section 2.2, lines 104 e following. The authors present the hormones as an abiotic factor. I do not agree with this classification, as I consider them to be biotic factors. In fact, the authors themselves cite an article (ref 15) that explicitly states that hormones are biotic factors. The authors must correct this information in the manuscript.
• Section 2.2.3 Pages 135 e following. The authors refer to temperature as a physical agent. Temperature, per se, cannot be considered a stressor agent. Extreme temperatures, such as extreme cold or heat, are the factors that cause stress. The authors should correct the information in the manuscript by changing temperature to extreme temperatures or, alternatively, heat and cold.
• Section 3.1 Lines 159-160. I don't understand what the authors mean by "The decreasing size of NPs facilitates the diffusion in cells, as a result of surface area increase". Obviously, the small size of NPs facilitates the entry into the cells and even the transport along the plants. But how does this result from the increase of surface area? The authors should also present articles that study the relationship between NP size and absorption by plants, such as the one published in Applied Biologica, 2012, Volume : 14, “Standardization of size, shape and concentration of nanoparticle for plant application”.

Author Response

Thank you for your comments and observations. Please see the attachment, the response is in yellow.

• The authors propose to present a review of the bibliography regarding the effect of nanoparticles on the production of bioactive compounds. However, they have chosen to include a section (section 2. Current Options to Elicitors for Eustress in Plants) that is not directly related to the subject of the article. Furthermore, it presents some inaccuracies, described in the minor issues. Therefore I suggest that this section be removed in the final version of the manuscript.

Response 1: Thank you for your suggestion, and we decide eliminated the section

• The authors present only 15 references in the table that summarizes the effects of nanoparticles in the production of bioactive compounds (table 1). This number is quite small and does not represent, at the date this review was sent, all available information. A quick search allowed me to find many more articles that should have been included in the manuscript. Just as an example a) https://doi.org/10.1049/iet-nbt.2018.5212; b) https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-014-2822-y; c) https://doi.org/10.1007/s00709-014-0738-5

Response 2: Thank you for your suggestion. The literature was actualized, also we use literature preference date from 2019 to avoid shown literature present in another review such as DOI: 10.1039/c9ra08457f

• The authors present only the effects of nanoparticles on the production of bioactive compounds, not detailing the negative effects of NP on the plants themselves and on human health, including only a sentence at the end of the manuscript (lines 349-350). These effects are of extreme importance, as they may condition the use of NP on a large scale and deserve further discussion in this work.

Response 3: Thank you for your suggestion. We include the negative effects in the third section and also in the summary table 1.

• The text of the manuscript is generally written in a very fragmented form, which makes it difficult to read. There are many loose sentences with statements not supported by references. Authors should carefully review the text.

Response 4: Thank you for your suggestion. We rewrite part of MS.

• Section 3.1 Lines 159-160. I don't understand what the authors mean by "The decreasing size of NPs facilitates the diffusion in cells, as a result of surface area increase". Obviously, the small size of NPs facilitates the entry into the cells and even the transport along the plants. But how does this result from the increase of surface area? The authors should also present articles that study the relationship between NP size and absorption by plants, such as the one published in Applied Biologica, 2012, Volume : 14, “Standardization of size, shape and concentration of nanoparticle for plant application”.

Response 4: Thank you for your suggestion. We rewrite part of this section

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Reviewer Report of the Manuscript ‘Production of bioactive compounds in plants cells induce with nanoparticles' submitted to Agriculture journal by Samantha de Jesús Rivero-Montejo, Marcela Vargas-Hernandez, and Irineo Torres-Pacheco.

This manuscript makes attempt to analyze literature sources on nanoparticles' potential to improve secondary metabolite production in plants.

As a whole, this manuscript has the potential to be well organized and comprehensively described.
Definitely, it has the potential for a significant system contribution to the field of research.

On the one hand, this MS appears to be a perspective to be published in the target Agriculture journal.

It should be recognized, however, that to provide a scientifically sound of the manuscript as well as to exclude potential misleading there, MS should be revised and re-written significantly to more match the level and requirements of the journal.

Comments, questions, and suggestions to the manuscript are the following:

1. The title of the manuscript should be improved and have more English sound.

2. The abstract should be optimized and improved through the way of a more high level of conceptualization and consistency.

3. Unfortunately, this manuscript is more based on an 'abstractive', summary description' approach.
In contrast, a more conceptual and analytical approach needs to be developed there to provide the reason-why discussion and maybe definite predictivity concept, as well as more alternative and contradistinguish hypotheses.
The text of the manuscript should be more logically constructed and rewritten from a position of the more expressed system approach, greater conceptualization, consistency and to provide the clarity of presentation, argumentative clarity and precision, as well as the clarity of perception for the readers.

4. English should be improved to be more exquisite, Haute, recherche, and readable.

5. To exclude the risk of conceptual plagiarism and self-plagiarism, it is necessary to look through all close similar works in the literature, make appropriate references and discuss earlier results, if any, both by MS authors' own and other authors, from articles to conference proceedings including the same on the other languages too.
What is fundamentally new that this manuscript introduces and implements compared to other previously published works in this sphere of research?

Author Response

Thank you for your comments. Please see the attachment, the response is green.

 

1. The title of the manuscript should be improved and have more English sound.

Response 1: Thank you for your comment. We rewrite the title

2. The abstract should be optimized and improved through the way of a more high level of conceptualization and consistency.

Response 2: Thank you for your comment. We rewrite the abstract

3. Unfortunately, this manuscript is more based on an 'abstractive', summary description' approach.
In contrast, a more conceptual and analytical approach needs to be developed there to provide the reason-why discussion and maybe definite predictivity concept, as well as more alternative and contradistinguish hypotheses.
The text of the manuscript should be more logically constructed and rewritten from a position of the more expressed system approach, greater conceptualization, consistency and to provide the clarity of presentation, argumentative clarity and precision, as well as the clarity of perception for the readers.

Response 3: Thank you for your comment. We rewrite part of MS

4. English should be improved to be more exquisite, Haute, recherche, and readable.

Response 4: Thank you for your comment. We rewrite part of MS.

5. To exclude the risk of conceptual plagiarism and self-plagiarism, it is necessary to look through all close similar works in the literature, make appropriate references and discuss earlier results, if any, both by MS authors' own and other authors, from articles to conference proceedings including the same on the other languages too.
What is fundamentally new that this manuscript introduces and implements compared to other previously published works in this sphere of research?

Response 5: In this review, we present recent publications (2019-2020 principally) that include the effect of post-harvest on the production of secondary metabolism in plants induce with nanoparticles which other authors have no present yet. in addition, we include other plants species than medicinal plants.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Although the authors have improved the manuscript according to the reviewers' suggestions, there are some aspects that still need improvement. I highlight the main issues:
1) The text, although improved, is still fragmented and in some places difficult to read.
2) The effects of the use of nanoparticles on plants and human health are still not properly addressed in the text. The authors should develop this topic.

Author Response

Thank you for your suggestions and comments. Please see the attachment, the response will be in yellow.

 

1) The text, although improved, is still fragmented and in some places difficult to read.

Response 1: Thank you for your suggestions. According to suggestion 1, we restructure the text, so can be more fluid. 

 
2) The effects of the use of nanoparticles on plants and human health are still not properly addressed in the text. The authors should develop this topic

Response 2: Thank you for your suggestions. We appreciate your comments and suggestions and in response, we include this topic in a new section that you can find in the fourth section and in marked in yellow in the attachment

 

We appreciate your comments and suggestion. 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

It is necessary to revise and improve this manuscript once again through a system and conceptual approach more - for the title, abstract, whole text, conclusions.

Author Response

Thank you for your suggestions and comments. Please see the attachment for the response.

 

It is necessary to revise and improve this manuscript once again through a system and conceptual approach more - for the title, abstract, whole text, conclusions.

Response: Thank you for your suggestions. We edit all the document, considered a restructuration to make more clear the idea of this paper, also the title, abstract, whole text, conclusions were modified. Further, we add a new section about the negative effects in plants and possibles risks in human health derived from NPs exposure.

 

We appreciated your comments and suggestion.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx