Biodegradation of Naphthalene and Anthracene by Aspergillus glaucus Strain Isolated from Antarctic Soil
, Ivayla Dincheva 2, Nadejda Peneva 1 and Zlatka Alexieva 1,*
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear authors article entitled Biodegradation of naphthalene and anthracene by Aspergillus glaucus strain isolated from Antarctic soil” describes simple study usefulness of Aspergillus glaucus in process of PAH derivates biodegradation. The PAH pollution nowadays is an increasing problem that was not dissolved. Despite the visible effort and great contribution of the authors, the article requires attention in several places.
Comments;
- Line 69; Please correct typos; basidiomycetes fungi
- Line 93-97; The aim of study should be possible short without experimental details
- Line 197-198; The map of analyzed strain sampling place could be placed
- Line 218; The chromatograms on figure 1 present the row results could be moved to supplementary materials. More important is figure 2 which could be formatted without horizontal lines.
- Line 236-288; The authors showed the formation of various derivatives from initial substrates during the biodegradation process. However, the question is whether these derivates are not so hazardous as initial substances or even more. Authors, if possible should perform an analysis that will prove a reduction in hazardous properties of the initial material by testing cyto or fito-toxicity.
- Line 290-288; The block schema with a clear explanation of the degradation mechanism of analyzed substances should be added.
- Figure 7. The description of X axis is not complete should be U/mg protein.
- Line 374-376. The difference in the amino acid sequence is not strictly connected with a different function or catalytic properties of enzymes. Enzymes structure is evolutionary very stable in regions that are critical for its catalytic function. Moreover, low sequence similarity is not always mean different kinds of protein folds. Authors discuss sequence similarity according to the result from BLAST searching that tool is designed for sequence databases searching, not for sequence comparison. Authors should after BLAST analysis collect sequences and then analyze them, for example, using MEGA program.MEGA11: Molecular Evolutionary Genetics Analysis version 11 Tamura K, Stecher G, and Kumar S (2021) Molecular Biology and Evolution https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msab120
- The style of the manuscript should be significantly improved. I recommend strong intervention by the English native speakers or researchers with experience in writing manuscripts in English.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
79. Fuchs, G., Boll, M., Heider, J. () Microbial degradation of aromatic compounds - from one strategy to four. Nat Rev Microbiol
2011, 9, 803-816.
Author Response
Manuscript ID: processes-1678428
Title: Biodegradation of naphthalene and anthracene by Aspergillus glaucus
strain isolated from Antarctic soil
Authors: Katya Stoyanova, Maria Gerginova, Ivayla Dincheva, Nadejda Peneva,
Zlatka Alexieva *
We have revised our manuscript and here we present the detailed answers to the referee’s comment and questions.
Dear Reviewer 2,
The omission noted in citation 79 of the bibliography has been corrected.
Best regards,
Zlatka Alexieva
Reviewer 3 Report
N/A
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
Author Response
Please see attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear authors, the article was significantly improved and is suitable to be published in the Processes journal.
Reviewer 3 Report
N/A
