In Vitro Fermentation Characteristics of Pine Needles (Pinus densiflora) as Feed Additive
, Juhyeon Kim 1, Solhee Kim 1, Min-Gyung Choi 1, Jeong-Yeon On 1, Sang-Woo Jeon 1, Sung-Gu Han 3 and Soo-Ki Kim 1,*
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear respected editor
The manuscript entitled “Potential of fermented pine needle (Pinus densiflora) as feed additive” has a good idea. The authors explored the antimicrobial and antioxidant activities of fermented pine needle. The study indicated that fermented pine needle has a great applied way in different fields and could be used as feed additives. I have accepted this manuscript after minor revision.
My comments are;
§ Why authors used porcine aortic endothelial cell?
§ However, it was should use intestinal cell lines? Mostly of the fermentation of the probiotics are occurred in the intestinal cavity.
§ Please, clarify your hypothesis.
§ Enzyme activities should change to enzymatic activities.
§ Lines 23 please insert the full name of TPC.
§ Lines 52-55, These……….., it’s better to divided into two sentences.
§ The names of probiotic should be italic (blew figure 2 and Tables)
§ Sometimes in the manuscript I found p (probability) in italic, please uniform it.
§ The bars of Figure 3 should be more clearly.
§ Line 183, performed. Should be deleted.
§ Table 4, ND, please describe it blew the table.
§ Line 210 Unit: mm???????
§ Lines 269-271 please rewrite this sentence to be easier to read.
§ Line 354, and the possibility of use as a fermented feed additive was? Where it is in your study?
§ Line 358, LPF showed the highest antibacterial activity, and the activity became stronger as it was fermented. I suggest change to “LPF showed the highest antibacterial activity, especially after fermentation process”.
I found minor English Editing is wanted.
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
This paper is well structured and written in correct English and the subject is interesting. The methods are well described and some are innovative. However, some points concerning the design, statistical analysis and presentation of results must absolutely be improved.
Line 23 TPC this abbrevation is not described
Line 86 this analysis of the raw material used which is really basic, the paper should mention in particular the parameters that can degrade the fermentation (lignin, ADL) or the compounds you talk about later, polyphenols, flavonoids and sulfur compounds
Line 94 can you give a rational for this 2:1:7 ratio ?
Line 195 Figure 1 A is really not very readable give a clear legend for LB, YM, MRS. I suggest to enlarge the figures and treat them by 2 and not by 4. Thank you for improving these figures.
Line 210 this table is very poorly presented. There should be a column for SEM (standard error to the mean and a column for statistical probality. No standard deviations. Please improve also the presentation of this table.
Line 219 this table is very poorly designed. If I understood well you compare the different times for the same product, but you do not compare the different fermentations between them at the same time. Your statistical analysis is not complete, please review it
Line 237 Your experimental design is complete but you only show point 0 for control and not for other types of LPF SCF CCF fermentations. What for? Please show all data. idem for the figure 4
Line 263 Line 263 your statistical analysis needs to be improved Here I suggest you a factorial design product x fermentation time, which would give you much more clarity in the presentation of the results. Please correct the table.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The title of manuscript could be modified. As a reader, when I look at the title, I understand, that trial was performed in vivo.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
