Novel R2R3-MYB Transcription Factor LhMYB1 Promotes Anthocyanin Accumulation in Lilium concolor var. pulchellum
, Mingli Ke 1, Yuxian Lu 1, Yiping Zheng 2, Xuanmei Cai 2, Shaozhong Fang 2, Jian Wu 3, Zhimin Lin 2,* and Faxing Chen 1,*Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis paper reveals that LhMYB1, a novel MYB transcriptional regulator, responds positively to NAA and promotes anthocyanin accumulation in Lilium concolor var. pulchellum. This result contributes to the understanding of the mechanism of anthocyanin biosynthesis in Lilium.
However, it is necessary to address the following points.
The transcription factor "LhMYB1" is written in italics in some places and in normal letters in some places. It is necessary to confirm whether it is correct. It is considered appropriate to use normal letters for the title.
Each figure in Figure 2 and Figure 3 is too small to understand. Figures should be enlarged.
In the caption of Figure 3, lilium should be changed to Lilium.
Line 191. What are CP and MP?
Line 253. What is PIC?
Line 253. Concentrations of 6-BA and 2,4-D should be specified.
Line 254. What are Pic and PIC?
Line 265. “0.1 mol/L” should be changed to “0.1 M”.
Line 271. “ul” should be changed to “μL”.
Overall, this manuscript contains valuable new findings. In my conclusion, this manuscript is suitable for publication in horticulturae if the points mentioned above are adequately corrected.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe article titled "A Novel MYB Transcription Factor LhMYB1 Promotes Anthocyanin Accumulation in Lilium concolor var. pulchellum" fits the scope of the journal. The authors examined the effects of several plant growth and development regulators on anthocyanin accumulation in lily callus tissue and gene expression. The authors found that NAA at a concentration of 0.2 mg/L increased the accumulation of anthocyanins in lily callus cultures. I appreciate that the authors put a lot of work into the research. However, there are many ambiguities in the article that require clarification. Some of the ambiguity results from the need for linguistic correction of the article. Some of the statements are incomprehensible to me.
Further suggestions:
Please specify the research objectives and the authors' research hypothesis in the Introduction section.
Please use the term PGRs (plant growth regulators) and not "hormones", because the word "hormones" only applies to natural substances.
Please explain why the authors tested different concentrations for NAA and only 0.5 mg/L for the remaining regulators? As the authors showed, the concentration of the regulator may be crucial for the effect of increasing anthocyanin production.
I would like to ask the authors to consider the composition of the article in terms of the information they want to convey. If the authors describe in the methodology how HPLC analyzes were performed, why do they not include the exact results of these analyzes in the Results section? The results included in the additional materials are incomplete, both in the description of the figure (e.g. the units in which the anthocyanin concentration was expressed were not given), as well as in the methodology itself, e.g. for other NAA concentrations and for other plant growth regulators. I believe that placing these results in the main body of the article would definitely increase the readability of the work. The authors also did not include data on the identification of the analyzed compounds, e.g. the results of MS analyses. I ask the authors to complete the missing information.
Please supplement the HPLC methodology with a gradient program (if it was used, as suggested by the eluents A and B provided by the authors).
The "Discussion" part is too laconic for me. Please expand it and discuss the research of other authors in more detail.
In the "Conclusion" section, please specify the goals of further research in more detail. The sentence from lines 363-365 is incomprehensible to me.
In addition to the linguistic correction, I also ask the authors to make careful editorial corrections, because there are typos in the main text and supplementary materials.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe authors implemented some of the suggested corrections, but not all of them. In response to the reviewer, the authors stated that they had made corrections regarding HPLC analyses, additional materials, analysis results, etc. and there were still shortcomings:
1. In lines 299-300 there is the phrase "HPLC analysis was performed on an HPLC 139 equipped with an Agilent 1200 HPLC variable wavelength detector." What does HPLC 139 mean?
2. There are no corrections declared by the authors in the attached "Supplementary" materials.
3. The "Conclusions" part has not been corrected.
Author Response
Please see th attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
