Comprehensive Analysis of Genes Associated with the Reactive Oxygen Species Metabolism in Citrus sinensis during Pathogen Infection

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

In the current study, the authors aimed to identify some ROS metabolism-associated genes including 9 RBOH, 14 SOD, 1 CAT, 9 PrxR, 5 APX, 4 GPX, 3 MDAR, 2 DHAR, 2 GR, 24 Trx, and 18 GLR genes, from Citrus sinensis upon the infection with two bacterial pathogens including Ca. L. asiaticus and X. citri subsp. citri (Xcc). Although the study is interesting, however, the data presentation and visualization are very poor and must be improved before the next step. Most of the figures are not readable and the figure captions must be rewritten to be more informative.

 

Major concern: -

·         Although the authors did a good job in the characterization of ROS metabolism-associated genes in C. sinensis, however, this kind of work MUST be supported by real metabolomics data as well as gene expression. I can see that the authors presented only transcriptomics which is not convincing. I highly recommend adding some RO-related metabolomic work and to confirm the transcriptome work with gene expression.

·         Also, the manuscript should be thoroughly revised and improved in terms of comprehensibility and appropriateness of references. Overall, the manuscript should be carefully and deeply revised for grammar and English use, since many minor mistakes are found throughout the whole paper.

 

Other comments:-

·         The introduction is very long and contains too much useless information. Please consider re-writing the introduction and removing all useless information to better emphasize the aim of the work.

·         Figures 1B, 2, 3, 4A, and 5A are not readable, please reconstruct to ensure clarity.

·         Figure 6: please use darker colors for the text. The figure in its current form is not readable, particularly for people with color blindness (color vision deficiency)

·         In contrast with the “Introduction”, the “Discussion” section little bit short. Please consider re-writing the discussion and No need to add sub-sections.

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Overall, the manuscript should be carefully and deeply revised for grammar and English use, since many minor mistakes are found throughout the whole paper.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear Authors,

 

I have an opportunity to review manuscript entilted :” Comprehensive analysis of genes associated with the reactive oxygen species metabolism in Citrus sinensis during pathogen infection”

 

Authors concentrated on reactive oxygen species metabolism in Citrus during interactions with Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus (CLas) and Xanthomonas citri subspecies citri (Xcc).

 

The introduction part in informative, but the precise aim of studies should be added.

Figure 2 and figure 4 should be extensively enlarged- in current form the reader even after 200% enlargement can easy lost important details.

Moreover, Authors were analyzed CsRBOHs, but I did not find any information [in supplementary files also] about what kind of homologues do they have in mind ? – Please, explain it and add appropriate information based on current literature;

Furthermore, the materials and methods section concerning RNA-Seq analyses should be improved- methods should be described as much as it was possible in a repetitive way; Besides of it selected genes expression should be confirmed by the qPCR analyses, it is commonly good scientific practice;

Authors stated that “Protein-protein interaction network analysis highlighted the involvement of ROS metabolism in various biological processes”, but there are no protein hybrid system interaction, but rather only potential bioinformatic assay – I suggest to underlined this fact in the whole manuscript.

Although that Authors were analyzed a lot of data the discussion part of the manuscript is too firm. Therefore, my suggestion is to add more information about the tendency in ROS-related genes [like RBOHs, or glutathione metabolism genes] in different plant-pathogen interaction in close relation to changes induced by Xanthomonas; In current form we can find mainly the information how many genes revealed in different plant with almost no connection with interactions.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The abstract should be clearer to the reader. Many abbreviations used by authors, please use fewer and try to clarify each abbreviation the first time. it is common for the authors but for some readers, no. the first part the reader reads is the abstract, so please rewrite it more clearly

In the text there are so many abbreviations some of which are not necessary like CBC, …. The abbreviation mentioned less than 5 times can be deleted

if you include the full name then you can use the abbreviation do not repeat the full name again please standardize the entire manuscript

Pay attention to the scientific name in italics. the first time you can use full scientific name then you can use genus abbreviation.

the material and method part should be clearer, the work seems to be a continuation of previous work but the authors should clarify the material and methods more, especially the Expression Profile Analysis part

The part discussion should be more developed, the authors have very good results and they should detail more the part discussion.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Authors significantly improved their manuscript poin by point taking into account almost all reviewer suggestions.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

I am sincerely grateful for your kind remarks about the improvements made to our manuscript.

It's heartening to know that our revisions were received positively and that our efforts to address all the suggestions provided by the reviewers have been largely successful. We strive for academic rigor and excellence, and your feedback is truly instrumental in aiding us along this path.

Your time and effort in this review process are deeply appreciated. We look forward to any further comments or suggestions you may have.

Best Regards.