Genomic Organization and Expression Profiling of GOLDEN2-like Transcription Factor Genes in Eggplant and Their Role in Heat Stresses

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The study identified and classified 54 GOLDEN2-like (GLK) transcription factors in the eggplant genome into seven groups based on their unique structures and motifs. These genes were found to be unevenly distributed across the 12 eggplant chromosomes, with 32 of them involved in gene duplication events. Tissue-specific expression analysis showed that most of the SmGLK genes were highly expressed in the leaves, with SmGLK38 likely playing a key role in eggplant growth and development. The expression patterns of these genes under various treatments provided insights into their potential functions, leading to the selection of SmGLK18 for further investigation regarding its role in responding to abiotic stress. My only comments relate to the following:

1. Were statistical significance tests applied to the gene expression analysis? If so, it should be mentioned and genes which are significantly expressed compared to the controls and identified on the Figures.

2. You mention the number of replicates in your experiments but not the experimental design used? Were the treatments randomised on the benches etc?

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors of the manuscript "Genomic-organization and Expression Profiling of GOLDEN2-like Transcription Factor Genes in Eggplant and Their Role in Heat Stresses" present an interesting manuscript on the identification and characterization of 54 GLK genes. Furthermore, both tissue-specific expression analysis and differential expression upon different treatments (stress and hormonal treatments) were performed for SmGLK genes.

The manuscript is clearly written and the results are interesting. However, there are some minor flaws that need to be improved before it can be accepted.

Points to be addressed:

Line 37. Arabidopsis in italics. There are other situations where italics are not in use, for example in line 218. Authors should check this.

Line 65. Also add here the bibliographic citation formatted according to the journal "[31]".

Lines 217 and 219. Authors please check. Although it is a protein, Sm should be written in italics.

Figure 1. Enlarge the figure, the bootstrap values are not readable and the gene names are hard to read.

Figure 2. Enlarge the figure, it is practically unreadable. Is it possible to insert it with a horizontal layout?

Figures 3, 4 and 5. Enlarge, the gene names are hard to read.

Line 301. check how the oxygen molecule is written.

Figure 6.

Panel A: if this is a heat map, you need to say it in the legend and find a color that does not cover the number (for example, ABRE vs. SmGLK29).

Panel B: for the Plant Development category, try a color with better visibility.

Line 308. Can the authors give a brief explanation of the selection criteria used to choose the 26 genes?

Lines 310-317. Why do the authors report high SmGLK12 expression when numbers are modest? Why highlight SmGLK12 and not SmGLK14? Why are the values in the root so uniform? Figure 7 needs to be described better by the authors.

Figure 7. Why not put the same scale as in Figure 8?

Figures 8, 9 and 10. Authors need to enlarge the figures, even changing the layout. It is not possible to view/check the correspondence between the written text and the figure.

Line 395. It should be written as S. melongena L.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf