Current Developments on Chemical Compositions, Biosynthesis, Color Properties and Health Benefits of Black Goji Anthocyanins: An Updated Review

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Manuscript ID: horticulturae-1967689

Title: Current developments on chemical compositions, biosynthesis, color properties and health benefits of black goji anthocyanins: An updated review

Authors: Yuzhen Yan, Tanzeela Nisar, Zhongxiang Fang, Lingling Wang, Zi-Chao Wang, Haofeng Gu, Huichun Wang and Wenying Wang

 

The review is very well written. The authors present a synthesized information about anthocyanins in black goji berry – their synthesis, composition, characterization, processing techniques and the factors influencing the quality and quantity of anthocyanin’s composition from different areas. The antioxidant properties of the different berries fruits are well known. Black goji possess a unique anthocyanin profile and the authors discuss the beneficial effects on human health. Also the color properties of black goji anthocyanins are mentioned and their possible use in food industry for monitoring the freshness of the food.

Comments:

- On Figure 6 the font size is very small and is very difficult to read the text inside. Please, increase the font size and make the text visible.

- In the text Figure is written as Fig.1,2,….Please correct fig. to Figure.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your valuable comments and proper suggestions. We have revised the manuscript carefully and accordingly. The following is our responses and red font has been used to indicate the revised parts in the manuscript.

Thank you again for your comments and suggestions, which helped us to improve the manuscript.   

Sincerely,

Zi-Chao Wang

 

Responses to Reviewers

Reviewer 1

The review is very well written. The authors present a synthesized information about anthocyanins in black goji berry - their synthesis, composition, characterization, processing techniques and the factors influencing the quality and quantity of anthocyanin’s composition from different areas. The antioxidant properties of the different berries fruits are well known. Black goji possess a unique anthocyanin profile and the authors discuss the beneficial effects on human health. Also the color properties of black goji anthocyanins are mentioned and their possible use in food industry for monitoring the freshness of the food.

Comments:

• On Figure 6 the font size is very small and is very difficult to read the text inside. Please, increase the font size and make the text visible.

Response: Thank you for your suggestion. We have replaced the figure by a new one with larger size and clear text. See Figure 6.

• In the text Figure is written as Fig.1,2,….Please correct fig. to Figure.

Response: Thank you for your suggestion. This has been revised accordingly. See Line 133, Line 147, Line 176, Line 188, Line 284, Line 311, Line 367, Line 378, Line 393, Line 401, Line 431, Line 436, Line 453, Line 541, Line 543, Line 606, Line 610, Line 615, Line 684, Line 686, Line 745, Line 750, Line 768 and Line 774.

 

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have compiled a review about the black goji anthocyanins (BGA). In general it looks good but still major revision are adviced.

Overall the review has a lot of integrated reports from different publications related to the delphinidin derivative of the anthocyanins produced by Lycium ruthenicum. However, the description of the anthocyanins reported in Table 1, makes people believe that there is a multitude of delphinidin derivatives, mainly methylated (petunidin and malvidin), while in reality are mainly 10 present as described by Yang, X.; Lin, S.; Jia, Y.; Rehman, F.; Zeng, S.; Wang, Y. Anthocyanin and spermidine derivative hexoses coordinately increase in the 739 ripening fruit of Lycium ruthenicum. Food Chem. 2020, 311, 125874.

Change in bold the Table 1 most abundant anthocyanins as described by Yang et al. 2020 and mentioned it in the body of table one that quantitatively those in bold are the main cross-variety detected and abundant BGA! 

The description of the amount of the total anthocyanins is vague, being for sure related to dry weight (DW): the mg/g is then related to DW and need to be reported on the right of mg/g always.

Many figures might be copyright and a license need to be asked before publishing since you have edited it (i.e. Fig. 2).

Figure 1 has abbreviation related to the bibliography cited into the figure text and might be misleading to the not expert: CNS is the abbreviation of ?

The paragraph related to the "Factors influencing the compositions of BGA" is long and not getting to the conclusion that ethylene is a known factor enhancing  the color accumulation and influencing also acylation. The cultivar also impact more than the green-house or field conditions (also seen for other berries or black carrots). Please implement a small paragraph with the description/action of ethylene in known plants (survey the literature) because it is known to enhance the yield and acylation of anthocyanins.

The processing techniques and color properties are important for yield of recovery and stabilization of the color of BGA: little is explained about Figure 2 that is bounced back to the publications indicated. Since this is a review a minimum explanation is due also in the Figure text: what is SPO ? Solid Phase Organic extraction?

Well extensive is the Health benefits of BGA section.

However, I have contextual comments related to difficult sensentes to rewrite or with poor comprehension (see attached pdf file).

In figure 3 onward a tendency of shrink the words into a box makes artificial words: e.g. "Gluconeo" and "genesis" (below) make a better way of decribing such artifacts by using "-". "Gluconeo-" and "genesis". And so on..

The same is true for figure 4: e. g. "Neuroinfla"  "mmation" should become "Neuroin-" "flammation" (basic english fonetics grammar).

Figure 6: check copyright !!!

Overall English usage is poor: I tried to correct some...but still (see word document attached). Need a good English proof to handle it.

 

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you for your valuable comments and proper suggestions. We have revised the manuscript carefully and accordingly. The following is our responses and red font has been used to indicate the revised parts in the manuscript.

Thank you again for your comments and suggestions, which helped us to improve the manuscript.   

Sincerely,

Zi-Chao Wang

 

Responses to Reviewers

Reviewer 2

The authors have compiled a review about the black goji anthocyanins (BGA). In general it looks good but still major revision are adviced.

Overall the review has a lot of integrated reports from different publications related to the delphinidin derivative of the anthocyanins produced by Lycium ruthenicum. However, the description of the anthocyanins reported in Table 1, makes people believe that there is a multitude of delphinidin derivatives, mainly methylated (petunidin and malvidin), while in reality are mainly 10 present as described by Yang, X.; Lin, S.; Jia, Y.; Rehman, F.; Zeng, S.; Wang, Y. Anthocyanin and spermidine derivative hexoses coordinately increase in the ripening fruit of Lycium ruthenicum. Food Chem. 2020, 311, 125874.

• Change in bold the Table 1 most abundant anthocyanins as described by Yang et al. 2020 and mentioned it in the body of table one that quantitatively those in bold are the main cross-variety detected and abundant BGA! 

Response: Thank you for your comment and suggestion. This has been revised accordingly. See Table 1 and Line 150-159.

 

• The description of the amount of the total anthocyanins is vague, being for sure related to dry weight (DW): the mg/g is then related to DW and need to be reported on the right of mg/g always.

Response: Thank you for your comment and suggestion. This has been revised accordingly. See Line 105, Line 107, Line 150 and Line 163-167.

 

• Many figures might be copyright and a license need to be asked before publishing since you have edited it (i.e. Fig. 2).

Response: Thank you for your suggestion. We have obtained the permissions of all the figures used in the manuscript. The permissions are as follows:

 

• Figure 1 has abbreviation related to the bibliography cited into the figure text and might be misleading to the not expert: CNS is the abbreviation of ?

Response: Thank you for your comment. We are so sorry for the mistake we made in preparing the figure, i.e., ANS was miswritten as CNS. We have revised the figure. See Figure 1.

 

• The paragraph related to the "Factorsinfluencing the compositions of BGA" is long and not getting to the conclusion that ethylene is a known factor enhancing the color accumulation and influencing also acylation. The cultivar also impact more than the green-house or field conditions (also seen for other berries or black carrots). Please implement a small paragraph with the description/action of ethylene in known plants (survey the literature) because it is known to enhance the yield and acylation of anthocyanins.

Response: Thank you for your comment and suggestion. We have shortened the length of the Section "2.4. Factors influencing the compositions of BGA", by merging "2.4.3. Geographical origin " into the Section "2.3. Biosynthesis of BGA". See Line 210-250. We have added the description of ethylene in affecting the accumulation and acylation of anthocyanins. See Line 251-266. We have also hightlighted the impact of cultivar on black goji in biosynthesizing and accumulating anthocyanins. See Line 305-306.

 

• The processing techniques and color properties are important for yield of recovery and stabilization of the color of BGA: little is explained about Figure 2 that is bounced back to the publications indicated. Since this is a review a minimum explanation is due also in the Figure text: what is SPO ? Solid Phase Organic extraction?

Response: Thank you for your comment. We have improved the title of Figure 2, showing more diteals of the abbreviations and explanations. See Line 380-387.

 

Well extensive is the Health benefits of BGA section.

 

• However, I have contextual comments related to difficult sensentes to rewrite or with poor comprehension (see attached pdf file).

Response: Thank you for your comment and suggestion. All those comments (except four abbreviations i.e., Dp, Pn, Mv and Pt (Line 146-147) were not changed to delphinidin, peonidin, malvidin and petunidin, respectively, because they have been coded in the text before (Line 139)) were adressed accordingly. See Line 196, Line 307-312, Line 449-453, Line 475-478, Line 734 and Line 755-761.

 

• In figure 3 onward a tendency of shrink the words into a box makes artificial words: e.g. "Gluconeo" and "genesis" (below) make a better way of decribing such artifacts by using "-". "Gluconeo-" and "genesis". And so on..

Response: Thank you for your comment and suggestion. We have checked all the figures in the manuscript and the mentioned problems were revised accordingly. See Figure 3-5.

 

• The same is true for figure 4: e. g. "Neuroinfla"  "mmation" should become "Neuroin-" "flammation" (basic english fonetics grammar).

Response: Thank you for your comment and suggestion. This has been revised accordingly. See Figure 3-5.

 

• Figure 6: check copyright !!!

Response: Thank you for your suggestion. The permissions were obtained. See the Comment 3).

 

• Overall English usage is poor: I tried to correct some...but still (see word document attached). Need a good English proof to handle it.

Response: Thank you for your comment and suggestion. The language has been improved again by a professional colleague abroad (Dr. Zhongxiang Fang, The University of Melbourne), who has published more than 100 papers in international journals. The revised parts along with your corrections were shown in the revised manuscript. See Line 67-68, Line 70, Line 126, Line 134-136, Line 140, Line 142, Line 144-145, Line 160, Line 198-199, Line 208, Line 269, Line 273, Line 276, Line 282, Line 289, Line 292, Line 316, Line 345, Line 365, Line Line 368, Line 393, Line 395, Line 400, Line 410, Line 417, Line 422-423, Line 428, Line 433, Line 449, Line 457-458, Line 464, Line 470, Line 474, Line 484, Line 503, Line 555, Line 559, Line 561, Line 596, Line 611, Line 624, Line 628, Line 631, Line 633, Line 652, Line 657, Line 659, Line 665, Line 670, Line 680, Line 699-700, Line 703, Line 705, Line 711, Line 716, Line 721, Line 731 and Line 746.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Excellent make up of the article with desired changes performed.

Just change in line 198 the word "dependet" into "dependent" !

Well done!