Differences in Lipid Metabolism, Polar Metabolites, and Phenolics in Persea americana under Two Storage Conditions

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This study aims to reveal the differences of metabolites in Persea americana fruits at two different storage conditions. Maybe it is useful or helpful to improve or sustain the fruit quality, but it can NOT be acceptable in the current version due to numerous concerns.

1. Based on the context of this study, the title should be revised to: Differences in lipid metabolites, polar metabolites, and phenolics in Persea americana at two storage conditions.

2. The Abstract context should include fout sections: Background, Methods, Results, and Conclusion. The current description is limited, meanwhile, the specific information on the difference in metabolites at two sites was not provided.

3. In the key words, the name of Hass avocado should be Latin name, the "storage" should be "storage condition". Meanwhile, the Comma before the "storage" should be "semicolon. Thus, the author is not un-precise to write the manuscript.

4. In the sentence: The avocado is a highly nutritious and tasty fruit, characteristics that have led to a high global demand for this fruit [1, 2], the word "characteristics" is  redundant and should be deleted.

5. In the Background section, the progress on the storage of Persea americana was not specifically described, in other words, the reason of the author conduct this study was not provided.

6. In the 2.1 Sampling and storage conditions, the two different storage conditions were not clearly described, and it brings puzzles to me to understand the regular air (RA) and controlled atmosphere (CA), or the Quilhuica orchard and Bartolillo orchard.

7. NO significant analysis was provided for all the Figures, since the authors stated that "multivariate analysis to 150 see the significant variables connected to storage period" in the 2.4 Statistical analysis.

8. The local language should be removed from the Fig.1. Meanwhile, the specific lists should be provided for the images, such as Fig. 1A, 1B, 1C, etc.

9. The Figures with high resolution ratio or well-structured should be provided, such as Fig. 4.

10. The English language should be improved throughout the text.

Author Response

Please find it attached

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Manuscript, horticulturae-2188369, reports the changes in polar metabolites, fatty acids and total polyphenols contents of Hass avocados during postharvest storage. Some major issues make the manuscript incomplete for publication in the Horticulturae journal. In detail, the following critical points should be addressed before its acceptance:

 

Lines 40-45 The sentences should be covered by proper reference(s)

Line 60 Please be more specific about which two storage conditions were applied

Line 87 Delete full stop before bracket

Kindly provide the chromatograms in Supplementary Materials

Section 2.3.: - Spacing between numbers and units (also in section 2.4.);

                 - All units should be presented as it was done in section 2.2. (‘mL’ instead ‘ml’; ‘µL’ instead ‘µl’; ‘×’ instead ‘x’...);

                     - Use molarity instead normality

Line 139 ’60 °C’ instead ’60 0C’

Line 145 ‘r2’ – ‘2’ should be in superscript

The order of parameters in the discussion and methods sections should be the same (polar metabolites, fatty acids, phenolic content)

Why the antioxidant activity, which is linked to phenolic compounds, did not investigate?

Please compare obtained results with more literature data

Avoid repetition of sentences (copy-paste) in the Abstract and Conclusion

All references should be prepared according to instructions for the authors

Author Response

Please find it attached

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Although most of the concerns have been revised, some minor concerns should be revised as follow:

1. The Y-axis of Fig. 1C should be revised, it is crowd now.

2. The X-axis of Fig. 5A and 5B should be revised, it is crowd now.

Author Response

Thank you for your valuable comments.

All questions have been addressed. Figure 5 does not exist.

Reviewer 2 Report

This work is now suitable for publication. I am satisfied with the work done to improve the quality of the paper by the authors. Therefore, I suggest acceptance for publication in the Horticulturae journal.

Author Response

Thank you for your valuable comments. Minor revisions have been addressed and it is now better.