A Systematic Profiling of the Volatile Compounds in 53 Cerasus humilis Genotypes Using Headspace Solid-Phase Microextraction and Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors did not perform the statistical analyzes correctly and in consequence the results, discussion and conclusion sections are wrong. This manuscript looks like a blatant attempt to mislead the scientific community. Figures 1A, 4A-I, and 5A-I were not well statistically analyzed and in cosequence all findings are not correct and my recomendation is to reject this study. Other major and minor comments are in the attached file. 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript is well organised and provides interesting information about the aromatic compounds of Cerasus humilis. However, there are a few changes that need to be made in order to be accepted for publication. Below you can find more detailed comments.

- The manuscript needs to be proofread again as there are several typos.

- Introduction and discussion are quite short for a research article. Please try to expand.

- Lines 172-173,175-176, 231: Please revise.

- Please re-check the number of significant digits you use.

English language needs minor editing.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The subject of the manuscript fell within the general scope of the journal and the sound of manuscript is scientific. The manuscript has important contribution and interesting results about the volatile profiles of different C. humilis genotypes, However, the results and discussion need to be improved. The results of the statistical analysis are not well presented, and most of the figures included in the manuscript are of low quality (I could not clearly see the information), Additionally, the manuscript presents many typographic mistakes and some details that need correction and improve. 

Major concerns:

The discussion of the results should be improved. The type and content of the volatile compounds in fruits depend on the variety, state of maturity, environmental conditions, among others, which was observed in the present study. However, the results are not adequately discussed. Besides, the discussion section should not only mention the work done by others. The authors must explain how their work is going to add in the frontiers of scientific knowledge. Please improve the discussion of the results.

Other details that need to be review and corrected:

Line 13....please write fruits instead of Fruits....delete the extra spaces between "In this study" and the volatile

Line 15....please insert a space between (HS-SPME),and identified

Line 19.....change ; by a period

Line 28......please insert a space between of and the

Figure 1...... the images of the fruits and the names of the genotypes are not clearly visible in this figure... please change this figure for a higher quality one

Line 84…..in the Table S1 the authors presented results about the hue angle, but this determination was not included in material and methods section….please include it or delete

Line 101.....please check the format to report the units.....in this line the authors use min-1, and in line 77 they used mol/L....please check the format to report the units and correct it in all the manuscript

Line 111.....the authors mention that the volatile compounds were identified based on their retention indices, but in results section they mention that the volatile compounds were identified based on the retention time, and retention indices, please check and correct it

Line 135.....Figure S1 is not included in the manuscript, or as supplemental material, please include it

Lines 172-173, 175-176....in the manuscript there is the text "Error! Reference source not found"...please check and correct it

Line 193....please change the value 2100.8802 ug/kg by 2100.88 ug/kg......

Line 199...please change the values 0.0456 and 681.7482 by 0.04 and 681.75

Line 205...please insert a space between 3-52-taoxing, and 3-52-bianhuang

Lines 171- 184……the authors mention that they found significant differences among the distinct  volatile compounds, but the data included in the figure 2A present very high deviations and it does not seem that there are significant differences among the volatile compounds, esters and terpenoids....please check and correct it……..Besides, the authors mention that the volatile compounds varied greatly among different genotypes and they presented those results in figure 2B, but the figure is not clear in showing how this distribution occurs….please check and correct it

 Line 231, 239....in the manuscript is found the next text "Error! Reference source not found"...please check and correct it

Line 235-237....the authors mention that the esters and terpenoid contents were extremely significantly higher.....but the data included in the figure 4 present very high deviations and it does not seem that there are significant differences between the treatments....please review the results of the statistical analysis and correct it

Figure 4.... The graph has very poor quality and does not allow easy viewing of the information presented in it....please include a figure with better quality

Line 251....the authors mention that they found significant differences, but the results presented in the figure 5 present very high deviations and it does not seem that there are significant differences between the treatments....please review the results of the statistical analysis

Figure 5.... The graph has very poor quality and does not allow easy viewing of the information presented in it....please include a figure with better quality

Line 295….the authors mention that “Differences between our results and those of a previous study may be due to the much greater number of C. humilis genotypes examined in this study….I do not think that this is the reason why the authors obtained different results from those reported by other authors...... I suggest the authors review the article of El-Hadi et al., 2013 (doi:10.3390/molecules18078200), or other articles that help improve the discussion of their results.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Authors performed several changes on the manuscript and now it is better than the former one. However, my particular issue is still pending, which is the statistical analysis. Based on my experience, i consider that the data has too much dispersion and in consequence it is not possible to determine the differences. Authors mention: 

There is no problem with statistical analysis, as the large error bars are due to significant differences in volatile compounds between different genotypes. We referred to this paper (doi:10.1016/j.foodchem.2023.135963) and found that there are significant differences in volatile compounds between germplasm resources.

 

But, just consider figure 5D and look the graph. The error bar is even greater than the value in some cases. So the statistical differences you mention in the paper are not credible, sorry. I invite authors to upload the data set as supplementary table and also to upload the reports of the statistical analyses. 

Author Response

Please see the attachment. The average data used for drawing has been displayed in the compressed package.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 3

Reviewer 1 Report

Authors claim that the statistical analyses were well conducted. So, I do not have any extra comments.