Transcriptome and Metabolome Analyses Provide Insights into the Flavonoid Accumulation in Peels of Citrus reticulata ‘Chachi’
, Tianhua Peng 1,†, Mei Bai 1, Haiyi Bai 1, Huisi Li 1, Huimin Pan 1, Hanjun He 1, Huan Liu 2,* and Hong Wu 1,*
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript “Transcriptome and metabolome analyses provide insights into the flavonoid accumulation in peels of Citrus reticulata ‘Chachi’” identify that 192 compounds were found in fresh peels, and 15 flavonoids were enriched in peels from Xinhui planting region in two regions including three orchards. The results are well presented with a lot of interesting information. However, there are some aspects of the manuscript that need to be modified and improved. The comments for the manuscript are as follows：
1. The manuscript should be improved by English polishing.
2. In Introduction, the references on Citri Reticulatae Pericarpium metabolome in recent years were not listed in the text. The purpose of the manuscript was not clearly state.
3. In ‘2.3. WGCNA identifies candidate genes associated with flavonoids content’, WGCNA was used to investigate the relationship between gene expression and metabolism, if the data of environmental factor should be given in the text?
4. The transcriptome data should be confirmed by qPCR.
5. In ‘2.4. Salt stress plays an important role in the accumulation of flavonoids’, line 224-230 should be placed in the paragraph 2.3 or deleted.
6. Please add scale bar in the figure 6a.
7. The style of references should be check one by one with the Journal Instruction.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The article contains original data obtained by modern transcriptome and LC-ESI-MS/MS techniques. The purpose of the above research is missing; did the authors mean natural product standardization? There is no description of the statistical methods used (in the Methods section). The last point of the discussion is probably the reviewer's suggestions (lines 300-303). In my opinion, there should be an analysis of the soil from the habitats from which the plants were obtained. The description of the methodology lacks the experiment illustrated in Figure 6.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript is revised carefully, while there is also some questions should be addressed.
1. Line 48,49, ‘C. cassia’ should be in italic or not?
2. Line 170: The first letter of ‘Rutinoside(Narirutin)’ should be in capital letter? There should be a space between ‘Rutinoside’ and ‘(Narirutin)’. Please check it in the text.
3. The genes ‘MYB, C2C2-Dof, and Alfin-like’ should be in italic or not? Please keep in the same style.
4. Line 342: Please keep the same style of ‘Chachi’ in the text.
5. Reference: Please check the style of references one by one.
Reviewer 2 Report
The Authors addressed each concern. In my opinion, their MS is suitable for publication. Accept.
