Tree Allergen Pollen-Related Content as Pollution Source in the City of Ourense (NW Spain)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

1. Very good study and manuscript
2.  Complex statistical evaluation, innovative quantification tools – such as  PCFA, pollen allergen potency
3.  Few minor spelling corrections :

– line 43 – hypersensitized instead of hyper-sensible

• Material and methods, line 76 – to add data referring to altitude, latitude and longitude of the city
• Lines 79, 149, 154- correct 2017 ; lines 140, 141, 143, 148 – correct 2018

4. Suggested reference ( optional ) for comparison with data from other European cities

Leru PM, Eftimie, AM, Anton VF and Thibaudon M. Five-year data on pollen monitoring, distribution and health impact of allergenic plants in Bucharest and the southeastern region of Romania. Medicina 55(5):140, 2019. doi:10.3390/medicina55050140

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

I’m sending you the revision of the manuscript “Tree allergen pollen-related content as pollution source in the city of Ourense (NW Spain)” according all four reviewer suggestions (marked in different colours in the manuscript depending on the reviewer) for its publication in the journal “Forests”.

The authors want to thank the reviewers all suggestions, which greatly improved the manuscript.

Yours sincerely,

Prof. F. Javier Rodríguez Rajo

 

 

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The outstanding paper studying the detection of the Fraxinus and Alnus pollen related to allergen proteins, demonstrating the cross-reactivity
 between the principal allergenic proteins of the Oleaceae and Betulaceae families. New data of interaction between trees  pollen and allergy.
 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

I’m sending you the revision of the manuscript “Tree allergen pollen-related content as pollution source in the city of Ourense (NW Spain)” according all four reviewer suggestions (marked in different colours in the manuscript depending on the reviewer) for its publication in the journal “Forests”.

The authors want to thank the reviewers all suggestions, which greatly improved the manuscript.

Yours sincerely,

Prof. F. Javier Rodríguez Rajo

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Study named "Tree allergen pollen-related content as pollution source in the urban atmosphere" provide a well written research based manuscript that has the potential to be interesting for the readers of Forests.

Some suggestions should be discussed by authors and will be appretiated before the possible publishing of the manuscript.

1) The title should be improved - you performed the analyse for a very concrete locality, not for urban atmosphere per se.

2) Information about a prevalence of individual allergenic trees in different parts of Europe must be added in the Indroduction section (into the paragraph introducing the most important allergenic taxa). Then, discuss it deeply with known reported contetns of allergens in atmosphere in this areas (partially, it is performed in discussion, but this is insufficient). Does your local findings correspond to known and reported data?

3) I recommend a very strongly to add a map of a locality with possible influencing areas from the point of view of pollen transport and subsequently, to hyphothesing this influence.

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

I’m sending you the revision of the manuscript “Tree allergen pollen-related content as pollution source in the city of Ourense (NW Spain)” according all four reviewer suggestions (marked in different colours in the manuscript depending on the reviewer) for its publication in the journal “Forests”.

The authors want to thank the reviewers all suggestions, which greatly improved the manuscript.

Yours sincerely,

Prof. F. Javier Rodríguez Rajo

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

Dear Authors,

Congratulations on your manuscript focusing pollen and pollen-derived allergen in the urban environment of Ourense.

Overall, it presents a good body of scientific evidence, relevant to the field. It is easy to read and to follow.

Nevertheless, there are some aspects (major and minor) that I would appreciate you would consider in your revision and a couple of questions for discussion.

In the Methods section you describe the ELISAs; Have you performed quality control? Did you use controls? How may replicates per sample?

The results section will greatly benefit from Major revisions:

• In the very beginning the authors claim there are “two peaks of important tree pollen…” However, by analysing figure 2, one finds more peaks; Maybe the author meant periods? In fact, Fig. 4 shows that pollen season for the different genus were sequential – Jan-Feb (Fraxinus and Alnus); March-Apr (Platanus); and Apr-May (Betula); May-Jun (Olea); Also, there are more than 1 peak in each period. Please, consider use period instead of peak to refer to a certain pollen season and peak to refer to the actual peaks in the data. Clarifying these ideas will increase the objectiveness of this manuscript.
• Carefully revise the description of your results (lines 124-187);
  1. throughout the description avoid using “…xx-xx days…” when referring to number of days of tow different years as this suggests an interval when they are really two unconnected values; use “xx and xx days” instead;
  2. Also, check whether you describe the data for both years (sometimes only one year is mentioned);
  3. You refer to increase and decrease in temperature associated with changes in pollen or allergen concentration; please, be specific and mention the actual temperature and quantify the increase or decrease (how many ºC);
• The whole paragraph, lines 193-204, needs thorough revision as the description does not match the data shown in the table 4; It seems that there are some mistakes in the text about the length of the moderate and high risk days; Please carefully review and correct;
• Figures 2 and 3 and tables 1 and 2 – These could be improved by wisely reordering the graphs according their temporal sequence, making it easier to follow;
• Figure 2 – There is no axis for the temperature; including a box showing at least the lower and higher values would be advisable, so one could identify the values in the graphs;
• Table 4 – Please include a new section with “Pollen or Allergen”; The author discuss the idea of an increase in the number of high risk days when pollen and allergen are considered together but do not show this evidence in the results section; These should be added in the table 4;

 

Also consider other minor aspects:

• Line 95-96: “…Bet v1 specific monoclonal antibody (Costar (R); ALK-Abelló)…” Maybe it should be “…Bet v1 specific monoclonal antibody (Costar (R); ALK-Abelló)…” ?
• Line 110: instead of “The models let us to stablish the provenance…”, maybe “The models led us to establish the provenance…”
• Line 133-4: review the sentence “The peak pollen concentration occurred on January 17th 2018 with 160 pollen and 2108 respectively, and the allergen peak was recorded on January 23th 2018 with 0.660 ng/m3, 6 days after the pollen maximum values.” Remove “…2108 respectively, and…” and add “…the allergen peak…”
• In the methods section and discussion there are sentences that either begin with a reference “[xx]” or include it as a word (ex. Lines 86, 92, 222);
• Lines 268 and 283: the references 49 and 53, respectively seem misplaced as the first does not show allergen data and in the second case the author are referring the date in this paper;
• In the discussion section, lines 241-246, data mentioned (number of days with high risk) should be added to table 4 (see above);
• Line 256: “…a not accurate planning…”, I would suggest instead “…an inaccurate planning...” or “…an unwise planning...”
• Line 286: In “…as slight temperatures…”, did you mean ““…as slight temperature changes…”? It seems that something is missing in the sentence;
• Line 286-87: After this sentence you mention a single reference of your own, however, there are many works published by many authors about the effect of weather related factor to pollen concentrations in the atmosphere; please add some other reference, for instance a review paper citing the may works.

 

Finally, a couple of questions/curiosities to consider for discussion:

• About the days with lower pollen but higher allergen, it is interesting that in the case of Betula in the second peak the pollen potency seems higher compared to the first; any explanation for this observation?
• About days with Bet v 1 allergen but no pollen, is there the possibility of another Bet v 1 or Bet v 1 like source besides the ones studied?
• The Olea data is a bit puzzling to me; the allergen load per pollen is very low, particularly in 2018 and comparing to other published data; Do you find any explanation? Should it be that the very low amount of pollen, particularly in 2018, makes it somehow inaccurate to quantify Ole e 1? Have you made controls?
• I understand that the authors compared the back trajectories for Betula and Olea in 2017 and 2018 and have chosen the peak days of Olea (comparison between a high and low year, maybe?) but not for Betula; for the latter they have chosen the secondary peak. Have you tried to compare with the first one? Should they be expected to be different as the pollen potency is? How?

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

I’m sending you the revision of the manuscript “Tree allergen pollen-related content as pollution source in the city of Ourense (NW Spain)” according all four reviewer suggestions (marked in different colours in the manuscript depending on the reviewer) for its publication in the journal “Forests”.

The authors want to thank the reviewers all suggestions, which greatly improved the manuscript.

Yours sincerely,

Prof. F. Javier Rodríguez Rajo

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for accepting my suggestions.

Reviewer 4 Report

Dear Authors,

I thank you for your thorough revision of your manuscript.

I am pleased with your efforts to answer all the questions and with the improvements in your manuscript.

Congratulations for a good work!