Beyond Fish Pathogens: A Comprehensive Overview of Aeromonas salmonicida

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The review article “Beyond Fish Pathogens: A Comprehensive Overview of Aeromonas salmonicida” highlighted Aeromonas salmonicida.

The authors need to consider the following points.

L-10: “The continuous expansion of…… human health.” This phrase needs to be rewritten.

L-12: “In this review……at home and abroad.” The wording used in the abstract has no relevance to the scientific writing. Seems the article was not reviewed by senior authors before submission.

L-26: Genus and species names should be italicized and should be followed throughout the article.

L-75: Citation 23: Place it correctly

L-353: Gu et al. [114]: The authors write that the ethanol extract of honeysuckle affects the progress of Aeromonas salmonicida. Ethanol itself is bactericidal. Authors need to revise what was studied by Gu et al.., Need to be more serious while writing.

L-336: Do not include all prevention methods in a single heading. Bifurcate all types of medication used in current practice and also include a table to represent the treatments employed.

In summary, I would also like to suggest inserting two more figures in the manuscript wherever necessary. Moreover, the content needs to be improved by citing relevant articles from the past 1-4 years and adding them to the content.

Another heading to highlight the genus Aeromonas' role in influencing fish pathogenicity needs to be mentioned.

Abstract and future prospective section needs further improvement in both language and content.

As a review article I thing the content is too low. Authors need to be reviewed a little more article and include them in the manuscript.

The article is interesting but needed the said revision.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Author Response

We wish to thank you for the thoughtful suggestions and insights. The comments were very valuable and helpful for revising and improving our paper. We have considered each comment carefully and have corrected the manuscript accordingly. Revised text is marked in red font in the manuscript. The main corrections in the manuscript and responses to the reviewer’s comments are shown below.

 

Comments 1: L-10: “The continuous expansion of…… human health.” This phrase needs to be rewritten.

Response 1: Thank you for your valuable review comments. Regarding The “The continuous expansion of...” you pointed out Expression: We have modified and polished the language at this location based on your suggestions.

 

Comments 2: “In this review……at home and abroad.” The wording used in the abstract has no relevance to the scientific writing. Seems the article was not reviewed by senior authors before submission.

Response 2: Thank you very much for your detailed review and valuable suggestions for revision. Your correction of the expression “at home and abroad” in the abstract is very crucial. We fully agree that this expression is indeed not rigorous and professional enough in scientific writing. We have carefully revised and polished this expression according to your suggestions.

 

Comments 3: Genus and species names should be italicized and should be followed throughout the article. 

Response 3: We have conducted a systematic review of the entire text, corrected the format of all genus and species names, and ensured that they have all been correctly set in italics and remain consistent throughout the text.

 

Comments 4: Response to comment: Citation 23: Place it correctly

Response 4: We have completed the modification as required and placed the citation in the correct position in the main text.

 

Comments 5: Gu et al. [114]: The authors write that the ethanol extract of honeysuckle affects the progress of Aeromonas salmonicida. Ethanol itself is bactericidal. Authors need to revise what was studied by Gu et al.., Need to be more serious while writing.

Response 5: Thank you for your important comments on the citation of this literature. We have re-studied the literature and made the following key revisions: The expression of “ethanol extract” in the original text has been modified to “organic acid extract”. According to the research of Gu et al.. In this experiment, the water extract and alcohol extract of honeysuckle and dandelion were tested for in vitro activity against A. salmonicida. The results showed that the alcohol extract had a significant antibacterial effect. Through high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis, it was determined that its active ingredients were organic acid substances such as chlorogenic acid, caffeic acid and isochlorogenic acid. The above results indicate that the antibacterial activity of alcohol extracts mainly stems from the organic acid components in traditional Chinese medicine rather than the ethanol solvent itself.

 

Comments 6: Do not include all prevention methods in a single heading. Bifurcate all types of medication used in current practice and also include a table to represent the treatments employed.

Response 6: Thank you for your valuable suggestions on the prevention and treatment of A. salmonicida chapter. According to your request, we insert Table 2 in the prevention and treatment section to summarize the sensitivity of common antibiotic drugs for A. salmonicida.

 

Comments 7: In summary, I would also like to suggest inserting two more figures in the manuscript wherever necessary. Moreover, the content needs to be improved by citing relevant articles from the past 1-4 years and adding them to the content.

Response 7: Thank you for your comprehensive feedback and constructive suggestions to enhance the manuscript. We have carefully implemented your recommendations as follows:  

① New Figures/Tables Added:

Table 1: “The types and mechanisms of the secretory system” has been inserted in Section 3.4.  

Figure 2: “The iron acquisition mechanism of A. salmonicida” has been added to Section 3.5.  

Table 2: “Antimicrobial resistance and susceptibility of A. salmonicida” has been added in Section 5.

② Literature Update:    

We have thoroughly reviewed and incorporated relevant recent publications (from the past 1-4 years) throughout the manuscript, especially within the newly added tables/figure and revised sections. 

Thank you for your expertise and thoughtful recommendations.

 

Comments 8: Another heading to highlight the genus Aeromonas’ role in influencing fish pathogenicity needs to be mentioned.

Response 8: Thank you for your valuable suggestion regarding the manuscript structure. We fully agree that explicitly highlighting Aeromonas’ role in pathogenicity is essential. To address this, we Change “4. Clinical signs” to “4. The pathogenicity and clinical signs of A. salmonicida”. This new heading directly integrates the requested focus on pathogenicity mechanisms while retaining the original scope of clinical manifestations. The revised section now foregrounds the genus’ role in driving disease pathogenesis, aligning with your recommendation.  

We sincerely appreciate your guidance in enhancing the thematic clarity of our manuscript.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I would recommand a short paragraph regarding fish affected by the bacteria

Author Response

We wish to thank you for the thoughtful suggestions and insights. The comments were very valuable and helpful for revising and improving our paper. We have considered each comment carefully and have corrected the manuscript accordingly. Revised text is marked in red font in the manuscript. The main corrections in the manuscript and responses to the reviewer’s comments are shown below.

 

Comments 1: I would recommand a short paragraph regarding fish affected by the bacteria.

Response 1: Thank you for your important suggestions! We have added subheadings in “The pathogenicity and clinical signs of A. salmonicida” to distinguish fish from other hosts.

Thank you for your affirmation of our work, I wish you all the best.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The authors have conducted a detailed review of the pathogenicity of Aeromonas Salmonicida. The authors have touched upon the main elements of pathogenicity/virulence. The issues of treatment have also been touched upon. Although the review is well formed, I have Main and Minor concerns. I think that after correction this MS can be published in Microbiology Research journal.

Main. The review is too oversaturated with information from various sources and such a review is difficult to read. I recommend that to make this review easier to read, the authors make short summaries at the end of each section. Alternatively, the authors could make summary diagrams, which will also help to make the review easier to understand.

Minor

Line 25. This section is devoted to the classification of Aeromonas Salmonicida. I recommend that the authors change the section title according to the information provided.

Line 36-40. It is not clear from the context why the authors decided to distinguish between “typical” and “atypical”. Was it only on the basis that Aeromonas Salmonicida subsp. Salmonicida was from isolated from salmonids? If so, it should be emphasized more clearly in the text. In addition, the term “typical” also occurs in Line 31 (“typical subspecies salmonicida”) - in order not to confuse the reader, the authors should replace “typical” in Line 30 with another term (may be ordinary?). According to the sentence in line 36-38, the division into “typical” and “atypical” was proposed by the authors of current MS. However, the division into “typical” and “atypical” was already proposed earlier for Aeromonas salmonicida (see Wiklund T, Dalsgaard I.1998; Gulla et al., 2016; etc). I recommend to rephrase this sentence.

Figure 1. If this classification is based on data from other research articles, authors should cite these ones in the figure caption.

Line 57. The main part of the section is devoted to plasmids and mobile elements. The authors included only a little information about the genome itself (about its size and comparison with other strains/types). The authors should repharse the title of this section so that it corresponds to the information presented. It would be good for the authors to do conclusion (summary) at the end of this section. Otherwise, at this stage, this section looks like "citations" of other research articles.

Line 135 “BExotoxins” – may be “Exotoxins”?

Figure 2. Please set references on the basis of which this diagram was created. The authors used two colors for the font (red and black) - what does each color mean? Add it to the figure caption.

Author Response

We wish to thank you for the thoughtful suggestions and insights. The comments were very valuable and helpful for revising and improving our paper. We have considered each comment carefully and have corrected the manuscript accordingly. Revised text is marked in red font in the manuscript. The main corrections in the manuscript and responses to the reviewer’s comments are shown below.

 

Comments 1: The review is too oversaturated with information from various sources and such a review is difficult to read. I recommend that to make this review easier to read, the authors make short summaries at the end of each section. Alternatively, the authors could make summary diagrams, which will also help to make the review easier to understand.

Response 1: Thank you very much for taking the precious time to review our manuscript and offer valuable and constructive suggestions. The suggestions you pointed out regarding improving the readability of the review are of great significance to us. We fully recognize the importance of presenting complex information clearly. Regarding the suggestions you put forward, we would like to clarify the following points: 

① Existing abstract figure: In the original manuscript, we have actually included the abstract figure. We sincerely apologize that these pictures may not have attracted your sufficient attention during the review process due to the layout position or other reasons. We will ensure that the positions of these summary diagrams are more prominent in the revised draft and check whether their designs are clear and intuitive enough. 

② Summary of the new chapter: We have particularly noted the issue of information overload you mentioned. In addition to the existing summary diagrams, we highly agree on the necessity of adding textual summaries in the complex parts. We are already in “Plasmid” Some sections have specially added concise chapter summaries.

 

Comments 2: Line 25. This section is devoted to the classification of Aeromonas Salmonicida. I recommend that the authors change the section title according to the information provided.

Response 2: Thank you for your valuable suggestion. We have updated the section title as recommended. The section now reads: The classification of A. salmonicida. We’re grateful for your thoughtful review and welcome any further insights you may have.

 

Comments 3: Line 36-40. It is not clear from the context why the authors decided to distinguish between “typical” and “atypical”. Was it only on the basis that Aeromonas Salmonicida subsp. Salmonicida was from isolated from salmonids? If so, it should be emphasized more clearly in the text. In addition, the term “typical” also occurs in Line 31 (“typical subspecies salmonicida”) - in order not to confuse the reader, the authors should replace “typical” in Line 30 with another term (may be ordinary?). According to the sentence in line 36-38, the division into “typical” and “atypical” was proposed by the authors of current MS. However, the division into “typical” and “atypical” was already proposed earlier for Aeromonas salmonicida (see Wiklund T, Dalsgaard I.1998; Gulla et al., 2016; etc). I recommend to rephrase this sentence.

Response 3: Thank you very much for your meticulous review and valuable suggestions on the accuracy of the terms. Your opinions have helped us further improve the clarity and scientific nature of the manuscript. We have made the following modifications based on your feedback: 

① Clarify the basis for distinguishing between “typical” and “atypical” : You correctly pointed out that the basis for distinguishing between “typical” and “atypical” strains in the original text was not expressed clearly enough. We fully agree with your opinion and modify "salmonids" mentioned in the “only the strains isolated from salmonids…” to "salmonids fish".

② Replace “typical” in Line 31: Thank you for pointing out the possible confusion caused by the word “typical” in Line 31 (“ typical subspecies salmonicida ”). We have deleted “typical” here.

③ Clarify the source of the “typical/atypical” classification method: It should be noted that the terms “typical” and “atypical” were not coined in this review but have long been used in the academic community to describe the phenotypic and host-specific differences of the A. salmonicida strain. This research review adopts this recognized classification framework, aiming to subsequently illustrate the differences in signs caused by typical and atypical strain infections. Meanwhile, we have confirmed and ensured that the literature has been explicitly cited at the end of the relevant paragraphs discussing the ‘typical/atypical’ classification. 

Your opinions are crucial for enhancing the rigor and readability of the manuscript. 

We have made the following corrections: 

① Modify “salmonids” to “salmonids fish” 

② The “typical” that might cause confusion in Line 31 has been deleted. 

③ Ensure that all relevant discussions are supported by sufficient literature.

 

Comments 4: Figure 1. If this classification is based on data from other research articles, authors should cite these ones in the figure caption.

Response 4: Thank you for your valuable attention to detail regarding Figure 1. We confirm that the classification presented in this figure is supported by established literature, and relevant citations have now been included directly in the figure caption. We appreciate your constructive feedback, which strengthens the manuscript’s academic rigor.

 

Comments 5: Line 57. The main part of the section is devoted to plasmids and mobile elements. The authors included only a little information about the genome itself (about its size and comparison with other strains/types). The authors should repharse the title of this section so that it corresponds to the information presented. It would be good for the authors to do conclusion (summary) at the end of this section. Otherwise, at this stage, this section looks like “citations” of other research articles.

Response 5: Thank you for your insightful feedback on Line 57. We agree that the original title did not fully reflect the section’s focus and have revised it to: Plasmids. Additionally, as suggested, we have added a concise concluding summary at the end of the section. This revision better aligns the structure with the content and enhances the section’s analytical depth. We sincerely appreciate your guidance in strengthening this manuscript.

 

Comments 6: Line 135 “BExotoxins” – may be “Exotoxins”?

Response 6: Thank you for your meticulous review. The term “BExotoxins” in Line 135 was indeed a editing error, and we sincerely apologize for this oversight during editing. It has now been corrected to “Exotoxins” in the revised manuscript. We greatly appreciate your attention to detail in identifying this error, which strengthens the accuracy of our work.

 

Comments 7: Figure 2. Please set references on the basis of which this diagram was created. The authors used two colors for the font (red and black) - what does each color mean? Add it to the figure caption.

 

Response 7: Thank you for your careful review of Figure 2. We appreciate your attention to detail and have made the following revisions:  

① References: Citations supporting the data in the diagram have now been added to the figure caption. 

② Font Colors: We apologize for any confusion caused by the use of red and black text. This was solely a stylistic choice for visual contrast and carried no scientific meaning. To eliminate ambiguity, all text in the figure has now been standardized to red font for consistency. We are grateful for your feedback, which enhances the clarity and precision of our manuscript.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

 Accept in present form

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I have no any commnets. Now MS is sutable for publication