Quality Control, Phytochemical Profile, and Antibacterial Effect of Origanum compactum Benth. Essential Oil from Morocco

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

I had a great opportunity to review the research manuscript entitled "Quality Control, Phytochemical Profile and Antibacterial Effect  of Origanum compactum Benth. Essential Oil from Morocco ".

Below I list several questions and comments about the manuscript that I believe will improve it.

*Graphical  Abstract

Could you please add graphical abstract to have a general idea about the whole process of your work( from collect of plant to antibacterial activity)

*Results and discussion

The tables of qualtity control of EO aren’t your data so you can move them to the supplementary file.

Could you explain more the mode of action of your essential oil or/and maybe the major compounds? could you also add the perspective of your project ?

Please improve the quality of the chromatographic profile.

Table 9,10 There is not a lot of data to make a good interpretation and analysis. Is it possible to add at least 2 replicates ?  

 

Good luck,

 

Author Response

Dear Ms. /Mr. Reviewer 1

We would like to express our appreciation for your careful reading of this work and your insightful comments that encourage and help us to improve our article. Therefore, according to your comments, we have revised thoroughly our manuscript and the response to the comments is listed below:

Question 1: Could you please add graphical abstract to have a general idea about the whole process of your work (from collect of plant to antibacterial activity)

Answer: As you suggested, we have added a graphic summary, showing the general idea of the entire process of our work (see additional file)

Question 2: The tables of quality control of EO are not your data so you can move them to the supplementary file.

Answer: The tables of the essential oil’s quality control are now in the supplementary file. Thank you for your comment.

Question 3: Could you explain more the mode of action of your essential oil or/and maybe the major compounds?

Answer: Thank you for that helpful suggestion. We have further explained the mode of action of our essential oil, connecting them with the main compounds it constitutes (see the antimicrobial part in the manuscript).

Question 4: Please improve the quality of the chromatographic profile.

Answer: The quality of the chromatogram has been improved. Thank you.

Question 5: Table 9, 10 there is not a lot of data to make a good interpretation and analysis. Is it possible to add at least 2 replicates?

Answer: We have done what is necessary for the interpretation and analysis of our data. if you insist, we can try it

We thank so much for your valuable comments that increase the quality of our manuscript.

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors,

the paper is interesting, but it suffers from a lack of clarity with respect to the novelties introduced by your research, and the discussion of the results should be largely revised on the basis of what is already known in the literature on the specie Origanum compactum.

 

Careful revisions of scientific notation, scientific names of species and presentation of certain results are also necessary.

Some specific recommendations are presented in the attached file

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Ms. /Mr. Reviewer 2

We would like to express our appreciation for your careful reading of this work and your insightful comments that encourage and help us to improve our article. Therefore, according to your comments, we have revised thoroughly our manuscript and the response to the comments is listed below:

Question 1: the paper is interesting, but it suffers from a lack of clarity with respect to the novelties introduced by your research, and the discussion of the results should be largely revised because of what is already known in the literature on the specie Origanum compactum.

Answer: We have done an intensive revision of our manuscript, according to your comments.

Question 2: Careful revisions of scientific notation, scientific names of species and presentation of certain results are also necessary.

Answer: Thank you, the scientific notation and scientific names of species were revised

Question 3: Clarify in the abstract, in plant material paragraph, along the text which parts of the plant were harvested (crude drug).

Answer: we have indicated in the manuscript the parts of the plant used for the extraction, as you suggested.

Question 4: In the paragraph “Chemical composition of essential oil”, reduce the text comparing the chemical composition of the essential oil with those obtained from various Origanum species (reduce also the literature related) and focus on the comparison with other published papers on the essential oil of Origanum compactum. Include the paper Abdelhakim Bouyahya, Jamal Abrini, Nadia Dakka, Youssef Bakri. Essential oils of Origanum compactum increase membrane permeability, disturb cell membrane integrity, and suppress quorum-sensing phenotype in bacteria. Journal of Pharmaceutical Analysis, Volume 9, Issue 5, 2019, Pages 301-311,https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpha.2019.03.001.

Answer: The comment is taken into account. The text comparing the chemical composition of the essential oil with those obtained from various Origanum species was reduced and the paper Abdelhakim Bouyahya, Jamal Abrini, Nadia Dakka, Youssef Bakri. Essential oils of Origanum compactum increase membrane permeability, disturb cell membrane integrity, and suppress quorum-sensing phenotype in bacteria. Journal of Pharmaceutical Analysis, Volume 9, Issue 5, 2019, Pages 301-311,https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpha.2019.03.001 was added in the revised version.

Question 5: Line 111. You probably wanted to indicate table 3 instead of table 9.

Answer: Thank you for this remark. We have corrected this error in the text

Question 6: Line 160. CO2: change with CO2.

Answer: Changed

Question 7: Line 407. H2: change with H2. What does it mean flow rate ml/min?

Answer: Merci pour cette remarque, nous avons changé H2 en H2 dans le texte. ml/min is the injection rate unit

Question 8: Pay attention to the scientific notation: e.g., line 199, caryophyllene (1,62 %), α-terpinene (1.4 %), linalool (0,81%). Check along the text.

Answer: We checked the scientific notation (see the manuscript)

Question 9: Please, change along all the text the name E. Pseudocoloides with the correct form E. Pseudocoloides.

Answer: we have corrected this error throughout all the text

Question 10:

3. a) Table 3. Please, write k with the capital letter.

Answer: Thank you for your comments. We have rectified the small k to the capital letter.

1. b) Te value of Pb is not statistically significant. The standard deviation cannot be greater than the mean value. The analysis should be repeated.

Answer: Thank you for this warning note. You are right. We checked this measure, and we corrected it in the manuscript

Question 11: Line 169 and 171. Please change O. Compactum with O. compactum. Write in the correct form the value 4.27±02 %.

Answer: Thank you for your comments. We have rectified these errors.

Question 12: Check along the text the correct italic letter for O. compactum.

Answer: we have changed to the correct form throughout the text. Thank you.

Question 13: Table 9. Did the authors report the literature KI or experimental KI? I suggest reporting both values.

Answer: Thank you for your comments. the authors reported the experimental KI

Question 14: Note in table 10. Use the italic letter for all species: check also along all the text. Pseudomona aeroginosa is not a correct name.

Answer: We checked these errors in the table, as well in the text

Question 15: Rewrite this section. The antibacterial activity of thymol and carvacrol is well known in literature. What does it mean -terpinene? Delete “namely” in the sentences: the text is more appropriate without it.

Answer: Thank you for that suggestion. We have corrected your suggested remarks.

We thank so much for your valuable comments that increase the quality of our manuscript.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

Thank you for your collaboration to make this paper. 

All the best,

Author Response

 Dear Ms. /Mr. Reviewer 1

We thank you very much for the time you sacrificed for the revision of our manuscript. And we thank you very much also for your valuable comments which increase the quality of our manuscript 

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Editors,

on the 2.3 paragraph the authors revised the paper using the capital letters for the first letter of the molecules. Please, rewrite the names of the molecules using only uppercase characters.

The authors did not change the conclusion section, according to the recommendations. Rewrite this section. The antibacterial activity of thymol and carvacrol is well known in literature. What does it mean -terpinene? Delete “namely” in the sentences: the text is more appropriate without it.

Author Response

Dear Ms. /Mr. Reviewer 2

We thank you so much for your valuable comments that increase the quality of our manuscript. Therefore, according to your comments, we have revised thoroughly our manuscript and the response to the comments is listed below:

Question 1: on the 2.3 paragraph the authors revised the paper using the capital letters for the first letter of the molecules. Please, rewrite the names of the molecules using only uppercase characters

Answer: according to your recommendation, we have all rewritten the first letter of molecules in tiny characters.

Question 2: The authors did not change the conclusion section, according to the recommendations. Rewrite this section. The antibacterial activity of thymol and carvacrol is well known in literature. What does it mean -terpinene? Delete “namely” in the sentences: the text is more appropriate without it.

Answer: Thank you very much for that recommendations. We didn’t pay attention to the version of our manuscript that we submitted recently. According to your instructions, we have carefully revised and rewritten the conclusion part of our manuscript (see the conclusion section)