Diclofenac Biodegradation by Microorganisms and with Immobilised Systems—A Review
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This manuscript by Danuta Wojcieszyńska et al. titled “Diclofenac biodegradation by microorganisms and with immobilized systems – a reviw” describes several strategies for biodegradation of diclofenac which contaminate sewage treatment system and provide comprehensive points. However, there are some issues in the manuscript which need to be rectified before the acceptance of the paper. Some suggestions are provided below to improve the manuscript quality.
Line 96-98: Please rewrite this sentence “After vultures were eaten by the corpses of animals treated with diclofenac…” to be more reliable.
Table 2: There are the same column “Danio rerio” in the table, please check it.
Line 108: Please rewrite this sentence “Due to the n-octanol / water partition…” to be more reliable.
Please add a small section or few sentence to mention about other enzymes using for diclofenac degradation.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer 1,
Thank you very much for your work and valuable comments. We have corrected the manuscript according to your suggestions. All introduced changes are marked in the file through the change tracking function. Moreover, all changes and explanations are listed below.
We will be very grateful if you accept our corrections.
Sincerely,
Urszula Guzik and other Co-authors
Reviewer comment
Line 96-98: Please rewrite this sentence “After vultures were eaten by the corpses of animals treated with diclofenac…” to be more reliable.
Answer
Corrected as required.
Reviewer comment
Table 2: There are the same column “Danio rerio” in the table, please check it.
Answer
Corrected as required.
Reviewer comment
Line 108: Please rewrite this sentence “Due to the n-octanol / water partition…” to be more reliable.
Answer
Corrected as required.
Reviewer comment
Please add a small section or few sentence to mention about other enzymes using for diclofenac degradation.
Answer
Manuscript has been supplemented about required information.
Reviewer 2 Report
This article provides an insight into the reprocessing of diclofenac, one of the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. Concerns are expressed about its difficult degradation in the natural environment and its toxicity and the microbial degradation pathways that have been used so far for this drug are discussed, as well as modern biocatalyst immobilization systems. Clearly, this is a meaningful research work that provides a good reference for future research and for the solution and treatment of the current contamination problem of diclofenac. However, there are still some details that need to be improved. Therefore, the manuscript should be published after revision with the following detailed comments:
1. Pay attention to some formatting issues, such as the first letter of the keyword in the article needs to be capitalized and the way it needs to be adjusted.
2. The four keywords in the article do not give a good overview of the focus of the article, so we suggest adding Sewage treatment, Laccase as keywords
3. There are some grammatical errors in the text, please correct them yourself
4. For immobilized research area, there are some references should be added to introduce the according part basic. For example: 10.1016/j.ccr.2021.214327. In subsection 5 of the article, the authors mention the application of immobilized laccase for the post-treatment of diclofenac, but the literature cited is sparse and too old. The following references to recent experimental literature or reviews of literature on immobilized laccase are recommended. For example: 10.1016/j.biotechadv.2012.02.013; 10.1016/j.cej.2020.126272.
5. There are too few illustrations in the article. It is recommended that relevant images from cited literature be cited and inserted into the article to facilitate the understanding of the textual content of the article.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer 2,
Thank you very much for your work and valuable comments. We have corrected the manuscript according to your suggestions. All introduced changes are marked in the file through the change tracking function. Moreover, all changes and explanations are listed below.
We will be very grateful if you accept our corrections.
Sincerely,
Urszula Guzik and other Co-authors
Reviewer comment
- Pay attention to some formatting issues, such as the first letter of the keyword in the article needs to be capitalized and the way it needs to be adjusted.
Answer
Corrected as required
Reviewer comment
- The four keywords in the article do not give a good overview of the focus of the article, so we suggest adding Sewage treatment, Laccase as keywords
Answer
Corrected as required
Reviewer comment
- There are some grammatical errors in the text, please correct them yourself
Answer
Corrected as required
Reviewer comment
- For immobilized research area, there are some references should be added to introduce the according part basic. For example: 10.1016/j.ccr.2021.214327. In subsection 5 of the article, the authors mention the application of immobilized laccase for the post-treatment of diclofenac, but the literature cited is sparse and too old. The following references to recent experimental literature or reviews of literature on immobilized laccase are recommended. For example: 10.1016/j.biotechadv.2012.02.013; 10.1016/j.cej.2020.126272.
Answer
Corrected as required
Reviewer comment
- There are too few illustrations in the article. It is recommended that relevant images from cited literature be cited and inserted into the article to facilitate the understanding of the textual content of the article.
Answer
The paper does not include original figures from papers that were used during the writing of the reviewed manuscript because intellectual property rights cover them. Then special permission is required for their reprint. Therefore, the authors decided to develop and make their own original figures, which were included in the manuscript.
Reviewer 3 Report
This is an original review article, which is focused on the biodegradation of diclofenac a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) by microorganisms and immobilized systems.
The topic is interesting because diclofenac is used as a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug worldwide.
The authors need to address the below comments to strengthen the quality of the manuscript:
- The article is very good, and the introduction provides sufficient information about diclofenac.
- The structure of the review is well-designed and proper references were cited.
- In order to increase the number of citations that deal with this hot topic, I recommend splitting the part named Toxicity of diclofenac to non-target organism into (i) Toxicity of diclofenac to non-target animals (e.g. Ecotoxicity of ketoprofen, diclofenac, atenolol and their photolysis byproducts in zebrafish (Danio rerio), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2014.09.103 ) and (ii) Toxicity of diclofenac to non-target plants (e.g. Response of Two Crop Plants, Zea mays L. and Solanum lycopersicum L., to Diclofenac and Naproxen, https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms22168856;; Diclofenac Influence on Photosynthetic Parameters and Volatile Organic Compounds Emission from Phaseolus vulgaris L. Plants, https://doi.org/10.37358/RC.17.9.5826), and to also add more recent studies about the effects of diclofenac on animals and plants.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer 3,
Thank you very much for your work and valuable comments. We have corrected the manuscript according to your suggestions. All introduced changes are marked in the file through the change tracking function. Moreover, all changes and explanations are listed below.
We will be very grateful if you accept our corrections.
Sincerely,
Urszula Guzik and other Co-authors
Reviewer comment
- The article is very good, and the introduction provides sufficient information about diclofenac.
Answer
We thank the reviewer for such a favourable evaluation.
Reviewer comment
- The structure of the review is well-designed and proper references were cited.
Answer
We thank the reviewer for such a favourable evaluation.
Reviewer comment
- In order to increase the number of citations that deal with this hot topic, I recommend splitting the part named Toxicity of diclofenac to non-target organism into (i) Toxicity of diclofenac to non-target animals (e.g. Ecotoxicity of ketoprofen, diclofenac, atenolol and their photolysis byproducts in zebrafish (Danio rerio), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2014.09.103 ) and (ii) Toxicity of diclofenac to non-target plants (e.g. Response of Two Crop Plants, Zea mays L. and Solanum lycopersicum L., to Diclofenac and Naproxen, https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms22168856;; Diclofenac Influence on Photosynthetic Parameters and Volatile Organic Compounds Emission from Phaseolus vulgaris L. Plants, https://doi.org/10.37358/RC.17.9.5826), and to also add more recent studies about the effects of diclofenac on animals and plants.
Answer
Due to the scarcity of literature on diclofenac's effects on plants, the authors decided not to divide the section on the impact of toxicity on living organisms. However, an additional paragraph related to the effects of diclofenac on plants was added to the manuscript. At the same time, citations related to the impact of toxicity on animals were not extended due to the specificity of the journal, for which the topic of toxicity is not the leading one, and the main subject of the work is diclofenac catalysis.
