The Strategy for Marker-Assisted Breeding of Anthocyanin-Rich Spring Bread Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) Cultivars in Western Siberia

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In this study, the authors created new wheat lines suitable for West Siberian region with high anthocyanin contents and perfect resistance to regular diseases during wheat growing season, using traditional backcrossing strategy followed by molecular and morphological markers-assisted selection. The breeding process only lasted 3 yrs and produced anticipated results. They also reported some lines from BC1F4 possessed higher yield and protein contents simultaneously, which is of great significance for wheat breeders, since the two traits are generally negatively correlated. The experiment design is reasonable and the paper is well written.Minor revisions should be given shown as follows:

 

1. The writing is good as a whole. However, punctuation should be added to make some sentences easier to understand. Eg. In abstract section, “In the current study, the strategy, based on the use of molecular and morphological markers was applied to create purple-grained bread wheat cultivars adapted to West Siberian region”, a comma between “markers”and “was” seems missing. So, read through the context to make essential corrections.
2. Considering the adverse climate in the West Siberian region, the potential tolerance to abiotic stresses also seems meaningful for newwheat cultivars or lines breeding. However, in this study, this aspect seems missing. It will be better if additional study has been carried out in this point.
3. Reference section: The formats of references should be uniform. Some have issue numbers while others do not.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your time to careful revision of our work.

1. We corrected some sentences in the text. We inserted a comma a between “markers”and “was” (line 18). Thank you for your attention.
2. The obtained new lines were tested in the natural conditions of western Siberia, where they were subjected to both biotic and abiotic stresses characteristic of this region. There is no need to test the lines under artificial conditions. Further, the lines will be tested, both in this region, but in different years with changing weather conditions, and in different regions, in order to evaluate their productivity in contrasting climatic zones.
3. Reference section: We have inserted missing issue numbers where needed.

 

Thank you so much for your interest and valuable comments.

With sincere respect to you,

 

Elena Gordeeva, author

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript “The strategy for marker-assisted breeding of anthocyanin-rich spring bread wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) cultivars in Western Siberia” by Elena Gordeeva, Vladimir Shamanin, Olesya Shoeva, Tatyana Kukoeva, Alexey Morgounov and Elena Khlestkina is an excellent scientific research. The authors perfectly performed the introgression of the purple-grain trait from donor lines carrying genes from two different sources (Purple Feed and Purple). The study demonstrates the marker-assisted selection in conjunction with the acceleration of succession of generations using Greenhouse Facilities. The combination of molecular and morphological markers along with field observations and phenotyping enabled authors to develop new valuable lines that could be used for the development of new cultivars for Western Siberia that could be used for functional food production. The presentation of the investigation is accompanied by comprehensive schemes and photographs of wheat plants and grains.

There are some few minor misprints that should be corrected.

Please, type gene names (Pp3 and Pp-D1) in italics in Abstract

Please, type number of generations in F2 (line 22, line 280), BC1F2-3, BC1F3 (line 24), BC1 (line 303) in lowercase.

line 26 1 m2 – please, type “2” in uppercase

Please, define “BN plots” here

lines 89-90 replace “Tr. durum” by “T. durum”

line 156 Please remove underscore in the latin name of Erysiphe (syn.:Blumeria) graminis

Table 4, Table A1. Please, align the Table so the words would not be broken in its head

line 477 “Isolation of candidate genes for the barley Ant1 and wheat Rc genes” – please, type “Ant1” and “Rc” in italics

line 498 “lines carrying various combinations of purple pericarp (Pp) alleles” – please, type “Pp” in italics

line 525 please, replace “glycine max (l.) merr.” by Glycine max(L.) Merr. with latin in italics

The manuscript can be recommended for publication after addressing the listed points.

Kind regards,

Reviewer.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

 

Thank you very much for your time to careful revision of our work.

We have corrected all the comments you noted.

 

As concerning Abstract:

When we reduced the abstract to 200 characters, we did not notice that the subscript and letters in italic changed. Thank you so much for noticing these changes.

We typed gene names (Pp3 and Pp-D1) in italics

We typed number of generations in F2 (line 22, line 280), BC1F2-3, BC1F3 (line 24), BC1 (line 303) in lowercase.

We typed (line 26) 1 m2 – please, type “2” in uppercase

 

We defined “BN plots” in lines 25, 200, 205, 209, 210, and 377

 

We replaced “Tr. durum” by “T. durum” (line 89)

 

We removed underscore in the latin name of Erysiphe (syn.:Blumeria) graminis (now it’s line 154)

 

We corrected Table 4, Table A1. (the words would not be broken in its head) (lines 210, 377)

We typed “Ant1” and “Rc” in italics (now it is line 471)

 

We typed type “Pp” in italics (now it is line 492)

 

We replaced “glycine max (l.) merr.” by Glycine max(L.) Merr. with latin in italics (now it’s line 519)

 

We also corrected the Tables. We removed BC1F4 from column 2 to its heading, since all lines of study were the same BC1F4 progeny. Thus, the line numbers have been shifted.

 

Thank you so much for your interest and valuable comments.

With sincere respect to you,

Elena Gordeeva, author

Reviewer 3 Report

This is a nice paper integrating molecular markers, morphological markers, and classical breeding methods.  Improved nutritional value for wheat based food products is a timely subject.

However, the grammar throughout the article is not to an acceptable standard.  I suggest the authors need to get the manuscript edited prior to acceptance.  A few examples are: line 40, remove 'of the'; line 46 should be 'berry'; line 47, 'what' should be 'which'.

A few other comments are:

line 156, use leaf instead of brown

line 125, Table 1, change the pedigree designation for cultivar Element 22 to the Purdy designation like the other pedigrees in the table

lines 160 to162, Generally disease reactions are 1 resistant to 9 susceptible.  The CIMMYT recommended scale is not consistent with the scale used for stem and leaf rust resistance and might be confusing for people not familiar with disease reaction nomenclature.

Figure 1 is very good.  I would change the designation for Cultivar to Recurrent

lines 344 to 351, Organic farming is not discussed in the introduction or throughout the paper.  I'm assuming the improved disease resistance and use of less fungicide is a positive, but there is more to organic farming.  Either incorporate more about organic farming or remove completely.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your time to careful revision of our work.

We have corrected all the comments you noted.

You are right. Of course, it is ‘one promising’. We removed 'of the' in line 40 (now it is line 39).

We changed ‘with berries anthocyanins’ into ‘with anthocyanin-rich berries’ (now it’s line 45)

We replaced 'what' by 'which' (now it is line 46)

We corrected some sentences in the text.

We replaced leaf instead of brown (line 154)

We changed the pedigree designation for cultivars to the Purdy designation in the Table 1 (line 154, thank you for your attention)

We changed the scale disease reactions to Pm by letters, where: R – resistant, MR - moderately resistant, M - heterogeneous type, MS - moderately susceptible, S – susceptible; 0, 5, 10, etc is percentage of infected plants. (lines 158, 212, 379)

We changed the designation for ‘Cultivar Recipient’ to ‘Recurrent Parents’ in Figure 1 (line 183)

We changed ‘organic farming’ to ‘modern responsible farming’ (lines 106, 347)

Thank you so much for your interest and valuable comments.

With sincere respect to you,

Elena Gordeeva, author