The Potential of Small Grains Crops in Enhancing Biofortification Breeding Strategies for Human Health Benefit

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Shelenga et al. reviewed the potential of cereal crops in enhancing biofortification breeding strategies for human health. They discussed biofortification strategies including agricultural practices and genetic biofortification, bioactive compounds and micronutrient bioavailability and safety. Although this manuscript has some merits, it has a lot of problems that need to be addressed.

Major concerns

1. The entire manuscript is plain text without any table, figures, models, or diagrams that would help readers understand the manuscript.
2.  Major editing of the English Language is needed to improve the clarity of the manuscript.
3. The title reads the potential of cereal crops but, it is mainly focused on oat, not the three dominant crops corn, rice, and wheat. Either the title needs to be modified or more information on other cereals needs to be included.
4. I find a lot of problems with citation. Either they are missing or cited improperly. For example Lines 166-171, 458-459, mixed in-text citation styles are missing citation is widely used. For example: Lines 505 ([94] (Bityutskii et al. 2017), Line 506 (Bityutskii et al. 2020 [95].

Other comments

Line 67: There are 17 micronutrients essential for humans…Calcium is mentioned as one of the macronutrients. I think calcium should be a macronutrient.

Lines 227-228. Which starts with ‘plant forms…’ is vague.

Line 238-240. The problem of Fe, I and Vit A deficiencies have nearly been solved…This is misleading because nearly a third of the world population is Fe deficient and VitA deficiency is also a major problem in many developing countries.

Line 301-302. How high is the Fe in wheat accession from CIMMYT?

Other cereals such as millets, sorghum, brown rice, which have more bioactive compounds are not included or discussed.

Line 651-652, an increase in grain Zn content occurred simultaneously with Cd. This is not explained. Is it because of the presence of non-specific heavy metal transporters?

Line 539-, ‘No strict regularity…..this is not clear.

Author Response

Thanks to the reviewers for the attention to our work and comments that allowed us to improve it.

Reviewer 1

Comment: The entire manuscript is plain text without any table, figures, models, or diagrams that would help readers understand the manuscript.

We have supplemented the text with two tables

Line 82 – Table 1. The Main Nutrients for the Normal Functional State of the Human Body

And

Line 229 – Table 2. The Main Biofortification Tools

Comment: Major editing of the English Language is needed to improve the clarity of the manuscript.

We tried to edit the English text.

Comment: The title reads the potential of cereal crops but, it is mainly focused on oat, not the three dominant crops corn, rice, and wheat. Either the title needs to be modified or more information on other cereals needs to be included.

We chanced the title of manuscript from

“The potential of cereal crops in enhancing biofortification breeding strategies for human health benefit”

to

“The potential of small grains crops in enhancing biofortification breeding strategies for human health benefit”

Comment: I find a lot of problems with citation. Either they are missing or cited improperly. For example Lines 166-171, 458-459, mixed in-text citation styles are missing citation is widely used. For example: Lines 505 ([94] (Bityutskii et al. 2017), Line 506 (Bityutskii et al. 2020 [95].

We are sorry for the technical mistakes in citation form. We deleted the wrong citation in brackets:

Line 359 – (Pridal et al., 2018)

Line 660 – (Bityutskii et al., 2017).

Line 661 – (2020)

Comment: Line 67: There are 17 micronutrients essential for humans…Calcium is mentioned as one of the macronutrients. I think calcium should be a macronutrient.

Line 89-96 – We deleted the wrong information about Calcium.

Line 125 – We noted that Ca is one of the macronutrients

Comment: Lines 227-228. Which starts with ‘plant forms…’ is vague.

Sentences “For this purpose, plant forms most promising for hybridization need to be selected” with vague formulation were supplemented with additional information.

Line 383 – For this purpose, plant forms with high content of target compounds (minerals, vitamins, other biology active substances) and tolerant to the different stress factors are most promising for hybridization and need to be selected

Comment: Line 238-240. The problem of Fe, I and Vit A deficiencies have nearly been solved…This is misleading because nearly a third of the world population is Fe deficient and VitA deficiency is also a major problem in many developing countries.

Thank you for your comment. We changed the sentence from 

“It should be mentioned that today the problem of Fe, I and vitamin A deficiencies have nearly been solved, but it cannot be said about Zn, Cu, Se and other vitamins (e.g., riboflavin, vitamin C and vitamin B12 [4].”

to

Line 395-397 – Current efforts are mainly focused on solving the problem of Fe, I and vitamin A deficiencies, although the deficiency in Zn, Cu, Se and other vitamins (e.g., riboflavin, vitamin C and vitamin B12) in the daily diet remains a no less urgent problem [4].

Comment: Line 301-302. How high is the Fe in wheat accession from CIMMYT?

Line 445 We inserted the necessary information: “The research results obtained for wheat accessions from the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT, Mexico) showed that the highest Fe and Zn contents were registered for T. dicoccum Schrank (29-57 and 25-53 µg g−1, respectively) [76].”

Comment: Other cereals such as millets, sorghum, brown rice, which have more bioactive compounds are not included or discussed.

You rightly noted that the review does not cover all cultures, used in biofortification programs. But publications have a limited volume and unfortunately it is impossible to include all significant cultures in it. Our goal was to attract the attention to the possibility and necessity of a wider employment of the potential of plant genetic resources collections for solving biofortification problems.

Comment:Line 651-652, an increase in grain Zn content occurred simultaneously with Cd. This is not explained. Is it because of the presence of non-specific heavy metal transporters?

We completed manuscript with additional information about investigating in this area

Line 592-600 – “The possibility of increasing the content of Fe and Zn with a simultaneous decrease in Pb and Cd in SGC grains has been studied for a long time. Ishikawa et al. (2015) showed that an increase in phloem-sap concentrations of DMA (2'-deoxymugineic acid) and NA (nicotianamine) contributed to zinc and iron accumulation, and a decrease in OsNRAMP5 (rice natural resistance-associated macrophage protein5) led to an abrupt drop in cadmium in rice kernels. [86]. Masuda et al. (2009) confirmed that an increase in DMA and NA levels in rice grains correlated with enhanced Fe, Zn, and Cu concentrations in them [87]. Goto et al. (2009) observed that iron content directly depended on the amount of ferritin in rice grain [88] Ishikawa et al. (2012) selected rice accessions with a mutation in OsNRAMP5, responsible for cadmium transport in plants, that demonstrated low cadmium content in grain [89].”

Comment:Line 539-, ‘No strict regularity…..this is not clear.

We chanced the phrase in the sentence: “No strict regularity was found between thiamine content and environmental factors, although the analysis of variance proved that the latter had a stronger effect on vitamin content than the genotype [99]”.

To

Line 702-704 – “No reliable relationships were found between thiamine content and environmental factors, although the analysis of variance proved that the latter had a stronger effect on vitamin content than the genotype [99]”.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript deals with a globally relevant question and reviews the biofortification from different aspects. It summarizes a vast amount of literature from a wide field of science. The paper has potential for a good publication but in the current form it is rather difficult to follow. This is mainly because there are no aims, goals or questions determined, and the research approach taken by the authors (review) is not declared clearly.  A mere aim to describe the biofortification methods or studies is not a real research question, because it does not bring anything new for the scientific community. The important question is what new this summary brings to the science? How does this paper support implementation or reformulation of the Copenhagen approach? What new the authors suggest, and why the new is better than the existing approach? 

I suggest major revision, where the authors state clearly the objectives, research questions, and methods of review. Then the paper can be re-organized according to the questions. The new organization will make justice to the merits of the wide review work done.  

Author Response

Thanks to the reviewers for the attention to our work and comments that allowed us to improve it.

Reviewer 2

Comment: The manuscript deals with a globally relevant question and reviews the biofortification from different aspects. It summarizes a vast amount of literature from a wide field of science. The paper has potential for a good publication but in the current form it is rather difficult to follow. This is mainly because there are no aims, goals or questions determined, and the research approach taken by the authors (review) is not declared clearly.  A mere aim to describe the biofortification methods or studies is not a real research question, because it does not bring anything new for the scientific community. The important question is what new this summary brings to the science? How does this paper support implementation or reformulation of the Copenhagen approach? What new the authors suggest, and why the new is better than the existing approach? 

I suggest major revision, where the authors state clearly the objectives, research questions, and methods of review. Then the paper can be re-organized according to the questions. The new organization will make justice to the merits of the wide review work done.  

Thank you so much for your deep review.

We have highlighted the purpose of our work in the introduction section.

We complete the manuscript with methods of biofortification strategy in the section “2. Biofortification Strategy”

We have reformatted the text of the article.

The deleted parts in the text are crossed out and highlighted in yellow.

The new text and moved parts of it are highlighted in green.

Our main task, which initially was not very clearly expressed, was to attract attention to the potential of plant genetic resources collections, maintaining in various countries of the world, including Russian N.I. Vavilov Institute of Plant Industry, and the possibility of their full usage, including the solving of the biofortification problems

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Shelenga et al. resubmitted version has improved compared to the original submission, but some concerns still remain and need to be addressed before the manuscript is accepted for publication.

1. The abstract is entirely focussed on micronutrients while bioactive phytochemicals are also covered in the MS.
2. The first sentence of the abstract is not well connected to the entire abstract.
3. AVA content on page 8 can be summarized into a table for ease of reading.
4. The MS still needs moderate language editing.

Author Response

Thanks again to the reviewer for the deep examination of our work and comments that allow us to improve it.

Reviewer 1

Comment: The abstract is entirely focussed on micronutrients while bioactive phytochemicals are also covered in the MS.

Answer: We supplemented the abstract with information about the compounds mentioned in the text

at line 18-21:

Regular consumption of dietary fibers like β-glucans and oat-specific phenolics antioxidants, avenanthramides, stimulate innate and acquired immunity, prevent cancer, obesity, reduce glucose, total cholesterol and triglyceride blood levels and regulate the expression of cholesterol-related genes.

Comment: The first sentence of the abstract is not well connected to the entire abstract.

Answer: We deleted the first sentence and placed another two instead of it.

Line 15-16:

Nutrition is a source of energy, and building material for the human organism. The quality of food has an effect on the quality of individual life

Comment:  AVA content on page 8 can be summarized into a table for ease of reading.

Answer: We completed the section 3.1.1. “Studying of SGC genetic resources to find sources for biofortification breeding programs” with Table 3, where we pointed out AVA contents (lines 263-264).

Comment: The MS still needs moderate language editing.

Answer: We edited language of manuscript. Deleted parts are marked in yellow, new ones in green.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf