Optimization of Chinese Chive Juice as a Functional Feed Additive
and Soo-Ki Kim 2,*Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The manuscript "Optimization of Chinese chives juice as a functional feed additive" by Niu et al. investigates the potential use of Chinese chives as a functional feed additive with special focus on antibacterial and antioxidant effects and their modification via heating. It is cleary written, the results are interesting and may serve as a basis for future research.
L19: The "h" in "phenolics" is missing.
L20: Replace "stabilities" by "activities".
L20: Insert "the" after "concomitantly" and replace "change" by "modification".
LL25-27: I don't understand this sentence. It seems that something is missing.
Keywords: "Chinese chives" already appears in the title so you might want to use another keyword here.
L37: Replace "to farm animals" by "in farm animal nutrition".
L44: Please specify if this refers to intact garlic and onion or specific extracts and the respective dosages that resulted in these effects.
L47: Same as in line 44 (intact or extracts, dosages?).
L48: You probably mean "in" instead of "involving"?
L49: Please insert "The" before "CC".
L49-52: Antibiotics are not effective against viruses. This is misleading in the first part of this sentence. Please rewrite accordingly.
L53: Replace "As the" by "To the".
L55: Insert "which" after "factors".
L64: Replace "was" by "were". I do not really understand what you mean to express by this sentence. Does this refer to SBM being a good excipient for CC juice? In that case, please rewrite this sentence to make a better connection to the previous sentence.
L65: Delete "factors related to" and replace "will" by "are".
L68: Replace "on" by "for".
L70: Unclear what "its" refers to. Please rephrase. Or maybe it should be "their"?
L70/71: This sentence is unclear. Maybe "wide variety" instead of "rich source"? Please rephrase.
L80: Replace "were" by "was".
L94/95: Please add 1-2 sentences to shortly describe the agar well diffusion method in relation to determination of the antibacterial activity and also state which concentration(s) of the CC juice was/were used.
L101: Insert "a" before "dark".
L102/103: Did you really use a pure ethanol blank or a CC juice + ethanol blank?
L106/107: Describe the AEAC and QEAC determination/calculation.
L192: Change "Considering the" to "Considering that".
L194: Change " antibacterial stability" to "antibacterial activity".
LL196-198: The interaction was also not significant for S. iniae and S. gallinarum (only a trend).
L205: "presented in Table" insteadt of "presented at Table".
L207: Numbers that are already presented in the table should not be repeated in the text. Please adjust accordingly.
L282: Bacteria are not diseases per se. I suggest to replace "involving" by "inducing" or "responsible for".
Discussion: I recommend to thoroughly check the grammar (use of time).
Table 2
footnote: Change to "Means with different sueprscripts within the same row and the same temperature differ significantly."
For P. agglomerans and H. somnus at 80°C, I think the superscripts are not correct. If I understand the footnote correctly, you performed the statistics seperately for the different temperatures. Therefore, I think the "c" in column 3h should be "b" instead. Otherwise I do not understand the "ab" in column 2h.
Were the means for Burkholderia sp. At 60°C not significantly different? As there is no significant interaction, I guess the superscripts are missing here.
Author Response
Dear Editor,
Many greetings, please find enclosed the revised manuscript entitled " Optimization of Chinese chives juice as a functional feed additive” (applsci-910461).
We are extremely thankful to the editor (Applied Sciences) and the concerned reviewers for considering our manuscript toward revision. We are grateful for all the queries and suggestions by the reviewers that helped us to improve the original version of the manuscript. We hope that all queries, comments, and suggestions were adequately justified in the revised version of the manuscript. We have now tried our best to correct the infelicities and errors in the revised manuscript based on the reviewer's valuable comments.
NOTE: The changes are in track-changes format.
Response: The language has been thoroughly checked in the revised manuscript. The title and abstract were made according to the journal guidelines.
The manuscript "Optimization of Chinese chives juice as a functional feed additive" by Niu et al. investigates the potential use of Chinese chives as a functional feed additive with special focus on antibacterial and antioxidant effects and their modification via heating. It is cleary written, the results are interesting and may serve as a basis for future research.
L19: The "h" in "phenolics" is missing.
Response: the word has been deleted. (please refer to Line 19-33)
L20: Replace "stabilities" by "activities".
Response: the sentence has been removed from the abstract. (please refer to Line 19-33)
L20: Insert "the" after "concomitantly" and replace "change" by "modification".
Response: the word has been removed from the abstract. (please refer to Line 19-33)
LL25-27: I don't understand this sentence. It seems that something is missing.
Response: The sentence has been changed as “Three factors such as solid content (soybean meal, SBM), drying time, and temperature were screened using FFD. The FFD results identified SBM as the main determinant which influenced the antibacterial activities and moisture contents of the CC products.” (please refer to Line 19-33)
Keywords: "Chinese chives" already appears in the title so you might want to use another keyword here.
Response: "Chinese chives" has been replaced by “Allium tuberosum”. (please refer to line 34-35)
L37: Replace "to farm animals" by "in farm animal nutrition".
Response: it was corrected. (please refer to Line 38)
L44: Please specify if this refers to intact garlic and onion or specific extracts and the respective dosages that resulted in these effects.
Response: the sentence has been re-written as follows “For instance, supplementation of garlic essential oil (5 g/head/day) has increased the conjugated linoleic acid in milk of dairy cattle [5]. Feeding dried garlic or onion (100 mg/hen/day) have improved the growth performance in broilers [6]. The dietary supplementation of 6 g/kg/day garlic powder has improved the immunity response and hepatic antioxidant activity in growing rabbits [7].” (please refer to Line 45-49)
L47: Same as in line 44 (intact or extracts, dosages?).
Response: the sentence has been re-written as follows “Reportedly, aqueous CC extracts have exhibited antibacterial activity against a wide range of foodborne microorganisms, and effectively inhibited Campylobacter species at the concentration of 2 mg/mL [8,9], as well as reduced the cell counts of penicillin-sensitive Staphylococcus aureus in rats supplemented with 400 mg/kg/day [10].” (please refer to Line 51-54)
L48: You probably mean "in" instead of "involving"?
Response: the sentence has been changed. (please refer to Line 51-54)
L49: Please insert "The" before "CC".
Response: the sentence has been changed. (please refer to Line 51-54)
L49-52: Antibiotics are not effective against viruses. This is misleading in the first part of this sentence. Please rewrite accordingly.
Response: The sentence has been re-write “Recently, fermented CC juice has displayed broad-spectrum antibacterial activity against poultry pathogens, and notable antioxidant activities [11,12].” (please refer to Line 51-54)
L53: Replace "As the" by "To the".
Response: it has been corrected. (please refer to Line 57)
L55: Insert "which" after "factors".
Response: it has been inserted. (please refer to Line 59)
L64: Replace "was" by "were". I do not really understand what you mean to express by this sentence. Does this refer to SBM being a good excipient for CC juice? In that case, please rewrite this sentence to make a better connection to the previous sentence.
Response: the word has been corrected. The sentence has been re-written “Soybean meal (SBM) is a common feed ingredient and could be used as a good excipient for CC juice. Alam et al. [17] reported that the addition of SBM into oregano lippie seed oil extract effectively reduced the odorous compounds in swine in vitro.” (please refer to Line 66-69)
L65: Delete "factors related to" and replace "will" by "are".
Response: the sentence has been changed. (please refer to Line 69-70)
L68: Replace "on" by "for".
Response: it is replaced. (please refer to Line 72)
L70: Unclear what "its" refers to. Please rephrase. Or maybe it should be "their"?
Response: the word “Their” has been used. (please refer to Line 74)
L70/71: This sentence is unclear. Maybe "wide variety" instead of "rich source"? Please rephrase.
Response: the sentence has been changed. (please refer to Line 75-77)
L80: Replace "were" by "was".
Response: it has been replaced. (please refer to Line 83)
L94/95: Please add 1-2 sentences to shortly describe the agar well diffusion method in relation to determination of the antibacterial activity and also state which concentration(s) of the CC juice was/were used.
Response: The sentence to describe agar well diffusion has been added in the revised manuscript: “Briefly, 100 μL of CC samples were loaded into the wells (6 mm) of LB agar plates that are inoculated by spreading the overnight grown pathogens and subsequently examined for inhibition zones after 24 h of incubation at 37°C.” (please refer to Line 98-100)
L101: Insert "a" before "dark".
Response: it has been inserted. (please refer to Line 106)
L102/103: Did you really use a pure ethanol blank or a CC juice + ethanol blank?
Response: The pure ethanol was used as a blank. (please refer to Line 108)
L106/107: Describe the AEAC and QEAC determination/calculation.
Response: The AEAC and QEAC were determined via measuring the DPPH free radical scavenging activity of ascorbic acid (0-40 μg/mL) or quercetin (0-15 μg/mL) following the calculation y=2.0234x-1.986 or y=5.2237x-0.3673, respectively (y, scavenging activity; x, concentration). The CC equivalents were converted based on the DPPH scavenging activity. (please refer to Line 113-116)
L192: Change "Considering the" to "Considering that".
Response: it has been changed. (please refer to Line 201)
L194: Change " antibacterial stability" to "antibacterial activity".
Response: it has been changed. (please refer to Line 203)
LL196-198: The interaction was also not significant for S. iniae and S. gallinarum (only a trend).
Response: we have corrected this and changed the sentence “However, the interactive effects of heating temperature and time were not significantly impact the antibacterial effect of CC juice against E. coli, P. agglomerans, H. somnus and Burkholderia spp., but showed a decreased trend against S. iniae and S. gallinarum.” (please refer to Line 205-207)
L205: "presented in Table" insteadt of "presented at Table".
Response: it has been corrected. (please refer to Line 216)
L207: Numbers that are already presented in the table should not be repeated in the text. Please adjust accordingly.
Response: the sentence has been re-written “The DPPH scavenging activity of heated CC juice was significantly increased at both 60°C and 80°C after 24 h treatment.” (please refer to Line 217-218)
L282: Bacteria are not diseases per se. I suggest to replace "involving" by "inducing" or "responsible for".
Response: the word “responsible for” has been used in the revised manuscript as suggested by the reviewer. (please refer to Line 300)
Discussion: I recommend to thoroughly check the grammar (use of time).
Response: the language has been thoroughly checked in the discussion part.
Table 2
footnote: Change to "Means with different sueprscripts within the same row and the same temperature differ significantly."
Response: it has been changed as the mentioned sentence. (please refer to Line 214)
For P. agglomerans and H. somnus at 80°C, I think the superscripts are not correct. If I understand the footnote correctly, you performed the statistics seperately for the different temperatures. Therefore, I think the "c" in column 3h should be "b" instead. Otherwise I do not understand the "ab" in column 2h.
Response: I am sorry for this, they were mistakes. They have been corrected.
Were the means for Burkholderia sp. At 60°C not significantly different? As there is no significant interaction, I guess the superscripts are missing here.
Response: the superscripts were missed which have been included in the table. (please refer to Line 212-214)
Please do let us know if any further changes are required. We do hope that our revised version of the manuscript will now address the reviewer's point of view. We thank again you in anticipation for your kind consideration towards the publication of our manuscript in journal ‘Applied Sciences'.
Yours’ Sincerely,
Prof. Soo-Ki Kim
Department of Animal Science and Technology,
Konkuk University, Seoul 05029, Republic of Korea
Tel. 02-450-3728. E-mail: sookikim@konkuk.ac.kr
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear authors,
your work is interesting and brings knowledge about the antimicrobial effect of chives. I look forward to the results of an animal experiment where these findings could be useful.
I have some comments:
L19: should be phenolics
L33: do not repeat words from title. So, you may to change Chinese chives for Allium tuberosum
Sincerely.
Author Response
Dear Editor,
Many greetings, please find enclosed the revised manuscript entitled " Optimization of Chinese chives juice as a functional feed additive” (applsci-910461).
We are extremely thankful to the editor (Applied Sciences) and the concerned reviewers for considering our manuscript toward revision. We are grateful for all the queries and suggestions by the reviewers that helped us to improve the original version of the manuscript. We hope that all queries, comments, and suggestions were adequately justified in the revised version of the manuscript. We have now tried our best to correct the infelicities and errors in the revised manuscript based on the reviewer's valuable comments.
NOTE: The changes are in track-changes format.
Response: The language has been thoroughly checked in the revised manuscript. The title and abstract were made according to the journal guidelines.
Dear authors,
your work is interesting and brings knowledge about the antimicrobial effect of chives. I look forward to the results of an animal experiment where these findings could be useful.
Response: Thanks for the kind appreciation of our study. Animal study regarding the broilers has been doing to investigate antibacterial effect of the CC products in vivo.
I have some comments:
L19: should be phenolics
Response: the word has been deleted. (please refer to Line 19-33)
L33: do not repeat words from title. So, you may to change Chinese chives for Allium tuberosum
Response: Thanks for this suggestion, we have replaced the “Chinese chives” as “ Allium tuberosum”. (please refer to Line 34-35)
Please do let us know if any further changes are required. We do hope that our revised version of the manuscript will now address the reviewer's point of view. We thank again you in anticipation for your kind consideration towards the publication of our manuscript in journal ‘Applied Sciences'.
Yours’ Sincerely,
Prof. Soo-Ki Kim
Department of Animal Science and Technology,
Konkuk University, Seoul 05029, Republic of Korea
Tel. 02-450-3728. E-mail: sookikim@konkuk.ac.kr
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
