Molecular Mechanisms of Alfalfa Response to Abiotic Stresses

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

  The article is very well written and organized and gives a great overview of molecular control of alfalfa under abiotic stresses. I have some very minor suggestions. Check that acronyms are indicated first time I found a few not introduced ROS, SOD, CAT, etc. Indicate binomial Latin name of all plants and microorganisms

Minor revisions:

l. 19 North

l. 55 sentence unclear. what does ‘with some specificity’ means

l. 76 tobacco add binomial (Nicotiana tabacum L.)

l. 88 indicate what SOD means? first time indicated in text

l. 177 indicate what is CAT

l. 187 calcium, small case

l. 297 rice, (Oryza sativa L.)

 Revise reference list and Italicize binomial names in references. Write Genus species, some are all in small case letters l. 360, 564, 590, 597

 Although you have many references and the article is well supported by published research, most references are from authors from China.  I am not criticizing Chinese researcher; you do excellent work; I am just wandering if there were no more articles from research in Europe or North America.

Great article looking forward to see it published!

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript (plants-3427668) submitted by Peng et al. summarizes the recent advances in the molecular mechanism of alfalfa plants in response to four major abiotic stresses. It is a timely addition to the existing review library. I believe readers will be surely interested in citing this for their future research in alfalfa improvement. I just have a few minor comments for the authors to address:

1. Line 68. "the C-terminal" should be "the C-terminus";

2. Line 113. "harm" should be "harms";

3. Line 183. "reveales" should be "reveal";

4. Line 185. "Calcium" should be "calcium";

5. Line 395-396. Reference 26 is not in the right format. All other references use abbreviated journal names, but not this one.;

6. Some references are too old.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Overall the English in the entire manuscript is good. Some minor typos/misuses are indicated in the comments to authors.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

extremely well written. However, I think a couple major areas are unaddressed:

1) why is germination affected differently than growth?

2) no mention is made of accumulation of tertiary compounds, which are a key component of abiotic stress tolerance

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx