Effects of Fermented Vegetable Consumption on Human Gut Microbiome Diversity—A Pilot Study
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Manuscript ID: fermentation-1600389
Dear Authors,
This manuscript reports about investigation the bacterial composition of commercially available fermented vegetables and to conduct a pilot study in healthy volunteers to assess the feasibility of an intervention study with fermented vegetables.
After careful evaluation, I regret to say that this manuscript doesn’t fit within the scope of the journal Fermentation.
Besides, specific comments on the presented manuscript are as follows:
- In the subsection Introduction, there is no justification for using these fermented vegetable products in this study. Why weren’t the dairy products used?
- Why were these specific vegetable fermented products chosen (beetroot with goji berries, carrot with ginger, cauliflower with curcuma, sauerkraut with cranberries, daikon kimchi and traditional sauerkraut)?
- Did the purchased products have a manufacturer’s declaration about probiotic properties?
- There is a lack of indication and statistical analysis in the aspect of chemical composition of used fermented vegetable products.
- Worrying confidence in the manufacturer's declarations, without own qualitative assessment of the products; lack of basic microbiological evaluation of the purchased products (such as count of LAB). Paradoxically complicated genetic tests were performed without basic estimation quality of products. These fermented food products are given to patients. That is an error.
- How did you gather the volunteers?
- Why was the number of people participating in the study so small, limited to men of young age?
- Following my previous objection, can the obtained results only of the 6-person study be recognized as representative?
I’m sorry to announce that, the presented manuscript isn’t appropriate for publication in Journal – Fermentation, given the above aspects.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript reports a study on the assessment of the bacterial composition of commercially available fermented vegetables. Parallelly also conducted a pilot study on healthy volunteers to assess the feasibility of an intervention study with fermented vegetables In general, the innovation and significance of this study are sufficient. However, the content in this manuscript is very little, which leads to poor readability and understanding, and it is difficult to focus on the key points. Thus, I suggest the author should reorganize the manuscript and add the necessary discussion supporting your results. Some specific suggestions and questions are as below:
Abstract: the abstract is short, and please increase it to about 250 words, according to the standard structure. The key experimental results and conclusions should be highlighted.
Graphical scheme: it is hard to understand the aim and objective of this study. Therefore, i suggest adding to graphical scheme to display picture of your abstract. More text annotations about symbols or experimental phenomena should be added in the graphical scheme.
Introduction: the purpose of introduction is to clarify and emphasize the aim of your study. For example, why do the assessment of the bacterial composition of commercially available fermented vegetables need to be explored in Germany? Are these fermented products prepared in different methods? Why the pilot study was conducted only on 6 subjects?More detailed research advances can be summarized in a introduction part.
Materials and methods: some references should be cited to make the methods more scientific, such as stool sample collection, fecal microbial DNA isolation, etc.
Please also add compositional details of the fermented products purchased from the market.
it is not clearly indicated how different microbial populations were differentiated based on the sequencing. These details about bacterial compositions should be given in the M&M section.
Moreover, what significance analysis software was used?
Results and discussion: the presentation of the results is confusing, and it is difficult to find the connection between the discussion and results. For example, 3.2. Pilot intervention study.
Conclusions: Similarly, the conclusion is laconic, which should be appropiate and clear to present the main results of this study.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
I have read with interest the article of Thriene and Colleagues.
Fermented vegetables re-gain increased popularity in many countries, they are many integrated into people's everyday diet in many countries. They were and are elements of common human diets in the past.
The aim of the research was to assess the bacterial composition of commercially available fermented vegetables and to conduct a pilot study in healthy volunteers to assess the feasibility of an intervention study with fermented vegetables by 16S rRNA sequencing.
The topic discussed is also important in the context of the human microbiome, coevolution microbes, and prevention of some diseases. It is worthy to mention it in the manuscript.
The article is supported by 24 references. Many items come from the last 5 years. The manuscript is interesting and well written. Methods, style & overall representation are correct.
I recommend this manuscript for publication.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear Authors,
The revised version of the manuscript reports about reports investigation the bacterial composition of commercially available fermented vegetables and to conduct a pilot study in healthy volunteers to assess the feasibility of an intervention study with fermented vegetables.
All previous comments have been taken into account. New revised version of manuscript doesn’t raise any objections. According to my point of view, submitted manuscript is appropriate for publication in Journal Fermentation.
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors have improved the paper and should be accepted in the present format.
