Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The article describes the study that explored the properties of potential probiotics in koumiss, combining in vitro assays and whole genome sequencing. The biochemical identification and phylogenetic tree results showed that the strains were close to Lactobacillus paracasei.  It can be considered applied research, and I think the subject is overall interesting. However, the manuscript needs comprehensive changes for improvement, especially in grammar.  The article can be accepted after the major revisions as given below.

The introduction can be improved by critically reviewing the research gap between published data and the current studies. The discussion should be in-depth comparing the current results and previous studies.

Line 16, 39, 45-46, 268, 303, 307, 334: Italic the name of strain: Tarrah et al isolated a strain of L.paracasei DTA93 from Brazilian infant faeces. We collected samples from pastoral areas in Inner Mongolia, China, and a strain of L.paracasei

Line 15: Since there is new nomenclature (from 2020), some previously Lactobacillus genera now have a new name, so when writing about LAB and probiotics and health benefits, it is not enough to put only Lactobacillus because, in that way, the authors omit others beneficial strains.

Line 16, 39, 45: Add space between a generic name and species name L. paracasei

Line 100: Remove double bracket: serially dilute it with sterile peptone water (0.15% (w/v))

Line 137, 138: Is it log CFU/mL? Spread the XM-38 bacterial solution (106 CFU/mL) on the modified MRS solid medium containing 1-5% agar.

Line 199: Italicize the name of strains in Table 1.

Line 199: What is G+/G- in Table 1?

Line 208, 226: Is it CFU/mL or CFU.mL^-1?

Line 247: Use small letter for chloramphenicol. This strain was sensitive to ampicillin, gentamicin, kanamycin, streptomycin, erythromycin, clindamycin, tetracycline, and Chloramphenicol.

Line 254: Check Table 4 for correction

 

 

 

 

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

In this manuscript, authors characterized a potential probiotic lactic acid bacterium isolated from koumiss by some biochemical tests and the whole genomic analysis. The results showed the isolate XM-38 possesses good properties for probiotics, such as tolerance to low pH and bile salts, antibacterial activity and antioxidant activity, and belongs to L. paracasei. The strain XM-38 was well characterized; however, the properties seem general in probiotic strains. It is necessary to compare the properties of the new strain with those of other typical probiotic strains. Also, some more discussion seems necessary to clarify how advantageous this specific isolate in koumiss fermentation is. Moreover, Discussion section seems a duplicate of results.

 

As authors described in Figure 2, the genera Lactobacillus has been reclassified into new genus. The new names should be used also in the text. In addition, names of genus and species should be italicized.

 

More details for the antibacterial substance produced by the strain should be described. Was a CHAP domain containing protein identified by the whole genomic analysis? For the inhibitory activity assay, effects of lactic acid were eliminated?

 

The sentence of L59-60 should be modified as an isolate (bacterium) was named XM-38.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The said changes have been made.

Author Response

Many thanks to the reviewers for their suggestions.

Reviewer 2 Report

Authors modified the manuscript according to the previous review comments; however, some points raised has not yet been addressed.

Especially, L59-60 in the original version have not yet been modified. In addition, the characteristics of strain XM-38 described has not compared well with those of other strains. Some strains were cited in Discussion, but it should be mentioned how important the strains are.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 2 Report

I have no further comments.