Balance of Carotenoid Synthesis and Degradation Contributes to the Color Difference between Chinese Narcissus and Its Yellow-Tepal Mutant
, Yi Zhou 1, Yijing Wu 1, Junhuo Cai 2, Yiqiang Zhang 3, Jincai Shen 4, Shibin Wu 5, Wenjie Liu 5, Ming Cai 1,*, Tangren Cheng 1 and Qixiang Zhang 1Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Line 61- just few carotenoids has provitamin A activity not all of them
Line 122-131 the methods described are the authors own methods? I think citations should be inserted there. For carotenoids quantification I suppose there is a formula and the same for total flavonoid content. This paragraph should be re-written
Author Response
1. Line 61- just few carotenoids has provitamin A activity not all of them
A:Thank you very much for your correction. This was an oversight of mine and has now been revised accordingly in the article.
2. Line 122-131 the methods described are the authors own methods? I think citations should be inserted there. For carotenoids quantification I suppose there is a formula and the same for total flavonoid content. This paragraph should be re-written
A:Thank you very much for your correction. This part did refer to the previous research methods and made slight adjustments, but it was lost in the process of bibliography. The specific references are now marked in the article.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
1. Why you select B3 and H3 for studying GO classification?
2. In page 9, line 270-273; please clarify the eight genes which are different expression between two variety.
3. Why did you pick up NCED gene for gene expression carotenoid degradation? How is about CYP707A gene?
Author Response
1. Why you select B3 and H3 for studying GO classification?
A:Dear reviewers, we chose this period for the analysis of GO enrichment mainly for the following two reasons:1. From the perspective of the change in the total amount of carotenoids in different flowering periods, S3 is a turning point, which I will do in the article. Made some improvements to make it look clearer; 2. The number of differentially expressed genes in this period is the largest, that is to say, the number of genes differentially expressed in the two materials in this period is the largest, which is the most suitable for comparative analysis. Combining the above reasons, we chose S3 for analysis.
2. please clarify the eight genes which are different expression between two variety.
A:Thank you very much for your comments. I have marked them in the original text, so that readers can understand these eight genes more definitely.
3. Why did you pick up NCED gene for gene expression carotenoid degradation? How is about CYP707A gene?
A:Thank you very much for raising this possible doubt, and the following answers hope to answer your doubts. In the transcriptome analysis of the two materials, among the genes related to carotenoid decomposition, the NCED-related functional genes showed the most obvious difference in expression, while other genes had no such obvious difference. Taking CYP707A as an example, the related genes were not expressed enough in our material to be analyzed as DEG. I have screened the five genes related to CYP707A, and uploaded the file in the attachment, which attached the FPKM values of these five genes for your reference.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
1. Please specify the research problem, purpose and research hypothesis. What is the novelty of this study?
2. "In addition, carotenoids are considered as antioxidants and precursors of provitamin A, which are of vital importance in the human diet [8]." - At this point, discuss whether the tested plant is edible.
3. The material and methods, results and discussion have been thoroughly described. However, many of the literature from recent years are missing and the conclusions provide too general information.
4. Figures 3 to 6 need to be increased in size.
Author Response
1. Thank you very much for your question. The problem studied in this paper is what kind of pigment and biosynthesis mechanism lead to the difference in flower color between the two materials; the purpose of the research is to determine the main types of pigments and the key mechanism causing the difference in flower color; the innovation is the discovery of the two materials carotenoid There are two diametrically opposed equilibrium modes of tin biosynthesis. I hope my brief introduction above will give you a better understanding of this research.
2. As the specified carotenoids of the yellow mutant still need to be identified in the future, the diet use of our materials was unclear and better not to be discussed in the
3. Thank you very much for this question. In fact, in order to better demonstrate the coherence of this research in the “Discussion” section of this article, we have made some changes and added some references from recent years. In addition, regarding the problem that your conclusion is too general, we have made some changes in the “Conclusion” part of the article to make the conclusion more organized and complete.
4. Thank you for your comments on the typography of the article graphics. I have made some changes in the original text, and submitted all original files with clear pictures to the editorial department, and the editor will make further adjustments to the layout of the article.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
