Phytochemical Constituents and Antimicrobial Activity of Euphorbia serrata L. Extracts for Borago officinalis L. Crop Protection

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Minor remarks

Some technical errors should be corrected in the manuscript according to the given recommendations. All minor remarks are depicted in the document.

Major remarks

Please, consider the reduction of the reference list. There are a lot of older references in the literature review. The lumping of the references is not necessary.  

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

The manuscript is readable. The manuscript is well-written and does not require deeper corrections by a native speaker, but a few technical errors should be corrected.

Author Response

REVIEWER #1

Minor remarks. Some technical errors should be corrected in the manuscript according to the given recommendations. All minor remarks are depicted in the document.

Q1. L112. it is better to represent a volume ratio

Response: Corrected. ‘5 mL of methanol and 85 mL of water’ has been replaced with ‘1:17 v/v’.

Q2. L168. 1:17

Response: Corrected. ‘8/85’ has been replaced with ‘1:17’, as suggested by the Reviewer.

Q3. L169. It should be presented as an equation.

Response: Corrected. ‘((d_c − d_t) / d_c) × 100’ is now presented as Eq. 1.

Q4. L240. E.

Response: Please kindly note that the entire genus name must be spelled out if it begins a sentence, even if a subsequent reference. Hence, ‘Euphorbia’ has not been abbreviated in the revised version.

Q5. L252. The range of

Response: Corrected. It now reads: ‘[…] (in the range of 62.5–1500 µg·mL⁻¹) […]’, according to the Reviewer’s suggestion.

Q6. L299. What does ‘All’ mean?

Response: It is the taxonomic authority, i.e., the name of the botanist who first described it. The nomenclature of all scientific names throughout the manuscript is the one defined in the WFO Plant List (the most comprehensive and authoritative list of the world's plants) or in GBIF (Global Biodiversity Information Facility). In the case of this particular species, please refer to this webpage: https://wfoplantlist.org/plant-list/taxon/wfo-0000014359-2022-12?page=1. No changes are required.

Q7. L301. Delete? (referring to (L.) L.)

Response: No changes are required. The scientific name and its authority are correct. Please refer to WFO: https://wfoplantlist.org/plant-list/taxon/wfo-0001005630-2022-12?page=1.

Q8. L314. DC.?

Response: No changes are required. The scientific name and its authority are correct. Please refer to GBIF (WCVP): https://www.gbif.org/species/5338267.

Q9. L317. (L.)

Response: No changes are required. The scientific name and its authority are correct. Please refer to WFO: https://wfoplantlist.org/plant-list/taxon/wfo-0000071159-2022-12?page=1

Q10. L333. L-arginine (L in italics)

Response: Corrected.

Q11. L340. (L)

Response: No changes are required. The scientific name and its authority are correct. Please refer to GBIF: https://www.gbif.org/species/7930800

Q12.  L342. These are the references that should be numbered? (referring to Erwinia amylovora (Burrill 1882) Winslow et al. 1920)

Response: No, it is the authority. Please refer to: https://www.gbif.org/species/3222012

Q13. L343. This is the references that should be numbered? Delete 1987? (referring to Xylophilus ampelinus (Panagopoulos 1969) Willems et al. 1987)

Response: No, it is the authority. Please refer to: https://www.gbif.org/species/5427453

Q14. L412. (L.)

Response: No changes are required. The scientific name and its authority are correct. Please refer to WFO: https://wfoplantlist.org/plant-list/taxon/wfo-0000604975-2022-12?page=1

Q15. Q439. β-lactamases (beta in italics)

Response: Corrected.

Q16. Please, consider the reduction of the reference list. There are a lot of older references in the literature review. The lumping of the references is not necessary. 

Response: Please note that numerous references in the document are relevant for making comparisons with the existing literature. The publication year of these references should not pose any significant difference, and restricting the bibliographical survey to a specific time frame, such as the past 5 years, would introduce bias. Even if the associated tables (Table 6 and Table 7) are moved to the supporting information file, the references will still have to be cited in the main document (as per journal guidelines). Therefore, we have made the decision to retain the references, considering that the journal does not impose a limit on the number of references.

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper reports some interesting finding, and the topic is of interest the current problematic is worthy of investigation. The methodology is adequate, and the conclusions were confirmed by the obtained results. I have some comments to address:

·       Figure 1 in the introduction is it obtained from a previous study (so where is the reference) or the author’s image then it can be placed into the supplementary material.

·       The aim of this study is not clearly presented at the end of the introduction so please develop.

·       In table 1 authors assessed Flowers, Leaves, and Latex separately and in table 2 the aerial parts extract was assessed, please explain why?

·       In the table different value should be presented as Mean±SD

·       Overall, the paper presents a mixture of review and original research paper. So, the authors should concentrate in the current results and the review illustrations should be placed into supplementary materials or compared in a same table or figure with the current finding.

·       Figure 3 can be placed into the supplementary file.

·       The paper is an original research paper however it includes some illustrations that belong to review paper (fig1, table 6, 7 and 8), illustrations can be used as comparison with the current finding in the same fig or table. Otherwise, it can be placed into the supplementary file or deleted.

·       The reference list should be revised to meet the standards, some journal names are written in full and in some cases, they are abbreviated.

Author Response

REVIEWER #2

The paper reports some interesting finding, and the topic is of interest the current problematic is worthy of investigation. The methodology is adequate, and the conclusions were confirmed by the obtained results. I have some comments to address:

Q1. Figure 1 in the introduction is it obtained from a previous study (so where is the reference) or the author’s image then it can be placed into the supplementary material.

Response: Figure 1 shows two photographs taken by the authors, so no reference to any previous study applies. Following the Reviewer’s recommendation, we have moved it to the supplementary material.

Q2. The aim of this study is not clearly presented at the end of the introduction so please develop.

Response: The aim of the study is now presented in a clearer manner. The revised text reads as follows: “In light of the above, the aim of this study is two-fold: (i) to provide comprehensive information about E. serrata phytochemical composition and (ii) to explore prospective uses of its extracts.”. The sentence has been placed at the beginning of the final paragraph to ensure a smooth flow of discourse. This placement establishes a connection between the two paragraphs, as the study's objectives are introduced as a continuation of the previous paragraph's discussion on the need for research into Euphorbia species and their medicinal uses.

Q3. In table 1 authors assessed Flowers, Leaves, and Latex separately and in table 2 the aerial parts extract was assessed, please explain why?

Response: A prospective study using ATR-FTIR initially assessed whether there were significant differences in the functional groups among the three organs (cyathia, leaves, and latex), which would have suggested the need for separate extractions. However, since the functional groups were similar, a combined sample was used for the remainder of the study. This approach is preferable for practical purposes as it eliminates the need for separating the plant aerial organs. A clarification has been added to the revised text (below Table 1) in response to the Reviewer's advice. This clarification aims to prevent potential confusion for the reader.

Q4. In the table different value should be presented as Mean±SD

Response: The values presented in Table 1 represent the maximum absorbances for each band in the interferogram, which is obtained through the co-addition of 64 scans. In modern instruments, the analysis workflow does not allow for obtaining separate scans to determine the standard deviation of these maximum values. However, we acknowledge the Reviewer’s suggestion that, in reference to the bands mentioned in the preceding paragraph, a mean±SD value could be provided since the wavenumbers of the maxima in the three spectra (cyathia, leaves, and latex) exhibit slight shifts. Accordingly, we have made the necessary correction to the text, which now states: “[…] The symmetric C-H stretching vibrations of aliphatic groups (latex bands) are observed at 2916±1 and 2848±1 cm^-1, while the C=O stretching band at 1730±2 cm^-1 indicates […]”.

Q5. Overall, the paper presents a mixture of review and original research paper. So, the authors should concentrate in the current results and the review illustrations should be placed into supplementary materials or compared in a same table or figure with the current finding.

Response: Figure 1, Figure 3, and Table 8 have been moved to supporting information, following the Reviewer’s suggestion.

Q6. Figure 3 can be placed into the supplementary file.

Response: Figure 3 has been moved to the supplementary information file.

Q7. The paper is an original research paper however it includes some illustrations that belong to review paper (fig1, table 6, 7 and 8), illustrations can be used as comparison with the current finding in the same fig or table. Otherwise, it can be placed into the supplementary file or deleted.

Response: Figure 1 (original, see the response to Q1) and Table 8 have been relocated to the supporting information file, as requested. However, we have decided to retain Table 6 and Table 7 in the main document as they are essential for the discussion.

Q8. The reference list should be revised to meet the standards, some journal names are written in full and in some cases, they are abbreviated.

Response: Due to the inability of the reference manager software to recognize many abbreviations, all journal names have been manually abbreviated.

Reviewer 3 Report

The context of this work compared to related studies is explained in the Introduction. However, reproducibility the data, such as that cited in the Conclusion section, is not known.  What is the reproducibility of the peak areas in Table 2? The peaks in the representative GC-MS chromatogram of the Supplementary Information  should be labeled to understand if lack of peak resolution was a problem. 

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

The authors investigated Phytochemical Constituents and Antimicrobial Activity of Euphorbia serrata L. Extracts for Borago officinalis L. Crop Protection. The topic is interesting and well-written, which could attract the interest of horticultruae. However, some issues should be improved.

What do the authors tell the readers about infrared result? Flowers, leaves, and latex of Euphorbia serrata L. are complex, although the authors listed the functional group according to the wavenumber.

I suggest the authors conduct quantitative analysis of main phytoconstituents using internal standards, not percentage.

In vitro animicrobial and antifungal activities: I suggest the authors provide figures of them in the supplementary files.

Move Table 6 to the supplementary files.

Line 121, “with modification as detailed in [20]”, I suggest the authors change it to “with modification as detailed in the literature [20]”. Line 183, etc. Please check the whole manuscript.

Round 2

Reviewer 4 Report

Accept as it is