Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors

I think a shorter title could be more effective

Please add images about wounding and storing procedures, because you mentioned a stainless steel blade for cuts. I think that should be mor clear for readers. 

Please add time 0 in figure 1B. 

It is necesary a better edition of figure 2. 

Figure 6 too dificult for read, this illustration is key for study and outlooks

Author used SD or SE??

Statistical analyses showed an interaction between chitosan treatment wounded time for  biochemical testings? 

Conclusion: What are outlooks about chitosan tretment from productive point of view??, you mentioned this point in introduction

Author Response

Dear Editors and the reviewers:

We thank you very much for giving us an opportunity to revise our manuscript.We appreciate the editor and reviewers very much for the positive comments and suggestions on our manuscript entitled “Foliar Application of Chitosan Accelerates Wound Periderm Formation with an Intensified Deposition of Suberin Poly-phenolics and Lignin at the Wound Site in Potato Tubers” (ID:Horticulturae-2415540).

We sincerely thank you and the reviewer for your insightful and helpful comments, corrections, and suggestions on our manuscript, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully and examined the original manuscript and made many careful modifications according to the comments from the editor and the reviewers. We sincerely hope that the editor and reviewers can be satisfied with our responses. Below is the detail of how we have addressed the review’s comments. The texts of our responses are marked in red font in this file. Revised portion are marked in red in the manuscript by using the track changes mode in MS Word. Attached please find the revised version, which we would like to submit for your kind consideration.

We would like to express our great appreciation to you and reviewers for comments on our paper. Looking forward to hearing from you.

Thank you and best regards.

Corresponding author: Yan Zhu

 

 

The following is point-to-point response to the editor and reviewers’ comments.

Response to Reviewer 1 Comments

 

Point 1:I think a shorter title could be more effective

Response 1:  Special thanks for the Reviewer’s good comments. This title is really too long, and we have revised a few words and the title is changed to “Foliar Application of Chitosan Accelerates Wound Periderm Formation with an Intensified Deposition of SuberinPolyphenolics and Lignin at Wounds of Potato Tubers”

 

Point 2:Please add images about wounding and storing procedures, because you mentioned a stainless steel blade for cuts. I think that should be more clear for readers.

Response 2: We are sincerely grateful for your thoughtful suggestions. The images of artificial wounding of potato tuber and storing procedures after injury have been added in the revised manuscript. Updated figure number is Figure 1, and the subsequent figure numbers have been updated in order.

 

 

Point 3:Please add time 0 in figure 1B. 

Response 3:  We must thank you for your kind suggestions. Meanwhile, we are very sorry for our negligence in many details of our manuscript. The time point of zero was added to Figure 1B which has been reordered as Figure 2B in the revised manuscript.

 

Point 4: It is necesary a better edition of figure 2. 

Response 4:  Thank you for your kind suggestion, Figure 2 ( Figure 3 in the revised manuscript) has been edited. According to the sequence of polymer synthesis, the deposition image of SPP was adjusted to Figure 3A, and the deposition image of lignin was adjusted to Figure 3B.

 

Point 5: Figure 6 too dificult for read, this illustration is key for study and outlooks

 

Response 5: Thank you very much for your helpful and insightful comments and suggestions about our manuscript. According to your suggestion,we have improved the model diagram, and have added some important information such as the results of reducing fresh weight loss and disease index. Revised portion are added in the manuscript by using the track changes mode, and the revised figure is as follow:

 

Point 6: Author used SD or SE??

Response 6:  We must thank you for your kind suggestions. Meanwhile, we are very sorry for our negligence in details of our manuscript. Here we used ± SE, and we have revised the description of statistical analysis , revised sentence is as follow:

All data were presented as the average of at least three biological replicates and ± standard error.

 

Point 7: Statistical analyses showed an interaction between chitosan treatment wounded time for  biochemical testings? 

Response 7: Yes, there are possible mechanism for priming potato tubers immunity in preharvest foliar spraying of chitosan in many crops. Statistical analyses showed foliar spraying of chitosan on potato plants stimulates the phenylpropenoid pathway and promotes the synthesis of SPP and lignin, and accelerates the formation of wound periderm after tuber injury. The time of biochemical testings is the time of wound healing in our experiment.

 

Point 8: Conclusion: What are outlooks about chitosan treatment from productive point of view??, you mentioned this point in introduction

 

Response 8: Thank you very much for your helpful and insightful comments and suggestions about our manuscript. According to your suggestion, we have rewrited the conclusion section, descriptions about model and outlooks were added , we think the revised sentences in the last two sentences of this paragraph focusing on outlooks about application of chitosan on the preservation of potato tuber after harvest.

Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.

Reviewer 2 Report

Foliar Application of Chitosan Accelerates Wound Periderm Formation with an Intensified Deposition of Suberin Poly- phenolics and Lignin at the Wound Site in Potato Tubers

By- Yan Zhu, Wei Zhang, Yuanshou Zhao, Fu Chen, Fupeng Zhu, Jipeng Yang, Xiangzhen Ge, Wenjuan Gong, Ruitong Cui, and Wenjun Sheng

The manuscript discusses the positive results of chitosan application at the would site in Potato tuber accelerates wound periderm formation mediated by Suberin polyphenolics and Lignin.

The post-harvest losses of vegetables and fruits are major concerns and result in huge economic losses, therefore steps/strategies are required to address these challenges. In this direction, the present study highlights an important aspect of agriculture.

 Apart from the chitosan application, is there any other way to promote important food crops' post-harvest quality? Discuss.

 

 The conclusion section has to be reformulated and discussed for the key results of the study, conclusion, and future direction of the work.

 

 

Specific comments-

The manuscript required extensive English editing, there are multiple typographical errors.

Line 58: for production in some counties for use in food preservation, “counties should be countries”

Line 64:  spraying of navel oranges, “replace navel with the novel”

Line 84-85: site the reference to the “Koch rule”.

Line 86: Potato Dextrose Agar medium (PDA), rewrite as Potato Dextrose Agar (PDA) medium

Line 306-310: The sentences should be reformulated for clarity.

Line 387: chitosan syrays, rewrite as chitosan sprays

Line 387: What do you mean by a causal relationship between the chitosan syrays, the 387 enhanced response of the phenylpropanoid pathway to wounding and accelerated 388 wound periderm formation? The language needs to be improved and rewritten in a more scientific manner.

 The manuscript has to be thoroughly revised and improved by a native English expert for consideration in the journal.

 

 

 

 

 

The manuscript has to be thoroughly revised and improved by a native English expert for consideration in the journal.

Author Response

Dear Editors and the reviewers:

We thank you very much for giving us an opportunity to revise our manuscript.We appreciate the editor and reviewers very much for the positive comments and suggestions on our manuscript entitled “Foliar Application of Chitosan Accelerates Wound Periderm Formation with an Intensified Deposition of Suberin Poly-phenolics and Lignin at the Wound Site in Potato Tubers” (ID:Horticulturae-2415540).

We sincerely thank you and the reviewer for your insightful and helpful comments, corrections, and suggestions on our manuscript, as well as the important guiding significance to our researches. We have studied comments carefully and examined the original manuscript and made many careful modifications according to the comments from the editor and the reviewers. We sincerely hope that the editor and reviewers can be satisfied with our responses. Below is the detail of how we have addressed the review’s comments. The texts of our responses are marked in red font in this file. Revised portion are marked in red in the manuscript by using the track changes mode in MS Word. Attached please find the revised version, which we would like to submit for your kind consideration.

We would like to express our great appreciation to you and reviewers for comments on our paper. Looking forward to hearing from you.

Thank you and best regards.

Corresponding author: Yan Zhu

 

 

The following is point-to-point response to the editor and reviewers’ comments.

Response to Reviewer 2 Comments

The manuscript discusses the positive results of chitosan application at the would site in Potato tuber accelerates wound periderm formation mediated by Suberin polyphenolics and Lignin.

The post-harvest losses of vegetables and fruits are major concerns and result in huge economic losses, therefore steps/strategies are required to address these challenges. In this direction, the present study highlights an important aspect of agriculture.

Point 1: Apart from the chitosan application, is there any other way to promote important food crops' post-harvest quality? Discuss.

 

Response 1: We gratefully appreciate your time, patience, and helpful comments regarding our manuscript. Apart from the chitosan application, there are many preharvest and postharvest ways reported to improve the quality of  important food crops' after post-harvest, we have added some pre-harvest methods that can improve food crops' post-harvest quality in the discussion section. The modified content is as follow:

 

Many agents have been reported to applicate improving postharvest quality of fruits and vegetables, such as brassinosteroid, salicylic acid, sorbitol, sodium nitroprusside,sodium silicate, and chitosan, etc. during pre-harvest or post-harvest period [21, 24, 29-32]. Chitosan is generally recognised as safe (GRAS) and could be applicated during pre-harvest for many crops [10].

 

Therefore, pre-harvest foliar application is a good strategy for improving potato tubers quality after harvest.

 

Point 2:The conclusion section has to be reformulated and discussed for the key results of the study, conclusion, and future direction of the work.

Response 2:  We are sincerely grateful for your thoughtful suggestions. According to your suggestion, we have rewrited the conclusion section, descriptions about model and outlooks were added in the last paragraph.

Point 3:The manuscript required extensive English editing, there are multiple typographical errors.

Response 3: Thank you very much for your suggestions and your patience. Meanwhile, we must apologize for our irregular writing. We have thoroughly checked sentence by sentence and have revised the manuscript by International Science Editing Service (www.internationalscienceediting.com)

 

Point 4: Line 58: for production in some counties for use in food preservation, “counties should be countries”

Response 4: We must thank you for your kind suggestions. Meanwhile, we are very sorry for our negligence in many misspelled details of our manuscript.We have revised the word “counties “ to “countries “

Point 5: Line 64: spraying of navel oranges, “replace navel with the novel”

Response 5: We are sincerely grateful for your thoughtful suggestions. According to your suggestion,we checked this sentence and foundthe inappropriate reference here. So we have replaced the reference number 15. Revised portion are added in the manuscript by using the track changes mode.

 

Point 6: Line 84-85: site the reference to the “Koch rule”.

Response 6:We must thank you for your kind suggestions. We have added a reference to the Koch's Postulates, with the cited references sorted as [19]. The subsequent reference numbers have been updated in order. In addition, we have revised the ‘Koch's rule’ to the ‘Koch's Postulates’

Point 7:Line 86: PotatoDextrose Agar medium (PDA), rewrite as Potato Dextrose Agar (PDA) medium

Response 7: Meanwhile, we are very sorry for our negligence in many details of our manuscript. We have revised the phrase “PotatoDextrose Agar medium (PDA) “ to “Potato Dextrose Agar (PDA) medium “

 

 

Point 8:Line 306-310: The sentences should be reformulated for clarity.

Response 8: We do appreciate you for giving us comments and pointing out this issue. In this paragraph of Discussion, the advantages of pre-harvest application of chitosan in potato tubers preservation were added. The modified contents are as follows:

 

Many agents have been reported to applicate improving postharvest quality of fruits and vegetables, such as brassinosteroid, salicylic acid, sorbitol, sodium nitroprusside,sodium silicate, and chitosan, etc. during pre-harvest or post-harvest period [21, 24, 29-32]. Chitosan is generally recognised as safe (GRAS) and could be applicated during pre-harvest for many crops [10].

Therefore, pre-harvest foliar application is a good strategy for improving potato tubers quality after harvest.

 

Point 9:Line 387: chitosan syrays, rewrite as chitosan sprays

Response 9: We are sorry for the incorrect writing. We have revised the word “syrays “ to “sprays “

Point 10:Line 387: What do you mean by a causal relationship between the chitosan syrays, the 387 enhanced response of the phenylpropanoid pathway to wounding and accelerated 388 wound periderm formation? The language needs to be improved and rewritten in a more scientific manner.

Response10: We gratefully appreciate for your kindly suggestion. We checked the logical relationship of the conclusion sentence by sentence. We rewrited this section and improved by a native English expert. Revised portion are added in the manuscript by using the track changes mode, and the revised text are as follows:

Foliar spraying of chitosan on potato plants activated PAL and increased cinnamic acid, sinapic acid, total phenolics and flavonoids on tuber wounds. Foliar spraying of chitosan activated 4CL, CAD and POD and increased lignin and SPP on wounded sites of potato tubers. The accelerated deposition of SPP and lignin domains of the periderm were associated with an enhanced wound periderm formation at wounds of potato tubers, resulting in alleviated wound-facilitated fresh weight loss and dry rot disease index.

Point 11: The manuscript has to be thoroughly revised and improved by a native English expert for consideration in the journal.

Response 11: Thank you very much for your suggestions and your patience. Meanwhile, we must apologize for my irregular writing. We have thoroughly checked sentence by sentence and have revised the manuscript by International Science Editing Service (www.internationalscienceediting.com) and the certification of language editing for our manuscript is as follow:

We tried our best to improve the manuscript and made some changes in the manuscript. These changes will not influence the content and framework of the paper. And here we did not list the changes but marked them in red in the revised paper. We appreciate for Editors/Reviewers' warm work earnestly and hope that the correction will meet with approval. We are pleased to continue to make future changes as needed.

Once again, thank you very much for your comments and suggestions.