Review Reports - Study of Varietal Differences in the Composition of Heteropolysaccharides of Oil Flax and Fiber Flax

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The abstract section lacks the key findings/results and the conclusion. Please provide it.

Please arranged the introduction section systematically to justify the title. For example “Study of varietal differences in the composition of 2 heteropolysaccharides of oil flax and fiber flax”

Keeping in view this title, the authors should need to respond to each point in a separate paragraph. The provided literature is not sufficient, please expand the paragraphs. Only one citation in the first and 2^nd paragraphs? Please modify it.

Besides, please merge the short paragraphs which deliver a single message.

The discussion section is below the standard, please discuss and compare the results with the previously published literature as well. Throughout the discussion section, the authors cited only one citation?

Would be better to add some scientifically robust figures for a better understanding of the results

Please study some related articles published in quality journals and then write the introduction and discussion section.

Author Response

The abstract section lacks the key findings/results and the conclusion. Please provide it.

Thanks for the clarifying question. Necessary clarifications are added to the text of the manuscript.

Please arranged the introduction section systematically to justify the title. For example “Study of varietal differences in the composition of 2 heteropolysaccharides of oil flax and fiber flax”

Thanks for your comment. Changes have been made to the text.

Thanks for the clarifying question. Necessary clarifications are added to the text of the manuscript.

Besides, please merge the short paragraphs which deliver a single message.

Thanks for your comment. Changes have been made to the text.

Thanks for the clarifying question. Necessary clarifications are added to the text of the manuscript.

Would be better to add some scientifically robust figures for a better understanding of the results.

Thank you for your comment. Yield, compositional characteristics and rheological properties of extracted mucilage are dependent upon seed: water ratio, pH, time-temperature extraction regime used and ect. Unfortunately, we did not find in the literature data about all those varieties that were studied in the work.

Please study some related articles published in quality journals and then write the introduction and discussion section.

Thanks for your comment. Changes have been made to the text.

We have made every effort to answer questions.

Thank you!

Reviewer 2 Report

This article is devoted to the study of differences in the composition of heteropolysaccharides in various varieties of flax. The article is interesting and full of various experimental data. The article fits the theme of the Journal. However, there are some important points that need to be improved:

1. Abstract is written too modestly. You can expand it.

2. Would it be desirable to state the relevance and purpose more clearly in the introduction?

3. Where can flax heteropolysaccharides be used?

4. Please cite: 10.3390/catal12101177.

5. It is desirable to add more comparisons with literary sources. This will give validity to some conclusions.

6. In addition, additional methods of analysis can improve the quality of this work.

7. Conclusions need to be substantially expanded.

8. It would be a good addition to this article to add graphic material.

Author Response

Abstract is written too modestly. You can expand it.

Thanks for the clarifying question. Necessary clarifications are added to the text of the manuscript.

Would it be desirable to state the relevance and purpose more clearly in the introduction?

Necessary clarifications are added to the text of the manuscript.

Where can flax heteropolysaccharides be used?

Thanks for the clarifying question.

Flaxseed mucilage has several potential applications. In food, it is generally used as a texturing agent due to its thickening ability. In cosmetic and pharmaceutical applications, it can be used as a lubricant for skin surface and even as artificial mucus. It can prevent intestinal inflammation and is of interest as an agent for decreasing blood glucose and blood cholesterol when included in food. It has a similar rheometrical behavior to guar gum and a high water absorption capacity has also been noted.

Necessary clarifications are added to the text of the manuscript.

Please cite: 10.3390/catal12101177.

Thank you for your comment. In our work, we did not investigate the catalytic hydrogenation of flax fibers, to which the article 10.3390/catal12101177 «Hydrogenation of Flax Shives in Ethanol over a Ni/C Catalyst» is devoted.

It is desirable to add more comparisons with literary sources. This will give validity to some conclusions.

Thanks for the clarifying question. We have added this information to the text of the manuscript.

In addition, additional methods of analysis can improve the quality of this work.

Thanks for your comment. You are undoubtedly right. But unfortunately, at the moment we can not conduct additional research.

Conclusions need to be substantially expanded.

Necessary clarifications are added to the text of the manuscript.

It would be a good addition to this article to add graphic material.

We paid attention to your wish, but decided that the graphic material we have could not help to better understand the results of the study.

We have made every effort to answer questions.

Thank you!

Reviewer 3 Report

polysaccharides-2129451-peer-review-v1

Study of varietal differences in the composition of heteropolysaccharides of oil flax and fiber flax

by Elena Ozhimkova et al.

The authors report on studies towards influence of flax origin on the sugar polysaccharide composition of the seeds. I appreciate the work done so far. However, maybe I did not get the point correctly, I cannot see the a clear application for that.

L15: “long flax” seems to be incomplete

L16: Omit “The obtained results…” Start the sentence with “The composition of the flax…”

L22: Flax is one of the oldest…

L34: Give examples for the polysaccharides

Page 3: Main part of this page belongs to the introduction from my point of view.

L94: enzyme-assisted

L117: anthron instead of antron; must be checked in the entire text.

L120: “Was determined by dry suspension” What does it mean?

There is no information on analysis of monosaccharide composition.

L128: SEC is described here but no results can be found in the text. What about calibration?

L165; “viscosity of slugs of the” What does it mean?

L197: Few SEC results are mentioned here. But there is no data in the tables.

L231: I think that the last part should be removed because biotests are not further described here.

Author Response

L15: “long flax” seems to be incomplete

Thanks for your comment. Translation error. Should be «fiber flax». Changes have been made to the text.

L16: Omit “The obtained results…” Start the sentence with “The composition of the flax…”

Thanks for the clarifying question. Changes have been made to the text.

L22: Flax is one of the oldest…

Thanks for your comment. Translation error. Should be «fiber flax». Changes have been made to the text.

L34: Give examples for the polysaccharides

Thanks for the clarifying question. Necessary clarifications are added to the text of the manuscript.

Page 3: Main part of this page belongs to the introduction from my point of view.

Thank you for your comment. Material moved to the appropriate section.

L94: enzyme-assisted

Thanks for the clarifying question. Translation error. Changes have been made to the text.

L117: anthron instead of antron; must be checked in the entire text.

Thanks for the clarifying question. Translation error. Changes have been made to the text.

L120: “Was determined by dry suspension” What does it mean?

Thanks for the clarifying question. Translation error. Should be« dry sample ». Changes have been made to the text.

There is no information on analysis of monosaccharide composition.

Thanks for the clarifying question. Results are presented in tables 4 and 5.

L128: SEC is described here but no results can be found in the text. What about calibration?

Calibrations were built for all monosaccharides, while for the reliability of the results obtained and taking into account the possible overlap in the chromatograms of peaks corresponding to some monosaccharides, model mixtures containing monosaccharides that are part of flax polysaccharides were also studied.

L165; “viscosity of slugs of the” What does it mean?

Thanks for your comment. Translation error. Changes have been made to the text. Should be«mucilage»

L197: Few SEC results are mentioned here. But there is no data in the tables.

Thanks for the clarifying question. Results are presented in tables 4 and 5.

L231: I think that the last part should be removed because biotests are not further described here.

Thanks for the clarification. Text changes have been made.

We have made every effort to answer questions.

Thank you!

Reviewer 4 Report

This manuscript investigates varietal differences in the composition of heteropolysaccharides of oil flax and fiber flax. In my opinion, this manuscript needs some revisions.

1.Abstract should be revised, such as the findings of the differences need to be added.

2.Lines 46-56, the cited references should be added.

3.In Materials and methods, Source of all equipment and chemicals used should be identified clearly. Location should include a city, state/province and country.

4.In Materials and methods, There is no description about Statistical analysis.

5.A space should be added either side of ±, such as “18.73±0.01” should be “18.73 ± 0.01”.

6.The statistical difference of data among the studied varieties should be added, and the related discussion should be added.

7.It is better to study more properties of heteropolysaccharides of oil flax and fiber flax, suchas the molecular weight, rheological properties and so on.

Author Response

This manuscript investigates varietal differences in the composition of heteropolysaccharides of oil flax and fiber flax. In my opinion, this manuscript needs some revisions.

1.Abstract should be revised, such as the findings of the differences need to be added.

Thanks for the clarifying question. Necessary clarifications are added to the text of the manuscript.

Lines 46-56, the cited references should be added.

Necessary clarifications are added to the text of the manuscript.

In Materials and methods, Source of all equipment and chemicals used should be identified clearly. Location should include a city, state/province and country.

Thanks for the clarifying question. Necessary clarifications are added to the text of the manuscript.

In Materials and methods, There is no description about Statistical analysis.

All experiments were performed in triplicate. Mathematical data processing was carried out using traditional statistical analysis packages MS Exel © and Stadia © .

A space should be added either side of ±, such as “18.73±0.01” should be “18.73 ± 0.01”.

Thank you. Changes have been made to the text.

The statistical difference of data among the studied varieties should be added, and the related discussion should be added.

Thanks for the clarifying question. Necessary clarifications are added to the text of the manuscript.

It is better to study more properties of heteropolysaccharides of oil flax and fiber flax, such as the molecular weight, rheological properties and so on.

Thanks for the comment. Undoubtedly, the additional studies of polysaccharides that you suggest, such as analysis of molecular weights, etc., will allow us to get more information about these glycans. In our further experimental studies, we will analyze these parameters.

We have made every effort to answer questions.

Thank you!

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors respond well to all the suggested queries. Now the quality of the ms is much improved and will add a significant contribution to the field. Therefore, recommended for publication in its present form.

Author Response

Thank you for your help in improving the quality of our manuscript.

Thank you and best regards!

Reviewer 2 Report

Accepted

Author Response

Thank you for your help in improving the quality of our manuscript.

Thank you and best regards!

Reviewer 3 Report

polysaccharides-2129451-peer-review-v2

Study of varietal differences in the composition of heteropolysaccharides of oil flax and fiber flax

by Elena Ozhimkova et al.

The authors did address most of my comments adequately. However, some issues still remain:

L49: The sentence “Flax seeds, along with…” is hard to understand. Should be divided into two sentences.

L248ff: The acknowledged change antron -> anthron cannot be seen in the text

L260: The column “Reprosil SEC 4000” is a column made for size exclusion chromatography but results from HPLC (monosaccharide content) are shown in the tables. Please check the column type.

Author Response

The authors did address most of my comments adequately. However, some issues still remain:

L49: The sentence “Flax seeds, along with…” is hard to understand. Should be divided into two sentences.

Thanks for your comment. Changes have been made to the text.

L248ff: The acknowledged change antron -> anthron cannot be seen in the text

Thanks for your comment. Changes have been made to the text.

L260: The column “Reprosil SEC 4000” is a column made for size exclusion chromatography but results from HPLC (monosaccharide content) are shown in the tables. Please check the column type.

We apologize for our inattention. The methodology was copied from another article and, unfortunately, we have not completely corrected it for this work. The necessary changes have been made to the text of the article.

The chromatographic system "SpectroPhysics, USA" was used, equipped with a comparison refractometer, which allows measurements to be carried out in the entire region of refractive coefficients. Analytical column made of stainless steel 500x10. The polymer carrier Reprogel-H, which is a weak cation exchanger, was used as a stationary phase. The column was characterized by the presence of 160,000 theoretical plates, and the peak asymmetry coefficients did not exceed 1.005. A solution of sulfuric acid (9 mmol/l) was used as the mobile phase. The feed rate of the eluent is 0.5 ml/min.

We have made the necessary corrections to the text of the manuscript.

Thank you for your help in improving the quality of our manuscript.

Thank you and best regards!

Reviewer 4 Report

It can be accepted.

Author Response

Thank you for your help in improving the quality of our manuscript.

Thank you and best regards!