Influence of Ranunculus acris Flower Extract on Allium cepa Root Meristem

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I have gone through the manuscript “ Influence of aqueous solution of Ranunculus acris flower ex-2 tract on Allium cepa root meristem”. Authors have investigated toxicity of Ranunculus acris extracts on onion root meristems. In view of the medicinal properties of the plant and the use of its flowers in herbal and folklore medicines, it is pertinent to evaluate its cyto and genotoxicity. The work is worthy of publication, subject to few changes as suggested.

 

1.     I have concerns regarding title: better to use flower extracts; delete ‘aqueous solution’ from the title.

2.     In the abstract: rephrase “toxic properties”. If it is so toxic, how could its use be justified in folklore medicine.

3.     What about the rationale for the choice of concentrations used in the study?

4.     In my opinion, introduction part, especially para#1, can be reduced a bit, as it contains already known information. It can be presented in a concise manner.

5.     Pl provide voucher specimen number of the plant.

6.     No period (.) after the sub-titles!

7.     Why were phenolic, flavonoids content and antioxidant activity were measured? It finds no mention in the abstract!

8.     Please provide a citation, why Allium cepa was used. (e.g. DOI: 10.1007/s40201-018-00330-1 )

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript from Smirnova et al. aims to the evaluation of the potential genotoxic effect of an aqueous solution of Ranunculus acris flower extract on Allium cepa root meristem. 
In my opinion, the abstract should be implemented, for example briefly describe the use of this plant in traditional medicine or the known toxic effect that you cite in the first sentence. Also, the introduction lack of these info. I believe you can add some more data over the things that are already known on this plant.  

As far as concern the extraction of the plant material, when was it performed? I mean, how long was it stored from the date of collection to the extraction, and where was it stored? Moreover, I think that you should add more info in the paragraph 2.1 over the different part of the plants that were collected and extracted.

Line 84: “The technique is described in detail in previous work [6]” or something similar.

Can you better describe how the treatment was performed?

Are the results expressed as mean of the three analysis or what? What about the standard deviation or the standard error? Can you specify better in the legend of the figures?

Line 194: Can you better specify the meaning of the different letters?

Have you performed the test also with the leaves and stems extracts? Otherwise, it is not clear how you choose the extract to be tested for the Allium test.

Line 263-264 are the same.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx