Phytosulfokine-δ: A Small Peptide, but a Big Player in Symbiosis Gene Regulation
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The Commentary is well-written and summarizes well the paper of Yu et al, 2022.
L.30-31: Add more information about PSK-α that makes it clear that it “is widely distributed across the plant kingdom and plays multiple roles in plant growth, development, and immune response” (Yu et al, 2022).
L.32: a space is missing before “(Wang et al., 2015).”
L.47: mainly localized to nodules > mainly localized in nodules
L.66-67: “The phenotype is unexpected …” I think that this sentence is not needed, it is reiterative.
L. 73: as in control > as in the control
Fig 1: paint the nodules with a different color (maybe pink or red) so that it is easier to appreciate that the plant on the left has more nodules. If possible, I suggest drawing in the middle the phenotype of the wild-type plant.
Author Response
Response: We acknowledge the efforts of the reviewer in making constructive comments to help improve the article. We are adding response to each comment.
The Commentary is well-written and summarizes well the paper of Yu et al, 2022.
L.30-31: Add more information about PSK-α that makes it clear that it “is widely distributed across the plant kingdom and plays multiple roles in plant growth, development, and immune response” (Yu et al, 2022).
Response: We have added more details about PSK-α.
L.32: a space is missing before “(Wang et al., 2015).”
Response: space is added
L.47: mainly localized to nodules > mainly localized in nodules
Response: changed as per the reviewer’s suggestion.
L.66-67: “The phenotype is unexpected …” I think that this sentence is not needed, it is reiterative.
Response: changed as per the reviewer’s suggestion.
- 73: as in control > as in the control
Response: changed as per the reviewer’s suggestion.
Fig 1: paint the nodules with a different color (maybe pink or red) so that it is easier to appreciate that the plant on the left has more nodules. If possible, I suggest drawing in the middle the phenotype of the wild-type plant.
Response: We have painted nodules pink as per the reviewer’s suggestion. We could not incorporate the phenotype of wild-type plants in the middle as it will interfere with the flow chart we put in between.
Reviewer 2 Report
This is a nice commentary on an interesting research. However I have some comments:
Introduction should contain some information about signaling pathways about symbiotic nodule development. There should be some information about regulation of nodule organogenesis (genes, hormones), because the function of a newly opened peptide PSK-δ is connected with nodule development.
Lines 22-26 – I understand that your works are important and contain valuable information but there are some other researchers who studied nitrogen fixation and wrote good review articles about it.
In my own opinion there should be more general words, some discussion about function of PSK-δ peptide. Also there should be less details of the research. I do not think there is any need to write the names of used vectors and to describe the results of the research precisely. Moreover Figure 1 shows main results. The commentary should contain either some experimental details in the text or a figure. Also you should emphasize the reasons of the importance of this discovery.
Line 42-44 – Does PSK-δ take part in nitrogen fixation? “These results suggest that PSK-δ, a legume-specific novel type of phytosulfokine, promotes symbiotic nodulation by enhancing nodule organogenesis.” This is the last sentence of the abstract of the article.
According to the commentary it is not clear how many legumes were studies. Sometimes three species are mentioned (lines 36-41), sometimes - two (lines 57-59).
Author Response
Response: We thank the reviewer for valuable comments to improve the commentary. Our response to each comment is outlined below.
Introduction should contain some information about signaling pathways about symbiotic nodule development. There should be some information about regulation of nodule organogenesis (genes, hormones), because the function of a newly opened peptide PSK-δ is connected with nodule development.
Response: We have provided statements about signaling pathways involved in symbiotic nodule development.
Lines 22-26 – I understand that your works are important and contain valuable information but there are some other researchers who studied nitrogen fixation and wrote good review articles about it.
Response: We have reduced self-citation and increased citations by others.
In my own opinion there should be more general words, some discussion about function of PSK-δ peptide. Also there should be less details of the research. I do not think there is any need to write the names of used vectors and to describe the results of the research precisely. Moreover Figure 1 shows main results. The commentary should contain either some experimental details in the text or a figure. Also you should emphasize the reasons of the importance of this discovery.
Response: As per reviewer suggestions, we have included statements about the function of PSK-δ peptide and importance of this discovery. We have also removed names of vector used in the study. The experimental details has been provided in the text.
Line 42-44 – Does PSK-δ take part in nitrogen fixation? “These results suggest that PSK-δ, a legume-specific novel type of phytosulfokine, promotes symbiotic nodulation by enhancing nodule organogenesis.” This is the last sentence of the abstract of the article.
Response: We have removed nitrogen fixation.
According to the commentary it is not clear how many legumes were studies. Sometimes three species are mentioned (lines 36-41), sometimes - two (lines 57-59).
Response: The authors used 3 legumes to identify PSK-δ; however, they only performed experiments in two legumes. We have added a line in the text to clarify this confusion
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
This version is much better. However, there is such a marvelous review on legume-rhizobia symbiosis by Roy et al, 2020. According to this review and many others the symbiosis begins with the secretion of flavonoids by plant roots.
The correct form is Nod-factor. Check this. "In planta" instead of "in-planta".
Line 61 – should be there “into”?
Line 133 – check the text
I’ve checked the style of references of IJPB articles: names of all authors should be written, without et al.; all the species names should be in italic
Author Response
This version is much better. However, there is such a marvelous review on legume-rhizobia symbiosis by Roy et al, 2020. According to this review and many others the symbiosis begins with the secretion of flavonoids by plant roots.
Response: We appreciate the efforts of the reviewer and are thankful for the comments to present a better article.
The correct form is Nod-factor. Check this. "In planta" instead of "in-planta".
Response: We have changed nod factor to Nod-factor and in-planta to in planta
Line 61 – should be there “into”?
Response: Changed to into
Line 133 – check the text
Response: changed the reference
I’ve checked the style of references of IJPB articles: names of all authors should be written, without et al.; all the species names should be in italic
Response: I changed this according to the reviewer's suggestion.
