Cassava Bagasse as a Low-Cost Substrate for Cellulase and Organic Acid Production Using Co-Cultivated Fungi

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

In this paper, authors first screened the ability of twenty-four fungi for cellulase production, then they found that mixed cultures of A. violaceofuscus and T. reesei RUT-C30 demonstrated elevated BGL activity. After determining the ideal conditions, they were used to produce the organic acids from cassava bagasse. It’s meaningful for the application of the biomass-based biorefinery industry.

However, the manuscript still has some flaws.

1.     Line181-182: Interestingly, mixed cultures of A. violaceofuscus and T. reesei RUT-C30 demonstrated elevated BGL activity under SMF with avicel-PASC as the substrate. Were all 24 fungi co-cultured with T. reesei RUT-C30? If so, please provide data to support your conclusions!

2. Line 181-182: Why did you choose T. reesei RUT-C30 for co-cultivation rather than other fungi, I suggest you explain this in the article.

3.     Line 109-110: Table 1. Some figures need to be superscripted.

4.     Line220: A. violaceofuscus and T. reesei RUT-C30 needs to be italicized. Please check the full text.

 

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

No.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Major Compulsory Revisions:

1.      Perhaps I missed it somehow. However, in my opinion the paper lacks clear information what is the idea of the research and what is new in the presented paper comparing to the available manuscripts. Both Aspergillus and Trichoderma are well known producers of cellulases and were cultivated on cassava bagasse.

 

 

Specific comments:

Line 67 – where is the list of analyzed fungi strains?

Line 69 – please add the volume of tween 80

Line 79 – Please add xg for centrifugation. rpm is hardly comparable.

Line 89 – “…were inoculated…” – how?

Line 91 – Congo Red

Line 94 – how fungal strains were identified? Any ITS sequences deposited to GenBank?

Line 97 – (unpublished data) – please cite or include in the supplementary materials.

Line 106 – “…twelve days…” – only one day was taken into consideration. Why synthesis of enzymes wasn’t studied throughout everyday?

All figures are lacking information what organisms are analyzed.

Fig 2. – it seems that border conditions are the best for enzyme production. Why for example lower pH than 4.5 wasn’t checked or more spores for inoculation?

 

 

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The author has revised the article to address my comments and added some data, I have no further comments.