Hydrolytic Enzyme Production and Susceptibility to Antifungal Compounds of Opportunistic Candida parapsilosis Strains Isolated from Cucurbitaceae and Rosaceae Fruits
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Dear authors,
Your work is valuable in terms of fruit and vegetable production as well as of human health prevention.
I would like to recommend some corrections as follows:
1) Line 18: Candida should be placed in italic
2) Line 32: It will be better to cite as [1-7]
3) Line 54: It will be better to cite as [14-17]
4) Line 61: For me, it is unclear what is the procedure for sampling - why the number of samples is so different, have you prepared a mixed sample per plant species or each sample was treated separately, etc.?
5) Line 79: Please, add some information about the microscope used
6) Line 105: Please, correct the chemical formula of CaCl2
7) Line 137: Please, cite some references about this method
8) Line 163: Please, cite as [23-25] and [26-27]. Same on Line 169.
9) Lines 170-172: According to Table 2, the species Aureobasidium pullulans, Metschnikowia pulcherrima and Rhodotorula mucilaginosa have been found also in all samples but here that is not mentioned.
10) Lines 197-198: Please, check the info here and compare with that on Lines 100-102. Clarify where needed in order to avoid misunderstanding by readers
11) Why in the text you have mentioned Amphotericin B and Fluconazole, but in Tables 4 and 5 as well as on Figure 1 you have described them as Amphotericin 100 and Fluconazole 25? Please, unify these.
12) Line 206: Please, add a title and measurement units on the vertical axis
13) I would like to recommend you to enhance the Discussion and especially the Conclusion section in order to highlight your findings.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The article “Diversity of endophytic yeasts in some ripe cultivated vegetables and fruits: occurrence of the opportunistic species Candida parapsilosis sensu stricto, evaluation of hydrolytic enzyme pro- duction and antifungal susceptibility of its strains” is devoted to the very serious problem of opportunistic microflora in internal tissues of fruits. Candida parapsilosis can lead to hospital outbreaks of candidemia (immunocompromised patients are at risk). Their investigation can shed light on how candidemia agents can penetrate into clinic areas. Authors must focus this aspect of their work! Otherwise, it seems like simple screening data.
1)The selected title is very long and doesn't truly represent the contents mentioned in the manuscript. The main point of the manuscript is the presence of opportunistic Candida in fruits and vegetables. I think, authors can make it shorter (hydrolytic enzyme production (virulence factors?) and susceptibility to antifungal compounds of opportunistic Candida parapsilosis strains (?) isolated from Cucurbitaceae and Rosaceae fruits, for example)
2) Abstract could be more concise as well as future implications can be provided at the end of the abstract section.
Authors should start abstract and introduction on the harmfulness of opportunistic flora to health.
“All studied endophytic complexes were characterized by the presence of yeast species with antagonistic properties against phytopathogenic fungi and bacteria (Aureobasidium pullulans, Metschnikowia pulcherrima)” - this data is absent in your results (Is it literature data?)
I recommend doing away with the term “endophytic complexes”. (For example, All studied fruits were characterized by the presence of endophytic yeast species…)
Thus, a strain is a genetic variant or subtype of a microorganism. I see that 107 strains of Candida are 107 isolates (individual colonies from fruits). Authors must give the literal term.
3) In the introduction section, I still found that the text is short and lacked clear structure.
The structure must be improved and. build from General to specific. For example, on the first place you can give information on the whole problem of opportunistic flora harmfulness, and can provide the hypothesis about their presence in fruits. The second - on that are endophytes and endophytic communities. The third can tell of yeasts plant-associated microbes. And at the end of the main body of introduction the information on Candida can be. This brings us to the aim of our work (the last paragraph).
The paragraph “Yeasts with known activity against the major phytopathogens, Aureobasidium pullulans [23,24,25] and Metschnikowia pulcherrima [26,27], were obtained from the internal tissues of all ripe vegetable and fruit samples analyzed. These are asco-mycete yeast species that are regularly found in natural soils and plant substrates in a
variety of geographic regions. The biological activity of these yeast strains has been 166
demonstrated against both phytopathogenic bacteria (Erwinia amylovora) and fungi (Bo-
trytis cinerea, Colletotrichum acutatum, Penicillium digitatum P. expansum, P. italicum, etc.) [28,29,30,31,32,33].” must be removed in introduction.
4) Materials and methods:
Give binary species names for plants.
How the number of cells of individual strain was counted? Authors wrote, “The grown yeast colonies were classified into morphological types using a dissecting microscope and the number of colonies of each type was counted. From 5 to 7 colonies of each morphotype were isolated in a pure culture.” Is one morphotype contains the single strain or species? I think authors should build the table containing data of morphotypes and according species name (Supplementary). Nucleotide sequences should be loaded on NCBI and NCBI numbers should be given (Supplementary). Give units for relative abundance of endophytes (106? Lg? CFU per g?) in material and Table 2.
5) Results:
Table 2: What is asc/bas? What units were used?
Authors wrote that “During the study, a total of 107 endophytic strains of Candida parapsilosis were isolated”. Does this mean that all 107 strains (in my opinion, in this place strains are isolates, single colonies that are isolated from plant material) were sequenced?
Why was C. parapsilosis ATCC 22019 used as a reference strain? Is it clinically important?
Authors must mark parameters which are quite different from ATCC 22019 (with asterisk for example).
Figure 1. What units were used (y-axis name)?
Results are described very poorly. Authors should decipher their results and analyze it.
6) Discussion:
In the discussion part, personal communication should be removed or some literature data on Candida in cow compost should be given.
Authors should discuss the problem of microorganisms’ resistance to antibiotics, and draw the reader's attention to this fact.
7) The conclusion section needs to be rewritten with clear and concise remarks based on the major findings of this article. What is the take home message of this article?
8) Double check that all references are cited within the text, and that all citations within the text have a corresponding reference. Please go through the whole reference list and incorporate the required changes according to journals’ author guidelines.
The use of proper English grammar as well as spelling are lacking in some places.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript was corrected according to all my comments. I would like to wish all authors to continue their investigation in this area.
Author Response
I would like to thank the reviewer very much for the work, time, and the improvement of our maniscript. Also, thank you very much for your wishes.
