A Mechanistic Overview on Impact of Dietary Fibres on Gut Microbiota and Its Association with Colon Cancer
, Asma Praveen 1, Arya Lakshmi Marisetti 1, Ajay Sharma 1, Vijender Kumar 1, Sanjeev Kumar Sahu 2 and Devesh Tewari 1,*
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
In the current review article, the authors aimed to discuss the impact of dietary fibres on gut microbial flora and to correlate such gut microbiota changes with beneficial effect on colorectal cancer.
The following are suggested:
1. Extensive english language review is suggested by a native english speaker.
2. An update in the literature should be performed since some points that are "thought to be involved in some practices" have now been extensively discussed (ed antibiotics, therapeutic interventions, mode of birth etc).
Author Response
In the current review article, the authors aimed to discuss the impact of dietary fibres on gut microbial flora and to correlate such gut microbiota changes with beneficial effect on colorectal cancer.
We would like to thank the erudite reviewer for his/her critical assessment of the manuscript and constructive suggestions. We highly appreciate the encouragement by the reviewer. We have tried our best to improve the quality of our manuscript. As per the valuable suggestion of the reviewer, we have tried to address all the issues that needs to be revised.
Extensive English language review is suggested by a native english speaker.
We have extensively edited the English by a native speaker and also the senior authors have critically reviewed the entire manuscript.
An update in the literature should be performed since some points that are "thought to be involved in some practices" have now been extensively discussed (ed antibiotics, therapeutic interventions, mode of birth etc).
Thank you for this insightful comment. Accordingly, we have provided and updated literatures including antibiotics, therapeutic interventions, mode of birth etc.(page 6, lines 175-182)
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
This is a review paper which contains a very exhaustive literature revision, comprising a large number of sections covering an extensive variety of aspects, from the dietary fibres and sources, colorectal cancer, microbiota, functional food...This is the main value of the work done.
However most of the sections are treated as separate subjects, not well interconected, which suggests no deep analysis/digestion of contents and it leads to some repetitions. Wording should be revised to give a more integrated vision of the different aspects considered.
The text requires a deep revision of the English use and style. It is plenty of typos and some sentences sound incomplete or no sense, i.e. lines 141-146. References in the text should include year or number. For instance, line 214 Jou et al., something is missing!! In the list of literature cited, there are some missing references and some without date or not properly cited.
The term "flora" should be avoided and replaced by "microbiota" all through the ms. Authors should consider the recent publication by Zheng et al., Int. J. Syst. Evol. Microbiol. 2020. DOI 10.1099/ijsem.0.004107 about the reorganization of the genus Lactobacillus and the new genus names to be updated in the ms. In addition, the ISAAP web https://isappscience.org/ and publications should be visited to update probiotics and prebiotics definitions.
In fact, around 50% of literature cites are dated before 2010, while aprox. 25% are ten years old and 25 % have less than five years. Depending on the subject some studies might be out of date.
Author Response
This is a review paper which contains a very exhaustive literature revision, comprising many sections covering an extensive variety of aspects, from the dietary fibres and sources, colorectal cancer, microbiota, functional food...This is the main value of the work done.
We would like to thank the erudite reviewer for his/her critical assessment of the manuscript and appreciating our work. We are highly grateful to the reviewer for the understanding and importance of the work.
However most of the sections are treated as separate subjects, not well interconnected, which suggests no deep analysis/digestion of contents and it leads to some repetitions. Wording should be revised to give a more integrated vision of the different aspects considered.
We thank the reviewer for this comment and accordingly we thoroughly analysed the paper and removed all the repetition present in the manuscript.
The text requires a deep revision of the English use and style. It is plenty of typos and some sentences sound incomplete or no sense, i.e. lines 141-146. References in the text should include year or number. For instance, line 214 Jou et al., something is missing!! In the list of literature cited, there are some missing references and some without date or not properly cited.
We have extensively edited the English by a native speaker and also the senior authors have critically reviewed the entire manuscript. All the typos have been removed including as suggested line 141-146 now revised as lines 134-136. The reference of Jou et al also corrected.
The term "flora" should be avoided and replaced by "microbiota" all through the ms. Authors should consider the recent publication by Zheng et al., Int. J. Syst. Evol. Microbiol. 2020. DOI 10.1099/ijsem.0.004107 about the reorganization of the genus Lactobacillus and the new genus names to be updated in the ms. In addition, the ISAAP web https://isappscience.org/ and publications should be visited to update probiotics and prebiotics definitions.
The term “flora” is removed and replaced by the term “microbiota” throughout the manuscript. In addition, we thank the learned reviewer for this important publication of Zheng et al., 2020. Accordingly we have modified the named of Lactobacillus and other genus. (page, 10; line 329; page 11, lines 364, 365, 372, 381-390; page 12, line 417).
In fact, around 50% of literature cites are dated before 2010, while aprox. 25% are ten years old and 25 % have less than five years. Depending on the subject some studies might be out of date.
We agree with the reviewer’s observation and we have updated the information and substantial new references have been added in the manuscript. Now most of the references are from last 5-10 years only.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
The review entitled "A mechanistic overview on impact of dietary fibres on gut microbiota and its association with colon cancer" aims to describe the effects of fiber on colon cancer. In my opinion, the manuscript has some flaws that need to be corrected:
- The authors should deepen the section on the imbalance of gut microflora and health disorders as well as the section on the mechanistic attributes.
-the use of English needs improvement, the authors should consult a native English speaker during the revision of the manuscript. Several sentences are difficult to understand.
-Please, format the text and the references according to the journal guidelines.
Author Response
The review entitled "A mechanistic overview on impact of dietary fibres on gut microbiota and its association with colon cancer" aims to describe the effects of fiber on colon cancer. In my opinion, the manuscript has some flaws that need to be corrected:
We would like to thank the erudite reviewer for his/her critical assessment of the manuscript and constructive suggestions. We highly appreciate the encouragement by the reviewer. We have tried our best to improve the quality of our manuscript. As per the valuable suggestion of the reviewer, we have tried to address all the issues that needs to be revised.
The authors should deepen the section on the imbalance of gut microflora and health disorders as well as the section on the mechanistic attributes.
We thank the learned reviewer for this excellent suggestion.
The use of English needs improvement, the authors should consult a native English speaker during the revision of the manuscript. Several sentences are difficult to understand.
We have extensively edited the English by a native speaker and also the senior authors have critically reviewed the entire manuscript. All the typos have been removed.
Please, format the text and the references according to the journal guidelines.
The formatting of the text and references is done as per the journal guidelines.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
All changes and points suggested have been addressed by the authors
Author Response
We are thankful to the esteemed reviewer for this comment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
The ms has been significatively improved. Nevertheless, there are still a number of typos to be corrected. For instance,
5.1 Probiotic-probiotic relationship with dietary fibres - shouldn't it be Probiotic-prebiotic instead?
6.2 Effect of dietary fibre colon cancer - It should probably be ... Effect of dietary fibre on colon cancer
Author Response
We are thankful to the learned reviewer for his/her watchful eyes. We have corrected the inadvertent typos:
5.1 Probiotic-probiotic relationship with dietary fibres is now corrected as Probiotic-prebiotic as suggested.
6.2 Effect of dietary fibre colon cancer is corrected as 6.2 Effect of dietary fibre on colon cancer
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
Reviewer 3 Report
The author dressed the comments well.
Author Response
We are thankful to the esteemed reviewer for this comment.
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
