The Benefits of Exogenous Xylanase in Wheat–Soy Based Broiler Chicken Diets, Consisting of Different Soluble Non-Starch Polysaccharides Content

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Manuscript poultry-2188093, entitled “The benefits of exogenous xylanase in wheat-soy based broiler chicken diets, having different soluble non-starch polysaccharides content”

 

Recommendation:       The above paper is not suitable for publication in its present form.

 

The article provides useful information about the benefits of exogenous xylanase in wheat-soy based broiler chicken diets, consisting of different soluble non-starch polysaccharides content. Although, the experiment was in general appropriately designed and implemented, there are some points that should be corrected or clarified.

 

·       Please check reference style of the journal. At the same time, some references that are cited in text are not included in reference list (L33: Bedford and Classen, 1992, L53: Pirgozliev et al. 2003, L59: Wu et al. (2010),  L128: Short et al. (1996), L133: Karadas et al. (2010), L337: (Apajalahti et al., 2004), L339: Rodriguez et al. (2012), L342: (Guilloteau et al., 2010).

·       Please check L39, 42, 68: Masey O’Neill et al., 2014 or 2012?

·       Please check L51, 61: Pirgozliev et al. 2015a or b?

·       Please check L286-287: Whiting et al., 2016 or 2017?

·       L413: Please delete “b” after “2019”                  

·       L434-436: Please delete, since it is not used in text

 

L3: “consisting of” instead of “having”

L17-19: Please provide NSP levels, XYL doses, number of broilers and replicates

L32: Please delete “improving”

L33-34: “Some further benefits of XYL may be related with the partial hydrolyzation of the cell wall…”

L38: “a substrate” instead of “resource”

L48: “irrespective” instead of “independent”

L49: “…type. In another study, supplementary XYL…”

L52: “are associated with” instead of “had”

L58: “…diets. After feeding…”

L59-60: “…and FCR, while ileal digesta viscosity was reduced, but…”

L61: “…XYL were observed. Pirgozliev et al…”

L69-70: “…was to investigate the effects of dietary XYL…”

L127: “Englyst et al., 1994, 2000”

L144: “Nutrient retention=”

L172: Where are these data in Table 2?

L189: “…digesta are presented…”

L191: Please delete “3.1. Subsection”

L222: Please provide a title for Table 2

L279: “discrepancies” instead of “variation”

L280: “are attributed to” instead of “is explained by”

L307: Please delete

L321-323: “…the improvements observed in commercial poultry fed XYL may also contribute to the improvement of gut health and antioxidant status.”

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Many thanks for your comments. We have compiled our responses to the reviewers below. Please all changes to the revised manuscript are highlighted in yellow.

Yours sincerely

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

In general, this review article is really interesting and well written. My comments aim to increase the scientific soundness and clarity of it.

Line 17 – The composition of abstract should be rethanked. Please add any brief conclusions and perspectives.

Lines 45– The authors should mention that some enzymes (like xylanse) or combination of enzymes with dietary components (xylanase + hybrid rye) can also affect the chicken intestinal barrier (tight junction proteins). Also, the authors did not mention that xylanse substantially improves bone strength and eggshell quality in lying hens fed with an addition of modern hybrid rye (see recent work of Muszyński et al. Assessing Bone Health Status and Eggshell Quality of Laying Hens at the End of a Production Cycle in Response to Inclusion of a Hybrid Rye to a Wheat–Corn Diet. Vet. Sci. 2022, 9, 683. https://doi.org/10.3390/vetsci9120683). These issues are definitely in line with the topic of the current article and in Reviewer opinion the authors have to discuss them briefly and acknowledge these works.

Line 72 – Please explain your hypothesis properly.

Line 88 – the name of Aspergillus oryzae should be written in italics.

Line 90 – please correct to TiO₂

Line 109 – please provide method of euthanasia.

Line 113 – pancreas, liver and spleen and not organs of gastrointestinal tract. There is a difference between GIT and digestive system.

Line 165 – what was post-hoc test for ANOVA?

Table 1 should be moved to line 75-90.

Line 309 - From histological point of view there are only four kinds of tissues: epithelial, connective, muscular and nervous. Therefore, such term as “liver tissue” is not justified. The authors terribly confuse organs with tissues. Organs are assembled from the four basic types of tissues and have cells with specialized functions.

Line 339 – the name of Escherichia coli and Lactobacilli should be written in italics.

 

 

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Many thanks for your comments. We have compiled our responses in the attachment. Please note, all changes to the revised manuscript are highlighted in yellow.

Yours sincerely

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Please see the attachment.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Many thanks for your comments. We have compiled our responses in the attachment. Please note, all changes to the revised manuscript are highlighted in yellow.

Yours sincerely

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 4 Report

Paper is generally well written and describes a study that is well designed and important in the area of enzyme supplementation to nonruminants/poultry

Line 44 – opening sentence seems to indicate the paragraph will discuss negative effects of xylanase. Just needs to be edited for clarity.

Line 79 – “vice versa” means to just switch the items proceeding in the sentence – but you may be intending to indicate that low NSP diets will produce low viscosity – needs to be edited for clarity.

Line 87 – “…from the market” too vague

Table 1 and 2 can move to methods section (check journal guidelines) as they are describing feed samples and diets used in the conduct of the study. Results based on effects of feeding those diets.

Table 1 – title needs further clarification as to how it relates to the study

Table 2 – needs a title added

Table 3,4,5,6 – all results tables are set up in a way that makes interpretation difficult. Consider placing variables (i.e. Table 6 – VFA, AA…. ) in the first column with diet type on the heading. SEM and corresponding P values can be placed to the right columns of the data. Avoid overusing acronyms for all variables so that they don’t all need to be defined in the footnotes.

Discussion – paragraph starting on Line 308 – the explanation of the rise in CoQ for the XYL treatment is not well described here. There are potential positive effects of increasing CoQ, but why did this specific combination of enzyme and high NSP diet lead to increased CoQ in the livers?

Line 343 – “…The generally observed differences between……” this section of the paragraph is unsupported by comparison of your data to published reports or by other means. Seems to be unjustified to include in this report or not well explained.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Many thanks for your comments. We have compiled our responses in the attachment. Please note, all changes to the revised manuscript are highlighted in yellow.

Yours sincerely

Author Response File: Author Response.docx