Biochemical, Anatomical, Genetic, and Yield Assessment of Seven Rice Genotypes (Oryza sativa L.) Subjected to Drought Stress
, Abdelsalam B. Elsehely 1, Amgad A. El-Gammaal 3, Medhat E. El Denary 4, Mohamed S. Abd Elaty 5, Ibrahim A. Talha 1, Mohamed Hazman 6,7, Yasser Nehela 8, Alaa El-Dein Omara 9,* and Wael H. El-Kallawy 1Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The work is well presented and well structured. The manuscript is quite technical and the results are relevant to the field. The manuscript has a good number of citations, 30% are not recent publications (within the last 5 years) and the number of self-citations is low. The results of the manuscript are reproducible according to the information in the methods section. The article is scientifically sound and the experimental design is suitable to test the hypothesis. However, several issues need to be addressed before acceptance for publication.
Recommended:
- Line 166 is missing to set the % symbol to 0.5. Please correct.
- In line 170, table 2 needs to be corrected (table S2 is incorrect). Please correct.
- In line 174, it should be written in 3 people. Please correct this.
- Line 187 delete the word were. Please delete it.
- At the bottom of Table 2, please describe what the letters H, V, and Y mean in the primers.
- In line 197, please correct NaClO.
- In line 233, please correct Table 3.
- The size of Figures 1 to 4 should be adjusted to read the content well.
- Figure 5 should be completely improved, it is not possible to view the image in detail, if possible, leave it as supplementary material of the article.
- Line 621 correct m.vessel
- The conclusions are very extensive and should present more concisely the results found in the manuscript.
Minor editing of English language required
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript titled “Biochemical, anatomical, genetic and yield assessment of some rice genotypes (Oryza sativa L.) subjected to drought stress” by Youssef et al. shows original research findings related to the characterization of three rice lines under drought stress. The authors selected the three lines by analyzing their drought tolerance levels via biochemical, anatomical and molecular responses
Although the aim of this research is relevant and could help to find a perfect drought-tolerant rice genotype, the manuscript is very poorly written and the results and not described properly. The Introduction, results and discussion are poorly written. The writing is so poor that it is really hard to concentrate on the science. Almost every second line has some grammatical error. See examples below.
Abstract.
Line 23. Considered one of the leading causes.
Line 23. What is “major of agricultural ecosystems crises?
Line 24. A pertinent genotypes ……..is grammatically incorrect
Line 24. The sentence “Breeding for drought tolerance to get a pertinent 24 genotypes which is an important and sustainable strategy to overcome this constraint” is grammatically incorrect.
Line 25: Drought tolerance levels through biochemical, anatomical and molecular responses, which led to select three………..is grammatically incorrect and incomplete.
Line 28. The sentence “under drought stress conditions, which arranged in Randomized 28 Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications” is grammatically incorrect.
Line 34. The phrase “significantly proved considerable levels of these enzymes compared” is grammatically incorrect.
Line 37. The phrase “anatomically studied throughout cross-sectioned in root” is grammatically incorrect.
Line 36. The sentence starting line 36 to line 40 is too long and grammatically incorrect.
Line 42. The sentence starting line 42 to line 36 is too long and grammatically incorrect.
Line 46. Gene names should be written in italics.
Introduction
A good example of the poor write-up is Line 54. The authors write “In terms of production and consumption of cereal crops, rice (Oryza Sativa L.) is considered to be the most significant one all over the UNIVERSE”. Since the authors are talking about the whole universe, I would like to know what other planets of the universe have rice as a major crop.
Line 57. The phrase “rice is 57 suffered from during the life span cycle” is grammatically wrong.
Line 61. The phrase “rice production consume a lot amount of water” is grammatically wrong
The manuscript has no information about the growth conditions of rice plants.
Relevant citations have not been provided for the methodology used.
Bar graphs do not show significant differences in all the cases. These have not been highlighted in the manuscript. It should be good to add an anatomical picture so that the reader can understand the difference.
The discussion section has lots of unnecessary information.
The writeup is so bad, that it's not possible to concentrate on the science. The manuscript must be edited by a Professional English language editor before it can be evaluated for its scientific merit and quality.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
The manuscript entitled "Biochemical, anatomical, genetic and yield assessment of some rice genotypes (Oryza sativa L.) subjected to drought stress" is well structured, and the research work aims are relevant. I have the following concerns regarding the current manuscript that authors should consider while revising.
1. In the title, use the specific number of rice genotypes instead of using the term "some."
2. Re-write the abstract more precisely and include the concluding remark at the end.
3. Improve the quality of Figure 5.
4. The gene names should be italicized. Check and correct throughout the manuscript.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript has been further improved.
Response to the comments is only average.
Improved significantly compared to the last version.
But can still be improved.
