Gene Expression in Zucchini Fruit Development

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

We would like to thank you for your effort in the evaluation of this article. We have incorporated all of your suggestions as they are useful and will improve the understanding of the work. We hope that these changes will cover your enquiries. We also apologize for the issues related with the English language/spelling.

We have incorporated all the reviewers’ suggestions into the new version of the manuscript in yellow.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Summary

The authors undertook phenotypic and transcriptomic studies among contrasting, 1-month-old zucchini genotypes subjected to three treatments (unpollinated [control], pollinated and treated with auxins) for one week. They demonstrated that the overexpression of CpAUX22 and the absence of overexpression of CpEXPLB1 might play a major role in the early stages of fruit set and fruit development. The CpEXPLB1 gene was highly upregulated in non-treated control samples, suggesting a relationship with fruit abortion.

General observations

This is a well-described transcriptomic study on the expression of genes involved in zucchini fruit set and early stages of fruit development, which merits publication in the journal Horticulturae. Specific comments and suggestions are made below for further improvement of the manuscript.

Specific comments/suggestions:

L31: According to pollination, the fruit set

It might be more appropriate to use a modified entry to this sentence, such as "Regarding pollination, the fruit set…"

 

L41-42: Furthermore, zucchini accessions CpCAL112, CM-37, E-27, PI261610, and V-185 have also been identified [5].

Sentence not clear. For what purpose have these accessions been identified? Are these accessions bearing parthenocarpic fruit?

 

L44-45: the important role of hormones during fruit set zucchini

The word "of" should be inserted before "zucchini".

 

L47-48: A plant that produce a fruit of large caliber and marketable shape without pollination, is often referred as vegetative parthenocarpy,

Suggested edit: "A plant that produces fruit of large caliber and marketable shape, without pollination, is often referred to as vegetatively parthenocarpic,…"

 

L53: In this sense, different methods without pollination to reach market fruit standards, do not activate the …

Suggested edit: "In this sense, different methods that result in the development of fruit according to market standards, without pollination, do not activate the…"

 

L64: Both CpAUX22 and CpIAA4 are consider short-live transcriptional factors that rapidly respond

Grammar! Suggested edit: "Both CpAUX22 and CpIAA4 are considered short-lived transcriptional factors that rapidly respond"

 

L93: Temperature was under 30 °C to avoid the attached flower phenomenon in Cavili.

What is meant with "attached flower phenomenon"? Please describe this phenomenon to facilitate reading.

 

L106: Market standards for length and weigh categorized in S

Please change "weigh" to "weight".

 

L108-110: Fruit weight, length and its central and apical diameter were measured on at least 8 fruits collected on 1 day pre-anthesis to 5 dpa for the three treatments (pollination, auxin-treated and control).

How can there be fruit on the plant before anthesis and pollination or other treatment?

 

L128, Table1: Why are two mRNA targets printed in blue colour and the others in black? This should be explained in the legend of the table.

 

L146-147: All the reagents were used as manufacturer's instructions

Suggested edit: either "as per manufacturer's instruction" or "following manufacturer's extraction".

 

L165: 3.1. Phenotyping of genotypes and treatments.

Treatments cannot be phenotyped, only treated plants. Please reformulate!

 

L189-190: This produced that the auxin-treated and pollinated fruits of Cavili had only a single day of ideal marketable harvest, after 3 dpa (Figure 1).

Should this not read "at 3 dpa"? If you mean after 3 dpa, you should specify the time interval after 3 dpa.

 

L297-298: Also, the fruit set is establish, and the ovary could start developing with further fruit cell division, or be aborted [2].

Sentence not clear. What do you mean by "the fruit set is establish,"? Should it read "established" or "in the establishment process"?

 

L383: Also, when the exponential growth of pollinated and aunxin-treated

Typing error: "aunxin-treated" – please correct!

 

L384: this gene was more expressed in this samples (Figure B1)

Grammar! Please change "in this samples" to "in these samples"

 

L386: but further analysis are required.

Grammar! Please correct to "is required" or change to "further analyses are required".

 

L391: RhEXPA4 has been reported to negatively affects plant development

Please change "affects" to "affect".

 

L408: the CpCYCD6-1 gene down-regulation in Cavili (Figure 3) were not exclusively associated

Grammar! Please change "were" to "was".

 

 

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

We would like to thank you for your effort in the evaluation of this article. We have incorporated all of your suggestions as they are useful and will improve the understanding of the work. We hope that these changes will cover your enquiries. We also apologize for the issues related with the English language/spelling.

We have incorporated all the reviewers’ suggestions into the new version of the manuscript in yellow.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors,

I revised the manuscript number horticulturae-1660642 titled: “Gene expression in zucchini fruit development.”.

To my opinion, the introduction, the experimental design, the results as well as the discussion are congruent with the objectives. Anyway English language and style need to be improved. Furthermore, also the statistical analysis related to the data reported in the graphs of Figure 2 needs for a proper explaination. Indeed, values are not processed according to ANOVA for 1,2,3 and 4 dpa. On the other hand, ANOVA is clearly indicated at 5 dpa. I kindly invite you to argument your decision or to apply ANOVA to all dpa data.

Best regards

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

We would like to thank you for your effort in the evaluation of this article. We have incorporated all of your suggestions as they are useful and will improve the understanding of the work. We hope that these changes will cover your enquiries. We also apologize for the issues related with the English language/spelling.

We have incorporated all the reviewers’ suggestions into the new version of the manuscript in yellow.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx