PONE-D-23-43778A new method based on melatonin-mediated seed germination for quickly removing pesticide residues and improving nutritional quality for contaminated grainsPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Tian,

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Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Dear authors,

After reviewing the paper entitled “A new method based on melatonin-mediated seed germination for quickly removing pesticide residues and improving nutritional quality for contaminated grains” by Li et al., a new method for removing pesticides from grains contaminated with pesticides has been developed using a combination of melatonin and germination. Not only can it effectively and quickly remove pesticide residues, but it can also increase the accumulation of antioxidants. The experimental design for this work is feasible, the data is reliable, and the necessity of the research work is clearly explained in the introduction. The significance and advantages and disadvantages of the experimental results were also discussed in depth. It is indeed a very interesting and meaningful work. However, there are also some minor problems that need to be improved.

1. Methods. It is recommended to use a flowchart for the experimental design section, which may be more conducive to understanding.

2. It is recommended to include references for the detection of vitamin C.

3. Figure 2 shows the experimental results of melatonin treatment for 24 hours, but the experimental design states that GSH, GR, and GST will be detected after 7 days of treatment. This may be due to the author's mistake or other reasons, which need to be clarified.

4. In the discussion section of L339-341, it is suggested to replace "combined treatment

with exogenous melatonin and pesticides" with "melatonin treatment", which emphasizes the promoting effect of melatonin.

5. At the end of the discussion section, it is suggested to provide suggestions for the shortcomings and improvement measures of this method, which would be better.

Best wishes

Your sincerely

Reviewer #2: The present manuscript is entitled “A new method based on melatonin-mediated seed germination for quickly removing pesticide residues and improving nutritional quality for contaminated grains”.

The presented manuscript is fascinating. This is extensive research, with a lot of analysis. A special contribution of the manuscript was focused on melatonin-mediated seed germination for quick removal of pesticide residues and improving nutritional quality. I found the research paper appropriate for publication in the Journal, but only after major modifications and clarification from the authors.

Please consider the text at the end of this letter

Keeping in mind the present form a few points which can be incorporated to enhance the quality and visibility of the manuscript

Major Comments

• The abstract portion is weak in a sense as not cover the whole idea of this research.

• The manuscript requires enhancement in its writing. It contains numerous superfluous sentences and grammatical errors that need to be addressed.

• Must write about the specification of the Gas chromatography instrument.

• Material and method are incomplete not mentioned about melatonin brand, preparation same applied for pesticides applied.

• Rather than writing this “ Here, an interesting question arises: why can the germination

• 313 process promote the degradation of pesticide residues in contaminated soybean seeds?” The author must explain the reason for this.

• Conclusion needs improvement in writing.

• Discussion is not more input.

Minor Comments

• Must check the spelling mistakes in the whole manuscript like line no. 26 “germination”.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: Chirag Maheshwari

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: Review comments DBL.docx

A new method based on melatonin-mediated seed germination to quickly remove pesticide residues and improve the nutritional quality of contaminated grains

PONE-D-23-43778R1

Dear Dr. Tian,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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Kind regards,

Rahul Kumar Tiwari, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The author made necessary revisions based on the review comments. This is indeed a very creative and persuasive job. I fully agree that the current status of the paper can be accepted and published in PLOS ONE.

Reviewer #2: No additional comments are necessary as all previous comments have been appropriately addressed to satisfaction.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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