PONE-D-23-26722Antibacterial Activities of Four Antioxidant Plants Consumed by Western Lowland Gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) living in Moukalaba-Doudou National Park (MDNP) infected by MDR E. coli (DECs).PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. OYABA YINDA,

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Reviewers' comments:

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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: Yes

Reviewer #3: Partly

Reviewer #4: Yes

Reviewer #5: Partly

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: I Don't Know

Reviewer #5: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

Reviewer #5: No

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: No

Reviewer #4: Yes

Reviewer #5: Yes

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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: There are some Comments for the Conclusion:

The conclusion provides valuable information about the antioxidant and antimicrobial properties of the studied plant extracts and their potential applications. However, the text could benefit from improved organization and clarity. Consider breaking down the conclusion into subsections to address different aspects more coherently, such as the results, applications, future research, and potential challenges.

The conclusion mentions the need for in vivo studies to understand the safety and efficacy of the plant extracts. It would be valuable to specify what types of safety and efficacy assessments are required and to discuss any potential challenges or ethical considerations in conducting such studies.

The conclusion suggests the need for the isolation and identification of bioactive compounds from the plant extracts. Expanding on this point by discussing potential methods for isolation and identification, as well as the significance of these compounds, would provide a more comprehensive outlook.

The text mentions using these plant extracts as substitutes for commercially available synthetic drugs. It would be beneficial to elaborate on which specific diseases or conditions these extracts might address and the potential advantages over synthetic drugs, such as reduced side effects.

While the conclusion discusses the pharmaceutical, cosmetic, and food industries as potential applications, it could delve into the specific products or treatments that might benefit from these plant extracts and how they could be incorporated.

Reviewer #2: The manuscript “Phytochemical Screening, Antioxidant and Antibacterial 1 Activities of Four Plants Consumed by Western Lowland Gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) living in Moukalaba-Doudou National Park (MDNP).” written by YINDA et al is well prepared and could be a significance contribution in the plant taxonomy. The manuscript can be considered for publication after addressing these minor corrections.

All corrections are in the pdf file as track changes.

Reviewer #3: -The paper is too long. It has to be shortened and stick only on essential points.

-2.3.1 extraction lines 148-149

This is not a new extraction procedure so figure 2 is without any added value. In addition Figure 2 is cited within the text as figure 1, see line 147.

-Line 271 Table 1. Caption: plant species……including diarrhoea…. What is the need to highlight diarrhoea here? And also diarrhoea is not listed as an indication for none of the plant species in the table.

-Order the plants in the table in alphabetical order either using the family name or the species name for the table to be more searchable. It could also be interesting to give more details about the mode of preparation.

-Line 275-276. Remove Table 2. Most of the data in table 2 are already listed in Table 1. Apart from the medicinal applications which actually refer to previous biological activities of plants extracts demonstrated in the literature.

-Remove Table 3. I believe the extraction yield id not a significant result needing a whole table of its own. This can be move to the supplementary information. A short sentence can be used to describe this result within the document.

-Table 4 biological activity coulumn: What does it stand for?

-Lines 298-310 are repeating the data described in the figure 3a and 3b. I suggest to delete this part. And add calibration curves to the supplementary information.

-What does the black rectangle in the legend of figures 3a and 3b stand for?

-Line 336 figure 4 instead of figure 3

Reviewer #4: Title: The title must be reformulate ".....activities of Aqueous and Ethanolic Extracts of Four plants......."

Abstract:

The First sentence of the abstract, is the only definition of Zoopharmacology and not resume the background and Justification of the Study

Introduction line 72:This sentense must be reformulate, ROS not produced Cancer, they can be responsible or contribute to Cancer development

Concerning the review, the authors are interesting to study the antibacterial and antioxidant properties of extracts from 4 plants consumed by gorilla for their health being. With the aim of discovery new drugs. But the authors should revised the justification of the choice of these four plants. As well as, there is a lot of scientific work that have been already done on these plants, the review should be update.

Line 144: Extraction

The nature of treatment of plant material is

The sentence should be reformulate, because after filtration of the two (ethanolic and aqueous) maceration, filtration is performed on the two and aqueous extract is direct freeze-dried, it is only ethanolic extract which is concentrate and should be dry in an oven

Moreover, why the choice of Water and ethanol only as solvent?

Line 179: DPPH radical scavenging activity

Why each of the eight BCE (particularly aqueous) were add to methanol to obtains stock solution? Why not in its solvent extraction solvent? What were containing in Blank Tube? Give details

Line 174: Table 1

The biological activities of the four plants always demonstrated should be resume in the review, also their utilization to justify their choice.

Figure 3a, 3b: What represent the black Rectangle, It should be remove on the figure

Conclusion:

According all the experimentation performed during the study. It not possible to choice the plant which presents the best activities to pursue the study (in vivo experimentation, isolation, identification and Characterization of bioactive compounds presents in plants)?

Reviewer #5: The authors should include a problem statement, motivation as well as hypothesis in the introduction. It will be difficult to discussion without a clear problem being addressed. The conclusion will be easier to reach if there is appropriate alignment with the problem statement

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

Reviewer #4: No

Reviewer #5: Yes: Buhlebelive Mndzebele

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: PONE-D-23-26722.pdf

Attachment

Submitted filename: One Plos.docx

PONE-D-23-26722R1Activités des extraits aqueux et éthanoliques de quatre plantes antioxydantes consommées par le gorille des plaines occidentales ( Gorilla gorilla gorilla ).PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. OYABA YINDA,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. ACADEMIC EDITOR: 

• Please revise your article title both in the submission system and in the article to be in English/the same.
• The defintion of Zoopharmacognosy in the main text may not be right. To my knowledge, this has to do with non-human animals using natural products for self medicating. Please recheck.
• In Table 2, what basis is used to indicate the abundance of the phytochemicals? Is it intensity of colors/foam oberved?. This should be mentioned explicitly in the legend.
• There are so many unnecessary in-text citations. I have offered some suggestions in the attached draft file to allow for deletion of some that may not be useful.
• Please summarize your CONCLUSIONS.
• References should have complete bibliographic information required. Please refer to the journal guidelines. Check the intext citations, some references do not match. For example, Wubetu et al. [48].  does match reference [48] which is Biwôle et al., Iroko wood (Milicia excelsa CC berg), a good candidate for high-speed rotation-induced wood dowel welding: An assessment of its welding potential and the water resistance of its welded joints. International Journal of Adhesion and Adhesives, 2023. 123: p. 103360

Please submit your revised manuscript by May 10 2024 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

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Timothy Omara, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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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 #5: 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 #5: Partly

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #5: 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: (No Response)

Reviewer #5: No

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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: (No Response)

Reviewer #5: 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 authors addressed all comments. There are no new comments, and it can be accepted for publication in the journal.

Reviewer #5: Dear Author

Title: Antibacterial Activities of Aqueous and Ethanolic Extracts of Four Antioxidant Plants 2 Consumed by Western Lowland Gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla).

Aim: The aim of this study was to determine the antioxidant and antibacterial activity of Ceiba pentandra, Myrianthus arboreus, Ficus ssp. and Milicia excelsa bark crude extracts (BCE), plants consumed by western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) and used in traditional medicine, and then to characterize their phytochemical compounds.

I have gone through the document.

These are my suggestions

In the introduction;

Please focus on the species of concern in relation to the study.

Its usage, values, usage and link everything to Gorillas

The desired medicinal properties should be aligned to the species of concern

I would like to believe that your study focuses on specific species. These should be addressed in the introduction.

Are the aspects mentioned from line 77 to 82 part of the study?

Once again try and bring focus to your study in relation to the aspects of interest as stated in the objectives

Characterization as well as taxonomy, GPS coordinates of the species of interest is key

There is Table 1 which has the biggest list. There after we have table 2 with fewer species. There should a clear flow of information on the reasons. Otherwise you can just stick to the species of interest only and justify rather than having species that are not part of the study

Discussion

State general observations

What caused those observations (positive and negative factors)

Compare with others, preferably recent

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #5: Yes: Buhlebelive Mndzebele

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: PLOS.docx

Attachment

Submitted filename: Antibacterial Activities of Four Antioxidant Plants_AE.docx

Antibacterial and Antioxidant Activities of Plants Consumed by Western Lowland Gorilla (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) in Gabon.

PONE-D-23-26722R2

Dear Dr. OYABA YINDA,

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,

Timothy Omara, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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