PONE-D-21-27980Isolation and optimization of extracellular PHB depolymerase producer Aeromonas caviae Kuk1-(34) for sustainable solid waste management of biodegradable polymersPLOS ONE

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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: Yes

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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: 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: 1. Authors did an excellent job of explaining the concept clearly and accurately.

2. Author should be congratulated for the novel endeavour, however language throughout the MS has to be improved, typographical errors, grammatical errors and syntax errors should be removed before submission.

3. Uniformity should be maintained, while writing the author's name.

4. There is a variation of statement between line no. 43 & 52. Author should check that properly.

5. In line no. 89, 'soil waste' should be replaced by 'sewage waste soil'.

6. In line no. 93, author should only mention the abbreviated form of 'PHB', as the full form is already mentioned in the introduction section.

7. Recast line no. 140.

8. The sub-section 2.11. should be deleted as this protocol is already mentioned in the sub-section 2.7. Author should properly check and modify that.

9. Sub-section 3.1. should be merged with 3.2. and in line no. 198 'soil sample' should be replaced by 'sewage waste soil sample'.

10. In line no. 201, before screening how did they get confirmed that all the 22 isolates were PHB degraders? Author should rearrange the result.

11. In Fig. 1, how the author measure zone of diameter by continuous streaking?

12. In line no. 141, it is already mentioned that 0.0245 g PHB film was used for soil burial, then why term 'different' is used in line no. 222.

13. If only A. caviae Kukl-(34) strain was examined for PHB film degradation, then why did author stated that different strains were examined in line no. 223?

14. Author should properly explain the requirement of section 4. This section includes the results, which were already stated in the individual section.

15. Result pertaining to percentage of PHB degradation should be mentioned in sub-section 3.5. instead of section 4, line no. 322.

16. The total weight of PHB degraded after pre-treatment with A. caviae Kukl-(34) varied in line no. 43, 52, 322 & 349. Author should check it properly.

17. In line no. 352, insert space between 'Bano' and 'et al'.

18. All the tables should be arranged as per the sequence of result throughout the MS. For eg. Table 2 should be captioned as Table 1 as it is the first table in the result section.

19. Reports are available (Pati et al., 2020, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00284-020-01922-7) for PHB degradation within 7-21 days by composting method. Thus, author should compare degradation of PHB in laboratory as well as environmental condition.

20. Throughout the MS, term 'the' is used repeatedly. Author should look into that and rectify wherever necessary.

The MS is accepted for publication; however, minor modification is required as per suggestion.

Reviewer #2: 1) Line 40- depolymerase enzyme activity – change it to depolymerase activity

2) Line 44 - FTIR, SEM- Expand

3) Line 48 - ANOVA

4) Line 51- This strain – this culture

5) Line 52 – was found to be- rephrase

6) 2.2. Sample collected- Provide coordinates/GPS location of the sampling site

7) Line 100- hours – h

8) Line 122- Cite the reference for Bergey's Manual of Determinative Bacteriology

9) Line 123- Table 3 ?

10) Line 191 – isolated bacterial isolate?

11) Line 227- SEM analysis – what is SEM?

12) In Methodology – details of SEM are not mentioned

13) Line 307-308 - 4. Application of A. caviae Kuk1-(34) sp. for soil bioremediation by soil burial method in aspects of solid waste management. What is author intend by in aspect of solid….?

14) Discussion can be improved

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Dr. Deviprasad Samantaray

Reviewer #2: Yes: R. Z. Sayyed

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Attachments

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Submitted filename: Reviewers Report PONE-D-21-27980.docx

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Submitted filename: PONE-D-21-27980.pdf

Isolation and optimization of extracellular PHB depolymerase producer Aeromonas caviae Kuk1-(34) for sustainable solid waste management of biodegradable polymers

PONE-D-21-27980R1

Dear Dr. NA,

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,

Marcos Pileggi, Ph.D

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

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

**********

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

**********

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: Authors should be congratulated for doing an excellent job to improve the quality of research article by making desirable modifications.

Reviewer #2: The authors have addressed all the concerns and made the corrections as per my suggestion. The manuscript is greatly improved

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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: Yes: Dr. Deviprasad Samantaray

Reviewer #2: Yes: RIYAZALI ZAFARALI SAYYED