Environmental Impact of Sulfate-Reducing Bacteria, Their Role in Intestinal Bowel Diseases, and Possible Control by Bacteriophages

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments

This article has been reported the impact of sulfur reducing bacteria on environments including human health, and some information about controlling them with bacteriophages. These topics are very interesting and beneficial. I have some minor comments as below.

1) L64: Is the capital letter (Sweet) needed?

2) Do the authors use SRB as an abbreviation of sulfur-reducing bacteria (i.e. plural form)? In this article, SRB mean both singular form and plural one. Please unify the form of it.

3) L87: Is “their families” correct expression?

4) Could you unify L96-99 and L100-110?

5) L111-116: These sentences are said about “the order Desulfobacterales” , I think these positions are next to the sentence of “Members of ........... psychrophilic” (L94-95) better.

6) L133: The expression “divalent Hg+” is strange. Please correct it.

7) L234 and L235: One of two sentences should be deleted.  “SRBs nevertheless are sometimes associated with intestinal mucosal diseases, especially ulcerative colitis [99-103]. SRB are often associated with idiopathic intestinal inflammation, such as ulcerative colitis.

8) L362: Please add the reference of “The biocorrosion phage control procedure was patented in America in 2009. “

9) L383-384: Please check the sentence, “Moreover, 383 given the prophage linkage within strains within one species,”

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your time and your review our manuscript. Our responses to your comments are bellow and indicated yellow.

Reviewer 1

This article has been reported the impact of sulfur reducing bacteria on environments including human health, and some information about controlling them with bacteriophages. These topics are very interesting and beneficial. I have some minor comments as below.

1) L64: Is the capital letter (Sweet) needed?

It is not needed, and it was revised.

2) Do the authors use SRB as an abbreviation of sulfur-reducing bacteria (i.e. plural form)? In this article, SRB mean both singular form and plural one. Please unify the form of it.

SRB abbreviation we used for the plural form.

3) L87: Is “their families” correct expression?

Yes, it is written correctly.

4) Could you unify L96-99 and L100-110?

It was unified.

5) L111-116: These sentences are said about “the order Desulfobacterales” , I think these positions are next to the sentence of “Members of ........... psychrophilic” (L94-95) better.

It was revised.

6) L133: The expression “divalent Hg+” is strange. Please correct it.

It was revised.

7) L234 and L235: One of two sentences should be deleted.  “SRBs nevertheless are sometimes associated with intestinal mucosal diseases, especially ulcerative colitis [99-103]. SRB are often associated with idiopathic intestinal inflammation, such as ulcerative colitis.

The first sentence was erased.

8) L362: Please add the reference of “The biocorrosion phage control procedure was patented in America in 2009. “

It was added.

9) L383-384: Please check the sentence, “Moreover, 383 given the prophage linkage within strains within one species,”

It was revised.

Thank you for your time and your help.

Best wishes,

Ivan Kushkevych and co authors

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript is well written. The scope of the review has been developed providing an overview of the current state of SRB-phage research.

In general, the topic is nice and comprehensively described, but I suggest publication after minor revisions.

Since the purpose of the review (also described by the title) concerns to the potential for bacteriophages to be used in the control of SRB, it would be necessary to implement paragraph 3.5. "Research in the field of SRB bacteriophages", including more works from the literature.

Furthermore, the review describes the harmful effects of SRB also on humans, so it should be report also in title.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your time and your review our manuscript. Our responses to your comments are bellow and indicated yellow.

The manuscript is well written. The scope of the review has been developed providing an overview of the current state of SRB-phage research.

In general, the topic is nice and comprehensively described, but I suggest publication after minor revisions.

Since the purpose of the review (also described by the title) concerns to the potential for bacteriophages to be used in the control of SRB, it would be necessary to implement paragraph 3.5. "Research in the field of SRB bacteriophages", including more works from the literature.

Thank You for the suggestion, but we used the maximum literature data that can be found in relevant databases concerning SRB bacteriophages. Unfortunately, at the present time this topic is scarcely researched and there is a significant lack of published works.

Furthermore, the review describes the harmful effects of SRB also on humans, so it should be report also in title.

The title was revised.

Thank you for your time and your help.

Best wishes,

Ivan Kushkevych and co authors