Effect of Lactic Acid Fermentation on Legume Protein Properties, a Review

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript titled "Effect of lactic fermentation on legume protein properties. A review" gives a relevant overview of the described topic which is very is certainly timely and important. Overall the review is well structured and covers the important and relevant aspects to the field.
However, there is considerable room for improvement of this manuscript.
The English language needs to be checked for errors and there are several aspects throughout the manuscript which can be improved.Find more detailed comments (which should be seen as examples) for improving the manuscript. 

Title: "lactic fermentation" vs "lactic acid fermentation"; use one term consistently; "lactic acid fermentation" seems preferable as it is more correct

Figure 1 only contains positive effects of fermentation. Are there also negative effects? Is literature biased towards positive effects?

line 77: "nutriments"  correct

line 78: "There are three main ways for lactic fermentation;" I assume the authors mean metabolic pathways here. However, I think they really meant three main "metabolic conversions  take place: acid production, lipolysis, proteolysis" ; the English in this section can be phrased much nicer;  
Glycolysis starts indeed with glucose and not with any 6-carbon molecule; there are different enzymes/pathways that convert other 6-carbons into glucose before it goes into glycolysis - Have a microbial physiologist check the phrasings on metabolism as currently it contains several inaccuracies.

line 91: "enzymatic material" seems an odd phrasing "enzymatic capacity" instead?

line 101: "second world wide food crop" - do the authors mean "second most produced" -> check English for this inaccuracies throughout the paper

line 102: pulses are the seeds of legumes -> phrasing suggests something different -> change

line 109 "founds" remove "s"
line 119: "Legumes"
line 188: "lactic acid strains" make it "lactic acid bacteria" -> check paper for inacurate phrasings like this
line 202: could the difference also come from the strains which can be fundamentally different in their ability to show proteolysis; this is not necessarily determined by the protein itself then;
Line 218: Why are the studies considered contradictory? Like above different proteolytic activities by different strains could be the reason for the differences found.

Throughout the paper:  avoid the long lists of author names in sentences; it really makes the text difficult to read

line 238: rephrase the sentence. The word "facility" makes little sense here

section 6.1 can be shortened a lot - get rid of all the author names in the text

line 282: add references to the claims of the individual compounds. How strong are the underlying data of these claims. Be critical when citing and e.g phrase carefully if these things are based on single studies.

line 322 "did not observe"
line 326 "chymotrypsin"
line 363 " considered"
line 375 what do you mean with "biogenic amines decarboxylation"

section 6.2: this is a long list of findings; I think it would be nice to conclude each section with a 1 or 2 sentence high level summary about that section (you do it with other sections which I think is nice)

line 512: "certain organisms are considered probiotics" not "prebiotics" I assume

Throughout the manuscript proteolytic decay of plant proteins plays a role in many sections. In dairy fermentation proteolysis is highly dependent on extracellular proteases which are only present in a limited number of strains. These proteases and their activity on dairy proteins have been characterized in quite some detail. I am wondering if studies  linked proteolytic activities seen when fermenting plant proteins to the presence of extracellular proteases. Are studies available that look at substrate specificities of such proteases? Maybe the authors can comment on that. 

line 628: Why are the results controversial (do you mean variable)? Given different strain properties exist it is easy to imagine that the outcomes of fermentation can differ when using these strains. You mention this in the last sentence of the paragraph. Adjust phrasing.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript „Effect of lactic fermentation on legume protein properties. A review” provides a very broad and comprehensive overview of the fermentation of legumes with lactic acid bacteria. It is shown in great detail and very well supported by the literature how lactic acid fermentation changes the conformation and structure of legume proteins and thus all protein-related properties. Furthermore, it is very well illustrated how these changes clearly depend on the properties of the legumes, the process conditions and the fermentation bacteria. The organization and structure of the manuscript as well as the discussion are fine. Here are some minor comments:

Section 2, line 78ff: The author describes the three main pathways of lactic acid fermentation. The author should also describe that lactic acid occurs in two stereoisomers, L(+)-lactic acid as well as D(-)-lactic acid, and briefly discuss its production. The reaction of pyruvate to l-lactic acid is catalyzed by l(+)-lactate dehydrogenase, whereas the reaction of pyruvate to d-lactic acid is catalyzed by d(-)-lactate dehydrogenase ….and so on.

Whole document, e.g. line 208, 362, 364, 389, 443: Please check the setting of space characters, dots and brackets.

Subsection 6.4, line 485-487: Vitamin B12 is not just vitamin B12. There are four different forms. Is there a more detailed description of which form is meant?

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

Dear Authors,

The review article is relevant for the industry because is valuable source of current knowledge. The authors make reference to many relevant references. Therefore, I recommend this article to be published in Fermentation Journal with MINOR REVISION.

I have minor reservations about the level of language, it needs improvement at times. Likewise with punctuation (especially commas used unjustifiably or lack thereof) the length of some sentences. Some of them need shortening, rewriting at times, the content is interesting but not very reader-friendly. The authors sometimes use colloquial language when they should obviously use formal scientific style. 

The abstract needs to be improved highlighting the current problems and future perspectives.

Introduction, could add more relevant information.

In addition, the conclusion could be expanded.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx