The work addresses a subject of technological interest. However some weaknesses must be solved to improve it. A justification of the experimental design (since high levels of gluten are incorporated) is needed, they are not the usual levels added when gluten is used as a flour improver. Finding correlations among the different results would improve the discussion. Microstructure assays, such as microscopy observation with specific dyes, could better support the authors’ hypothesis about the effect of added gluten on the gluten network development in dough.
Experimental design: how was the range of gluten addition chosen? Which criteria were applied? Levels of added gluten in the industry to correct the flours performances are usually lower.
Line 98. If possible, add more information about the commercial gluten added. About the wheat flour used, it is reported the level of total protein (14%) but more information for comparison is needed: wet gluten content, dry gluten content, gluten index if possible.
Table 1. The use of percent here is confusing. I suggest indicating all the gluten and yeast amounts on 100 g flour basis
Line 125. “The pasting properties of the dough were measured according to Arp et al. (2021) with slight modifications” In this work RVA is not used, please revise.
Line 168 “The mean value of each porosity was calculated by” I suggest replacing “porosity” by “parameter” since you are evaluating three parameters: pore density, average pore area and porosity.
Lines 247-250. “DDT, probably because the small amount of exogenous protein added did not form a complete network and would destroy the original network structure of the dough. As the amount of protein added continued to increase, DDT increased slightly, indicating that the added exogenous protein reached a sufficiently high level to establish a new protein network structure under the effect of hydration, and the consistency improved gradually”
Lines 261-262. “Adding more gluten would increase the WA (i.e., the moisture content) of the system and affect the DDT of the system by gradually building new structures while further diluting and destroying the original gluten network”
It is not clear why the authors consider that the network is destroyed at low levels of added protein (gluten) and a new network is formed at higher levels. However, in the second paragraph, it is said that the original gluten network is also destroyed when more gluten is added. It is not clear this effect and the term “destroy” is not precise.
Lines 263-264. Authors report a decrease and an increase in C1, however values with added gluten are not significantly different from each other and values with 10%, 20%, 40% and 50% gluten are not significantly different from control one. Please, check the discussion.
Table 2. Letters indicating significant differences are lacking for C2.
References format: please check the format of the references cited in the text. For example, “Yu and Ma et al (2021)” should be “Yu et al. (2021)”
Line 362. “would destroy the original gluten network”. Do you mean “disrupt”? The word “destroy” is not adequate. Indeed, for assessing the degree of disruption or modification of gluten network, it would be necessary to perform microscopy studies.
Bread characteristics: in lines 383-385 authors say “When the addition was increased to 50%, a rise was observed in the specific volume of bread, consistent with previous experiments where baking losses increased and moisture content decreased, and systemic changes resulted in these differences” Please, be more specific in this explanation, it seems that there is not a correlation between baking loss, moisture and specific volume.
Figure 3 caption. Meaning of the letters above bars should be explained in the figure caption. Please, check letters in Figure 3 A. Samples with 10-30% and 50% gluten addition support the same letter (c) and it is not clear the need of letter b.
Lines 399-400. “When the amount of gluten added reached 50%, subtle changes occurred, as the specific volume of bread started to increase and the porosity started to increase, indicating that adding too much protein might have a negative impact on bread quality.” A higher specific volume is a positive attribute, it is not clear why the authors speak about a negative impact on bread quality.
In the section 3.3.2, the parameters related to porosity and reported in Table 4 are not analyzed. Are there correlations between porosity parameters and section height and the specific volume?
Lines 427-428. “Table 6 provides a horizontal comparison of the differences in texture parameters (hardness, springiness, cohesiveness, gumminess, chewiness, and resilience) among different samples on the same day.” The term “horizonal comparison” is not clear. It is a comparison among samples with different levels of gluten addition performed on fresh breads (breads without storage).
Line 461. “with no change in the bread substance.” Please, clarify.
Line 472. Is it “enriched proteins” or “protein enrichment”?
Line 672. “0%-50% means the proportion of gluten added is 0-50%” It is suggested “0%-50% means the proportion of gluten added” and it would be necessary to indicate if it is flour basis (on 100 g flour)
Table 7. Meaning of the columns headings should be added as footnotes. Are there significant differences among the eGI (last column)?
Conclusion. Authors say “Addition of a small amount (10%-20%) of gluten damaged the original gluten structure without forming a complete and new gluten network, so the bread had poor water holding capacity, high porosity, and too rough a texture.” To assess damage in gluten network, microstructural assays (such as microscopy assays) would be necessary. Besides, at 20% added gluten level the specific volume is the highest one, indicating a good performance. Why the authors conclude a “too rough texture”?

The authors have improved the manuscript and added new experimental data (SEM). There are still some points, many of them related to the new added results, that are recommended for revision.
The authors have incorporated microscopy images (SEM) that could be very helpful to understand the type of gluten network that is formed. However, I suggest revising the description, particularly in the following points (see below). As a suggestion, consider the possibility of adding letters to point out, on the photographs, those structures you are describing in the text. This could help the reader.
Line 358. When describing gluten structures, it is more convenient to use the word “films” to indicate those laminar structures that can wrap starch granules. It seems more appropriate that “a mucous membrane”
Lines 361-362. “which was due to the small amount of natural gluten in whole wheat flour and its easy destruction by the fibrous components in it” It seems that the authors propose that the gluten network in whole wheat dough is disrupted/altered by the fibre present in whole flour. Is this the meaning? If this is so, please rewrite in a clearer way and add a reference about the effect of fiber on gluten network formation. Please, be specific about the fibrous components you mention.
Besides, the authors use the word gluten when they are indeed referring to proteins before gluten formation. Gluten is formed by kneading. It is not present as a hydrated protein network in the flour; the proteins able to form gluten are present in the endosperm and they are able to develop the network when there is enough water available and kneading is applied. Please, check the expression “natural gluten in whole wheat flour”.
Lines 362-364. “When 10% gluten was added, it could be seen that the gluten content in the dough increased, but the bond between gluten became looser and the connection between gluten and starch granules became weaker” How could this fact be inferred from the photograph?
Lines 370-371. “spongy structure with many large cavities, probably because too much protein added might have some negative effects on the gluten network structure” Please, be more specific about the mechanism by which too much protein led to larger cavities. If possible, support your statement with references.
Lines 379 – 382. “This response might be related to the interaction between starch and protein in the dough, as the addition of a small amount of protein would damage the original gluten network, but as the amount of protein added increased, enough protein would be available to build a new protein network structure, thereby strengthening the gluten network structure, improving water retention (Villanueva et al., 2014)” The beginning of this paragraph is some misleading since you do not relate the described effects to protein-starch interaction but to the formation a gluten network. Please rewrite.
Lines 479-481. “This was because there was no change in the properties of the bread, and the whole wheat bread still contained a loose and porous bread structure and a highly dextrinized and digestible starch structure after the addition of gluten.” This phrase has replaced another paragraph of the previous version. However, in the present version, it is not clear why the authors infer that there is highly dextrinized starch after the addition of gluten. Please, revise.
Minor corrections:
Page 43. Line 163
I suggest replacing the title “Pore parameter” by “Porosity parameters”
Line 169. Replace “porosity” by “parameter
Line 261. Avoid using the word “destruction”

The article has been thoroughly revised and in my opinion, it is suitable for publication now.