Frontline Warrior microRNA167: A Battle of Survival

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors comment on the study by Liu et al. The commentary highlights the findings and importance of miR167 against maize lethal necrosis (MLN), showing the role of Zma-miR167 in positively imparting resistance to MCMV and SCMV. Nevertheless, I suggest that the authors add some outlook for the study, such as whether there are still some shortcomings in the study and what future explorations should be carried out.

 Other comments:

(1) The following reference has character shading, please remove it.

Tripathi, A., Goswami, K., Tiwari, M. et al. (2018) Identification and comparative analysis of microRNAs from tomato varieties showing contrasting response to ToLCV infections. Physiol Mol Biol Plants 24, 185–202

(2) Journal abbreviations are not uniform in References.

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for highlighting the shortcomings to make a better commentary article. As per the reviewer's suggestion, we have made changes to the manuscript.

1. We have added what future explorations need to be carried out.
2. We have removed the reference quoted.
3. We have checked the journal abbreviations and corrected it in the revised version.

Reviewer 2 Report

The commentary manuscript by Suri and Tiwari, describes and highlights the Zma-miR167 driven defensive mechanism against MCMV virus in maize previously reported by Liu et al., 2022. In plants, miRNAs play critical roles during development and against invading pathogens. Previously has been described the role of miRNAs (i.e. miRNA393) in antibacterial mechanisms throughout  Auxin pathways regulation, however, to the best of my knowledge the report by Liu et al., 2022 is the first report of similar responses against viruses in plants.

During MCMV infection Zma-miR165 is substantially upregulated, and its basal levels are higher in resistant cultivars compared with the susceptible with the concomitant decreased levels of viral genomic RNA accumulation. By using elegant molecular, genetic and biochemical approaches, the authors showed the mechanism of this novel antiviral mechanism. Briefly, they showed that ZmARF3 and ZmARF30 Auxin response factors are the targets of Zma-miR165, and that both ZmARF3 and ZmARF30 activate the expression of Polyamine Oxidase 1 (ZmPAO1) gene by directly promoter binding, regulating negatively the resistance against MCMV. Interesting, antiviral mechanism is counteracted by viral p31 protein ZmPAO1 targeting by enhancing enzymatic activity resulting in pro-viral promotion.

The commentary manuscript is well written and correctly summarizes the findings of Liu et al., 2022, and from my point of view is suitable for publication in IJPB journal.

Author Response

We thank the reviewer for appreciating our work.