Biological Exploration and Physicochemical Characteristics of Tomato Brown Rugose Fruit Virus in Several Host Crops
, Henry López López 1, Gustavo Alberto FrÃas Treviño 1,†, Juan Carlos Delgado Ortiz 1,2, Alberto Flores Olivas 1,*, Luis Alberto Aguirre Uribe 1 and AgustÃn Hernández Juarez 1
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Dear authors, thanks a lot for such very good work. It just needs some corrections to be easily accepted. Would you please follow the following points:-
Title: the current title is “Biological Exploration and Physicochemical Characteristics of ToBRFV in Tomato Plants, Tobacco, and Alternative Hosts”. You work on tomato, pepper, and other crops, so you can change the title into “Biological Exploration and Physicochemical Characteristics of ToBRFV in several Host crops”.
Abstract: would you please clarify if your work is on tomato only or tomato and pepper. As the title and abstract are not matched together.
Introduction: from line 71 to line 80, it should be the aim of your work, and not an explanation for your methods. So, please rephrase it.
Methods: please rephrase line 126, as it is not clear.
Please transfer figure 1 ad figure 2 into results section.
There is no statistical analysis section in methods
In references: please follow the journal style (i.e., bold the year).
Comments on the Quality of English Language
Minor editing of English language required
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
The manuscript entitled “Biological Exploration and Physicochemical Characteristics of 2 ToBRFV in Tomato Plants, Tobacco, and Alternative Hosts” by Gutierrez et al., describes an emerging plant virus ToBRFV. Authors have performed several experiments to determine the viral physiochemical properties and pathogenicity in different hosts. The study adds important information to the standing knowledge about this virus.
There are several places where sentences are vague and/or ambiguous. Authors are suggested to carefully revise the whole manuscript to improve the overall presentation and quality.
Additionally, I have following comments:
Line 16-18: Please modify the sentence for clarity. It should be written as “Seed inoculants recovered from To- 16 BRFV-infected tomato samples in Coahuila, Mexico were confirmed by RT-PCR.”
Line 20-22: “In another greenhouse experiment, Nicotiana longiflora plants inoculated with ToBRFV to determine in vitro longevity (IVL) and thermal inactivation (TI) of infection occurred.” This sentence is a bit confusing. Please rewrite it as IVL and TI are determined for the “virus in sap” rather than “infection”.
Line 23: “open fields occurred” should be replaced with “open fields was carried out”
Line 31-32： “However, Ipomoea purpurea, Mirabilis jalapa, 31 Clematis drummondii, and Solanum tuberosum have emerged as potential hosts for ToBRFV”. Have these hosts been described previously to be infected with ToBRFV ? If not, authors must clearly state in the abstract that these are the newly identified hosts of the virus.
Line 45: “ToBRFV spreads”
Line 72: “In this work, we studied the persistence of the virus able to survive in plant residues and sap in vitro with ToBRFV.” Please rewrite this sentence for clarity.
Line 76: “Nicotiana longiflora,” The genus name can be abbreviated.
Line 77: “in vitro” Please pay attention to italicized words and be consistent throughout the manuscript.
Line 83: “The research occurred” seems vague, please modify it appropriately.
Line 88-89: “. The rapid detection by immunoStrip (Agdia, Elkhart, USA) to confirm the presence of 88 the virus based on the symptoms observed took place”. Please rearrange and rephrase the sentence to omit ambiguity.
Line 90: “isolates were moved”
Line 192: “N. longiflora” should be italicized.
Line 241: “N. tabacum” should be italicized.
Figure 6 and 8： Please add the title for horizontal axis.
Figure 9: Please add scale bars on the figures.
Figure 9: Did authors take pictures for the uninfected (healthy control) tissues ?
Line 680: Please italicize “S. melongena and S. tuberosum”
References:
The reference number 10 to support “Since the discovery of the first virus infecting tobacco plants, Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV) [10]”, is incorrect. Please refer to the correct publication describing the first identification of TMV.
Comments on the Quality of English Language
There are several places where sentences are vague and/or ambiguous. Authors are suggested to carefully revise the whole manuscript to improve the overall presentation and quality.
Author Response
Consulte el archivo adjunto.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
Thorough English correction is required. The sentence forming is very poor and it is very difficult to read the manuscript. Abstract itself is with lot of mistakes in framing sentences. The review can be done only after English correction
Comments on the Quality of English Language
Dear authors,
Thorough English correction is required. Then only the manuscript can be reviewed
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
The manuscript by Gutierrez et al., explored ToBRFV in tomato, tobacco and alternate hosts. Moreover, the authors determined the viral inclusions, dilution end point, incubation period, latency period, in vitro longevity, and thermal inactivation. The results were confirmed by DAS-ELISA and RT-PCR. They observed that viral inclusions on tomato leaves manifested as X-bodies and rounded, stacked plaques within epidermal cells.
The manuscript is well written, but few corrections are needed to improve it
In Abstract, there is a need to give a sentence or two related to the significance of ToBRFV then start with your objectives.
There is a repetition of word “confirmed” in Line 17
Addition of a sentence or two at the end of the abstract related to the future perspectives would be good.
In Materials and Methods section, please rephrase Research and development heading with suitable words
How did you calculate the serial dilutions 1×10-3, 1×10-3.5, 1×10-4 ……?
In Line 106: please correct D3 (qx10-4)
In Line 107: y D7 (1x10-6) I think y is mistakenly written please recheck.
In Line 178: It should be AUDPC instead of ABCPE.
In Line 192: please italicize the scientific name N. longiflora
In Line 207: Replace the word “I conducted” with “we conducted”.
Line 220-226: Sentences are ambiguous while elaborate the modification made in this experiment.
Table 1 and 2: The writing style is not consistent with the text of the manuscript.
Line 303-312: The writing style is not consistent with the text of the manuscript.
Line 355-363: It should be given as footnote of the table.
Line 427-428: The writing style is not consistent with the text of the manuscript.
In discussion section, the irrelevant references should be avoided and use only relevant references.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 5 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors
This manuscript determines the presence of Tomato brown rugose fruit virus (ToBRFV) infection in tomato, tobacco, and several varieties of other natural hosts. In addition, the authors did several biological analyses to check the effect of virus infection in the host. Generally, the manuscript did provide a pile of data. However, the writing and organization of the manuscript hinder readers for a good understanding. Some of the descriptions even seems misleading. Without further revision, the impact of this work cannot be evaluated concisely.
Below, I just give a few examples.
In Table 1, Dilution endpoint from ToBRFV inoculations in tomato plants. Neither the dilution series nor the inoculated concentrations of D1 to D7 were mentioned. Instead, they first appeared in Figure 3. Additionally, I felt it is important to provide the concentration data of the undiluted virus sap.
Line 297. “It observed that tomato plants var. 172-300, which inoculated with ToBRFV (Table 1), experienced a significant decrease in FFW, FDW, RFW, SPAD, and N variables by applying treatment D7 compared to the control.” This description is not match with the data provided.
In figure 5, the central theme of description is lacking. What is the DO405 stand for. DAS-ELISA results? What kind of effect?
Figure 6. The thermal inactivation point of ToBRFV sap inactivation in Nicotiana longiflora plants needs to be determined. If the point here is determined. Then the title should be “Determination of the thermal inactivation point of ToBRFV sap inactivation in Nicotiana longiflora plants”
In the title of Table 1. “Days post infection” is a different concept from “Days post inoculation.”
Line 331. The concentration of ToBRFV is 1x101 (w/v). This is a little bit confusing. More details are need. What is the W/V referring to.
Title 2.1. “Research Area development” should be more specific. Like “plant growth condition”. Some description here are likely repeated in Results. For instance, description in Line 90-94 is quite similar with description in 292-295.
Comments on the Quality of English Language
The English writing and organization of the manuscript hinder readers for a good understanding. Some of the descriptions even seems misleading.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 5 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors " My major concerns were addressed in the revised manuscript. However, the manuscript contains some typos or grammar mistakes. Below, I just give a few samples. Please provide the full name of "ToBRFV" in the Title. Abstract typos/grammar mistakes: line 13, considered "as"; Line 14, the objectives; Line 15, "was" to "were"; Line 16, seed inoculants were recovered from; line 25, provide full name of DAS-ELISA. Line 29, the "IP of TOBRFV" should be "TI of ToBRFV". Line 31, as previously unreported. A brief conclusion should be included at the end of Abstract, such as "Collectively, this study contributes to a better understanding of the impact of ToBRFV, which provide insight to manage and prevent the spread of ToBRFV in diverse environment." " Comments on the Quality of English Language
However, the manuscript contains some typos or grammar mistakes.
Author Response
Consulte el archivo adjunto.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
