Genetic Engineering for Enhancing Sugarcane Tolerance to Biotic and Abiotic Stresses
, Jun-Gang Wang 3, Chao-Hua Xu 1, Xin Lu 1, Jun Mao 1, Xiu-Qin Lin 1, Chun-Yan Kong 1, Chun-Jia Li 1, Xu-Juan Li 1, Chun-Yan Tian 1, Mahmoud H. M. Ebid 1,4, Xin-Long Liu 1 and Hong-Bo Liu 1,*Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsI like the manuscript in general and think it would be of use to the sugarcane research community. It nevertheless needs massive English editing as it is really difficult to understand.
Technical issues:
Complete herbicide resistance does not really exist. It is more correct to name it herbicide tolerance.
Line 148, etc
Commenting about virus resistance:
“These plants produce viral protein homolog that bypasses several stages of the viral life cycle and reduces disease manifestation.”
The original idea for viral resistance was to overexpress the coat protein to package the viral particles before they could replicate in the cell but the reality is that the resistance was achieved by sense co-suppression gene silencing.
Line 560: “To date, four types of nucleases have been developed”
Incorrect, there are hundreds of nucleases used and developed for molecular biology. There are 4 classes of nuclease-mediated genome editing methods/technologies.
Line 589: “CRISPR/Cas9 technology can be used to develop genome-edited varieties resistant to different biotic stresses (Figure 4), either by stacking R genes or by deleting susceptibility genes”
Stacking of R genes refers to the introduction of R genes into the plant genome and is achieved by genetic modification, not by gene editing.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageLine 71: “Plants that exhibit resistance to herbicides are called herbicide-resistant”
I’m pretty sure people already know this.
Line 87: “By incorporating embryonic calli with a glyphosate-tolerant (GT) gene, the first study published the genetic transformation of four sugarcane genotypes through bombardment of embryonic calli with unnamed GT gene.”
Researchers don’t incorporate embryonic calli with a glyphosate-tolerant (GT) gene. Researchers incorporate genes into the genome of embryonic calli.
“unnamed GT gene”? what does that means?
Line 102: “Genetic modification using stack gene was performed”
???
Line 109: “A recent study has presented on efficient transformation system mediated by Agrobacterium, utilizes the herbicide-resistant bar gene as selectable marker”
???
Line 132: “To effectively combat disease resistance in sugarcane production, ample approach is necessary,”
???
Too many examples throughout the manuscript to cite them all
Author Response
I like the manuscript in general and think it would be of use to the sugarcane research community. It nevertheless needs massive English editing as it is really difficult to understand.
Response: Thank you for your valuable suggestions. The manuscripts have been rechecked and edited by a native English speaker.
Technical issues:
Complete herbicide resistance does not really exist. It is more correct to name it herbicide tolerance.
Response: Thank you for your valuable suggestions. All the abiotic resistance has been replaced with tolerance.
Line 148, etc
Commenting about virus resistance:
“These plants produce viral protein homolog that bypasses several stages of the viral life cycle and reduces disease manifestation.”
The original idea for viral resistance was to overexpress the coat protein to package the viral particles before they could replicate in the cell but the reality is that the resistance was achieved by sense co-suppression gene silencing.
Response: Thank you for your correction. Your suggestions are followed.
Line 560: “To date, four types of nucleases have been developed”
Incorrect, there are hundreds of nucleases used and developed for molecular biology. There are 4 classes of nuclease-mediated genome editing methods/technologies.
Response: Thank you for your correction. The sentence has been revised.
Line 589: “CRISPR/Cas9 technology can be used to develop genome-edited varieties resistant to different biotic stresses (Figure 4), either by stacking R genes or by deleting susceptibility genes”
Stacking of R genes refers to the introduction of R genes into the plant genome and is achieved by genetic modification, not by gene editing.
Response: Thank you for your correction. The sentence has been revised.
Comments on the Quality of English Language
Line 71: “Plants that exhibit resistance to herbicides are called herbicide-resistant”
I’m pretty sure people already know this.
Response: Thank you for your correction. This information was included for a general audience, but we have followed your suggestion and removed the sentence.
Line 87: “By incorporating embryonic calli with a glyphosate-tolerant (GT) gene, the first study published the genetic transformation of four sugarcane genotypes through bombardment of embryonic calli with unnamed GT gene.”
Researchers don’t incorporate embryonic calli with a glyphosate-tolerant (GT) gene. Researchers incorporate genes into the genome of embryonic calli.
“unnamed GT gene”? what does that means?
Response: Thanks for your correction. The name of the gene is GT gene for glyphosate-tolerant, replaced with GT gene. The sentence has been revised.
Line 102: “Genetic modification using stack gene was performed”
Response: In this study, two genes, ( gene pyramiding) a cane borer-tolerant (CEMB-Cry1Ac) and glyphosate-tolerant (CEMB-GT Gene) genes, were stacked together. The sentence has been revised.
Line 109: “A recent study has presented on efficient transformation system mediated by Agrobacterium, utilizes the herbicide-resistant bar gene as selectable marker”
Response: In this study, the bar gene was used as selectable marker, which exhibited tolerance to herbicides. The sentence has been revised. However, the target gene ScD27.2 was introduced into sugarcane and its main role in drought tolerance. We also provide explaination of ScD27.2 gene in abiotic stress tolerance section, [please refer to Reference 27].
Line 132: “To effectively combat disease resistance in sugarcane production, ample approach is necessary,”
Response: Thank you. Your suggestions are followed.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsDear Authors
The current manuscript entitled “Genetic Engineering for Enhancing Sugarcane tolerance to Biotic and Abiotic Stresses” discuss the Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat (CRISPR) mediated genome editing technology in sugarcane. In this review article, authors aimed to explore innovative genetic engineering techniques and their successful application in developing sugarcane cultivars with enhanced resistance to biotic and abiotic stresses to produce superior sugarcane cultivars. The review is a good compilation of previous informations, although there are certain opportunities for further improvements, please find them below.
1. Table 1 contains only the transgenic approach, there is no report for mutants’ creation?
2. Table 2. List of genetic engineering traits for disease resistance in sugarcane, the table can be divided into subsections for bacterial/virus/fungus etc mediated diseases.
3. Similarly abiotic stress section seems a collection of references only. It may be divided into different subsections and explore more the discussion.
4. Moreover, the review article looks like a reference list of previous work, please highlight that the what this review add to the current existing literature.
Thank you
Regards
Author Response
- Table 1 contains only the transgenic approach, there is no report for mutants’ creation?
Response: Thank you for your suggestion, but our review mainly focuses on transgenic approaches.
- Table 2. List of genetic engineering traits for disease resistance in sugarcane, the table can be divided into subsections for bacterial/virus/fungus etc mediated diseases.
Response: Thank you for your suggestion. The table has been rearranged accordingly.
- Similarly abiotic stress section seems a collection of references only. It may be divided into different subsections and explore more the discussion.
Response: Thanks for the suggestion. However, we have not explained it in very detail as it may become lengthy like a chapter.
- Moreover, the review article looks like a reference list of previous work, please highlight that the what this review add to the current existing literature.
Response: In this review article we attempt to encompasses important genetic engineering techniques and their successful application in developing sugarcane cultivars resistant to biotic and abiotic stresses, resulting in superior sugarcane cultivars.
Thank you!
Author Response File: Author Response.docx
