Somatic Embryogenesis: A Tool for Fast and Reliable Virus and Viroid Elimination for Grapevine and other Plant Species

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors,

thank you for a comprehensive review "Somatic embryogenesis: a tool for fast and reliable virus and viroid elimination for grapevine and other plant species".

The review paper is well designed and written.

Here are a few comments:

Line 75: Please check the manuscript as numbers should be written as 87.5 with a semicolon, not a comma

Line 82: please delete his

Line 96: virus-free should be in italic

Line 178: check through the work and harmonize the writing of families of virus strains, (italic or not)

Line 224: Citrus instead of Citus

Figure 1: Please use the same font size

Kind regards.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 1 Comments

Line 75: Please check the manuscript as numbers should be written as 87.5 with a semicolon, not a comma

Response: corrected, also in lines 78, 79, 124, 164, 178, 222, and in Table 2 and 3

Line 82: please delete his

Response: deleted.

Line 96: virus-free should be in italic

Response: corrected in lines 85, 96, 221, 227, 

Line 178: check through the work and harmonize the writing of families of virus strains, (italic or not)

Response: latin words were harmonized in italics in the text.

Line 224: Citrus instead of Citus

Response: corrected

Figure 1: Please use the same font size

Response: corrected

 

The Authors thank you for your helpful revising!

 

 

Reviewer 2 Report

This manuscript summarizes the existing literature on the use of SE in the study of plant viruses and viroids. The submitted manuscript appears to be a well-organized review article overall. I hope to be able to read this manuscript quickly with other readers. However, I hope that the general principle for writing the scientific name of the virus is unified. When writing virus name as a scientific name, it is written in italics, and when it is mentioned like a general noun in the text, if it is not a place name, the first letter should also be written in lowercase. Please follow a guideline from ICTV for this part.

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 2 Comments

When writing virus name as a scientific name, it is written in italics, and when it is mentioned like a general noun in the text, if it is not a place name, the first letter should also be written in lowercase. 

Response: corrected.

The Authors thank you for your helpful revising!

Reviewer 3 Report

A manuscript requires a moderate level of revision prior to publication. For more details, see the attachment 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Response to Reviewer 3 Comments

1. Abstract: Abstract was corrected as suggested Lines 11-25

2. Introduction: first paragraph was rewrite and a review reference was added (lines 29-36)

3.  Introduction, line 38: "," was added after "plants"

3. Introduction, lines 66-68: new sentences were added about advantages and limitations of SE

4. Reference numbers were formatted as suggested, and were renumbered in the text.

5. 2.1. DNA viruses: hypothesis was added about why secondary embryogenesis is more effective for virus elimination (lines 84-87)

6. line 74: "," was added after "experiments"

7. line 80: "," was added after "cassava"

8. Justification of adventage of anther culture

Response: "The reason for the lower level of GLRaV-3 infection in anther derived callus is unknown, both anthers and ovaries were virus infected. According to the authors the larger size of the ovaries may be in the background"  Lines 98-100.

9. Hypothesis was added about why long term callus is virus free (lines 106-110)

10. 2.2.3. Tymoviridae: hypothesis was added (lines 116-121)

11. 2.2.4. Secoviridae: supplementary informations were added about the type of SE and the age of callus culture. (lines 125-129)

12. 2.4. Viroids: additional informations were added about ASBVd elimination (lines 141-145), and a hypothesis for HSVd and GYSVd elimination (lines 148-149) and the used diagnostic method (lines 153-155)

13. Tables 2 and 3: footnotes were added as suggested (lines 183-186 and 221-223)

14. 3.2. Positive sense RNA viruses: additional informations were added about the ArMV elimination experiment (lines 201-205)

15. 8. Conclusions: few lines were added about advantages an limitations of SE (lines 346-350)

16. 9. Short conclusions: a paragraph was added about future perspectives (Lines 366-369)

The Authors thank you for your helpful revising!

Round 2

Reviewer 3 Report

Overall, this is an interesting and quite well-written review on the application of somatic embryogenesis to produce virus-free plants. This is the first review paper focusing on how somatic embryos can be utilized to produce virus-free plants with several suitable examples, therefore the subject is fully justified and needed. The English form is good.

Author Response

Dear Reviewer,

Thank you very much for your helpful and intensive revising!

Yours faithfully,

Robert Olah