The Intriguing Conundrum of a Nonconserved Multifunctional Protein of Citrus Tristeza Virus That Interacts with a Viral Long Non-Coding RNA
and Svetlana Y. Folimonova 1,*Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
In this paper the authors study Citrus tristeza virus (CTV), the largest non-segmented plant RNA virus. In particular they address the production of a 5’-coterminal lncRNA, called LMT1 and find that LMT1 binds to a multifunctional CTV protein p33, both in vivo and in vitro. They use various adequate experimental approaches to address this binding. Further experiments allowed for mapping the binding sites to two distinct regions within LMT1. It turns out, this is the first report about a plant virus protein binding to its own lncRNA and they discuss. the biological significance of the interaction.
This is an interesting and important article regarding this complexed plant RNA virus, and it should be published. I liked the Discussion section. However, I suggest the Results section be read again and improved on clarity of description at several places.
Author Response
We thank the reviewer for the suggestions and believe that those helped to improve our manuscript. In the revised version, we carefully went over the manuscript and edited a few places to improve the manuscript's clarity. The revised version of the manuscript showing the changes made is attached here.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
This study first demonstrated that a non-structural protein encoded by an RNA virus (p33 protein of Citrus tristeza virus, CTV) specifically bindings to a long non-coding RNA generated during the virus infections ( CTV LMT1 lncRNA), but not a full length genomic RNA. This study used a combination of complementary approaches to comprehensively characterize interaction between the LMT1 nclRNA and the CTV p33 protein.
LncRNAs of plant viruses are poorly characterized therefore detailed analysis of the CTV p33 - LMT1 interactions presented in this paper would contribute to the understanding of their roles in plant virus infections and virus-plant interactions.
The experiments were carefully designed and performed to the highest standard, the results are well-discussed and presented, therefore this paper should be accepted as it is.
Author Response
We thank the reviewer for the time and work while reviewing our manuscript as well as for the nice comments about our study and article.
