Factors Determining Transmission of Persistent Viruses by Bemisia tabaci and Emergence of New Virus–Vector Relationships

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Ghosh and Ghanim's manuscript on "Factors determining transmission of persistent viruses by Bemisia tabaci and emergence of new virus-vector relationships" presents a useful synopsis on the mechanisms of transmission of persistent viruses by whiteflies, going through an interesting review also on literature concerning the genetic and biochemical factors regulating this transmission, with the aim of defining the potential risk given by the evolution of recent new relationships between phytopathogenic viruses and whiteflies.

The drafting of the manuscript is very clear and well structured, and its reading is fluid and pleasant. The literature cited is complete, appropriate and up-to-date. The publication of the manuscript in the scientific journal Viruses is strongly recommended, even if some very small adjustments are suggested, to be considered as "very minor revisions".

SPECIFIC VERY MINOR NOTES

Line 32: replace “specie” with “species”.

Lines 39-40: rephrase as follows: “but only the three genera Bemisia Quanintance & Baker, Trialeurodes Cockerell and Aleurodicus Douglas are known to include transmitter species of over four hundred diverse viruses (Table 1)”.

Lines 40-41: rephrase as follows: “Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius), a species complex … etc.”.

Line 45: replace “Begomoviruses” with “Begomovirus”.

Line 47: delete “of” before “Polerovirus”.

Lines 55-62: format as text.

Line 56: replace “have” with “has”.

Line 58: replace “transmitted by the whitefly” with “transmitted by whiteflies”.

Line 64-79: format as figure caption.

Line 92: insert “,” after “amnionless”.

Line 247: delete “the” at the end of the line.

Line 256: insert “,” after “(RTD)”.

Line 264: insert “,” after “aphid”.

Line 275: insert “,” after “Israel”.

Line 306: delete “,” after “tabaci”.

Author Response

Comment 1- Replace specie with species

Response- The change was made.

Comment 2- Add Quaintance & Baker, Cockerell, Douglas to the genus level.

Response- The sentence was rephrased with Bemisia Quaintance & Baker, Trialeurodes Cockerell and Aleurodicus Russell.

Comment 3 - Replace “Begomoviruses” with “Begomovirus

Response: The change was made.

Comment 4 - Delete “of” before “Polerovirus”.

Response: ‘of’ was deleted.

Comment 5 - Replace “have” with “has”.

Response: The change was made.

Comment 6: Replace “transmitted by the whitefly” with “transmitted by whiteflies”

Response: The change was made.

Comment 7 - Insert “,” after “amnionless”

Response: Comma was inserted.

Comment 8- Delete “the” at the end of the line.

Response: ‘The’ was deleted.

Comment 9- Insert “,” after ‘RTD’ (line 256), aphid (line 264) and Israel (line 275).

Response: Comma was added to all the places indicated.

Comment 10- Delete “,” after tabaci.

Response- The change was made.

Reviewer 2 Report

Bemisia tabaci is a threatening pest in agriculture and particularly because it is transmitting a large range of damaging plant viruses. This and the global distribution of B. tabaci and transmitted viruses has generated worry and interest worldwide and intensive research to understand the successful interactions between plant virus and insect vector and particularly factors determining virus transmission.

In 2014, the corresponding author has already published a review on the same subject. The important literature published since then in the field, warrant an updated review in 2021. Another reason that warrant an update is that B. tabaci was discovered to transmit viruses belonging to families in which no virus had been detected to be whitefly transmitted so far. His group has discovered one of them, Pepper whitefly-borne vein yellows virus, a polerovirus infecting pepper.

It seems that most papers related to the subject were quoted in the review. The paper reads well and its organization is straightforward. Following a short introduction, the first major section is describing the transmission process step by step from virus ingestion to its secretion into the salivary canal. The second major section is about the first results obtained on whitefly transmission of viruses belonging to the polerovirus group, a genus in which such transmission was not reported.

Minor comments:

Line 18: Emergence of new virus-B tabaci interactions. Is emergence the right term? The term "Recent knowledge" is probably more appropriate.  Are these interactions new or merely newly discovered? They may have existed for a long time but were not noticed.

Lines 32-33: Inconsistency of the sentence? Is it virus-vector specificity that impede virus-vector evolution or insect-plant specificity? The sentence may be reworded or should it be combined with the following one concerning the virus-plant specificity.

Table 1: Why were references only provided for some viruses?

Line 61: transmission not Transmission

Line 104: Is the reorganisation of the actin filaments a general statement or does it apply to begomoviruses?

Table 2: if all the reported interactions concern begomoviruses and Bemisia tabaci, I would suggest to be more specific in the title. "...between the whitefly B. tabaci and begomoviruses".

Lines 143-145: Does reference 32 support this statement?

Lines 215-216: Sentence should be clarified. What means, "transciption of virus infected plants"? Should it be: transcription IN virus infected plants?

Line 217: If this sentence concern begomoviruses, CP protein should be singular; only one CP protein.

Line 242: reference 75 is about the whitefly transmitted polerovirus. A review on poleroviruses would probably be more relevant.

Line 460: To be consistent with other references, family names of authors should be written in full and first names abbreviated.

Author Response

Comment 1- Replace ‘emergence’ with recent knowledge (line 18)

Response- The sentence was rephrased as ‘recent knowhow of unorthodox virus-B.tabaci interactions’.

Comment 2- Is it virus-vector specificity that impede virus-vector evolution or insect-plant specificity (line 32)?

Response- Both the factors are included here onwards.

Comment 3- Why were references only provided for some viruses in Table 1?

Response- References for all virus genuses have been added.

Comment 4- Line 61: transmission not Transmission

Response: The change has been made.

Comment 5- Is the reorganisation of the actin filaments a general statement or does it apply to begomoviruses (line 104)?

Response: Viruses has been replaced with Begomoviruses for clearer understanding of readers.

Comment 6- Table 2: if all the reported interactions concern begomoviruses and Bemisia tabaci, I would suggest to be more specific in the title. "...between the whitefly B. tabaci and begomoviruses".

Response: The interaction with polerovirus cp and whitefly has been included to diversify the table.

Comment 7: Lines 143-145: Does reference 32 support this statement?

Response: Additional reference (35) has been added to support the statement.

Comment 8: Should it be: transcription IN virus infected plants (lines 215-16)?

Response: The change was made.

Comment 9: Line 217: If this sentence concern begomoviruses, CP protein should be singular; only one CP protein.

Response: The change was made.

Comment 10: Line 242: reference 75 is about the whitefly transmitted polerovirus. A review on poleroviruses would probably be more relevant.

Response: References (4, 76) were added to support the statement.

Comment 11: Line 460: To be consistent with other references, family names of authors should be written in full and first names abbreviated.

Response: The change was made.