Revisiting Papillomavirus Taxonomy: A Proposal for Updating the Current Classification in Line with Evolutionary Evidence

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

 

This is a highly interesting manuscript which will have an impact on the whole field of papillomaviruses. The authors seem to have reshuffeled the manuscript several times before submission and therefore the designation of the figures is not always correct. It would be very appropriate to include the final statement of the author “This means that it is possible that a virus identified as the closest neighbor based on the E1, E2, L1 phylogenetic tree, is not the closest neighbor based on L1 nucleotide identity. In this case, I propose that a virus would be considered a novel type if it shares less than 90% identity with its closest neighbors in the E1, E2, L1 phylogenetic tree “ in the abstract, which is not yet the case.

 

Minor changes

 

Page 3 Figure 2 should be renamed to Figure 1. Also the designations A and B are wrong in the figure legend

Line 124 should be reading “frame”

Line 135 should be figure 1B, same line 141 and 144

Line 159 legend figure 1 – should be figure 2 and the sentence starting with: Genera the …. Is odd

Line 185 please explain fully what is shown in the figure 3 – what is dahed and dotted line ?

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

In this manuscript entitled “Revisiting papillomavirus taxonomy: A proposal for updating the current classification in line with evolutionary evidence,” the author proposes a new taxonomy of papillomavirus because the current classification based on L1 nucleotide sequence is becoming sufficient. To solve the classification problem, the author proposes to use an E1, E2, and L1 protein based phylogenetic tree to define genera and species of papillomaviruses. Most of the data in this manuscript are convincing.

 

Minor comments

In the manuscript, Figure 1 appeared following Figure2.

I think that Figure 1 and Figure 2 should be converted.

 

Line 125,

 

figure 1B is figure 2B

Author Response

I thank the reviewer for this feedback. I apologize for the mixed-up labeling of figures etc. This has been fixed.