ATP-Binding Cassette (ABC) Transporters in Fusarium Specific Mycoparasite Sphaerodes mycoparasitica during Biotrophic Mycoparasitism
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
In this study Seon Hwa Kim and Vladimir Vujanovic reported research on
ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters in Fusarium specific mycoparasite Sphaerodes mycoparasitica during biotrophic mycoparasitism. The study is very informative. The data analysis is in accordance with the conclusions. The writing was easy to follow. My only suggestion for authors is to present Material and Methods in more detail, specially in respect to RNA sequencing and relative gene expression. In general, I would recommend its acceptance.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer:
Please see the attached document: Answers to reviewer's comments.
File: Reviewer 1_comments
Thank you for your time and help in improving the manuscript!
Authors
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear Authors,
Something is clearly wrong with the structure of your manuscript. The " Abstract " and "Introduction" sections are clumsy. In the Materials and Methods section, there is no description of sample preparation, RNA isolation, sequencing, bioinformatics, etc. I could not understand the logical connection between electron microscopy and the transcriptomic part. From your Discussion, I was unable to understand the meaning of your results as well as their relationship to the current body of knowledge in your field. I do not understand how your Conclusions follow from your results; it only contains a bunch of abstract statements. I suggest that you carefully rewrite this manuscript and resubmit it thereafter, since in its current form it is almost impossible to assess its scientific value.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Please find attached the authors' answers to your comments/suggestions.
Thank you again for your time and valuable input in improving the manuscript.
Kind regards,
Authors
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Paper ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters in Fusarium specific mycoparasite Sphaerodes mycoparasitica during biotrophic mycoparasitism is exploring the transcriptome of S. mycoparasitica during biotrophic mycoparasitism with mycotoxigenic Fusarium graminearum with an emphasison the analysis of the ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporters. The findings presented provide clues to better understand the biotrophic mycoparasitism of S. mycoparasitica interacting with the Fusarium host, which implies that ABC transporters group of key proteins are involved in S. mycoparasitica virulence and multidrug resistance to toxic substances including a cellular detoxification.Paper is nicely written and I recommend it for publication.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Please find attached the authors' answers to your comments/suggestions.
Thank you again for your time and valuable input in improving the manuscript.
Kind regards,
Authors
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 4 Report
This manuscript describes the transcription of the gene ATP-binding cassette (ABC) transporter involved in biotrophic mycoparasitism of the Sphaerodes mycoparasitica against pathogenic and mycotoxigenic Fusarium graminearum. The transcriptomic profiling indicated that 81 transcripts were annotated to several ABC transporters, which is important for S.mycoparasitica virulence and multidrug resistance to toxic substances. The author also showed the infection structure and appressorium-haustorium of S.mycoparasitica during the mycoparasitism by TEM analysis. Overall, the manuscript is generally well-written although I list below a few items for the author’s consideration. The introduction and background are rationale for their study and state the purposes of their research. The results are presented and discussed objectively. Discussions clearly describe the significance of the findings of the studies. The conclusions are supported by their objectives.
1. Figure 1C should be enlarged
2. Figure 4: The color between bright gray and grey can be confusing. The reviewer
suggests changing one of these colors into black.
3. Lines 579 – 582: Revise and rewrite the sentence.
4. Line 601 – 603: Revise and rewrite the sentence.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Please find attached the authors' answers to your comments/suggestions.
Thank you again for your time and valuable input in improving the manuscript.
Kind regards,
Authors
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 5 Report
This MS can be accepted after some minor and specific comments
- L34-36, delete this sentence
- At the end of abstract: Please add 2-3 concise concluding sentences
- The introduction is long, the authors use a high number of references it should be brief and concise
- The aim was not clear, re write it
- Materials and Methods section: this part is well written
- Please improve the quality of the figure 1
- THE figure 2 should be deleted or insert it in sup. Files
- In the discussion part, can authors compare these findings with some recent and proper works
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
Please find attached the authors' answers to your comments/suggestions.
Thank you again for your time and valuable input in improving the manuscript.
Kind regards,
Authors
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear authors,
I have reconsidered my opinion regarding your manuscript. Although for me it is still hard to follow the development of your ideas, with improved material and methods section your experimentation became clear and reproducible. I recommend to publish your manuscript as it is. However, please, reconsider the use of verb “blasted” at the line 202 (try to use more conventional and less awkward phrase such as “BLAST search against GeneBank”, instead). Additionally, the representation of your transcriptomic data on Figure 4 will be more readable, if you redraw it as a clustered heatmap with log-scale. Figure 9 will also benefit from log-scale. Consider to add branch-support values for all phylogenetic trees and indicate out-groups. Please, rewrite legends for all phylogenetic trees it is hard to understand something like this - “Sm T2 (orange color) represents S. mycoparasitica interacting with the host for 3.5 days incubation time”. Maybe the orange color mark some gene that was overexpressed, doesn’t it?
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Please find attached our answers to your comments/suggestions.
Thank you for your great input in improving our manuscript!
Kind regards,
Authors
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
