RNA Interference-Based Pesticides and Antiviral Agents: Microbial Overproduction Systems for Double-Stranded RNA for Applications in Agriculture and Aquaculture

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This review focused on the current critical issue in the practical application of RNAi agents, the production of dsRNA at low-cost. Authors mainly reviewed methods of microbial production of dsRNAs using five microorganisms as host strains. The review comprehensively summarizes the main aspects of the current production of dsRNA by microorganisms, which has high reference value and has merit reading. However, the paper also has a rather significant disadvantage. That is, there is a lack of direct and systematic comparisons for the presented method for dsRNA production using five microorganisms. Therefore, a direct comparison of the pros and cons of the five microbial methods for dsRNA production is suggested, rather than stating their differences. Including the economic, labor and time cost and difficulty of constructing a dsRNA production strain, the fermentation characteristics and cost of the strain itself, etc., and the difficulty and cost of obtaining dsRNA from the fermentation product. Second, discuss whether there are more ideal microorganisms or other methods for producing dsRNA in the future. Finally, it is recommended to discuss the possible trend of large-scale industrial dsRNA production in the future(not limited to microorganisms). I would like to suggest authors use more tables and figures to address these three issues.

Author Response

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Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors.

Thanks for your effort and contribution.

As an economist, I give you some suggestions to better the economic aspects of the paper:

1. Wider the references about the production costs
2. Better specify the aspects of production that currently imply high costs.
3. You cited in the keywords “sustainable farming”. You should better describe the impact of RNA interference-based pesticides on the sustainability aspects not only as generic low environmental impact. Now, the economic aspect is not solved as well the impact on the market: are consumers/public institutions/market ready to accept something that could be labelled as GMO or similar?
4. Regarding regulation: are there examples of legislation already in place that regulates the use of these bio pesticides?

 

My suggestion is therefore to deepen these issues that are and will be critical when these products are introduced to the market.

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 3 Report

The authors present an interesting review regarding the RNA interference-based pesticides and antiviral agents. This review can be very useful for other researchers and English usage is generally correct and comprehensible.

The paper is well organized. The introduction describes the state-of-the-art with respect to the previous and present background for this area.

After the “introduction section”, the authors present an overview of recent production methods of dsRNA using the representative microorganisms Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas syringae, Corynebacterium glutamicum, and Chlamydomonas hardtii as host strains. The others also present the research results in this area when other microorganisms are used.

Based on the above appreciations, I consider that this article could be published in the present version.

Author Response

Thank you for your supportive comments. We hope that RNAi-based products will be safer for humans and better for the environment, and that they will be one of the solutions to issues in food production in the future.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript has been sufficiently improved. I have no comment.