Results section — BSMV-mediated VIGS of TaMin7
- In Figure 4, the authors use the wheat variety ‘Bobwhite’ for their
BSMV-mediated VIGS assays. However, showing hyper-susceptibility in an
already susceptible wheat variety can be difficult to demonstrate,
especially given the highly variable nature of FHB symptom
development. We, therefore, suggest the authors include an additional
control wherein they silence TaMin7 in an FHB-resistant
cultivar (such as Sumai3 or Ning7840). Including such an FHB-resistant
genotype would provide additional evidence and strengthen their claim
that silencing TaMin7 confers susceptibility to F.
graminearum .
- In Figure 4B and C, Wood and Panwar, et al. use the BSMV:mcs4Dconstruct as a negative control to show that knockdown ofTaMin7 transcript expression results in hyper-susceptibility toF. graminearum . Have the authors thought about designing an
additional VIGS fragment that targets a different portion of theTaMin7 gene and test whether these TaMin7 -silenced
plants are still hyper-susceptible to F. graminearum ? Doing so
would greatly strengthen the claim that the hyper-susceptibility
phenotype is a result of specifically silencing TaMin7 and not
due to off-targeting.
- In addition to the data presented in Figure 4B, we propose the authors
also quantify the amount of fungal DNA per spike to assess fungal
burden (as performed in Dilks et al 2019; PLoS Pathog 15(4):
e1007666). Adding such data would provide additional evidence to their
claim of hyper-susceptibility in TaMin7 -silenced wheat.
- In lines 146 – 149, the authors state there are no observable
developmental or growth defects in the untreated Arabidopsis mutants.
Are their observable phenotypic effects as a result of silencingTaMin7 in wheat?
Materials and Methods section — The authors should clearly
state how many individual plants were tested in each of the VIGS
replicate experiments.
Discussion section — In lines 276 – 278, the authors state
that TaMin7 transcript expression may be repressed in F.
graminearum -infected wheat (data not shown). We propose that the
authors did themselves a disservice for omitting such data (unless, of
course, these data were preliminary at the time of submission). We
encourage Wood and Panwar, et al. to repeat this experiment and present
these data as a separate figure. Such additional data would further
support their hypothesis and strengthen their claim that TaMin7has a functional role in FHB resistance.