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Referee comments: Referee 1

Posted by PLOS_ONE_Group on 20 Mar 2008 at 17:57 GMT

Referee 1's review:

MS reference 08-PONE-RA-03400
General comments
The manuscript by Soler et al needs a minor re-organization in the presentation of results.

Specific comments
1. Page (P) 2, Lane 6. The information presented is not always highlighted. It is stated "Replication of pMET1 is independent of DNA polymerase I (DNA Pol I)", however they defined the mininal necessary and sufficient region for autonomous replication, and the fact that is DNA Pol I is relevant but a minor finding.
2. P 6- 7. The replication and partition chapter is not well organized. The description of the minimal region required for autonomous replication should be described first. What is the difference in copy number between fragment 45 and the full-length plasmid. Is orf2 a genuine copy number control element?
3. P 7, L 6. Is RepA found in other plasmid system other that the one described here?
4. P 7, L 15 - 18, The ParFG description should be re-organized. The ParF groups is usually named ParA Ib and the present of Deviant Walker A was defined previously by C.M. Thomas´s group.
5. P 7, L19 -20. The sequence of the Walker A' should be also included in Fig. 4 and the consensus of Deviant Walker A re-defined.
6. The comparison of parF with MinD was reported, but MinD undergoes surface-dependent polymerization and ParF, in the absence of any surface, forms bundles structure. The sentence should be deleted.
7. The parH region has not been experimentally defined. To make easy to compare the sequence of the different iterons I suggest to use a Weblogo or any other algorism, this will simply the visualization of the consensus region.

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N.B. These are the comments made by the referee when reviewing an earlier version of this paper. Prior to publication the manuscript has been revised in light of these comments and to address other editorial requirements.

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