PONE-D-19-35407

Induction of competent cells for Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated stable transformation of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.)

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr Song,

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Jen-Tsung Chen, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Partly

Reviewer #2: Yes

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: N/A

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: The paper should be deeply revised the structure of the paper according to Plos one instruction (“Results and discussions” should divided into results section and discussions section). In particular the Discussion section should be completely rewritten, should involve in “the transgenic “Embrapa 5.1” common bean for golden mosaic virus (BGMV) resistance”. In my opinion, the manuscript could not be accepted for publication in the present form.

1. The quality of photos (Fig.2-Fig.5, Fig. 7) is not high enough, and the label obscures the image, please replace.

2. The marker can't see at all in Fig.6, why? Please replace.

3. Line 37 “This is the first stable transgenic common bean”. If you have authentic proofs please provide that. Otherwise rewrite.

4. Check the small errors in the whole manuscript (for example: Line 50 “by”, Line 93 “, and”).

5. The first abbreviation shall provide the full name. For example, Line 173 “CTAB”.

6. Figure caption and citations should be referred to Plos one instruction.

Reviewer #2: The have developed an Agrobacterium-mediated transformation protocol for Phaseolus vulgaris. Although more efficient and less time-consuming approach for Phaseolus agrobacterial transformation already exist (Collado et al., 2015), this work is worth publishing, because it presents an alternative way that might serve for gene delivery to recalcitrant Phaseolus genotypes. In general, the manuscript is well written, concise and straightforward. In my opinion this manuscript can be accepted for publishing after the authors will revise/explain following issues:

1. Authors refer to picture 7A, B or C but nothing like these letters is presented in picture 7.

2. Line 293 - authors claim that T1 plants were subjected to both PCR and RT-PCR. I could not find any output of PCR analysis - it is not clear from text whether the PCR results where similar to RT-PCR or why do authors not present them in any table or image. Moreover, when presenting the RT-PCR results, the authors should show also the results of RT- (non-reverse transcribed) reaction to exclude the amplification from not properly removed genomic DNA (especially when the amplicon does not contain the intron).

3. Line 316 - authors claim that an integration of non-T-DNA fragment occured in T1 plants. I wonder how this can happen, despite the fact, that T1 generation plants were not subjected to Agrobacterium transformation.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: Vojtech Hudzieczek

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Induction of competent cells for Agrobacterium tumefaciens-mediated stable transformation of common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.)

PONE-D-19-35407R1

Dear Dr. Song,

We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it complies with all outstanding technical requirements.

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With kind regards,

Jen-Tsung Chen, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No