Fine mapping epitope on Glycoprotein-Gn from Severe Fever with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome Virus

Abulimiti Moming; Shen Shi; Shu Shen; Jie Qiao; Xihong Yue; Bo Wang; Juntao Ding; Zhihong Hu; Fei Deng; Yujiang Zhang; Surong Sun

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0248005

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionOctober 16, 2020
23 Dec 2020 Decision Letter - Paulo Lee Ho, Editor PONE-D-20-32530 Fine mapping epitope on Glycoprotein-Gn from Severe Fever with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome Virus PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Sun, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. 1) Please provide more details of the antiserum used to map the Severe Fever with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome Vírus Glycoprotein. How was it generated? What is it specificity? Was is purified? How? 2) The authors did not show that the linear epitopes are protective or induce neutralizing antibodies against the vírus. Modify the discussion accordingly; 3) Please, see the comments raised by both the reviewers. Please submit your revised manuscript by Feb 06 2021 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. 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We require that authors provide all relevant data within the paper, Supporting Information files, or in an acceptable, public repository. Please add a citation to support this phrase or upload the data that corresponds with these findings to a stable repository (such as Figshare or Dryad) and provide and URLs, DOIs, or accession numbers that may be used to access these data. Or, if the data are not a core part of the research being presented in your study, we ask that you remove the phrase that refers to these data. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] 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: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: I Don't Know Reviewer #2: N/A ****** 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: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. 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 Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 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: Moming A et al. have mapped the epitopes on glycoprotein Gn of SFTSV. The study is interesting and the work was done very carefully and very well. There are few mistakes need to be changed in the manuscript. 1. Throughout the manuscript Western should be capitalized for Western blot. 2. The following method description in the result section should be deleted. 1) Between lines 221 and 224, “Expressed recombinant SGn (r-SGn) was first separated by SDS-PAGE (Fig 2A) and then transferred to nitrocellulose membranes; pAb α-SGn (1:1000 dilution) was used as the primary antibody, and HRP-conjugated goat anti-rabbit IgG (1:5000 dilution) was used as the secondary antibody”. 2) Between lines 257 and 259, “NC membranes were blocked with 5% (w/v) skimmed milk powder, incubated sequentially with rabbit pAb α-SGn (1:1000 dilution), and incubated with goat anti-rabbit (1:5000 dilution), and then visualized by ECL”. 3) Between lines 277 and 279, “NC membranes were blocked with 5% (w/v) skimmed milk powder, incubated sequentially with rabbit pAb α-SGn (1:1000 dilution) and goat anti-rabbit IgG (1:5000 dilution), and then visualized by ECL”. 3. Missing references: 1) Online 59, a reference (Yu XJ, Liang MF, Zhang SY, et al. Fever with thrombocytopenia associated with a novel bunyavirus in China. N Engl J Med. 2011;364(16):1523-1532) should be added. 2) On line 65, SFTSV is not Banyangvirus. You need change the name of the virus to Bandavirus and use the reference “Kuhn JH, Adkins S, Alioto D, et al. 2020 taxonomic update for phylum Negarnaviricota (Riboviria: Orthornavirae), including the large orders Bunyavirales and Mononegavirales. Arch Virol. 2020;165:3023-3072” to replace reference 12. 3) Online 65, you need add references for the statement “Studies have indicated that GP mediate the first step in the virus replication cycle viral entry, and are the only targets for neutralizing antibodies” Reviewer #2: The manuscript entitles “Fine mapping epitope on Glycoprotein-Gn from Severe Fever with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome Virus” describes the linear epitope mapping of Gn protein of SFTS virus. The authors showed the five linear epitopes in the Sn protein, 196-203, 232-238, 256-265, 285-290, and 316-320 amino acid residues, respectively. The epitopes were mapped using rabbit anti Sgn antibody and the epitopes were also recognized by SFTS antibody-positive sheep sera. The manuscript is well written and the methods to map the epitopes were appropriate. However, there are two major criticism as written in the “Major points”. Major points: The epitopes were mapped using rabbit pAb a-SGn (reference No8) supplied from Prof. Deng, however in the reference manuscript any detail of the rabbit a-SGn was written. Thus, the authors should describe the detail of the antibody as to how the rabbit serum was prepared, whether the antibody has viral neutralizing antibody against SFTSV. From the data shown in the manuscript, it is too much to discuss “these linear epitopes identified in the manuscript provide fundamental data for the elucidation of the design and development of a SFTSV multi-epitope peptide vaccine”, since the authors never showed the antibodies to these linear epitopes have viral neutralizing capacity of not. Actual;ly, the authors describe “However, whether the identified five BCEs of SGn in this study have neutralizing activity require further verification (line 395-396). The reviewer agrees that the data shown in the manuscript provide useful data for the development of a novel SFTS antibody detection antigen. Thus, the authors are recommended to remove the sentence describing vaccine development. Minor points; Line 62: “including goats, cattle, dogs, and chickens [8-10]” lacks cats as susceptible animal. Scientific Reports, 19(1): 11990 (2019) showed that cats were susceptible for SFTSV and the virus caused lethal infection in cats. The authors should add this manuscript to the reference. Line 110: “involving” should be “involve” Line 142-143: “computer controlled microscope” should be changed to “ the name of microscope product name” Line 143: “Olympics” is “Olympus” ?? Line 269: “ … MBP fusion expressed …” should be “… MBP fusion proteins expressed … Line 364 -365: “mAb 4-5, a neutralizing antibody identified in SFTS recovered patients” is not precise. mAb 4-5, a neutralizing monoclonal ScFv antibody cloned from SFTS recovered patient.” ****** 6. 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 Reviewer #2: No [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0248005.r001
Revision 1
12 Jan 2021 Author Response Reviewer #1: Moming A et al. have mapped the epitopes on glycoprotein Gn of SFTSV. The study is interesting and the work was done very carefully and very well. There are few mistakes need to be changed in the manuscript. 1. Throughout the manuscript Western should be capitalized for Western blot. Response: Thanks for the good remind. We have revised Western to capitalized Western blot in the manuscript. 2. The following method description in the result section should be deleted. 1) Between lines 221 and 224, “Expressed recombinant SGn (r-SGn) was first separated by SDS-PAGE (Fig 2A) and then transferred to nitrocellulose membranes; pAb α-SGn (1:1000 dilution) was used as the primary antibody, and HRP-conjugated goat anti-rabbit IgG (1:5000 dilution) was used as the secondary antibody”. 2) Between lines 257 and 259, “NC membranes were blocked with 5% (w/v) skimmed milk powder, incubated sequentially with rabbit pAb α-SGn (1:1000 dilution), and incubated with goat anti-rabbit (1:5000 dilution), and then visualized by ECL”. 3) Between lines 277 and 279, “NC membranes were blocked with 5% (w/v) skimmed milk powder, incubated sequentially with rabbit pAb α-SGn (1:1000 dilution) and goat anti-rabbit IgG (1:5000 dilution), and then visualized by ECL”. Response: Thanks for the kind suggestion. We have deleted the above method description in the result section in the revised manuscript. 3. Missing references: 1) Online 59, a reference (Yu XJ, Liang MF, Zhang SY, et al. Fever with thrombocytopenia associated with a novel bunyavirus in China. N Engl J Med. 2011;364(16):1523-1532) should be added. Response: Thanks for the valuable suggestion. We have added this reference in line 37. . 2) On line 65, SFTSV is not Banyangvirus. You need change the name of the virus to Bandavirus and use the reference “Kuhn JH, Adkins S, Alioto D, et al. 2020 taxonomic update for phylum Negarnaviricota (Riboviria: Orthornavirae), including the large orders Bunyavirales and Mononegavirales. Arch Virol. 2020;165:3023-3072” to replace reference 12. Response: Thanks for the good remind. We apologize for this oversight, the classification of SFTSV was updated according to reference (14) as Bandavirus genus within the family Phenuiviridae. Reference [12] has been replaced as [14] in the revised version in line 44. [14] Kuhn JH, Adkins S, Alioto D, Alkhovsky SV, Amarasinghe GK, Anthony SJ, et al. 2020 taxonomic update for phylum Negarnaviricota (Riboviria: Orthornavirae), including the large orders Bunyavirales and Mononegavirales. Arch Virol. 2020 Dec;165 (12): 3023-3072. https://doi: 10.1007/s00705-020-04731-2 PMID: 32888050 3) On line 65, you need add references for the statement “Studies have indicated that GP mediate the first step in the virus replication cycle viral entry, and are the only targets for neutralizing antibodies”. Response: Thanks for the good remind. We apologize for our earlier lack of clarity. We have added references [15] and [16] in line 48 of the revised manuscript. [15] Tani H, Shimojima M, Fukushi S, Yoshikawa T, Fukuma A, Taniguchi S, et al. Characterization of glycoprotein-mediated entry of severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus. J Virol. 2016 May 12; 90(11): 5292-5301. https://doi: 10.1128/JVI.00110-16 PMID: 26984731 [16] Hofmann H, Li X, Zhang X, Liu W, Kühl A, Kaup F, et al. Severe fever with thrombocytopenia virus glycoproteins are targeted by neutralizing antibodies and can use DC-SIGN as a receptor for pH-dependent entry into human and animal cell lines. J Virol. 2013 Apr; 87(8): 4384-4394. https://doi: 10.1128/JVI.02628-12 PMID: 23388721 Reviewer #2: The manuscript entitles “Fine mapping epitope on Glycoprotein-Gn from Severe Fever with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome Virus” describes the linear epitope mapping of Gn protein of SFTS virus. The authors showed the five linear epitopes in the Sn protein, 196-203, 232-238, 256-265, 285-290, and 316-320 amino acid residues, respectively. The epitopes were mapped using rabbit anti Sgn antibody and the epitopes were also recognized by SFTS antibody-positive sheep sera. The manuscript is well written and the methods to map the epitopes were appropriate. However, there are two major criticism as written in the “Major points”. Major points: The epitopes were mapped using rabbit pAb a-SGn (reference No8) supplied from Prof. Deng, however in the reference manuscript any detail of the rabbit a-SGn was written. Thus, the authors should describe the detail of the antibody as to how the rabbit serum was prepared, whether the antibody has viral neutralizing antibody against SFTSV. Response: Thanks for the good remind. We have provided information on antiserum used to map the Severe Fever with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome Vírus Glycoprotein Gn in the materials and methods section in line 94-102. The main preparation methods are as follows：The coding region (aa, 189-451) of SFTSV-Gn from strain WCH/97/HN/China/2011 was amplified by PCR using 2×Rapid Taq Master Mix (Vazyme Biotech, Nanjing, China) according to the manufacture’s instruction. The PCR products were cloned into the plasmid pET-28a to generate the expression plasmid pET-28a-SGn and the insert was confirmed by sequencing. Protein expression and purification were conducted as described [27]. New Zealand rabbits were injected intramuscularly with 0.5 mg of purified SGn segment and immunized at two-week intervals according to the conventional animal immune method. After the third immunization for two weeks, rabbit antiserum was separated and stored at -80℃ until use. The neutralizing activity of rabbit pAb α-SGn against SFTSV was detected using IFA, but no neutralizing effect was found. [27] Moming A, Zhang YJ, Chang CC, Yu H, Wang MF, Hu Z, et al. Antigenicity of severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus nucleocapsid protein and its potential application in the virus serodiagnosis. Virol Sin. 2017 Feb; 32(1): 97-100. https://doi: 10.1007/s12250-016-3928-9 PMID: 28120219 From the data shown in the manuscript, it is too much to discuss “these linear epitopes identified in the manuscript provide fundamental data for the elucidation of the design and development of a SFTSV multi-epitope peptide vaccine”, since the authors never showed the antibodies to these linear epitopes have viral neutralizing capacity of not. Actually, the authors describe “However, whether the identified five BCEs of SGn in this study have neutralizing activity require further verification (line 395-396). The reviewer agrees that the data shown in the manuscript provide useful data for the development of a novel SFTS antibody detection antigen. Thus, the authors are recommended to remove the sentence describing vaccine development. Response: Thanks for the good suggestion. We have removed the sentence describing vaccine development in the revised manuscript. Minor points; Line 62: “including goats, cattle, dogs, and chickens [8-10]” lacks cats as susceptible animal. Scientific Reports, 19(1): 11990 (2019) showed that cats were susceptible for SFTSV and the virus caused lethal infection in cats. The authors should add this manuscript to the reference. Response: Thanks for the kind remind and suggestion. We have added cats as susceptible animal for SFTSV, and added as reference [12] in line 40 in the revised manuscript. [12] Park ES, Shimojima M, Nagata N, Ami Y, Yoshikawa T, Iwata-Yoshikawa N, et al. Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome Phlebovirus causes lethal viral hemorrhagic fever in cats. Sci Rep. 2019 Aug 19; 9(1): 11990. https://doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-48317-8 PMID: 31427690 Line 110: “involving” should be “involve” Response: Thanks for the good remind. “involving” was revised as “involve” in line 90. Line 142-143: “computer controlled microscope” should be changed to “ the name of microscope product name” Response: Thanks for the kind remind. “computer controlled microscope” was changed as “IX73 microscope” in lines 129. Line 143: “Olympics” is “Olympus” ?? Response: Thanks for the good remind. “Olympics” was revised as “Olympus” in line 129. Line 269: “ … MBP fusion expressed …” should be “… MBP fusion proteins expressed … Response: Thanks for the good remind. “MBP fusion expressed” was revised as “MBP fusion proteins expressed” in line 250. Line 364 -365: “mAb 4-5, a neutralizing antibody identified in SFTS recovered patients” is not precise. mAb 4-5, a neutralizing monoclonal ScFv antibody cloned from SFTS recovered patient.” Response: Thanks for the good remind. “mAb 4-5, a neutralizing antibody identified in SFTS recovered patients” was revised as “mAb 4-5, a neutralizing monoclonal single chain fragment variable (ScFv) antibody cloned from SFTS recovered patient” in lines 342-343. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0248005.r002
9 Feb 2021 Decision Letter - Paulo Lee Ho, Editor PONE-D-20-32530R1 Fine mapping epitope on Glycoprotein-Gn from Severe Fever with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome Virus PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Sun, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please submit your revised manuscript by Mar 26 2021 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Manuscript'. If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Paulo Lee Ho, Ph.D. Academic Editor PLOS ONE [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] 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 Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed ******** 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 Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: N/A Reviewer #2: N/A ****** 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 Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 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 Reviewer #2: 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: The minor comments are on line 178 bacteria culture should be bacterial culture and on line 242 E. coli should be italicized. Reviewer #2: In the revised manuscript, all the comments have been properly addressed, thus the manuscript is considered to be accepted. ****** 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: Yes:** Xue-jie Yu Reviewer #2: No [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0248005.r003
Revision 2
10 Feb 2021 Author Response Reviewer #1: The minor comments are on line 178 bacteria culture should be bacterial culture and on line 242 E. coli should be italicized. Response: Thanks for the good remind. We apologize for our carelessness, we have revised “bacteria culture” as “bacterial culture” on line 178, and italicized E. coli on line 242 in the manuscript. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0248005.r004
18 Feb 2021 Decision Letter - Paulo Lee Ho, Editor Fine mapping epitope on Glycoprotein-Gn from Severe Fever with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome Virus PONE-D-20-32530R2 Dear Dr. Sun, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Paulo Lee Ho, Ph.D. Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0248005.r005
Formally Accepted
22 Feb 2021 Acceptance Letter - Paulo Lee Ho, Editor PONE-D-20-32530R2 Fine mapping epitope on Glycoprotein-Gn from Severe Fever with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome Virus Dear Dr. Sun: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Paulo Lee Ho Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0248005.r006

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