Assessing the potentials of bacterial antagonists for plant growth promotion, nutrient acquisition, and biological control of Southern blight disease in tomato

Farjana Sultana; M. Motaher Hossain

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0267253

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionApril 24, 2021
10 Jun 2021 Decision Letter - Ying Ma, Editor PONE-D-21-13656 Assessing the potentials of bacterial antagonists for plant growth promotion, nutrient acquisition, and biological control of Southern blight disease in tomato PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Hossain, 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 July 7. 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. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Ying Ma, Ph.D. Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf 2. Please include a copy of Table 1 which you refer to in your text on page 15. (Please note that two tables in the manuscript have the title of 'table 4'.) [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: Partly ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: No ****** 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: No ****** 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: No ****** 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: I have read the article titled “Assessing the potentials of bacterial antagonists for plant growth promotion, nutrient acquisition, and biological control of Southern blight disease in tomato” by Sultana and Hossain. This article analyses the potential of different rhizobacteria to promote plant growth and control plant disease caused by S. rolfsii in tomato. This is a very detailed study of different bacterial traits involved in plant growth and biocontrol. Moreover, authors explore the performance of the isolates through several experimental conditions from growth chambers to field conditions and this is extremely important because the use of microorganisms usually varies a lot with these conditions. In this way, authors were able to identify isolates with good performances in every condition with potential to develop bioinoculants for tomato. I think this work could be publish in Plos One, but there are a few comments and questions, which I mention below, that authors should address in order to accept this manuscript. Section 2.4.4 Gram-positive bacteria do not growth in classic CAS plates, you tested several Bacillus strains, how did you manage to perform this experiment? Section 2.4.9 In this section you aim to determine biofilm formation by bacterial isolates. However, the methodology you mentioned is used for pellicle (one type of biofilm) determination, why did you choose this? I think it would be interesting to measure general biofilm formation using crystal violet as described by the same reference authors cited (Haque et al. 2012). Section 2.5 Please specify the concentration (CFU/OD) of the bacterial preparation that you used to inoculate seeds. Section 2.8 Plants were watered just with water or did you use nutrient solution? Section 3.3 The decrease in the production of oxalic acid y the co-cultures of rhizbacteria and S. rolfsii could be due to growth inhibition of the pathogen or to the comsuption of oxalic acid by rhizobacteria. I think it would be interesting to investigate this. For example, you could express the oxalic acid concentration in relation to fungal biomass. Moreover you could check if rhizobacteria are able to growth using oxalic acid as unique carbon source. Section 3.7 I would remove the first sentence in this section because it is confuse since most of the elements did not change due to inoculation (Fe, Ca, Mg and Na) as authors mentioned in the last sentence of this section. Page 9 line 22: remove at 28°C Page 15 line 21: Please include the inhibition % of PPB3 Page 10 line 08: vortexing Reviewer #2: The author did not summarize the main research and key findings well. Example, they did not state that five strains were screened from which two strains were selected for superior performance. Analysis of the effects of S. maltophilia PPB3 and B. subtilis PPB9 strains on nutrient concentrations in tomato included N, P, K, Ca2+, Mg2+, Na and Fe, but significant differences were only in NPK . The authors identified other literature but did not explain how this study related to previously published research or the justification of all the studies presented. Why test the filtrates? What is the significance of 20%, 50% etc. filtrate concentration? the discussion did not address the significance of the findings Figure and table captions do not stand alone (independent) but are linked to materials and methods, names are not spelt out on Table or figure captions. example B. subtilis. Qualities of figures need to be improved, legends of figures and tables are not accurate example comparisons within rows instead of columns. Although the research is technically sound, the presentation need improvement and editing is needed, there are spelling mistakes. It would be difficult for another researcher to reproduce the study with the same methods because the materials do not include enough details, example, what was the environment of the experiment on potted plants? Type of soil, pot size, irrigation, fertilization temperature is important for this disease. Overall, the writing quality need improvement ****** 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: Yes:** Fernando M. Romero 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. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: PONE-D-21-13656_reviewer.pdf https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0267253.r001
Revision 1
27 Aug 2021 Author Response Response to Reviewers First of all, we would like to acknowledge the excellent efforts given by the Editor and Reviewers to analyse and evaluate our manuscript. We carefully checked the comments made by Editor and two Reviewers one by one and incorporated the proposed amendments in our manuscript accordingly. The text of any added subject matter is shown by Track changes Mode in Microsoft word. Point-by-point responses to the Editor and Reviewer comments. Editor’s comments: 1.Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at We have followed PLOS ONE’s style and formatted the manuscript accordingly. 2. Please include a copy of Table 1 which you refer to in your text on page 15. (Please note that two tables in the manuscript have the title of 'table 4'.) We have corrected the Table names. Reviewer #1: We would like to thank you for your kind suggestion. We addressed all your recommendations in the revised manuscript. We believe that your suggestion and comments have improved the manuscript significantly. Please see our response to your specific comment regarding this matter. 1. Gram-positive bacteria do not grow in classic CAS plates, you tested several Bacillus strains, how did you manage to perform this experiment? We have described the experiment elaborately and appropriately in Materials and Methods (Page 10, Line 1-13). 2. In this section you aim to determine biofilm formation by bacterial isolates. However, the methodology you mentioned is used for pellicle (one type of biofilm) determination, why did you choose this? I think it would be interesting to measure general biofilm formation using crystal violet as described by the same reference authors cited (Haque et al. 2012). The bacteria of this study produced only air-liquid biofilm (only form pellicle), not solid-air-liquid biofilm. That is why we did not use the Crystal violet method. 3. Please specify the concentration (CFU/OD) of the bacterial preparation that you used to inoculate seeds. We specified the concentration of the bacterial treatment in the materials and methods (Page 12, Line 16). 4. Were plants watered using water, or did you use the nutrient solution? We used only water regularly but use nutrient solution weekly until eight weeks after planting. 5. The decrease in the production of oxalic acid with the co-cultures of rhizobacteria and S. rolfsii could be due to growth inhibition of the pathogen or to the consumption of oxalic acid by rhizobacteria. I think it would be interesting to investigate this. For example, you could express the oxalic acid concentration in relation to fungal biomass. We agree with you. That is why according to your suggestion, we have expressed the oxalic acid concentration in relation to fungal biomass (Page 8 Line 1-14). 6. Moreover, you could check if rhizobacteria are able to growth using oxalic acid as unique carbon source. We have tested the ability of the two selected rhizobacteria to utilize oxalic acid as a carbon source and added the results in the manuscript. Both rhizobacteria were found to utilize oxalic acid for their growth. (Fig. 1) (page 20 line 12-23) 7. I would remove the first sentence in this section because it is confused since most of the elements did not change due to inoculation (Fe, Ca, Mg and Na) as authors mentioned in the last sentence of this section. We have removed the first sentence (page 26). 8. Page 11, line 23: remove at 28°C We have removed the sentence as it was repeated. 9. Page 18, line 16: Please include the inhibition % of PPB3 We have included the % inhibition of PPB3. 10. Page 12, line 13: vortexing We have corrected it. Reviewer #2: We express sincere gratitude to you for your valuable suggestion. We addressed all your concerns and comments in the revised manuscript. We believe that the quality of the manuscript has been improved substantially by incorporating your suggested revision. Please see our response to your specific comment regarding this matter. 1. The author did not summarize the main research and key findings well. Example, they did not state that five strains were screened from which two strains were selected for superior performance. We have summarized the key research findings and included them in the abstract, discussion, and conclusions according to your suggestion. 2. Why test the filtrates? What is the significance of 20%, 50% etc. filtrate concentration? the discussion did not address the significance of the findings. We have discussed the significance of the findings concerning the antagonistic activity of culture filtrates of bacteria according to your suggestion (Page 33, Line 16-22). 3. Analysis of the effects of S. maltophilia PPB3 and B. subtilis PPB9 strains on nutrient concentrations in tomatoes included N, P, K, Ca2+, Mg2+, Na and Fe, but significant differences were only in NPK. The authors identified other literature but did not explain how this study related to previously published research or the justification of all the studies presented. We have improved the discussion by citing related articles according to your suggestion (Page 33, Line 1-15). 4. Figure and table captions do not stand alone (independent) but are linked to materials and methods, names are not spelt out on Table or figure captions. example B. subtilis. We have improved the legends of all figures and Tables. 5. Qualities of figures need to be improved, legends of figures and tables are not accurate example comparisons within rows instead of columns. We have also improved the quality of the figures and amended Table 4 according to your suggestion. 6. Although the research is technically sound, the presentation need improvement and editing is needed, there are spelling mistakes. It would be difficult for another researcher to reproduce the study with the same methods because the materials do not include enough details, example, what was the environment of the experiment on potted plants? Type of soil, pot size, irrigation, fertilization, temperature is important for this disease. Overall, the writing quality need improvement We have thoroughly revised the manuscript and improved the writing quality of the whole manuscript, including Materials and Methods. In addition, we included necessary information about soil type, pot size, irrigation, fertilization and growth conditions. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0267253.r002
1 Sep 2021 Decision Letter - Ying Ma, Editor PONE-D-21-13656R1 Assessing the potentials of bacterial antagonists for plant growth promotion, nutrient acquisition, and biological control of Southern blight disease in tomato PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Hossain, 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 September 29. 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. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Ying Ma, Ph.D. Academic Editor PLOS ONE [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: [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.0267253.r003
Revision 2
5 Oct 2021 Author Response Response to Reviewers First of all, we would like to admit the outstanding efforts given by the Academic Editor and Reviewers to evaluate our manuscript. We have carefully checked the Reviewers comments and made the necessary amendments. Point-by-point responses to the Editor and Reviewer comments Reviewers' comments: 1. 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. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. We have uploaded our figures in PACE, and PACE has confirmed that the figure file meets PLOS requirements. The PACE processed figure files have been included in the resubmission of the manuscript. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to ReviewersR1.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0267253.r004
8 Mar 2022 Decision Letter - Ying Ma, Editor PONE-D-21-13656R2Assessing the potentials of bacterial antagonists for plant growth promotion, nutrient acquisition, and biological control of Southern blight disease in tomatoPLOS ONE Dear Dr. Hossain, 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 April 22, 2022. 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: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Ying Ma, Ph.D. Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: Please review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript. If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice. [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: (No Response) Reviewer #3: 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 #3: Partly ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #3: 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 Reviewer #3: 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 #3: 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: I have read the revised version of the manuscript titled: “Assessing the potentials of bacterial antagonists for plant growth promotion, nutrient acquisition, and biological control of Southern blight disease in tomato” by Sultana and Hossain. Authors have improved the manuscript and answered all my previous suggestions, so I think it is ready for publication. However I found two minor issues to address: Page 20, line 5: Please correct the amount of oxalic acid produced in co-cultive with PBB9, it doesn´t match with the results in Table 1. Figure 2A: You are trying to show 3 different traits (germination, plant length and vigour index) however you have only 2 vertical axes, so you can´t show the reference for plant length so it is a bit confusing. Since you already show germination in the figure 2B, I would remove this parameter from figure 2A, so it is easier to understand. Reviewer #3: The MS is now modified as suggested but I suggest to reduce number of references. All the figures and tables have been modified as suggested. ****** 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: Fernando Matias Romero Reviewer #3: Yes:** Dr. Arup Kumar Mukherjee [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.0267253.r005
Revision 3
10 Mar 2022 Author Response Responses to Editor’s and Reviewer’s comments to authors First of all, we would like to acknowledge the excellent efforts given by the Editor and Reviewers to analyse and evaluate our manuscript. We carefully checked the comments and incorporated the proposed amendments in our manuscript accordingly. The text of any added subject matter is shown by Track changes Mode in Microsoft word. Point-by-point responses to the Reviewer comments. Reviewer #1: We would like to thank you for your kind suggestion. We have addressed all your recommendations in the revised manuscript. Please see our response to your specific comment regarding this matter. 1. Page 20, line 5: Please correct the amount of oxalic acid produced in co-cultivate with PBB9, it doesn´t match with the results in Table 1. We have corrected it 2. Figure 2A: You are trying to show 3 different traits (germination, plant length and vigour index) however you have only 2 vertical axes, so you can´t show the reference for plant length so it is a bit confusing. Since you already show germination in the figure 2B, I would remove this parameter from figure 2A, so it is easier to understand.? We have amended Figure 2A according to your suggestion. Reviewer #2: We express sincere gratitude to you for your valuable suggestion. We have addressed your comments in the revised manuscript. Please see our response to your specific comment regarding this matter. 1. The MS is now modified as suggested but I suggest to reduce number of references. Following your suggestion, we have reduced the number of references from 79 to 63. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to Reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0267253.r006
6 Apr 2022 Decision Letter - Ying Ma, Editor Assessing the potentials of bacterial antagonists for plant growth promotion, nutrient acquisition, and biological control of Southern blight disease in tomato PONE-D-21-13656R3 Dear Dr. Hossain, 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, Ying Ma, 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 Reviewer #3: 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: (No Response) Reviewer #3: Yes ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: (No Response) Reviewer #3: 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: (No Response) Reviewer #3: 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: (No Response) Reviewer #3: 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) Reviewer #3: The authors have addressed the queries. The numbers of references have been reduced. The figure ha sbeen corrected. So, it may be considered for acceptance. ****** 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: Fernando M. Romero Reviewer #3: Yes:** Dr Arup Kumar Mukherjee https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0267253.r007
Formally Accepted
31 May 2022 Acceptance Letter - Ying Ma, Editor PONE-D-21-13656R3 Assessing the potentials of bacterial antagonists for plant growth promotion, nutrient acquisition, and biological control of Southern blight disease in tomato Dear Dr. Hossain: 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. Ying Ma Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0267253.r008

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