All reviews of published articles are made public. This includes manuscript files, peer review comments, author rebuttals and revised materials. Note: This was optional for articles submitted before 13 February 2023.
Peer reviewers are encouraged (but not required) to provide their names to the authors when submitting their peer review. If they agree to provide their name, then their personal profile page will reflect a public acknowledgment that they performed a review (even if the article is rejected). If the article is accepted, then reviewers who provided their name will be associated with the article itself.
All of the reviewers' concerns have been addressed by the authors.
[# PeerJ Staff Note - this decision was reviewed and approved by Vladimir Uversky, a PeerJ Section Editor covering this Section #]
The proposed study is well-planned, well-described, well-executed, and must be confirmed. The authors clearly identify some of their methods' shortcomings and, where appropriate, what alternative mechanisms may be at work in this system. The only minor suggestion is that the description of the genes and their phenotypic effects be included in the introduction because the genes are mentioned in the methods but their phenotypes are not described until the results.
[# PeerJ Staff Note: Please ensure that all review and editorial comments are addressed in a response letter and any edits or clarifications mentioned in the letter are also inserted into the revised manuscript where appropriate. #]
The study outlined is well-planned, well-described, well-executed, and essential to report. The authors have presented the material in a concise and informative manner. They clearly note where some of the shortcomings of their methods may be and, where appropriate, what alternative mechanisms may be operating in this system.
My only very minor comment is that the description of the genes and their phenotypic effects should be mentioned in the introduction since the genes are named in the methods, but their phenotypes are not described until the results.
The experimental design is exhaustive. The authors have detailed, appropriate and extensive controls throughout their experiments. Their presentation of the literature review methods and the corresponding figure are well-described, thorough, and informative.
Their results are well-motivated and seem in line with what they found in their experiments. The authors do a very excellent job of listing the mitigating factors that may have influenced their results and providing alternative explanations for some of their results, particularly those that don't align with the standard expectations of these methods.
The manuscript investigated whether symbiont-mediated dsRNA expression leads to RNAi in aphids. The authors engineered aphid symbionts to target well-known target genes and conducted bioassays to observe the phenotypic effects of gene silencing. They found that the silencing of COO2 gene expression reduced aphid survival. However, the outcome was variable between trials or among different aphid genotypes. Overall, the experiments were well-designed and executed. The authors also discussed several aspects of symbiont-mediated RNAi that need to be improved for future research. I have a few suggestions/questions to improve the manuscript.
L67: Change “These solutions have their own complications, though.” to “However, these solutions have their own complications.”
L202-205: There were 5 conditions, not 6. Was one treatment not described in that section?
L470-472: In C. elegans, Sid1 and Sid2 function as intercellular transport of dsRNA and dsRNA uptake, respectively. No insect homologs have been found (Zhu and Palli 2020 and references there in, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31610134/).
Please revise that sentence accordingly.
no comment
no comment
no comment
See attachment
See attachment
See attachment
See attachment
All text and materials provided via this peer-review history page are made available under a Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.