Sporulation, Structure Assembly, and Germination in the Soil Bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis: Survival and Success in the Environment and the Insect Host
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Guerrero reviewed the effect of sporulation, structure assembly, and germination programs on the survival and success of Bacillus thuringiensis in the environment and its insect host. The steps and gene regulation are summarized for the three programs. My major comments are:
1. Sporulation and ICP formation are energy-consuming. The author also mentioned that "Cry toxins represent nearly 20-30% of the cell’s dry weight" in lines 446–447. Include a new section introducing how the metabolism is routed for this ICP-formation process. A good start is (The Metabolic Regulation of Sporulation and Parasporal Crystal Formation in Bacillus thuringiensis Revealed by Transcriptomics and Proteomics, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1535947620311178).
2. The text needs extensive editing. This starts from the beginning of the manuscript. For example, in Abstract lines 14–17, "However … host" is hard to follow. In Introduction lines 24–25, "conformed of" does not read right.
Author Response
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Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) is a rod-shaped, Gram-positive, and spore-forming microbial entomopathogen. It is widely used as biopesticide. Sporulation, structure assembly, and germination are essential stages in the cell cycle of Bt. This paper summarized and reviewed the molecular biology of the Bt sporulation, structural assembly, and germination.
1. The organization and logic of the article is not very clear. The content of introduction is too much. It is suggested to delete some of it. For instance, “the life cycle of Bt”, “the mechanism of action of Cry proteins”. These narrations are not closely related to the theme of the article.
2. The 3.1 (P 651) title is not well expressed, it might be better to describe as “The molecular components of the germination of Bt”.
3. P278-282, P391-405, and P566-573, these parts are best described in the paragraphs and need not be listed separately.
4. The sentence of the article is not smooth, and the writing needs to be properly revised before publishing.
Author Response
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Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Thank you for including the new section "3.2. Routing the regulatory metabolism … ". Please make sure the new references are listed in the "REFERENCES" section at the bottom. The reference (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1535947620311178) from the last review was missing. With that, I have no further questions.
Author Response
Please the attachment.
thanks a lot of
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript has been improved by the English proofreading and authors have made modification accordingly as required.
Author Response
Please see the attachment
thanks a lot
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
