Unraveling the Secrets of a Double-Life Fungus by Genomics: Ophiocordyceps australis CCMB661 Displays Molecular Machinery for Both Parasitic and Endophytic Lifestyles
, Gabriel Quintanilha-Peixoto 3, Luiz Marcelo Ribeiro Tomé 3, Paula Luize Camargos Fonseca 3, Thairine Mendes-Pereira 3, Daniel Silva Araújo 4, Tarcisio Silva Melo 1, Rodrigo Bentes Kato 3, Jacques Hubert Charles Delabie 5,6, Sérvio Pontes Ribeiro 7, Bertram Brenig 8, Vasco Azevedo 9, Elisandro Ricardo Drechsler-Santos 10, Bruno Silva Andrade 11 and Aristóteles Góes-Neto 3,*
Mukund V. Deshpande
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
Responses to reviewer 1 questions:
- Reviewer 1:
It is very important to emphasize that our study did not comprise a solely database analysis.
In order to carry out our study, several researchers (that are authors) were directly involved and their research laboratories were frequently used, such as the Mycology Laboratory (MIND.Funga) in Federal University of Santa Catarina (Florianópolis -Brazil) for the isolation of the ant fungus, whose specimens were all collected in native Atlantic Forest fragment by some of the authors; Laboratory of Molecular and Computational Biology of Fungi in Federal University of Minas Gerais (Belo Horizonte, Brazil), for the molecular identification of the collected and isolated fungal species and all the bioinformatic analyses. Furthermore, the taxonomic identification at species level of the ant (Neoponera curvinodis Forel, 1899) was performed in the Laboratory of Myrmecology in Centro de Pesquisa do Cacao (Ilhéus, Brazil), and the genome sequencing was carried out in the Institute of Veterinary Medicine in the University of Göttingen (Göttingen, Germany). All the bioinformatic and statistical analyses of the collected fungal species (Ophiocordyceps australis) was performed after high-throughput sequencing, such as genome assembly, gene annotation, and interpretation of biological findings. All the data of our study from the collection of the specimens in a preserved forest fragment to the isolation, sequncing and genomics are primary and new data for Science
Finally, with regard to the study of biochemical parameters for the fungus-insect-plant interaction, we begin to evaluate them in a lab model, and they will be part of a future article, as this is out of the scope of this article that was focused in the fungal Genomics.
Reviewer 2 Report
Dear authors,
The work is well presented and achieves the objective of a review of the genome and linkage of the secretome of the fungus. I believe that the analysis of the genetic neighborhood and empirical analysis of the secretome or mining of the relevant molecules is necessary for a subsequent publication. I consider that the document is a contribution to the state of the art, but it requires minor improvements in the figures and their figure captions. Firstly, improve the font size of the figures and secondly, include a brief and precise description in the caption of the figure about its content.
All my best!
Author Response
- Response to Reviewer 2:
- All figures and their subtitles have been substantially improved, and we inserted the old Supplementary Figures S1, as new Figure 5 as part of the main text. Figure S2 is now Figure S1, and old Figure 4 is now renumbered as new Figure 5 in this new version.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
In my opinion, there should be wet lab data at least for one Biochemical marker. Otherwise it is solely database analysis as authors also have rightly mentioned in the response to the reviewer.
