We understand neither the foundation nor the motivation for this argument. The previous work on Geminiviruses referred to in this comment is the paper by Weigel et al 2015 (DOI: 10.1128/JVI.01956-15). Weigel at al 2015 demonstrated that the DNA-A of a bipartite begomovirus species (Begomovirus is a genus of the family Geminiviridae), is self-sufficient to enter and replicate within cells and propagate into the host plant. This situation is reminiscent of the situation for monopartite begomovirus species, whose genome consists only of a single DNA-A-like segment. Weigel et al. 2015 assume and repeatedly argue throughout their paper that the DNA-B of their virus is not self-sufficient for replication and must be together with the DNA-A in individual cells in order to replicate. This is the total opposite of our observations with FBNSV. We were aware of this paper before Devang Mehta’s comment and did not cite it because in our opinion, for the previous reasons, it was not relevant to our findings.
Thus, we do maintain our claim that the FBNSV multicellular way of life reported in our paper is a new concept in Virology whose generality needs further investigation. It has not been demonstrated before, with any viral system, and neither has it even been explicitly enunciated somewhere.
Devang Mehta accuses us of building a strawman to overstate our results. These are very serious accusations against our scientific integrity and rigor, which are unfounded. A more constructive approach would have been to simply ask us what we make of the Weigel et al. paper.
