A further inaccuracy concerns the functional annotation of the suxA gene product, which is described as a "TonB-like porin", "transporter of the TonB family", or "outer membrane ß-barrel TonB-family transporter". At this point, I would like to clarify that TonB is neither a porin nor a transporter, nor an outer membrane protein, nor a protein with a β-barrel structure. The three-dimensional structure of TonB has already been determined on several occasions, with perhaps the most impressive piece of work being a recently published paper on the cryo-EM structure of the Ton motor complex of Escherichia coli (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-61286-z). To familiarise yourself better with the subject, I highly recommend reading a recently published review article on substrate uptake by TonB-dependent outer membrane transporters, which act in conjunction with TonB and other membrane proteins. The article was written by a pioneer in TonA and TonB research, my esteemed doctoral supervisor, Volkmar Braun (https://doi.org/10.1111/mmi.15332). In fact, SuxA is precisely such a protein, namely a TonB-dependent outer membrane transporter.

Thank you for sharing this document. Nevertheless, I like to remark that the term 'cistron' comes from the pre-molecular era of genetics and may in prokaryotes be considered as an equivalent of 'gene'. For more information, please consult Seymour Benzer's work from the late 50ies in the last century (e.g., https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16590553/). Hence, phrases like "Further analysis of the locus revealed a cistron composed of four genes" (page 5) or "Here, we identified the sux cistron as an essential cluster of genes" (page 8) are incorrect.

Thank you very much for publishing this manuscript on bioRxiv. I consider it regrettable to continue promoting the existence of the type III effector XopAZ, as the only evidence reported to date comes from a poster abstract at the 2017 APS Annual Meeting. This protein, which is thought to be an FKBP-like peptidyl-prolyl cis-trans isomerase, is even conserved in Escherichia coli K-12, a bacterium lacking a type III secretion system. I doubt that this is a type III effector.