Xie et al. reported the characteristics of newly developed CRISPR-Nucleases that are a chimera of non-PI domain of xCas9 and various SpCas9 variants. The authors claimed that the engineering of Cas9 variants acquired relaxed PAM and increased genome editing efficiency. The results reported in the manuscript may provide valuable information for the readers especially of interest to the field of genome editing as well as protein engineering. Overall results presented seem to reflect careful and effortful experiments performed by the authors.

However, I think that the quality of data presentations stated in the current version manuscript seems insufficient or, at least, unkind to the readers, the manuscript likely needs to be improved to convince the readers by clarifying which data support the authors' claims. In particular, the authors frequently stated as "outperformed" when they would refer to the performance of the engineered nuclease; however, what property of the nuclease was improved than its control and how the authors determined the significance of the advantages provided by engineered ones is not sufficiently described in texts, in most cases. The authors are preferred to state carefully which comparison of the actual value(s) support the conclusion of the authors.

I addition, the fusion with the on-PI domain of xCas9 provided two aspects of improvements of the SpCas9 nucleases, namely relaxed PAM and increased efficiency. However, due to the authors examined many numbers of Cas9 variants, understanding from text seems difficult. I think providing a summarizing table will help to understand the readers.
And I think providing a discussion about the structural insights or prediction upon the amino acid substitutions will improve the manuscript, especially which characteristics of the mosaic Cas9, relaxed PAM or increased efficiency, is the primary points brought by the mutation and which is a secondary effect, or these are independent.

Points
Figure1a
The illustration seems to be obscure. The resolution or color indications need to be improved.

Figure1b
The explanation in legend is insufficient. e.g. what are color indications on the amino acid numbers mean?

Figure1c
Explanations for the words, A5/A7/A6..., should be provided.
According to Figure, 13 targets seem to be tested while the main text stated as "14 NGN PAMs"(P4L24)

Figure 1d/e
Figure legends were absent.

The revised manuscript submitted has been largely improved, in particular, the data presentation is being clear. In the revisited version, the authors stated the experiments that reproduce a mosaic SpCas9, xCas9-NG, that was reported previously and characterization of the engineered Cas9 variant, especially in the PAM recognition. Then the authors tried to expand the method to other Cas9 variants. I think the results may add some progress in the understanding and application of the SpCas9; however, although it will be worthwhile if the results should be provided through the clear direct comparison, the current version manuscript seems inadequate, unfriendly, and inappropriately worded to provide the necessary information for direct comparison.

Most importantly, although the authors use the previously reported xCas9-NG variant, they refer to "we designed", "newly formed variant" in the abstract as well as "We constructed a mosaic SpCas9" in the introduction, without citing the literature. I think this makes Novelty's evaluation confusing to the readers. In addition, in the newly added text, the authors stated as "similar xCas9-NG", though they use the same sequence as the xCas9-NG by Legut et al. Since the sequence is identical to that of xCas9-NG, "identical/same" should be used or simply "xCas9-NG", and descriptions that cause confusion should be avoided.

Points
Inconsistent statements.
In the main text, "CBE3" is frequently used, while in Figure, BE3 and Apobec-1 are used.
I think these inconsistencies are not reader-friendly.

In section 1 of Results, the authors always describe the full names of constructs, e.g. ABE-xCas9, CBE-xCas9, whereas the notion for ABE/CBE was provided in a limited part in the latter section.

Statistics should be provided in Supplementary figures 2 and 4.

P5L37 CBE-NG > CBE-Cas9-NG

The authors have addressed most of my concerns. I have no further suggestions.