JOURNAL OF CLINICAL MICROBIOLOGY, Jan. 2004 Copyright © 2004, American Society for Microbiology

JOURNAL OF CLINICAL MICROBIOLOGY

INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS*

HOW TO SUBMIT MANUSCRIPTS

All submissions to the Journal of Clinical Microbiology(JCM) except modifications of manuscripts that werehandled in hard copy must be made electronically via theRapid Review online submission and peer review systemat the following URL: http://www.rapidreview.com/ASM2/author.html. (E-mailed submissions will not beaccepted.) If the first version of the manuscript washandled in hard copy before online submission/reviewwas available, the modification must be sent in hardcopy, with an accompanying disk(s), to the editor.

The same guidelines previously used for hard-copymanuscripts still apply to “manuscript” source filepreparation, as follows. Type every portion of the manu-script double spaced (a minimum of 6 mm between lines),including figure legends, table footnotes, and References,and number all pages in sequence, including the abstract,figure legends, and tables. Place the last two items after theReferences section. Manuscript pages should have line num-bers. The font size should be no smaller than 12 pt. It isrecommended that the following sets of characters be eas-ily distinguishable in the manusript: the numeral zero (0)and the letter “oh” (O); the numeral one (1), the letter “el”(l), and the letter “eye” (I); and a multiplication sign (�)and the letter “ex” (x). Do not create symbols as graphicsor use special fonts that are external to your word process-ing program; use the “insert symbol” function and selectcharacters from the “normal text” subset only. Set the pagesize to 81⁄2 by 11 inches. Italicize or underline any wordsthat should appear in italics. Include all section heads (seeOrganization and Format, p. vii), and indicate paragraphlead-ins in bold type. Because the electronic text file un-dergoes an automated preediting, cleanup, and taggingprocess specific to the particular article type before beingcopyedited (see Notification of Acceptance, below), it isimportant that it be formatted correctly with all the propersections and headings.

To submit a manuscript electronically, first create anAuthor account in the Rapid Review system, makingsure it contains a valid e-mail address. The same authoraccount may be used for all ASM journals. The personfrom whose account a submission is made will be re-corded as the corresponding author, and any correspon-dence will be sent to the e-mail address in their account.The same person must be indicated as the correspond-ing author on the manuscript’s title page. Instructionsare provided throughout the submission process via on-line user notes, help menus, and submission guidelines.A help desk is also available.

Fill out the online submission form completely, even ifthe requested information is included on the manuscripttitle page. Do not put, e.g., “See PDF” in the Abstract

field because potential reviewers are not initially givenaccess to the entire manuscript and use the abstract onthe submission form to determine whether they are ableto do the review. If the manuscript is a resubmission,include the former ASM manuscript number and yearin the appropriate section of the form and supply point-by-point responses to the reviewers’ comments as a sup-plemental-data file (see Review Process on p. vi). Toexpedite the review process, authors should recommendat least two reviewers who are not members of theirinstitution(s) and have never been associated with themor their laboratory(ies); please provide their contact in-formation where indicated on the submission form.

Copies of in-press and submitted manuscripts that areimportant for judgment of the present manuscript shouldbe included as supplemental material to facilitate the re-view.

Authors who are unsure of proper English usageshould have their manuscripts checked by somone pro-ficient in the English language. Manuscripts may beeditorially rejected, before review, on the basis of poorEnglish or lack of conformity to the standards set forthin these instructions.

File Upload

Upload text and image files by following the on-screeninstructions. An automatic converter will create a singlePDF file from the source files submitted, assembling thevarious elements (text, figures, tables, etc.) in the orderspecified by the author. You must check the PDF con-version to complete the online submission. It is crucialthat you check the entire manuscript carefully, espe-cially the figures, to make sure that everything con-verted properly.

File Formats

Complete information on file types acceptable forelectronic submission is given in Rapid Review. Fileformats that are acceptable both for review purposesand, should the manuscript be accepted, for productioninclude those listed below. Less-stringent requirementsapply on initial submission of the manuscript if the au-thor specifies that the files are intended for reviewingpurposes only. Authors who choose to submit their en-tire manuscript as a ready-made PDF file, a format thatis acceptable for reviewing purposes only, must adjusttheir Adobe Acrobat settings to embed all fonts. Failureto do so may result in blank or illegible pages in themanuscript viewed by the editor and reviewers. Westrongly suggest that all files submitted, not just those formanuscripts at the modification stage, meet the criteriafor production.* Shading indicates material that has been added or updated.

i

Text

• Microsoft Word• WordPerfect• RTF

Tables

• PDF*• Word• WordPerfect• Word or WordPerfect with embedded Excel*

*Select “reviewing purposes only” for tables suppliedin these formats, even if you intend them to be used inproduction.

Graphics

• TIFF or EPS created from supported applications(see Illustrations and Tables on p. xii and visithttp://cjs.cadmus.com/da/ for an up-to-date listingof supported applications)

• PowerPoint (black-and-white figures only)

A feature called Rapid Inspector (http://rapidinspec-tor.cadmus.com/mw/) is available so that authors maycheck the acceptablitity of digital art for production anddetermine what must be fixed for the files to pass in-spection. See p. xii–xiv for detailed instructions aboutillustrations.

EDITORIAL POLICY

Use of Microbiological Information

The Council Policy Committee (CPC) of the Ameri-can Society for Microbiology affirms the long-standingposition of the Society that microbiologists will work forthe proper and beneficent application of science and willcall to the attention of the public or the appropriateauthorities misuses of microbiology or of informationderived from microbiology. ASM members are obligatedto discourage any use of microbiology contrary to thewelfare of humankind, including the use of microbes asbiological weapons. Bioterrorism violates the fundamen-tal principles expressed in the Code of Ethics of theSociety and is abhorrent to the ASM and its members.

ASM recognizes that there are valid concerns regard-ing the publication of information in scientific journalsthat could be put to inappropriate use as described in theCPC resolution mentioned above. Members of the ASMPublications Board will evaluate the rare manuscriptthat might raise such issues during the review process.However, as indicated elsewhere in these Instructions,research articles must contain sufficient detail, and ma-terial/information must be made available, to permit thework to be repeated by others. Supply of materials

should be in accordance with laws and regulations gov-erning the shipment, transfer, possession, and use ofbiological materials and must be for legitimate, bona fideresearch needs. Links to, and information regarding,these laws and regulations can be found at http://www.asm.org/Policy/index.asp?bid�52.

General Requirements

Manuscripts submitted to the journal must representreports of original research, and the original data mustbe available for review by the editor if necessary.

All authors of a manuscript must have agreed to itssubmission and are responsible for its content, includ-ing appropriate citations and acknowledgments, andmust also have agreed that the corresponding author hasthe authority to act on their behalf on all matters per-taining to publication of the manuscript. The corre-sponding author is responsible for obtaining such agree-ments and for informing the coauthors of themanuscript’s status throughout the submission, review,and publication process. For Authors’ Corrections andRetractions, signed letters of agreement from all of theauthors must be submitted (see p. xi–xii).

By submission of a manuscript to the journal, theauthors guarantee that they have the authority to pub-lish the work and that the manuscript, or one withsubstantially the same content, was not published pre-viously, is not being considered or published elsewhere,and was not rejected on scientific grounds by anotherASM journal.

It is expected that the authors will provide writtenassurance that permission to cite unpublished data orpersonal communications has been granted.

By publishing in the journal, the authors agree thatany plasmids, viruses, and living materials such as mi-crobial strains and cell lines newly described in thearticle are available from a national collection or will bemade available in a timely fashion and at reasonablecost to members of the scientific community for non-commercial purposes.

Primary Publication

A scientific paper or its substance published in a serial,periodical, book, conference report, symposium pro-ceeding, or technical bulletin, posted on a nonpersonalwebsite, or made available through any other retrievablesource, including CD-ROM and other electronic forms,is unacceptable for submission to an ASM journal ongrounds of prior publication.

Posting of a method/protocol on a nonpersonal web-site should not interfere with the author’s ability to havea manuscript utilizing that technique considered for pub-lication in an ASM journal; however, ultimately, it is aneditorial decision whether the method constitutes thesubstance of a paper.

Posting of a limited amount of original data on apersonal/university/company website or websites of

ii INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS

small collaborative groups working on a problem doesnot preclude subsequent submission to, and publicationby, an ASM journal. The posted data, however, may notconstitute the substance of the submission. Specificquestions about this policy may be referred to the Pub-lications Board chairman on a case-by-case basis. Post-ing of theses and dissertations on a personal/university-hosted website does not preclude subsequent submissionto, and publication by, an ASM journal.

Posting of unpublished sequence data on the Internetis usually not considered prior publication; however, theaddress (URL) of the source of the sequence should beincluded in the text.

A preliminary disclosure of research findings pub-lished in standard abstract form as an adjunct to a meet-ing, e.g., part of a program, is not considered prior pub-lication. Disclosure of research findings as an “extendedabstract” in a publication that is provided as an adjunct toa meeting or subsequent to a meeting may be consideredprior publication. Ultimately, it is an editorial decisionwhether the material constitutes the substance of a paper.

It is incumbent upon the author to acknowledge anyprior publication of the data contained in a manuscriptsubmitted to an ASM journal. A copy of the relevantwork should be submitted with the paper as supplemen-tal material.

Permissions

The corresponding author is responsible for obtainingpermission from both the original author and the origi-nal publisher (i.e., the copyright owner) to reproduce ormodify figures and tables and to reproduce text (inwhole or in part) from previous publications.

The original signed permission(s) must be submitteddirectly to the editor, outside the Rapid Review system,no later than the modification stage and should be iden-tified as to the relevant item in the ASM manuscript(e.g., ‘‘permissions for Fig. 1 in JCM00123-04’’). In ad-dition, a statement indicating that the material is beingreprinted with permission must be included in the rele-vant figure legend or table footnote of the manuscript.Reprinted text must be enclosed in quotation marks, andthe permission statement must be included as runningtext or indicated parenthetically.

Authorship

An author is one who made a substantial contributionto the overall design and execution of the experiments;therefore, ASM considers all authors responsible forthe entire paper. Individuals who provided assistance,e.g., supplied strains or reagents or critiqued the paper,need not be listed as authors but may be recognized inthe Acknowledgments section.

A study group, surveillance team, working group, con-sortium, or the like (e.g., the Active Bacterial Core Sur-veillance Team) may be listed as a coauthor in the bylineif its contributing members satisfy the requirements for

authorship and accountability as described in these In-structions. The names (and institutional affiliations ifdesired) of the contributing members only should belisted in a separate paragraph in the Acknowledgmentssection. (A footnote directing readers from the group’sname in the byline to the contributing individuals’ namesin the Acknowledgments section will be added by theASM editorial staff.)

If the contributing members of the group associatedwith the work do not fulfill the criteria of substantialcontribution to and responsibility for the paper, thegroup may not be listed in the author byline. Instead, itand the names of its contributing members may be listedin the Acknowledgments section.

All authors must agree to the order in which theirnames are listed in the byline. Statements regardingequal contributions by two or more authors (e.g., X.J.and Y.S. contributed equally to . . .) are permitted asfootnotes to bylines. Other statements of attribution maybe included in the Acknowledgments section.

A change in authorship (order of listing or addition ordeletion of a name) after submission of the manuscriptwill be implemented only after receipt of signed state-ments of agreement from all parties involved. Disputesabout authorship may delay review and/or publication ofthe manuscript.

Conflict of Interest

All authors are expected to disclose, in the manuscriptsubmittal letter, any commercial affiliations as well asconsultancies, stock or equity interests, and patent-licensing arrangements that could be considered to posea conflict of interest regarding the submitted article.(Inclusion of a company name in the author addresslines of the manuscript does not constitute disclosure.)Details of the disclosure to the editor will remain con-fidential. However, it is the responsibility of authors toprovide, in the Acknowledgments section, a generalstatement disclosing financial or other relationships thatare relevant to the study. Examples of potentially con-flicting interests that should be disclosed include rela-tionships that might detract from an author’s objectivityin presentation of study results, and interests whosevalue would be enhanced by the results presented. Allfunding sources for the project, institutional and corpo-rate, should be credited in the Acknowledgments sec-tion, as described below. In addition, if a manuscriptconcerns a commercial product, the manufacturer’sname must be indicated in the Materials and Methodssection or elsewhere in the text, as appropriate, in anobvious manner.

Copyright

To maintain and protect the Society’s ownership andrights and to continue to afford scientists the opportunityto publish in high-quality journals, ASM requires thecorresponding author to sign a copyright transfer agree-

INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS iii

ment on behalf of all the authors. This agreement is sentto the corresponding author when the manuscript is ac-cepted and scheduled for publication. Unless this agree-ment is executed (without changes and/or addenda),ASM will not publish the manuscript.

In the copyright transfer agreement signed by an au-thor, ASM grants to that author (and coauthors) theright to republish discrete portions of his (their) article inany other publication (print, CD-ROM, and other elec-tronic forms) of which he is (they are) the author(s) oreditor(s), on the condition that appropriate credit is givento the original ASM publication. This republication rightalso extends to posting on a host computer to whichthere is access via the Internet. Except as indicated be-low, significant portions of the article may not be reprint-ed/posted without ASM’s prior written permission, how-ever, as this would constitute duplicate publication.

Authors may post their own published articles on theirpersonal or university-hosted (but not corporate, govern-ment, or similar) websites without ASM’s prior writtenpermission provided that appropriate credit is given (i.e.,either the copyright lines shown on the top of the firstpage of the PDF version or “Copyright © AmericanSociety for Microbiology, [insert journal name, volumenumber, page numbers, and year]” for the HTML ver-sion).

The copyright transfer agreement asks that authorswho were U.S. Government employees and who wrotethe article as part of their employment duties be identi-fied. This is because works authored solely by such U.S.Government employees are not subject to copyright pro-tection, so there is no copyright to be transferred. Theother provisions of the copyright transfer agreement,such as author representations of originality and author-ity to enter into the agreement, apply to U.S. Govern-ment employee-authors as well as to other authors.

Use of Human Subjects or Animals in Research

The use of human subjects or other animals for re-search purposes is regulated by the federal governmentand individual institutions. Manuscripts containing in-formation related to human or animal use should clearlystate that the research has complied with all relevantfederal guidelines and institutional policies. Copies ofthese guidelines and policy statements must be availablefor review by the editor if necessary.

Patient Identification

To protect the privacy of individuals mentioned inclinical studies, in case histories, and as sources of iso-lates, do not identify them by their initials, even as partof a strain designation. Change the initials to numeralsor use randomly chosen letters. Do not give hospital unitnumbers; if a designation is needed, use only the last twodigits of the unit. (Note: established designations ofsome viruses and cell lines, although they consist of

initials, are acceptable [e.g., JC virus, BK virus, andHeLa cells].)

Nucleotide and Amino Acid Sequences

It is expected that newly determined nucleotideand/or amino acid sequence data will be deposited andGenBank/EMBL/DDBJ accession numbers will be in-cluded in the manuscript no later than the modificationstage of the review process. It is also expected that thesequence data will be released to the public no later thanthe publication date of the article. The accession numbershould be included in a separate paragraph at the end ofthe Materials and Methods section for full-length papersor at the end of the text for Notes. If conclusions in amanuscript are based on the analysis of sequences and aGenBank/EMBL/DDBJ accession number is not pro-vided at the time of the review, authors should providethe sequence data as supplemental material.

It is expected that, when previously published se-quence accession numbers are cited in a manuscript,the original citations (e.g., journal articles) will beincluded in the References section when possible orreasonable.

Authors are also expected to do elementary searchesand comparisons of nucleotide and amino acid se-quences against the sequences in standard databases(e.g., GenBank) immediately before manuscripts aresubmitted and again at the proof stage.

Database address information is as follows.DDBJ: Center for Information Biology and DNA

Data Bank of Japan, National Institute of Genetics, 1111Yata, Mishima, Shizuoka 411-8540, Japan; telephone,81-559-81-6853; fax, 81-559-81-6849; e-mail, ddbj@ddbj.nig.ac.jp (for data submissions); URL, http://www.ddbj.nig.ac.jp.

EMBL: EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Submissions,European Bioinformatics Institute, Hinxton, WellcomeTrust Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SD,United Kingdom; telephone, 44-1223-494499; fax, 44-1223-494472; e-mail, datasubs@ebi.ac.uk; URL, http://www.ebi.ac.uk.

GenBank: National Center for Biotechnology Infor-mation, National Library of Medicine, Bldg. 38A, Rm.8N-803, Bethesda, MD 20894; telephone, 301-496-2475;fax, 301-480-9241; e-mail, info@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov; URL,http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.

See p. xiv for nucleic acid sequence formatting instruc-tions.

Structural Determinations

It is expected that coordinates for new structures ofmacromolecules will be deposited in the Protein DataBank and assigned identification codes will be includedin the manuscript no later than the modification stage ofthe review process. It is also expected that the coordi-nates will be released to the public no later than thepublication date of the article. Authors are encouraged

iv INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS

to send coordinates with their original submission, how-ever, so that reviewers can examine them along with themanuscript. The accession number(s) should be listed ina separate paragraph at the end of the Materials andMethods section for full-length papers or at the end ofthe text for Notes. The URLs for coordinate depositionare http://pdb.rutgers.edu and http://pdbdep.protein.osaka-u.ac.jp.

Compliance

Failure to comply with the policies described in theseInstructions may result in a letter of reprimand, a sus-pension of publishing privileges in ASM journals, and/ornotification of the authors’ institutions.

Warranties and Exclusions

Articles published in this journal represent the opin-ions of the authors and do not necessarily represent theopinions of ASM. ASM does not warrant the fitness orsuitability, for any purpose, of any methodology, kit,product, or device described or identified in an article.The use of trade names is for identification purposesonly and does not constitute endorsement by ASM.

Page Charges

Authors whose research was supported by grants, spe-cial funds (including departmental and institutional), orcontracts (including governmental) or whose researchwas done as part of their official duties (government,corporate, etc.) are required to pay page charges.

For a corresponding author who is an ASM member,page charges are currently $45 per page for the first fourpages and $62 per page for each page in excess of four(subject to change without notice). To obtain the mem-ber rate, the corresponding author must be an ASMmember and must include his member number on thereprint/page charge form.

For a nonmember corresponding author, pagecharges are currently $52 per page for the first fourpages and $73 for each page in excess of four. A corre-sponding author who is not an ASM member may joinASM to obtain the member rate by completing the ASMmember application form sent with the acceptance letterand returning it along with payment and the completedreprint/page charge form to the Journals Department.

If the research was not supported by any of the meansdescribed above, a request to waive the charges may bemailed (Journals Department, ASM, 1752 N St., N.W.,Washington, DC 20036-2904, USA) or faxed (202-942-9355) to the Journals Department. This request mustindicate how the work was supported and should beaccompanied by copies of the title page and Acknowl-edgments section.

Minireviews, Guest Commentaries, and comment

Letters to the Editor are not subject to page charges.New-data Letters to the Editor and fast-track articles aresubject to page charges.

Scope

JCM is devoted to the dissemination of new knowl-edge concerning the microbiological aspects of humanand animal infections and infestations, particularly theiretiological agents, diagnosis, and epidemiology. CaseReports will be considered if they are novel, add toexisting knowledge, and are oriented toward microbiol-ogy. (See p. xi for a description of the two different typesof Case Reports published.) Manuscripts which describemembers of the ‘‘normal’’ human microbiota which be-come involved in disease production or complicationand manuscripts dealing with the interactions of hospi-talized patients and the microbial environment of thehospital may also be submitted for consideration.

ASM publishes a number of different journals cover-ing various aspects of the field of microbiology. Eachjournal has a prescribed scope which must be consid-ered in determining the most appropriate journal foreach manuscript. The following guidelines may be ofassistance.

(i) JCM will consider manuscripts (a) that describe theuse of antimicrobial, antiparasitic, or anticancer agentsas tools in the isolation, identification, or epidemiologyof microorganisms associated with disease; (b) that areconcerned with quality control procedures for diffusion,elution, or dilution tests for determining susceptibilitiesto antimicrobial agents in clinical laboratories; and (c)that deal with applications of commercially preparedtests or kits to assays performed in clinical laboratoriesto measure the activities of established antimicrobialagents or their concentrations in body fluids. Manu-scripts on all other aspects of antimicrobial or antipar-asitic agents, including reports concerned with develop-ment or modification of assay methods and validation oftheir sensitivity and specificity, will be considered forpublication in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.

(ii) JCM will consider manuscripts dealing with theisolation or identification of viral agents from humansand animals, with viral pathogenesis and immunity, andwith the etiology and diagnosis of viral diseases. Inaddition, epidemiological studies of viral diseases orthose involving the use of bacteriophages as a typingsystem or to identify bacteria will be considered. How-ever, papers on the biology of phages and other virusesare more appropriate for the Journal of Virology or theJournal of Bacteriology.

(iii) Reports of clinical microbiology investigations orstudies of the hospital population and the environmentas they relate to nosocomial infections should be sub-mitted to JCM. Manuscripts dealing with ecology orenvironmental studies or with the application of micro-organisms to agricultural or industrial processes aremore appropriate for Applied and Environmental Micro-biology.

INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS v

(iv) Papers involving immune response assessmentand laboratory diagnostic aspects of immunologic dis-eases (e.g., autoimmune diseases and primary immuno-deficiencies) are more appropriate for Clinical and Diag-nostic Laboratory Immunology. Manuscripts dealing withbasic immunology or with mechanisms of pathogenicityare appropriate for Infection and Immunity.

(v) Manuscripts that describe detection of infectiousagents by using already well described techniques (e.g.,RT-PCR, RAPD, PFGE, real-time PCR, etc.) will notbe considered for publication unless application of thetechnique substantially improves the diagnostic process.It is expected that such manuscripts will compare sensitiv-ity, specificity, and accuracy data with data obtained frommore conventional methods using clinical specimens.

(vi) JCM will consider manuscripts that describe di-agnostic microbiology assays and those that compareassay performance. To improve the accuracy and ensurethe completeness of their studies, authors should referto the Standards for Reporting of Diagnostic Accuracy(STARD) for guidance. The entire set of guidelines,including checklists, may be found at http://www.consort-statement.org/stardstatement.htm.

Questions about these guidelines may be directed tothe editor in chief of the journal being considered.

If transfer to another ASM journal is recommendedby an editor, the corresponding author will be contacted.

Note that a manuscript rejected by one ASM journalon scientific grounds or on the basis of its general suit-ability for publication is considered rejected by all otherASM journals.

Culture Deposition

JCM encourages authors to deposit important strainsin publicly accessible culture collections and to refer tothe collections and strain numbers in the text. Since theauthenticity of subcultures of culture collection speci-mens that are distributed by individuals cannot be en-sured, authors should indicate laboratory strain designa-tions and donor sources as well as original culturecollection identification numbers.

Links to Supplementary Material

Authors are encouraged to include the URLs of theirwebsites if they contain data that might supplementthose in the article itself and/or be of interest or assis-tance to readers. Such addresses should be included inthe relevant text, not as footnotes.

Editorial Style

The editorial style of ASM journals conforms to theASM Style Manual for Journals (American Society forMicrobiology, 2004, in-house document) and How ToWrite and Publish a Scientific Paper, 5th ed. (Oryx Press,

1998), as interpreted and modified by the editors and theASM Journals Department.

The editors and the Journals Department reserve theprivilege of editing manuscripts to conform with thestylistic conventions set forth in the aforesaid publica-tions and in these instructions.

Review Process

All manuscripts are considered to be confidential andare reviewed by the editors, members of the editorialboard, or qualified ad hoc reviewers. When a manuscriptis submitted to the journal, it is given a number (e.g.,JCM00047-04 version 1) and assigned to one of theeditors (Always refer to this number in communicationswith the editor and the Journals Department.) It is theresponsibility of the corresponding author to inform thecoauthors of the manuscript’s status throughout the sub-mission, review, and publication processes. The reviewersoperate under strict guidelines set forth in “Guidelinesfor the Reviewers” (http://www.journals.asm.org/misc/reviewguide.shtml) and are expected to complete theirreviews expeditiously.

The corresponding author is notified, generally within4 to 6 weeks after submission, of the editor’s decision toaccept, reject, or require modification. When modifica-tion is requested, the corresponding author must submitthe modified version within 2 months; otherwise, themanuscript may be considered withdrawn. A point-for-point response to the reviews must be provided in theRebuttal section of the Rapid Review submission formfor the revised manuscript, and a compare copy of themanuscript (without figures) should be included as sup-plemental material if the editor requested one.

Manuscripts that have been rejected, or withdrawnafter being returned for modification, may be resubmit-ted if the major criticisms have been addressed. (Note: Amanuscript rejected by one ASM journal on scientificgrounds or on the basis of its general suitability for publi-cation is considered rejected by all other ASM journals.) Aswith initial submissions, resubmitted manuscripts mustbe submitted via Rapid Review. The cover letter muststate that the manuscript is a resubmission, and theformer manuscript number should be provided in the ap-propriate field on the submission form. A point-for-point response to the reviews and a compare copy of therevised manuscript showing the changes should be in-cluded as supplemental material (the Rebuttal sectionappears in the submission form only if the manuscript isa modification). Resubmitted manuscripts are normallyhandled by the original editor.

Manuscripts may not be resubmitted more than onceunless permission has been obtained from the originaleditor or from the editor in chief.

Notification of Acceptance

When an editor has decided that a manuscript is ac-ceptable for publication on the basis of scientific merit,

vi INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS

the author and the Journals Department are notified.The word processing files uploaded to create the PDFfile undergo an automated preediting, cleanup, and tag-ging process specific to the particular article type, andthe illustrations are examined. If all files have been pre-pared according to the criteria set forth in these Instruc-tions, the acceptance procedure will be completed suc-cessfully. If there are problems that would causeextensive corrections to be made at the copyediting stageor if the files are not acceptable for production, the ASMproduction editor will contact the corresponding author.

Once all the material intended for publication hasbeen determined to be adequate, the manuscript isscheduled for the next available issue and an acceptanceletter indicating the month of publication, approximatepage proof dates, and table of contents section is mailedto the corresponding author; a copyright transfer agree-ment is also included. The editorial staff of the ASMJournals Department completes the editing of themanuscript to bring it into conformity with prescribedstandards.

Page Proofs

Page proofs, together with a query sheet, a reprintorder/page charge form, and instructions for handlingproofs, will be made available to the corresponding au-thor electronically via a PDF file that can be accessedthrough a unique password. Since corresponding au-thors will be notified of the availability of their PDFproofs and assigned their unique password via e-mail, ane-mail address must be supplied in the correspondentfootnote. Failure to do so may result in a delay in pub-lication. The PDF page proofs must be printed out, andcorrections must be written on the hard copy. Queriesmust be answered on the query page or on a separatesheet of paper, and any changes related to the queriesmust be indicated on the proofs. Note that the copyeditor does not query at every instance where a changehas been made. Queries are written only to request nec-essary information or clarification of an unclear passageor to draw attention to edits that may have altered thesense. It is the author’s responsibility to read the entiretext, tables, and figure legends, not just items queried.As soon as the page proofs are corrected and signed bythe person who proofread them (within 48 h), theyshould be mailed or sent by a courier service such asFedEx, not faxed or sent as an e-mail attachment, to theASM Journals Department.

The proof stage is not the time to make extensivecorrections, additions, or deletions. Important new in-formation that has become available between accep-tance of the manuscript and receipt of the proofs may beinserted as an addendum in proof with the permission ofthe editor. If references to unpublished data or personalcommunications are added, it is expected that writtenassurance granting permission for the citation will beincluded. Limit changes to correction of spelling errors,incorrect data, and grammatical errors and updated in-

formation for references to articles that have been sub-mitted or are in press. If URLs have been provided inthe article, recheck the sites to ensure that the addressesare still accurate and the material that you expect thereader to find is indeed there.

Questions about late proofs and problems in the proofsshould be directed to the ASM Journals Department(telephone, 202-942-9215). Questions about accessing orviewing your PDF proofs should be directed to Katie Gayof Cadmus Professional Communications at 804-261-3155 or gayk@cadmus.com.

Reprints

Reprints (in multiples of 100) may be purchased by allcoauthors. An order form that includes a table showingthe cost of reprints is sent with the proofs to the corre-sponding author.

The corresponding authors of Minireviews and GuestCommentaries will receive 100 free reprints of their con-tribution; additional reprints (in multiples of 100) maybe purchased if desired. As for regular articles, an orderform showing the cost of reprints will be sent with theproofs.

PDF Files

A corresponding author who has included an e-mailaddress in his “corresponding author” footnote will havelimited access (10 downloads, total) to the PDF file ofhis published article. An e-mail alert will automaticallybe sent to him on the day the issue is posted. It willprovide a URL, which will be required to obtain access,and instructions. An article may be viewed, printed, orstored, provided that it is for the author’s own use.

Should coauthors or colleagues be interested in view-ing the paper for their own use, the corresponding au-thor may provide them with the URL; a copy of thearticle may not be forwarded electronically. However,they must be made aware of the terms and conditionsof the ASM copyright. (For details, go to http://www.journals.asm.org/misc/terms.shtml.) Note that each suchdownload will count toward the corresponding author’stotal of 10. After 10 downloads, access will be deniedand can be obtained only through a subscription to thejournal (either individual or institutional) or after thestandard access control has been lifted (i.e., 6 monthsafter publication).

ORGANIZATION AND FORMAT

On receipt at ASM, an accepted manuscript under-goes an automated preediting, cleanup, and tagging pro-cess specific to the particular article type. To optimizethis process, manuscripts must be supplied in the correctformat and with the appropriate sections and headings.

INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS vii

Full-Length Papers

Full-length papers include the elements described inthis section.

Title, running title, and byline. Each manuscriptshould present the results of an independent, cohesivestudy; thus, numbered series titles are not permitted.Exercise care in composing a title. Avoid the main title/subtitle arrangement, complete sentences, and unneces-sary articles. On the title page include the title, runningtitle (not to exceed 54 characters and spaces), name ofeach author, address(es) of the institution(s) at whichthe work was performed, each author’s affiliation, and afootnote indicating the present address(es) of any au-thor(s) no longer at the institution where the work wasperformed. Place an asterisk after the name of the au-thor to whom inquiries regarding the paper should bedirected (see “Correspondent footnote” below).

Study group in byline. A study group, surveillanceteam, working group, consortium, or the like (e.g., theActive Bacterial Core Surveillance Team) may be listedas a coauthor in the byline if its contributing memberssatisfy the requirements for authorship and accountabil-ity as described in these Instructions. The names (andinstitutional affiliations if desired) of the contributingmembers only should be listed in a separate paragraph inthe Acknowledgments section. (A footnote directingreaders from the group’s name in the byline to the con-tributing individuals’ names in the Acknowledgmentssection will be added by the ASM editorial staff. The listof study group members may not be provided in a foot-note to the byline, in the text, or in an Appendix.)

If the contributing members of the group associatedwith the work do not fulfill the criteria of substantialcontribution to and responsibility for the paper, thegroup may not be listed in the author byline. Instead, itand the names of its contributing members may be listedin the Acknowledgments section.

Correspondent footnote. The complete mailing ad-dress, a single telephone number, a single fax number,and a single e-mail address for the corresponding authorshould be included on the title page of the manuscript.This information will be published in the article as afootnote to facilitate communication, and the e-mail ad-dress will be used to notify the corresponding author ofavailability of proofs and, later, of the PDF file of thepublished article.

Abstract. Limit the abstract to 250 words or fewer andconcisely summarize the basic content of the paper with-out presenting extensive experimental details. Avoid ab-breviations and references, and do not include diagrams.When it is essential to include a reference, use the sameformat as shown for the References section but omit thearticle title. Conclude the abstract with a summary state-ment. Because the abstract will be published separately

by abstracting services, it must be complete and under-standable without reference to the text.

Introduction. The introduction should supply suffi-cient background information to allow the reader tounderstand and evaluate the results of the present studywithout referring to previous publications on the topic.The introduction should also provide the hypothesis thatwas addressed or the rationale for the present study.Choose references carefully to provide the most salientbackground rather than an exhaustive review of thetopic.

Case Report. The Case Report section, placed afterthe introduction and before Materials and Methods, isoptional and gives relevant clinical information aboutone or more patients while being incidental to the rest ofthe paper. (If the Case Report constitutes the entirearticle, the paper must be presented in Case Reportformat [see p. xi], which differs from that used for afull-length text or a Note.)

Materials and Methods. The Materials and Methodssection must include sufficient technical information toallow the experiments to be repeated. The sources of allmedia (i.e., name and location of manufacturer) or com-ponents of a new formulation must be provided. Whencentrifugation conditions are critical, give enough infor-mation to enable another investigator to repeat the pro-cedure: make of centrifuge, model of rotor, tempera-ture, time at maximum speed, and centrifugal force (� grather than revolutions per minute). For commonly usedmaterials and methods (e.g., media and protein concen-tration determinations), a simple reference or specifi-cally recommended product or procedure is sufficient. Ifseveral alternative methods are commonly used, it ishelpful to identify the method briefly as well as to citethe reference. For example, it is preferable to state ‘‘cellswere broken by ultrasonic treatment as previously de-scribed (9)’’ rather than to state ‘‘cells were broken aspreviously described (9).’’ The reader should be allowedto assess the method without constant reference to pre-vious publications. Describe new methods completely,and give sources of unusual chemicals, reagents, equip-ment, or microbial strains. When large numbers of mi-crobial strains or mutants are used in a study, includetables identifying the immediate sources (i.e., sourcesfrom whom the strains were obtained) and properties ofthe strains, mutants, bacteriophages, plasmids, etc.

A method, strain, etc., used in only one of severalexperiments reported in the paper may be described inthe Results section or very briefly (one or two sentences)in a table footnote or figure legend. It is expected thatthe sources from whom the strains were obtained will beidentified.

Results. In the Results section, include the rationaleor design of the experiments as well as the results;reserve extensive interpretation of the results for theDiscussion section. Present the results as concisely as

viii INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS

possible in one of the following: text, table(s), or fig-ure(s). Avoid extensive use of graphs to present datawhich might be more concisely presented in the text ortables. For example, except in unusual cases, double-reciprocal plots used to determine apparent Km valuesshould not be presented as graphs; instead, the valuesshould be stated in the text. Similarly, graphs illustratingother methods commonly used to derive kinetic or phys-ical constants (e.g., reduced-viscosity plots and plotsused to determine sedimentation velocity) need not beshown except in unusual circumstances. All tabular datamust be accompanied by either standard deviation val-ues or standard errors of the means. The number ofreplicate determinations (or animals) used for makingsuch calculations must also be included. All statementsconcerning the significance of the differences observedshould be accompanied by probability values given inparentheses. The statistical procedure used should bestated in Materials and Methods. Limit illustrations(particularly photomicrographs and electron micro-graphs) to those that are absolutely necessary to showthe experimental findings. Number figures and tables inthe order in which they are cited in the text, and be sureto cite all figures and tables.

Discussion. The Discussion section should provide aninterpretation of the results in relation to previouslypublished work and to the experimental system at hand.It must not contain extensive repetition of the Resultssection or reiteration of the introduction. In short pa-pers, the Results and Discussion sections may be com-bined.

Acknowledgments. The source of any financial sup-port received for the work being published must beindicated in the Acknowledgments section. (It will beassumed that the absence of such an acknowledgment isa statement by the authors that no support was re-ceived.) The usual format is as follows: ‘‘This work wassupported by Public Health Service grant CA-01234from the National Cancer Institute.’’

Recognition of personal assistance should be given asa separate paragraph, as should any statements disclaim-ing endorsement or approval of the views reflected in thepaper or of a product mentioned therein.

Appendixes. Appendixes, which contain supplemen-tary material to aid the reader, are permitted. Titles,authors, and References sections that are distinct fromthose of the primary article are not allowed. If it is notfeasible to list the author(s) of the appendix in the bylineor the Acknowledgments section of the primary article,rewrite the appendix so that it can be considered forpublication as an independent article, either full-lengthor Note style. Equations, tables, and figures should belabeled with the letter ‘‘A’’ preceding the numeral todistinguish them from those cited in the main body ofthe text.

References. (i) Works listed in References. The Ref-erences section must include all journal articles (bothprint and online), books and book chapters (both printand online), patents, theses and dissertations, and pub-lished conference proceedings (not abstracts; see be-low), as well as in-press journal articles, book chapters,and books (publication title must be given). All listedreferences must be cited in the text. Arrange the cita-tions in alphabetical order (letter by letter, ignoringspaces and punctuation) by first author and numberconsecutively. Provide the names of all the authors foreach reference. Since title and byline information that isdownloaded from PubMed does not show accents, ital-ics, or special characters, authors should refer to thePDF files or hard-copy versions of the articles and in-corporate the necessary corrections in the submittedmanuscript. Abbreviate journal names according toBIOSIS Serial Sources (BIOSIS, Philadelphia, Pa., 2003).Cite each listed reference by number in the text.

Follow the styles shown in the examples below.

Print references:

1. Arendsen, A. F., M. Q. Solimar, and S. W. Ragsdale.1999. Nitrate-dependent regulation of acetate biosyn-thesis and nitrate respiration by Clostridium ther-moaceticum. J. Bacteriol. 181:1489–1495.

2. Cox, C. S., B. R. Brown, and J. C. Smith. J. Gen.Genet., in press.* {Article title is optional; journal titleis mandatory.}

3. De Ley, J., M. Gillis, and J. Swings. 1984. Family VI.Acetobacteraceae Gillis and De Ley 1980, 23VP, p.267–278. In N. R. Krieg and J. G. Holt (ed.), Bergey’smanual of systematic bacteriology, vol. 1. Williams &Wilkins, Baltimore, Md.

4. Dunne, W. M., Jr., F. S. Nolte, and M. L. Wilson.1997. Cumitech 1B, Blood cultures III. Coordinatinged., J. A. Hindler. American Society for Microbiol-ogy, Washington, D.C.

5. Fitzgerald, G., and D. Shaw. In A. E. Waters (ed.),Clinical microbiology, in press. EFH Publishing Co.,Boston, Mass.* {Chapter title is optional.}

6. Gershon, A. A., P. LaRussa, and S. P. Steinberg.1999. Varicella-zoster virus, p. 900–911. In P. R. Mur-ray, E. J. Baron, M. A. Pfaller, F. C. Tenover, andR. H. Yolken (ed.), Manual of clinical microbiology,7th ed. American Society for Microbiology, Washing-ton, D.C.

7. Green, P. N., D. Hood, and C. S. Dow. 1984. Taxo-nomic status of some methylotrophic bacteria, p. 251–254. In R. L. Crawford and R. S. Hanson (ed.), Mi-crobial growth on C1 compounds. Proceedings of the4th International Symposium. American Society forMicrobiology, Washington, D.C.

8. Odell, J. C. April 1970. Process for batch culturing.U.S. patent 484,363,770. {Include the name of thepatented item/process if possible.}

9. O’Malley, D. R. 1998. Ph.D. thesis. University of Cal-ifornia, Los Angeles. {Title is optional.}

INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS ix

*A reference to an in-press ASM publication shouldstate the control number (e.g., JCM00577-04) if it is ajournal article or the name of the publication if it is abook.

Online references:

1. Sullivan, C. J. (ed.). 1999–2001. Fungi: an evolvingelectronic resource for the microbiological commu-nity. ASM Press. [Online.] http://link.asmusa.de/link/service/books/91090. Accessed 7 September 2001.{For online-only books.}

2. van der Zeiss, L., and V. B. Danziger. 1999. History ofclinical microbiology. Clin. Microbiol. 100:123–234.[Online.] {For online versions of print journals.}

3. Zellnitz, F., and P. M. Foley. 2 October 1998, posting{or revision} date. History of virology. Am. Virol. J.1:30–50. [Online.] http://www.avj.html. {For online-only journals; page numbers may not be available.}

4. Zheng, Z., and J. Zou. 5 September 2001. The initialstep of the glycerolipid pathway: identification of glyc-erol-3-phosphate/dihydroxyacetone phosphate dualsubstrate acyltransferases in Saccharomyces cerevi-siae. J. Biol. Chem. 10.1074/jbc.M104749200. {Forpapers published online in manuscript form.}

NOTE: A URL or DOI is necessary for each online-onlyreference; a posting or accession date is required for anyonline reference that is periodically updated or changed.

(ii) Items cited in the text. References to unpublisheddata, articles submitted for publication, meeting ab-stracts (including those published in journal supple-ments), personal communications, letters (irrespectiveof type) and authors’ replies to letters, company publi-cations, patent applications and patents pending, com-puter software, databases, and websites should be madeparenthetically in the text as follows.

. . . similar results (R. B. Layton and C. C. Weathers,unpublished data).

. . . system was used (J. L. McInerney, A. F. Holden, andP. N. Brighton, submitted for publication).

. . . in mitochondria (S. De Wit, C. Thioux, and N.Clumeck, Abstr. 34th Intersci. Conf. Antimicrob. AgentsChemother., abstr. 114, 1994).

. . . for other bacteria (A. X. Jones, personal communi-cation.)

. . . discussed previously (L. B. Jensen, A. M. Ham-merum, R. L. Poulsen, and H. Westh, Letter, Antimi-crob. Agents Chemother. 43:724–725, 1999).

. . . discussed previously (S. L. W. On and P. A. R. Van-damme, Authors’ Reply to Letter, J. Clin. Microbiol.39:2751–2752, 2001).

. . . the manufacturer (Sigma manual, Sigma ChemicalCo., St. Louis, Mo.).

. . . this process (V. R. Smoll, 20 June 1999, AustralianPatent Office). {For non-U.S. patent applications, give thedate of publication of the application.}

. . . information found at the XYZ website (http://cbx_iou.pgr).

. . . the ABC program (version 2.2; Department of Mi-crobiology, State University [http://www.stu.micro]).

URLs for companies that produce any of the productsmentioned in your study or for products being sold mayNOT be included in the article. However, companyURLs that permit access to scientific data related to thestudy or to shareware used in the study are permitted.

Notes

The Note format is intended for the presentation ofbrief observations that do not warrant full-length papers.However, Notes should contain firm data; observationsalone are not acceptable. Submit Notes in the same wayas full-length papers. They receive the same review, theyare not published more rapidly than full-length papers, andthey are not considered preliminary communications.

Each Note must have an abstract of no more than 50words. Do not use section headings in the body of theNote; combine methods, results, and discussion in a sin-gle section. Paragraph lead-ins are permissible. The textshould be kept to a minimum and if possible should notexceed 1,000 words; the number of figures and tablesshould also be kept to a minimum. Materials and meth-ods should be described in the text, not in figure legendsor table footnotes. Acknowledgments should be pre-sented as in full-length papers, but no separate headingis used. The References section is identical to that offull-length papers.

Minireviews

Minireviews are expected to be focused discussions ofdefined topics relevant to clinical microbiologists. Ingeneral, they are to be submitted only after invitation byone of the JCM editors. Unsolicited Minireviews arediscouraged. The cover letter should state whether thearticle was solicited and by whom.

Minireviews are not expected to be comprehensivereviews of the literature but rather very directed discus-sions of specific issues, with emphasis on the views of theauthor(s). Thus, they may not exceed 12 double-spacedmanuscript pages in length, inclusive of illustrations, ta-bles, and references. References should be limited to 20or fewer. Minireviews do not have abstracts. In the Ab-stract section of the submission form, put “Not applica-ble.” The body of the Minireview may either have sec-tion headings or be set up like a Note (see above).Minireviews should be submitted via Rapid Review.

Minireviews will be reviewed by two JCM editors, withthe aim of expedited processing. In general, it is hopedthat, barring the necessity of major revisions, accepted

x INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS

Minireviews will appear in print within 3 months of theirsubmission.

Guest Commentaries

Guest Commentaries are invited communications con-cerning relevant topics in clinical microbiology that arenot necessarily covered by Minireviews. They are in-tended to engender discussion and stimulate consensusstatements by such organizations as the American Acad-emy of Microbiology, National Committee for ClinicalLaboratory Standards, etc. Reviews of the literature,methods and other how-to papers, and responses tar-geted at a specific published paper are not appropriate.Guest Commentaries are subject to review.

The length may not exceed 4 printed pages, and theformat is like that of a Minireview (see above). Com-mentaries should be submitted via Rapid Review.

Case Reports

While a full-length article or a Note may contain acase report section when the report is incidental to therest of the paper, a specific Case Report format must beused when the report constitutes the entire article.

A Case Report must include an abstract of no morethan 50 words. The text starts with presentation of thecase under the section heading “Case Report”; there isno introductory text before the Case Report heading.After the case is presented, the rest of the text follows ina separate section after a ruled line to separate thesections. No separate head is used for this short discus-sion section, but paragraph lead-ins are permitted. Thetotal number of tables and figures (combined) must notexceed 3. For a recent example of a correctly formattedCase Report, see J. Clin. Microbiol. 39:1678–1679, 2001.

Letters to the Editor

Two types of Letters to the Editor may be submitted.The first type (comment letter) is intended for com-ments on the articles published previously in the journaland must cite published references to support the writ-er’s argument. The second type (new-data letter) mayreport new, concise findings that are not appropriate forpublication as full-length papers or Notes.

Letters may be no more than 500 words long and mustbe typed double spaced. Refer to a recently publishedletter for correct formatting. Note that authors and af-filiations are listed at the foot of the letter. Provide onlythe primary affiliation for each author. Authors with thesame affiliation must be listed together. The order ofauthor names will be changed as necessary by the Jour-nals staff to avoid repetition of an address.

All Letters to the Editor must be submitted electron-ically, and the type of letter (new data or comment) mustbe selected from the drop-down list in the submissionform. For letters commenting on published articles, thecover letter should state the volume and issue in which

the article was published, the title of the article, and thelast name of the first author. In the Abstract section ofthe submission form, put “Not applicable.” Letters tothe Editor do not have abstracts. Both types of lettermust have a title, which must appear on the manuscriptand on the submission form. Figures and Tables shouldbe kept to a minimum.

If the letter is related to a published article, it will besent to the editor who handled the article in question. Ifthe editor believes that publication is warranted, he willsolicit a reply from the corresponding author of thearticle and give approval for publication.

New-data letters will be assigned to an editor accord-ing to subject matter and will be reviewed by that editorand/or a reviewer.

Please note that some indexing/abstracting servicesdo not include Letters to the Editor in their databases.

Fast-Track Communications

The fast-track route is intended for accelerated reviewof short communications that are of significant interest toclinical microbiologists. Manuscripts are limited to 750words, one figure, one table, and 10 or fewer references.The format should be the same as that of a new-dataletter (see Letters to the Editor, above). Fast-track arti-cles should be submitted via Rapid Review.

A fast-track submission is subject to approval as suchby the editor in chief. If approved for the fast-trackroute, the manuscript will be assigned to an appropriateJCM editor and reviewed, according to the same stan-dards applied for traditional manuscripts, within 1 week.If accepted, the manuscript will be scheduled for thenext available issue and edited. An acceptance letter andcopyright agreement will be mailed to the correspondingauthor. Proofs will be made available electronically asfor regular articles.

A fast-track submission that is not approved for thefast-track route will be handled as a new-data letteraccording to normal procedures.

Errata

The Erratum section provides a means of correctingerrors that occurred during the writing, typing, editing,or printing (e.g., a misspelling, a dropped word or line,or mislabeling in a figure) of a published article. SendErrata directly to the ASM Journals Department (1752N St., N.W., Washington, DC 20036-2904, USA), bothon disk and in hard copy (only one hard copy is neces-sary). Please see a recent issue for correct formatting.

Authors’ Corrections

The Author’s Correction section provides a means ofcorrecting errors of omission (e.g., author names or cita-tions) and errors of a scientific nature that do not alterthe overall basic results or conclusions of a publishedarticle.

INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS xi

For omission of an author’s name, the authors of thearticle and the author whose name was inadvertentlyomitted must agree, in writing, to publication of thecorrection. Copies of the agreement letters must accom-pany the correction and be sent directly to the JournalsDepartment. Send the correction both on disk and inhard copy (only one hard copy is necessary). Please seea recent issue for correct formatting.

Corrections of a scientific nature (e.g., an incorrectunit of measurement or order of magnitude usedthroughout; contamination of one of numerous cultures;or misidentification of a mutant strain, causing errone-ous data for only a portion [noncritical] of the study)must be sent, both on disk and in hard copy, directly tothe editor who handled the article and must be accom-panied by signed letters of agreement from all of the au-thors of the article. If the editor believes that publicationis warranted, he will send the correction to the JournalsDepartment for publication. Note that the addition ofnew data is not permitted.

RetractionsRetractions are reserved for major errors or breaches

of ethics that, for example, may call into question thesource of the data or the validity of the results andconclusions of an article. Send a Retraction and an ac-companying explanatory letter signed by all of the authorsdirectly to the editor in chief of the journal. The editorwho handled the paper and the chairman of the ASMPublications Board will be consulted. If all parties agreeto the publication and content of the Retraction, it willbe sent to the Journals Department for publication.

ILLUSTRATIONS AND TABLES

Illustrations and tables must be submitted electroni-cally along with the text portion of the manuscript. Dig-ital files that are acceptable for production (see below)must be provided for all illustrations, preferably at thesubmission stage but definitely on return of the modifiedmanuscript. We strongly recommend that authors checkthe acceptability of their digital images for productionby running their files through Rapid Inspector, a toolprovided at the following URL: http://rapidinspector.cadmus.com/mw/. Rapid Inspector is an easy-to-useWeb-based application that takes only minutes to iden-tify problems that may cause the file to fail at any pointduring the production process.

Illustrations may be continuous-tone photographs,line drawings, or composites. Color graphics may besubmitted, but the cost of printing in color must be borneby the author. Suggestions about how to reduce costs andensure accurate color reproduction are given below.

In general, digital files are not used for tables at theproduction stage; however, restrictions on file formatsstill apply (see the section on Tables below).

Since the contents of computer-generated images can bemanipulated for better clarity, the Publications Board at its

May 1992 meeting decreed that a description of the soft-ware/hardware used should be put in the figure legend(s).

Illustrations

File types and formats. We encourage all authors tosupply their illustrations as TIFF or EPS files from sup-ported applications or as PowerPoint files (black andwhite only) so that they can be used for production if themanuscript is accepted. Except for figures produced inPowerPoint, all graphics submitted must be bitmap,grayscale, or CMYK (not RGB). Illustrations may beuploaded as PDF files only at the submission stage, andthe author must specify that they are for reviewing pur-poses only. Acceptable file types and formats for pro-duction are given in the tables below. More-detailedinstructions for preparing illustrations are available onthe World Wide Web at http://cjs.cadmus.com/da.Please review this information before preparing yourfiles. If you require additional information, please sendan e-mail inquiry to digitalart@cadmus.com.

Macintosh

ApplicationFile type

Black and white Color (CMYK)a

Adobe Illustrator 6.0, 7.0,8.0, 9.0, and 10.0

EPS EPS

Adobe InDesign 1.0 EPS EPSAdobe PageMaker 6.5 EPS EPSAdobe Photoshop

4.0 TIFF TIFF5.0 TIFF TIFF5.0 LE TIFF N/Ab

5.5 TIFF TIFF6.0 TIFF TIFF

ChemDraw Pro 5.0 EPS/TIFF EPS/TIFFCorel Photo-Paint 8.0 TIFF EPSCorelDRAW 6.0 and 8.0 EPS/TIFF EPSDeneba Canvas 5.0, 6.0,

7.0, and 8.0EPS/TIFF EPS

Macromedia FreeHand7.0, 8.0, and 9.0

EPS EPS

PowerPoint ’98 and 2001 PPTc N/Ab

Prism 3 by GraphPad TIFF N/Ab

QuarkXpress EPS EPSSynergy Kaleidagraph 3.08

and 3.51EPS N/Ab

a Color graphics must be saved and printed in the CMYK mode, not RGB.b ASM accepts only black-and-white, not color, graphics created with Kalei-

dagraph, Adobe Photoshop 5.0 LE, Prism 3 by GraphPad, and PowerPoint.c For instructions on saving PowerPoint files, refer to the Cadmus digital art

website at http://cjs.cadmus.com/da.

Windows

ApplicationFile type

Black and white Color (CMYK)a

Adobe Illustrator 7.0, 8.0, and 9.0 EPS EPSAdobe InDesign 1.0 EPS EPSAdobe PageMaker 6.5 EPS EPSAdobe Photoshop

4.0 TIFF TIFF

xii INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS

Windows—Continued

ApplicationFile type

Black and white Color (CMYK)a

5.0 TIFF TIFF5.0 LE TIFF N/Ab

5.5 TIFF TIFF6.0 TIFF TIFF

ChemDraw Pro 5.0 EPS/TIFF EPS/TIFFCorel Photo-Paint 8.0, and 9.0 TIFF EPSCorelDRAW 7.0, 8.0, and 9.0 EPS/TIFF EPSDeneba Canvas 6.0 and 7.0 EPS/TIFF EPSMacromedia FreeHand 7.0, 8.0,

and 9.0EPS EPS

PowerPoint ’97, 2000, and XP PPTc N/Ab

Prism 3 by GraphPad TIFF N/Ab

QuarkXpress EPS EPSSigmaPlot 8.01 EPS EPS

a Color graphics must be saved and printed in the CMYK mode, not RGB.b ASM accepts only black-and-white, not color, graphics created with Adobe

Photoshop 5.0 LE, Prism 3 by GraphPad, and PowerPoint.c For instructions on saving PowerPoint files, refer to the Cadmus digital art

website at http://cjs.cadmus.com/da.

Minimum resolution. It is extremely important that ahigh enough resolution is used. Note, however, that thehigher the resolution, the larger the file and the longerthe upload time. Minimum resolutions are as follows:

300 dpi for grayscale and color600 dpi for lettering1,200 dpi for line art

Resolution requirements do not apply to graphics cre-ated in PowerPoint.

Size. All graphics MUST be submitted at their in-tended publication size; that is, the image uploadedshould be 100% of its print dimensions so that no re-duction or enlargement is necessary. (No enlargements orreductions will be made by the ASM editorial staff or theprinter.) Include only the significant portion of an illus-tration. White space must be cropped from the image,and excess space between panel labels and the imagemust be eliminated.

Maximum width for a 1-column figure: 35⁄16 inchesMaximum width for a 2-column figure: 67⁄8 inchesMinimum width for a 2-column figure: 41⁄4 inchesMaximum depth: 91⁄16 inches

Contrast. Illustrations must contain sufficient contrastto withstand the inevitable loss of contrast and detailinherent in the printing process. See also the section oncolor illustrations below.

Labeling and assembly. All final lettering, labeling,tooling, etc., MUST be incorporated into the figures. Itcannot be added at a later date. Do not include thefigure number in the image. The order in which thefigures appear in the manuscript PDF file will reflect thefigure number. Each figure must be uploaded as a sep-arate file, and any multipanel figures must be assembled

into one file; i.e., rather than uploading a separate filefor each panel in a figure, assemble all panels in onepiece and supply them as one file.

Fonts. To avoid font problems, set all type in one ofthe following Type 1 PostScript fonts: Helvetica, TimesRoman, European PI, Mathematical PI, or Symbol. Allfonts other than these five must be converted to paths(or outlines) in the application with which they werecreated. For font use in PowerPoint images, refer to theCadmus digital art website, http://cjs.cadmus.com/da.

Compression. Images created with Macintosh appli-cations may be compressed with Stuffit. Images createdwith Windows applications may be compressed withWINZIP.

Color illustrations. Because the process of placing inkon paper by using printing presses is different from thatused to produce a photo print or a laser print and thecolor rendition on images viewed on a monitor dependsto some extent on monitor resolution, some differencesin color and contrast between the image you submit andthe image printed in the journal or published online willbe evident. (Figures showing red or green fluorescenceand those with a significant range of colors may be dif-ficult or impossible to reproduce exactly.) Color illustra-tions must be saved as either TIFF or EPS files, accord-ing to the application used (see charts above). The modeof the TIFF or EPS file must be CMYK, not RGB.Graphics in the RGB color space are intended for dis-play on a monitor only and will not separate correctly forprinting.

The cost of printing in color must be borne by the author.The current color costs may be accessed from the sub-mission form in Rapid Review. Adherence to the fol-lowing guidelines, in addition to the general ones above,will help to minimize costs and to ensure color repro-duction that is as accurate as possible.

Include only the significant portions of illustrations sothat the number of printed pages containing color fig-ures is minimized. The individual panels of a single fig-ure must be assembled in a single file, including anynecessary labels. Optimal color reproduction will be ob-tained if the composites comprise panels containing sim-ilar colors of similar lightness or darkness. If necessary,make unlike panels into separate figures/files; this willincrease the cost, but the color rendition will be moreaccurate since the two panels will be “scanned” sepa-rately.

Drawings

Submit graphs, charts, complicated chemical or math-ematical formulas, diagrams, and other drawings as fin-ished products not requiring additional artwork or type-setting. No part of the graph or drawing may behandwritten. All elements, including letters, numbers,

INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS xiii

and symbols, must be easily readable, and both axes of agraph must be labeled. Keep in mind that the journal ispublished both in print and online and that the sameelectronic files submitted by the authors are used toproduce both.

When creating line art, please use the following guide-lines:

1. All art MUST be submitted at its intended publica-tion size. (No enlargements or reductions will be made bythe ASM editorial staff or the printer.) For acceptabledimensions, see the Size section above.

2. Avoid using screens (i.e., shading) in line art. It canbe difficult and time-consuming to reproduce these im-ages without moire patterns. Various pattern back-grounds are preferable to screens as long as the fillpatterns are not imported from another application. Ifyou must use images containing screens,

• Generate the image at line screens of 85 lines perinch or lower.

• When applying multiple shades of gray, differentiatethe gray levels by at least 20%.

• Never use levels of gray below 20% or above 70% asthey will fade out or become totally black uponscanning and reduction.

3. Use thick, solid lines that are no finer than 1 point inthickness.

4. No type should be smaller than 9 point at the finalpublication size.

5. Avoid layering type directly over shaded or texturedareas.

6. Avoid the use of reversed type (white lettering on ablack background).

7. Avoid heavy letters, which tend to close up, and un-usual symbols, which the printer may not be able toreproduce in the legend.

8. If colors are used, avoid using similar shades of thesame color and avoid very light colors.

In figure ordinate and abscissa scales (as well as tablecolumn headings), avoid the ambiguous use of numberswith exponents. Usually, it is preferable to use the ap-propriate Systeme International d’Unites (SI) symbols(� for 10�6, m for 10�3, k for 103, M for 106, etc.). Acomplete listing of SI symbols can be found in the In-ternational Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IU-PAC) “Manual of Symbols and Terminology for Physi-cochemical Quantities and Units’’ (Pure Appl. Chem.21:3–44, 1970). Thus, a representation of 20,000 cpm ona figure ordinate should be made by the number 20accompanied by the label kcpm.

When powers of 10 must be used, the journal requiresthat the exponent power be associated with the numbershown. In representing 20,000 cells per ml, the numeral

of the ordinate would be ‘‘2’’ and the label would be ‘‘104

cells per ml’’ (not ‘‘cells per ml � 10�4’’). Likewise, anenzyme activity of 0.06 U/ml would be shown as 6 ac-companied by the label 10�2 U/ml. The preferred des-ignation would be 60 mU/ml (milliunits per milliliter).

Presentation of Nucleic Acid Sequences

Nucleic acid sequences of limited length which are theprimary subject of a study may be presented freestyle inthe most effective format. Longer nucleic acid sequencesmust be presented as figures in the following format toconserve space. Print the sequence in lines of 100 bases,each in a nonproportional (monospace) font which iseasily legible when published at 100 bases/6 inches. Up-percase and lowercase letters may be used to designatethe exon-intron structure, transcribed regions, etc., if thelowercase letters remain legible at 100 bases/6 inches.Number the sequence line by line; place numerals, rep-resenting the first base of each line, to the left of thelines. Minimize spacing between lines of sequence, leav-ing room only for annotation of the sequence. Annota-tion may include boldface, underlining, brackets, boxes,etc. Encoded amino acid sequences may be presented, ifnecessary, immediately above or below the first nucleo-tide of each codon, by using the single-letter amino acidsymbols. Comparisons of multiple nucleic acid se-quences should conform as nearly as possible to thesame format.

Figure Legends

Legends should provide enough information so thatthe figure is understandable without frequent referenceto the text. However, detailed experimental methodsmust be described in the Materials and Methods section,not in a figure legend. A method that is unique to one ofseveral experiments may be reported in a legend only ifthe discussion is very brief (one or two sentences). De-fine all symbols used in the figure and define all abbre-viations that are not used in the text.

Tables

Tables that contain artwork, chemical structures, orshading must be submitted as illustrations in an accept-able format. Otherwise, they must be submitted either asWord, WordPerfect, or Acrobat PDF files. Note that astraight Excel file is not an acceptable format. Excel filesmust either be embedded in a Word or WordPerfectdocument or be converted to PDF files before beinguploaded. Although PDF files and word processing fileswith embedding are not generally acceptable for produc-tion purposes, they are acceptable for tables. To allow

xiv INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS

them to pass through the file upload and conversionprocess, select “for reviewing purposes only” at theprompt regardless of their actual purpose. Unlike theother parts of a manuscript, tables are not producedfrom the author’s source file. They must be rekeyed bythe printer before going into a page composition pro-gram.

Tables should be formatted as follows. Arrange thedata so that columns of like material read down, notacross. The headings should be sufficiently clear so thatthe meaning of the data is understandable without ref-erence to the text. See the Abbreviations section (p. xvii)of these Instructions for those that should be used intables. Explanatory footnotes are acceptable, but moreextensive table “legends” are not. Footnotes should notinclude detailed descriptions of the experiment. Tablesmust include enough information to warrant table for-mat; those with fewer than six pieces of data will beincorporated into the text by the copy editor. Table 1 isan example of a well-constructed table.

TABLE 1. Correlation between detection of V-Z viral antibody byneutralization and by EIA and IAHAa

Antibody

No. of samples with V-Zvirus-neutralizing antibody Correlation

(%)Positiveb Negative

EIAPositive 50 4Negative 3 64 94

IAHAPositivec 37 0 87Negative 16 68

a Sera from individuals without evidence of a current V-Z virus infection.b Titer � 1:4.c Titer � 1:8.

NOMENCLATURE

Chemical and Biochemical Nomenclature

The recognized authority for the names of chemicalcompounds is Chemical Abstracts (Chemical AbstractService, Ohio State University, Columbus) and its in-dexes. The Merck Index, 13th ed. (Merck & Co., Inc.,Whitehouse Station, N.J., 2001), is also an excellentsource. For biochemical terminology, including abbre-viations and symbols, consult Biochemical Nomenclatureand Related Documents (1978; reprinted for The Bio-chemical Society, London, England) and the instructionsto authors of the Journal of Biological Chemistry and theArchives of Biochemistry and Biophysics (first issues ofeach year).

Do not express molecular weight in daltons; molecularweight is a unitless ratio. Molecular mass is expressed indaltons.

For enzymes, use the recommended (trivial) nameassigned by the Nomenclature Committee of the Inter-national Union of Biochemistry (IUB) as described in En-

zyme Nomenclature (Academic Press, Inc., New York,N.Y., 1992). If a nonrecommended name is used, placethe proper (trivial) name in parentheses at first use inthe abstract and text. Use the EC number when one hasbeen assigned, and express enzyme activity either inkatals (preferred) or in the older system of micromolesper minute.

For nomenclature of restriction enzymes, DNA meth-yltransferases, homing endonucleases, and their genes,refer to the article by Roberts et al. (Nucleic Acids Res.31:1805–1812, 2003).

Drugs

Whenever possible, use generic names of drugs; theuse of trade names is not permitted.

Nomenclature of Microorganisms

Binary names, consisting of a generic name and aspecific epithet (e.g., Escherichia coli), must be used forall microorganisms. Names of categories at or above thegenus level may be used alone, but specific and subspe-cific epithets may not. A specific epithet must be pre-ceded by a generic name, written out in full the firsttime it is used in a paper. Thereafter, the generic nameshould be abbreviated to the initial capital letter (e.g., E.coli), provided there can be no confusion with othergenera used in the paper. Names of all taxa (kingdoms,phyla, classes, orders, families, genera, species, and sub-species) are printed in italics and should be underlined(or italicized) in the manuscript; strain designations andnumbers are not. Vernacular (common) names shouldbe in lowercase roman type (e.g., streptococcus, bru-cella). For Salmonella, genus, species, and subspeciesnames should be rendered in standard form: Salmonellaenterica at first use, S. enterica thereafter; Salmonellaenterica subsp. arizonae at first use, S. enterica subsp.arizonae thereafter. Names of serovars should be in ro-man type with the first letter capitalized: Salmonellaenterica serovar Typhimurium. After the first use, theserovar may also be given without a species name: Sal-monella serovar Typhimurium. For other informationregarding serovar designations, see Identification and Se-rotyping of Salmonella and an Update of the Kaufmann-White Scheme (A. C. McWhorter-Murlin and F. W.Hickman-Brenner, Centers for Disease Control and Pre-vention, Atlanta, Ga., 1994) and Antigenic Formulas ofthe Salmonella Serovars (M. Y. Popoff and L. Le Minor,WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Re-search on Salmonella, Institute Pasteur, Paris, France,1997).

The spelling of bacterial names should follow the Ap-proved Lists of Bacterial Names (amended edition)(V. B. D. Skerman, V. McGowan, and P. H. A. Sneath,ed., American Society for Microbiology, 1989) and thevalidation lists published in the International Journal ofSystematic and Evolutionary Microbiology (formerly the In-ternational Journal of Systematic Bacteriology) since January

INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS xv

1989. In addition, two sites on the World Wide Web listcurrent approved bacterial names: Bacterial NomenclatureUp-to-Date (http://www.dsmz.de/bactnom/bactname.htm)and List of Bacterial Names with Standing in Nomen-clature (http://www.bacterio.cict.fr). If there is reason touse a name that does not have standing in nomenclature,the name should be enclosed in quotation marks and anappropriate statement concerning the nomenclaturalstatus of the name should be made in the text.

For guidelines regarding new names and descriptionsof new genera and species, see the articles by Tindall(Int. J. Syst. Bacteriol. 49:1309–1312, 1999) and Stacke-brandt et al. (Int. J. Syst. Evol. Microbiol. 52:1043–1047,2002). To validate new names and/or combinations, au-thors must submit three copies of their published articleto the International Journal of Systematic and Evolution-ary Microbiology.

It is recommended that a strain be deposited in atleast two recognized culture collections in differentcountries when that strain is necessary for the descrip-tion of a new taxon (Int. J. Syst. Evol. Microbiol. 50:2239–2244, 2000).

Since the classification of fungi is not complete, it isthe responsibility of the author to determine the ac-cepted binomial for a given organism. Sources for thesenames include The Yeasts: a Taxonomic Study, 4th ed. (C.P. Kurtzman and J. W. Fell, ed., Elsevier Science Pub-lishers B.V., Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 1998), andAinsworth and Bisby’s Dictionary of the Fungi, 9th ed.(P. M. Kirk, P. F. Cannon, J. C. David, and J. A. Stalp-ers, ed., CABI Publishing, Wallingford, Oxfordshire,United Kingdom, 2001).

Names used for viruses should be those approved bythe International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses(ICTV) and published in Virus Taxonomy: Classificationand Nomenclature of Viruses, Seventh Report of the Inter-national Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (M. H. V.van Regenmortel et al., ed., Academic Press, San Diego,Calif., 2000). In addition, the recommendations of theICTV regarding the use of species names should gener-ally be followed: when the entire species is discussed asa taxonomic entity, the species name, like other taxa, isitalic and has the first letter and any proper nouns cap-italized (e.g., Tobacco mosaic virus, Murray Valley enceph-alitis virus). When the behavior or manipulation of individ-ual viruses is discussed, the vernacular (e.g., tobaccomosaic virus, Murray Valley encephalitis virus) should beused. If desired, synonyms may be added parentheticallywhen the name is first mentioned. Approved generic (orgroup) and family names may also be used.

Microorganisms, viruses, and plasmids should be giv-en designations consisting of letters and serial numbers.It is generally advisable to include a worker’s initials ora descriptive symbol of locale, laboratory, etc., in thedesignation. Each new strain, mutant, isolate, or deriv-ative should be given a new (serial) designation. Thisdesignation should be distinct from those of the geno-type and phenotype, and italicized genotypic and phe-notypic symbols should not be included. Plasmids are

named with a lowercase “p” followed by the designationin uppercase letters and numbers. To avoid the use ofthe same designation as that of a widely used strain orplasmid, check the designation against a publication da-tabase such as Medline.

Genetic Nomenclature

To facilitate accurate communication, it is importantthat standard genetic nomenclature be used wheneverpossible and that deviations or proposals for new nam-ing systems be endorsed by an appropriate authoritativebody. Review and/or publication of submitted manu-scripts that contain new or nonstandard nomenclaturemay be delayed by the editor or the Journals Depart-ment so that they may be reviewed by the NomenclatureCommittee of the ASM Publications Board.

Bacteria. The genetic properties of bacteria are de-scribed in terms of phenotypes and genotypes. The phe-notype describes the observable properties of an organ-ism. The genotype refers to the genetic constitution ofan organism, usually in reference to some standard wildtype. Use the recommendations of Demerec et al. (Ge-netics 54:61–64, 1966) as a guide to the use of theseterms. If your manuscript contains information includinggenetic nomenclature, please refer to the Instructions toAuthors in the January issue of the Journal of Bacteriology.

‘‘Mutant’’ vs. ‘‘mutation.’’ Keep in mind the distinctionbetween a mutation (an alteration of the primary sequenceof the genetic material) and a mutant (a strain carrying oneor more mutations). One may speak about the mapping ofa mutation, but one cannot map a mutant. Likewise, amutant has no genetic locus, only a phenotype.

“Homology” versus “similarity.” For use of terms thatdescribe relationships between genes, consult the arti-cles by Theissen (Nature 415:741, 2002) and Fitch(Trends Genet. 16:227–231, 2000). “Homology” impliesa relationship between genes that share a common evo-lutionary origin; partial homology is not recognized.When sequence comparisons are discussed, it is moreappropriate to use the term “percent sequence similar-ity” or “percent sequence identity,” as appropriate.

Tetracycline resistance determinants. The nomencla-ture for tetracycline resistance determinants is based onthe proposal of Levy et al. (Antimicrob. Agents Chemo-ther. 43:1523–1524, 1999). The style for such determi-nants is, e.g., Tet B; the space helps distinguish thedeterminant designation from that for phenotypes andproteins (TetB). The above-referenced article also givesthe correct format for genes, proteins, and determinantsin this family.

Viruses. The genetic nomenclature for viruses differsfrom that for bacteria. In most instances, viruses have nophenotype, since they have no metabolism outside hostcells. Therefore, distinctions between phenotype and ge-

xvi INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS

notype cannot be made. Superscripts are used to indi-cate hybrid genomes. Genetic symbols may be one, two,or three letters.

Eukaryotes. For information about the genetic no-menclature of eukaryotes, see the Instructions to Au-thors for Eukaryotic Cell and Molecular and Cellular Bi-ology.

ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS

Verb Tense

ASM strongly recommends that for clarity you use thepast tense to narrate particular events in the past, in-cluding the procedures, observations, and data of thestudy that you are reporting. Use the present tense foryour own general conclusions, the conclusions of previ-ous researchers, and generally accepted facts. Thus, mostof the abstract, Materials and Methods, and Results willbe in the past tense, and most of the introduction andsome of the Discussion will be in the present tense.

Be aware that it may be necessary to vary the tense ina single sentence. For example, it is correct to say‘‘White (30) demonstrated that XYZ cells grow at pH6.8,’’ ‘‘Figure 2 shows that ABC cells failed to grow atroom temperature,’’ and ‘‘Air was removed from thechamber and the mice died, which proves that mice re-quire air.’’ In reporting statistics and calculations, it iscorrect to say ‘‘The values for the ABC cells are statis-tically significant, indicating that the drug inhibited. . . .’’

For an in-depth discussion of tense in scientific writ-ing, see p. 207–209 in How To Write and Publish a Sci-entific Paper, 5th ed.

Abbreviations

General. Abbreviations should be used as an aid to thereader, rather than as a convenience for the author, andtherefore their use should be limited. Abbreviations oth-er than those recommended by the IUPAC-IUB (Bio-chemical Nomenclature and Related Documents, 1978)should be used only when a case can be made for ne-cessity, such as in tables and figures.

It is often possible to use pronouns or to paraphrase along word after its first use (e.g., ‘‘the drug’’ or ‘‘thesubstrate’’). Standard chemical symbols and trivial namesor their symbols (folate, Ala, Leu, etc.) may also be used.

It is strongly recommended that all abbreviations ex-cept those listed below be introduced in the first para-graph in Materials and Methods. Alternatively, defineeach abbreviation and introduce it in parentheses thefirst time it is used; e.g., ‘‘Cultures were grown in Eagleminimal essential medium (MEM).’’ Generally, elimi-nate abbreviations that are not used at least three timesin the text (including tables and figure legends).

Not requiring introduction. In addition to abbrevia-

tions for Systeme International d’Unites (SI) units ofmeasurement, other common units (e.g., bp, kb, andDa), and chemical symbols for the elements, the follow-ing should be used without definition in the title, ab-stract, text, figure legends, and tables: DNA (deoxyri-bonucleic acid); cDNA (complementary DNA); RNA(ribonucleic acid); cRNA (complementary RNA);RNase (ribonuclease); DNase (deoxyribonuclease);rRNA (ribosomal RNA); mRNA (messenger RNA);tRNA (transfer RNA); AMP, ADP, ATP, dAMP,ddATP, GTP, etc. (for the respective 5� phosphates ofadenosine and other nucleosides) (add 2�-, 3�-, or 5�-when needed for contrast); ATPase, dGTPase, etc.(adenosine triphosphatase, deoxyguanosine triphospha-tase, etc.); NAD (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide);NAD� (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, oxidized);NADH (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, reduced);NADP (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate);NADPH (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate,reduced); NADP� (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotidephosphate, oxidized); poly(A), poly(dT), etc. (polyade-nylic acid, polydeoxythymidylic acid, etc.); oligo(dT), etc.(oligodeoxythymidylic acid, etc.); UV (ultraviolet); PFU(plaque-forming units); CFU (colony-forming units);MIC (minimal inhibitory concentration); Tris [tris(hy-droxymethyl)aminomethane]; DEAE (diethylaminoethyl);EDTA (ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid); EGTA [ethyl-ene glycol-bis(�-aminoethyl ether)-N,N,N�,N�-tetraace-tic acid]; HEPES (N-2-hydroxyethylpiperazine-N�-2-eth-anesulfonic acid); PCR (polymerase chain reaction); andAIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome). Abbrevia-tions for cell lines (e.g., HeLa) also need not be defined.

The following abbreviations should be used withoutdefinition in tables:

amt (amount) SE (standard error)approx (approximately) SEM (standard error of theavg (average) mean)concn (concentration) sp act (specific activity)diam (diameter) sp gr (specific gravity)expt (experiment) temp (temperature)exptl (experimental) tr (trace)ht (height) vol (volume)mo (month) vs (versus)mol wt (molecular weight) wk (week)no. (number) wt (weight)prepn (preparation) yr (year)SD (standard deviation)

Drugs. Should an author decide to abbreviate thenames of antimicrobial agents in a manuscript, the fol-lowing standard abbreviations are strongly recom-mended.

Antibacterial agents. Amikacin, AMK; amoxicillin,AMX; amoxicillin-clavulanic acid, AMC; ampicillin,AMP; ampicillin-sulbactam, SAM; azithromycin, AZM;azlocillin, AZL; aztreonam, ATM; carbenicillin, CAR;cefaclor, CEC; cefadroxil, CFR; cefamandole, FAM; ce-fazolin, CFZ; cefdinir, CDR; cefditoren, CDN; cefepime,FEP; cefetamet, FET; cefixime, CFM; cefmetazole, CMZ;

INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS xvii

cefonicid, CID; cefoperazone, CFP; cefotaxime, CTX;cefotetan, CTT; cefoxitin, FOX; cefpodoxime, CPD; cef-prozil, CPR; ceftazidime, CAZ; ceftibuten, CTB; cefti-zoxime, ZOX; ceftriaxone, CRO; cefuroxime (axetil)and cefuroxime (sodium), CXM; cephalexin, LEX;cephalothin, CEF; cephapirin, HAP; cephradine, RAD;chloramphenicol, CHL; cinoxacin, CIN; ciprofloxacin,CIP; clarithromycin, CLR; clinafloxacin, CLX; clinda-mycin, CLI; daptomycin, DAP; dicloxacillin, DCX;dirithromycin, DTM; doxycycline, DOX; enoxacin,ENX; erythromycin, ERY; fleroxacin, FLE; fosfomy-cin, FOF; gatifloxacin, GAT; gentamicin, GEN; grepa-floxacin, GRX; imipenem, IPM; kanamycin, KAN; levo-floxacin, LVX; linezolid, LZD; lomefloxacin, LOM;loracarbef, LOR; meropenem, MEM; methicillin, MET;mezlocillin, MEZ; minocycline, MIN; moxalactam,MOX; moxifloxacin, MXF; nafcillin, NAF; nalidixicacid, NAL; netilmicin, NET; nitrofurantoin, NIT; nor-floxacin, NOR; ofloxacin, OFX; oxacillin, OXA; penicil-lin, PEN; piperacillin, PIP; piperacillin-tazobactam,TZP; quinupristin-dalfopristin (Synercid), Q-D; rifabu-tin, RFB; rifampin, RIF; rifapentine, RFP; sparfloxacin,SPX; spectinomycin, SPT; streptomycin, STR; teicoplanin,TEC; telithromycin, TEL; tetracycline, TET; ticarcillin,TIC; ticarcillin-clavulanic acid, TIM; tobramycin, TOB;trimethoprim, TMP; trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole,SXT; trovafloxacin, TVA; and vancomycin, VAN.

�-Lactamase inhibitors. Clavulanic acid, CLA; sulbac-tam, SUL; and tazobactam, TZB.

Antifungal agents. Amphotericin B, AMB; clotrim-azole, CLT; flucytosine, 5FC; fluconazole, FLC; itracon-azole, ITC; ketoconazole, KTC; nystatin, NYT; terbin-afine, TRB; and voriconazole, VRC.

Antiviral agents. Acyclovir, ACV; cidofovir, CDV;famciclovir, FCV; foscarnet, FOS; ganciclovir, GCV;penciclovir, PCV; valaciclovir, VCV; and zidovudine,AZT.

Reporting Numerical Data

Standard metric units are used for reporting length,weight, and volume. For these units and for molarity, use

the prefixes m, �, n, and p for 10�3, 10�6, 10�9, and10�12, respectively. Likewise, use the prefix k for 103.Avoid compound prefixes such as m� or ��. Use �g/mlor �g/g in place of the ambiguous ppm. Units of tem-perature are presented as follows: 37°C or 324 K.

When fractions are used to express units such as enzy-matic activities, it is preferable to use whole units, such as‘‘g’’ or ‘‘min,’’ in the denominator instead of fractional ormultiple units, such as �g or 10 min. For example, ‘‘pmol/min’’ is preferable to ‘‘nmol/10 min,’’ and ‘‘�mol/g’’ is pref-erable to ‘‘nmol/�g.’’ It is also preferable that anunambiguous form such as exponential notation be used;for example, ‘‘�mol g�1 min�1’’ is preferable to ‘‘�mol/g/min.’’ Always report numerical data in the appropriate SIunits.

Representation of data as accurate to more than twosignificant figures must be justified by presentation ofappropriate statistical analyses.

Isotopically Labeled Compounds

For simple molecules, labeling is indicated in thechemical formula (e.g., 14CO2, 3H2O, and H2

35SO4).Brackets are not used when the isotopic symbol isattached to the name of a compound that in its naturalstate does not contain the element (e.g., 32S-ATP) orto a word that is not a specific chemical name (e.g.,131I-labeled protein, 14C-amino acids, and 3H-ligands).

For specific chemicals, the symbol for the isotope in-troduced is placed in square brackets directly precedingthe part of the name that describes the labeled entity.Note that configuration symbols and modifiers precedethe isotopic symbol. The following examples illustratecorrect usage:

[14C]urea UDP-[U-14C]glucoseL-[methyl-14C]methionine E. coli [32P]DNA[2,3-3H]serine fructose 1,6-[1-32P]bisphosphate[-14C]lysine [-32P]ATP

This journal follows the same conventions for iso-topic labeling as the Journal of Biological Chemistry,and more detailed information can be found in theinstructions to authors of that journal (first issue ofeach year).

For your convenience, these Instructions are also available through the Internet at the following address: http://www.journals.asm.org.

xviii INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS