INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS

SCOPE

mBio® is a broad-scope open access journal edited by activeresearch scientists. It strives to publish the best research inmicrobiology and allied fields. mBio publishes outstanding pa-pers in all disciplines that address microbiological problems,including, but not limited to, biochemistry and molecular bi-ology, genetics and genomics, environmental science, evolu-tion, immunology, infectious disease, and physiology. Topicscovered include bacteria, viruses, parasites, fungi, and simpleeukaryotic organisms, as well as all types of host-microbe in-teractions. We understand that there may be overlap in thescope statements of the ASM journals. Questions about theseguidelines may be directed to the editor in chief of the journalbeing considered.

EDITORIAL POLICY AND ETHICAL GUIDELINES

As a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics(COPE), ASM adheres to COPE’s Best Practice Guidelines andexpects authors to observe the high standards of publicationethics set out by COPE.

ASM requirements for submitted manuscripts are consis-tent with the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting,Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Jour-nals, as last updated by the International Committee of Medi-cal Journal Editors in December 2014.

Authors are expected to adhere to the highest ethical stan-dards. The following sections of these Instructions include de-tailed information about ASM’s ethical standards. Failure tocomply with the policies described in these Instructions mayresult in a letter of reprimand, a suspension of publishing priv-ileges in ASM journals, and/or notification of the authors’ in-stitutions. Authors employed by companies whose policies donot permit them to comply with ASM policies may be sanc-tioned as individuals and/or ASM may refuse to consider man-uscripts having authors from such companies.

Use of Microbiological Information

The Council on Microbial Sciences (COMS) of the Ameri-can Society for Microbiology affirms the long-standing posi-tion of the Society that microbiologists will work for the properand beneficent application of science and will call to the atten-tion of the public or the appropriate authorities misuses ofmicrobiology or of information derived from microbiology.ASM members are obligated to discourage any use of microbi-ology contrary to the welfare of humankind, including the useof microbes as biological weapons. Bioterrorism violates thefundamental principles expressed in the Code of Ethics of theSociety and is abhorrent to ASM and its members.

ASM recognizes that there are valid concerns regarding thepublication of information in scientific journals that could beput to inappropriate use as described in the COMS resolution

mentioned above. Members of the ASM Journals Board willevaluate the rare manuscript that might raise such issues dur-ing the review process. However, as indicated elsewhere inthese Instructions, primary-research articles must contain suf-ficient detail, and material/information must be made avail-able, to permit the work to be repeated by others. Supply ofmaterials should be in accordance with laws and regulationsgoverning the shipment, transfer, possession, and use of bio-logical materials and must be for legitimate, bona fide researchneeds. We ask that authors pay particular attention to the NSARSelect Agent/Toxin list on the CDC website and the U.S. Govern-ment Policy for Oversight of Life Sciences Dual Use Researchof Concern (March 2012; http://www.phe.gov/s3/dualuse/Documents/us-policy-durc-032812.pdf).

Use of Human Subjects or Animals in Research

Authors of manuscripts describing research involving hu-man subjects or animal experimentation must obtain reviewand approval (or review and waiver) from their InstitutionalReview Board (IRB) or Institutional Animal Care and UseCommittee (IACUC), as appropriate, prior to manuscript sub-mission. Authors of manuscripts that describe multisite re-search must obtain approval from each institution’s IRB orIACUC, as appropriate. Documentation of IRB or IACUCstatus must be made available upon request. In the event thatinstitutional review boards or committees do not exist, the au-thors must ensure that their research is carried out in accordancewith the Declaration of Helsinki, as revised in 2013 (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/1760318), and/orthe “International Guiding Principles for Biomedical ResearchInvolving Animals,” as revised by the International Council forLaboratory Animal Science (ICLAS) and the Councils for In-ternational Organizations of Medical Sciences (CIOMS) in2012. A statement of IRB or IACUC approval or waiver (andreason for waiver) or a statement of adherence to the Declara-tion of Helsinki and/or Guiding Principles must be included inthe Materials and Methods section. The sex of research subjectsand animals, and of materials derived directly from them (e.g.,primary cell lines and clinical samples), should be included inthe Materials and Methods section or Results section if thesedata are available.

Patient Identification

Informed consent is not needed if the patient cannot beidentified from any material in a manuscript. In the absence ofinformed consent, identifying details, such as patient initials,specific dates, specific geographic exposures, or other identify-ing features (including body features in figures), should beomitted, but this must not alter the scientific meaning. Impor-

Copyright © 2018 American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Instructions to Authors are updated throughout the year. The current version isavailable on the journal website.

January 2018, Instructions to Authors, pages 1–19

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tant information that is relevant to the scientific meaningshould be stated so that the patient cannot be identified, e.g., bystating a season instead of a date or a region instead of a city. Ifa patient can be identified from the material in a manuscript,all efforts should be made to obtain informed consent to pub-lish from patients or parents/legal guardians of minors. In-formed consent requires that the patient have the opportunityto see the manuscript prior to submission. The written consentmust state either that the patient has seen the complete manu-script or that the patient declines to do so. Patient consentshould be archived with the authors and be available uponrequest. A statement attesting the receipt and archiving of writ-ten patient consent should be included in the published article.

Publishing Ethics

Authorship. ASM journals follow the criteria for author-ship as outlined in the International Committee of MedicalJournal Editors (ICMJE) Recommendations for the Con-duct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Workin Medical Journals (“Defining the Role of Authors andContributors”). Briefly, an author is one who makes a sub-stantial contribution to the design, execution, and/or anal-ysis and interpretation of experiments in addition to draft-ing, revising, and/or approving the initial submission andany subsequent versions of the article. All authors of a man-uscript must have agreed to its submission and are respon-sible for appropriate portions of its content. Submission ofa paper before all coauthors have read and approved it isconsidered an ethical violation.

Author contribution statements. As explained in theICMJE recommendations, all persons designated as authorsshould qualify for authorship, and all those who qualify shouldbe listed. ASM encourages transparency in authorship by pub-lishing author contribution statements. Authors are stronglyencouraged to include such statements in the Acknowledg-ments section.

Corresponding author. The corresponding author takesprimary responsibility for communicating with the journaland coauthors throughout the submission, peer review, andpublication processes. The corresponding author is responsi-ble for ensuring that all coauthors have read and approvedsubmissions, including appropriate citations, acknowledg-ments, and byline order. Additionally, the corresponding au-thor and the study’s primary investigator(s), if different, arerequired to have examined the raw data represented in themanuscript, affirm that such representations accurately reflectthe original data, and ensure that the original data are pre-served and retrievable.

Consortium authorship. A study group, surveillanceteam, working group, consortium, or the like (e.g., the Ac-tive Bacterial Core Surveillance Team) may be listed as acoauthor in the byline if its contributing members satisfythe requirements for authorship and accountability as de-scribed in these Instructions. The names (and institutionalaffiliations, if desired) of the contributing members onlymay be given as a separate paragraph in the Acknowledg-

ments section. If the contributing members of the groupassociated with the work do not fulfill the criteria of sub-stantial contribution to and responsibility for the paper, thegroup may not be listed in the author byline. Instead, it andthe names of its contributing members may be listed in theAcknowledgments section.

Professional writers. “Ghost authorship” is not permittedby ASM. Professional writers should be mentioned in the Ac-knowledgments section rather than be included in the byline. Toavoid perceived conflicts of interest, writer affiliations and specificcontributions (for example, writing assistance, technical editing,language editing, or proofreading) must be disclosed.

Nonauthor contributions. Contributions from individualswho do not meet the ICMJE criteria for authorship should beacknowledged in the Acknowledgments section. Those whoprovided assistance, e.g., supplied strains or reagents or cri-tiqued the paper, should not be listed as authors. Acquisition offunding, data collection, or general supervision of the researchgroup does not qualify a person or persons for authorship. Asmentioned above, professional writers do not meet authorshipcriteria and should be mentioned in the Acknowledgmentssection. Specific contributions for each nonauthor contributorshould be included.

Byline order and changes. All authors must agree to theorder in which their names are listed in the byline. Statementsregarding equal contributions by two or more authors (e.g.,“C.J. and Y.S. contributed equally to . . .”) are permitted asfootnotes to bylines and must be agreed to by all of the authors.A change in authorship (order of listing, addition or deletion ofa name, or corresponding author designation) after submis-sion of the manuscript will be implemented only after receiptof signed statements of agreement from all parties involved.

Authorship disputes. Disputes about authorship may delayor prevent review and/or publication of the manuscript.Should the individuals involved be unable to reach an accord,review and/or publication of the manuscript can proceed onlyafter the matter is investigated and resolved by the authors’institution(s) and an official report provided to ASM. ASMdoes not itself investigate or attempt to resolve authorship dis-putes but will follow institutional recommendations, asappropriate.

ORCID. ASM Journals is a member of Open Researcherand Contributor ID (ORCID) and publishes author ORCIDnumbers in articles. ORCID is an open, nonprofit, com-munity-driven effort to create and maintain a registry ofunique researcher identifiers; it is a transparent method oflinking research activities and output to these identifiers. Inthe eJournalPress (eJP) manuscript submission and peerreview system, authors are encouraged to use or create anORCID number, which can be linked to manuscripts andpublications for which a researcher serves as an author. Thiscan be helpful in distinguishing authors with commonnames. Additional information about ORCID is availableon ORCID’s website.

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Plagiarism. Misappropriating another person’s intellectualproperty constitutes plagiarism. This includes copying sentencesor paragraphs verbatim (or almost verbatim) from someoneelse’s work, even if the original work is cited in the references.The NIH Office of Research Intergity publication “AvoidingPlagiarism, Self-Plagiarism, and Other Questionable WritingPractices: a Guide to Ethical Writing” (https://ori.hhs.gov/avoiding-plagiarism-self-plagiarism-and-other-questionable-writing-practices-guide-ethical-writing) can help authors iden-tify questionable writing practices.

Plagiarism is not limited to the text; it can involve any part ofthe manuscript, including figures and tables, in which materialis copied from another publication without permission andattribution. An author may not reuse his or her own previouslypublished work without attribution; this is considered text re-cycling (also known as self-plagiarism).

ASM has incorporated plagiarism detection software into itsonline submission and peer review system in order to helpeditors verify the originality of submitted manuscripts. Se-lected manuscripts are scanned and compared with databases.If plagiarism is detected, COPE guidelines on plagiarism willbe followed.

Image manipulation. Submitted figures must reflect orig-inal data. Please refer to the “Image manipulation” section inIllustrations and Tables for an overview of permissible manip-ulations, unacceptable adjustments, and required informationto be disclosed in the figure legends of images.

ASM applies forensic imaging tools to screen selected man-uscripts for inappropriate manipulation of figures. If unac-knowledged and/or inappropriate image manipulations aredetected, the matter will be referred to the journal’s ethicspanel for consideration.

Fabrication, manipulation, and falsification of data.ASM encourages authors to consult COPE’s “Code of Con-duct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors” (https://publicationethics.org/files/Code_of_conduct_for_journal_editors_0.pdf). Fabrication, manipulation, and falsification of dataconstitute misconduct. As defined by the U.S. Department ofHealth and Human Services, fabrication is “making up data orresults and recording or reporting them,” and falsification is “ma-nipulating research materials, equipment, or processes, or chang-ing or omitting data or results such that the research is not accu-rately represented in the research record” (42 Code of FederalRegulations, §93.103). All sources and methods used to obtainand analyze data, including any electronic preprocessing, shouldbe fully disclosed; detailed explanations should be provided forany exclusions.

Primary publication. Manuscripts submitted to the jour-nal must represent reports of original research, and the originaldata must be available for review by the editor if necessary. Bysubmitting a manuscript to the journal, the authors guaranteethat they have the authority to publish the work and that themanuscript, or one with substantially the same content, wasnot published previously, is not being considered or publishedelsewhere, and was not rejected on scientific grounds by an-other ASM journal. It is incumbent upon the author to ac-

knowledge any prior publication, including his/her own arti-cles, of the data contained in a manuscript submitted to anASM journal. A copy of the relevant work should be submittedwith the paper as supplemental material for review only.Whether the material constitutes the substance of a paper andtherefore renders the manuscript unacceptable for publicationis an editorial decision.

In the event that the authors’ previously published figuresand/or data are included in a submitted manuscript, it is in-cumbent upon the corresponding author to (i) identify theduplicated material and acknowledge the source on the sub-mission form, (ii) obtain permission from the original pub-lisher (i.e., copyright owner), (iii) acknowledge the duplicationin the figure legend, and (iv) cite the original article.

A paper is not acceptable for submission to an ASM journalif it, or its substance, has been made publicly available in thefollowing:

• A serial, periodical, or book• A conference report or symposium proceedings• A technical bulletin or company white paper• A public website (see “Preprint policy”)• Any other retrievable source

The following do not preclude submission to, or publicationby, an ASM journal:

• Posting of a method/protocol on a public website• Posting of a limited amount of original data on a per-

sonal/university/corporate website or websites of smallcollaborative groups working on a problem

• Deposit of unpublished sequence data in a publicdatabase

• Preliminary disclosures of research findings as meetingposters, webcast as meeting presentations, or pub-lished in abstract form as adjuncts to a meeting, e.g.,part of a program

• Posting of theses and dissertations on a personal/university-hosted website

Preprint policy. ASM Journals will consider for publica-tion manuscripts that have been posted in a recognized not-for-profit preprint archive provided that upon acceptance ofthe manuscript for publication, the author is still able to agreeto the terms of an Open Access license and pay the associatedfee. It is the responsibility of authors to inform the journal atthe time of submission if and where their article has been pre-viously posted, and if the manuscript is accepted for publica-tion in an ASM journal, authors are required to update thepreprint with a citation to the final published article that in-cludes the URL along with a link.

Conflict of Interest

All authors are expected to disclose, in the manuscript coverletter, any commercial affiliations as well as consultancies,stock or equity interests, and patent licensing arrangementsthat could be considered to pose a conflict of interest regardingthe submitted manuscript. (Inclusion of a company name inthe author address lines of the manuscript does not constitutedisclosure.) Details of the disclosure to the editor will remain

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confidential. However, it is the responsibility of authors to pro-vide, in the Acknowledgments section, a general statement dis-closing conflicting interests relevant to the study. Examples ofpotentially conflicting interests include relationships, financialor otherwise, that might detract from an author’s objectivity inpresentation of study results, and interests whose value wouldbe enhanced by the results presented. All funding sources forthe project, institutional and corporate, should be credited inthe Acknowledgments section, as described below. In addition,if a manuscript concerns a commercial product, the manufac-turer’s name must be indicated in the Materials and Methodssection or elsewhere in the text, as appropriate, in an obviousmanner.

Data and Materials

Availability of data and materials. By publishing in thejournal, the authors agree that, subject to requirements or lim-itations imposed by local and/or U.S. Government laws andregulations, any materials and data that are reasonably re-quested by others are available from a publicly accessible col-lection or will be made available in a timely fashion, at reason-able cost, and in limited quantities to members of the scientificcommunity for noncommercial purposes. Similarly, the au-thors agree to make available computer programs and/or code,originating in the authors’ laboratory, that is the only means ofconfirming the conclusions reported in the article but that isnot available commercially. The program(s) and suitable doc-umentation regarding its (their) use may be provided by any ofthe following means: (i) as a program transmitted via the In-ternet, (ii) as an Internet server-based tool, or (iii) as a com-piled or assembled form on a suitable medium. The authorsguarantee that they have the authority to comply with thispolicy either directly or by means of material transfer agree-ments through the owner. ASM asks authors to assert this in a“Data availability” paragraph, which should appear at the endof the Materials and Methods section (or at the end of the text)of their submitted manuscript.

Therefore, a condition of publication in mBio is that authorsmake data fully available and without restriction, except in rarecircumstances. Data availability will be confirmed prior topublication and must be provided during the modificationstage, if not before. Furthermore, data must be made available,upon request, for peer review. See our Data Policy.

Data citation. To promote reproducibility, ASM expectsresearchers to identify and cite data sets and/or code used intheir experiments and studies. These may be large or complexdata sets that can include, but are not limited to, data frommicroarray, genomic, structural, proteomic, or video imaginganalyses. Authors should cite both the data set repository andthe published article in which the data set and/or code wasoriginally described. Citations of data should be included inthe reference list with persistent unique identifiers (e.g., activeURLs, accession numbers, etc.). If computer code or softwarewas created to generate results or interpret data, then a state-ment to that effect should be included in the “Data availability”paragraph. For cases in which the software is publicly available(e.g., FigTree to generate phylogenetic trees), the URL of the

software informational page should be provided. It is pre-ferred that authors use established, publicly available datatype-specific repositories. If there is no appropriate repositoryavailable, general publicly available repositories should be used(e.g., Dryad, figshare, etc.). A list of public data repositories isavailable in the ASM Journals’ Ethics Portal Compendium ofResources. Examples of proper data citation are included in the“References” section of these Instructions to Authors.

Culture deposition. mBio expects authors to deposit strainsused in therapeutic-activity assessments and studies of mecha-nisms of action, resistance, and cross-resistance in publicly ac-cessible culture collections and to refer to the collections andstrain numbers in the text. Since the authenticity of subcul-tures of culture collection specimens that are distributed byindividuals cannot be ensured, authors should indicate labo-ratory strain designations and donor sources as well as originalculture collection identification numbers.

Authentication of cell lines. Cell line misidentification orcontamination can adversely impact the validity of researchfindings. Authors should describe the source along with thedate and method used for authentication of any cell lines usedin manuscripts submitted to this journal. Cell lines used lessthan 6 months after receipt from a cell bank that performsauthentication do not require reauthentication, but the sourceand method of authentication should be reported in the Ma-terials and Methods section.

Nucleotide and amino acid sequences. Newly determinednucleotide and/or amino acid sequence data must be depositedand GenBank/ENA/DDBJ accession numbers must be in-cluded in the manuscript no later than the modification stageof the review process. It is expected that the sequence data willbe released to the public no later than the publication (onlineposting) date of the article. As a part of the publication process,accession numbers will be linked from the article to GenBank.Authors are encouraged to comply with community metadatastandards, such as the “Minimal Information about any (X)Sequence” (MIxS) checklist (http://gensc.org/projects/mixs-gsc-project/), when submitting to GenBank, ENA, or DDBJ.

The accession numbers should be included in a separateparagraph with the lead-in “Accession number(s)” at the endof the Materials and Methods section for Research Articles orat the end of the text for other formats. If conclusions in amanuscript are based on the analysis of sequences and aGenBank/ENA/DDBJ accession number is not provided at thetime of the review, authors should provide the annotated se-quence data as supplemental material for review only.

It is expected that, when previously published sequence ac-cession numbers are cited in a manuscript, the original pub-lished article(s), as well as a citation of the database where theaccession number is deposited, will be included in the Refer-ences section. Authors are also expected to do elementarysearches and comparisons of nucleotide and amino acid se-quences against the sequences in standard databases (e.g.,GenBank) immediately before manuscripts are submitted andagain at the proof stage.

Analyses should specify the database, and the date of each

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analysis should be indicated as, e.g., 6 January 2018. If relevant,the version of the software used should be specified.

See “Presentation of Nucleic Acid Sequences” for nucleicacid sequence formatting instructions. Links to the databasesmentioned above are found here: DNA Data Bank of Japan(DDBJ); European Nucleotide Archive (ENA); and GenBank,National Center for Biotechnology Information.

Proper use of locus tags as systematic identifiers for genes.To comply with recommendations from the International Nu-cleotide Sequence Database (INSD) Collaborators and to avoidconflicts in gene identification, researchers should implement thefollowing two fundamental guidelines as standards for utiliza-tion of locus tags in genome analysis, annotation, submission,reporting, and publication. (i) Locus tag prefixes are systematicgene identifiers for all of the replicons of a genome and as suchshould be associated with a single genome project submission.(ii) New genome projects must be registered with the INSD,and new locus tag prefixes must be assigned in cooperationwith the INSD to ensure that they conform to the agreed-uponcriteria.

Structural determinations. Coordinates for new structuresof macromolecules must be deposited in the Protein Data Bankand assigned identification codes must be included in the man-uscript no later than the modification stage of the review pro-cess. It is expected that the coordinates will be released to thepublic no later than the publication date of the article.

Authors are encouraged to send coordinates with their orig-inal submission so that reviewers can examine them along withthe manuscript. The accession number(s) should be listed in aseparate paragraph with the lead-in “Accession number(s)” atthe end of the Materials and Methods section for ResearchArticles or at the end of the text for other formats.

The URLs for coordinate deposition are https://deposit-1.wwpdb.org/deposition/ and http://www.rcsd.org/pdb/home/home.do#Category-deposit.

Gene expression data. The entire set of supporting geneexpression data, as well as genomic or metagenomic data sets,must be deposited in the appropriate public database (e.g.,GEO, ArrayExpress, or CIBEX) and the assigned accessionnumber(s) must be included in the manuscript no later thanthe modification stage of the review process. It is expected thatthe data will be released to the public no later than the publi-cation (online posting) date of the article.

Authors are encouraged to send the relevant data with theiroriginal submission so that reviewers can examine them alongwith the manuscript. The accession number(s) should be listedin a separate paragraph with the lead-in “Accession num-ber(s)” at the end of the Materials and Methods section forResearch Articles or at the end of the text for other formats.

Links to the databases mentioned above are found here:Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO), ArrayExpress, and Centerfor Information Biology Gene Expression Database (CIBEX).

MycoBank. New scientific names of fungi along with keynomenclatural and descriptive material must be deposited inMycoBank and the assigned accession number(s) must be in-

cluded in the manuscript no later than the modification stageof the review process. It is expected that the data will be re-leased to the public no later than the publication (online post-ing) date of the article. Authors are encouraged to send therelevant data with their original submission, however, so thatreviewers can examine them along with the manuscript. Theaccession number(s) should be listed in a separate paragraphwith the lead-in “Accession number(s)” at the end of the Ma-terials and Methods section for Research Articles and at the endof the text for other formats.

Copyright

Copyright of all material published in mBio remains with theauthors. The authors grant the American Society for Micro-biology a nonexclusive license to publish their work if it isaccepted. Upon publication, the work becomes available tothe public to copy, distribute, or display under a CreativeCommons Attribution 4.0 International license. The corre-sponding author must sign the mBio Author Warranty andProvisional License to Publish on behalf of all coauthors. Authorscan sign the license electronically during submission.

Supplemental material is also covered by the mBio License toPublish (see “Supplemental Material”).

Permissions

The corresponding author is responsible for obtaining per-mission from both the original author and the original pub-lisher (i.e., the copyright owner) to reproduce or modify fig-ures and tables and to reproduce text (in whole or in part) fromprevious publications.

Permission(s) must be obtained no later than the modifica-tion stage. The original signed permission(s) must be identi-fied as to the relevant item in the ASM manuscript (e.g., “per-missions for Fig. 1 in mBio00123-18”) and submitted to themBio staff on request. In addition, a statement indicating thatthe material is being reprinted with permission must be in-cluded in the relevant figure legend or table footnote of themanuscript. Reprinted text must be enclosed in quota-tion marks, and the permission statement must be included asrunning text or incorporated parenthetically.

It is expected that the authors will provide written assurancethat permission to cite unpublished data or personal commu-nications has been granted. For supplemental material in-tended for posting by ASM (see “Supplemental Material”), ifthe authors of the mBio manuscript are not also the owners ofthe supplemental material, the corresponding author mustsend to ASM signed permission from the copyright owner thatallows posting of the material, as a supplement to the article, byASM. The corresponding author is also responsible for incor-porating in the supplemental material any copyright noticesrequired by the owner.

Warranties and Exclusions

Articles published in this journal represent the opinions ofthe authors and do not necessarily represent the opinions ofASM. ASM does not warrant the fitness or suitability, for any

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purpose, of any methodology, kit, product, or device describedor identified in an article. The use of trade names is foridentification purposes only and does not constitute en-dorsement by ASM.

SUBMISSION, REVIEW, AND PUBLICATION PROCESSES

Submission Process

All submissions to mBio must be made electronically via theonline submission and peer review system at the followingURL: https://mbio.msubmit.net/cgi-bin/main.plex. (E-mailedsubmissions will not be accepted.) First-time users must createan Author account, which may be used for submitting to allASM journals.

Review Process

All manuscripts are considered to be confidential and arereviewed by members of the mBio Board of Editors, invitededitors, or invited reviewers.

To expedite the review process, authors must recommendthree (3) members of the mBio Board of Editors (available athttp://mbio.asm.org/site/misc/edboard.xhtml) who would beable to handle the review of their manuscript. Authors alsomust suggest at least three (3) reviewers (five are recommended)who have expertise in the field, who are not members of theirinstitution(s), who have not recently been associated with theirlaboratory(ies), and who could not otherwise be considered topose a conflict of interest regarding the submitted manuscript.Please provide their contact information where indicated on thesubmission form. Impersonation of another individual duringthe review process is considered serious misconduct.

Copies of in-press and submitted manuscripts that are im-portant for judgment of the present manuscript should be in-cluded as supplemental material for review only.

When a manuscript is submitted to the journal, it is given amanuscript control number (e.g., mBio00123-18) and assigned toa member of the Board of Editors. (Always refer to this controlnumber in communications with the editor and the Journals De-partment.) From there it is assigned to at least two independentexperts for peer review. A single-blind review, where authors’identities are known to reviewers, is applied. It is the responsibilityof the corresponding author to inform the coauthors of the man-uscript’s status throughout the submission, review, and publica-tion processes. The reviewers operate under strict guidelinesset forth in “Guidelines for Reviewers” (http://mbio.asm.org/site/misc/guidelines.xhtml) and are expected to completetheir reviews expeditiously.

The corresponding author is notified, generally within 4weeks after submission, of the decision to accept, reject, orrequire modification. When modification is requested, thecorresponding author must either submit the modified ver-sion within 30 days or withdraw the manuscript. A point-by-point response to the review(s) must be included (as aseparate “Response to Reviewer Comments” file), and acompare copy of the revised manuscript showing thechanges should be included as supplemental material forreview only.

AAM Contribution

mBio is published in association with the American Acad-emy of Microbiology (AAM), and AAM Fellows are entitled tosubmit one paper per calendar year via a special, acceleratedsubmission path. This path requires Fellows to obtain two re-views prior to submission (from reviewers who are not recentcollaborators, trainees, etc.), make any necessary modifica-tions in response to the reviewers’ comments, and communi-cate the entire package to mBio: the initial reviews, point-by-point responses to the reviewer comments, the revised paper,and e-mail verification showing that each reviewer has seenand approved the final manuscript.

AAM Contributions should be formatted as either ResearchArticles or Observations and are subject to the same lengthrequirements (13 printed pages for Research Articles and 7printed pages with a maximum of 2 figures and 25 referencesfor Observations). Reviewers for AAM Contributions are re-quired to fill out an external review form (available at http://mbio.asm.org/site/misc/External_Review_Form.pdf). De-tailed instructions for submitting an AAM Contribution canbe found at http://mbio.asm.org/site/misc/fellows.xhtml.

Submitting via this path does not guarantee acceptance. Theeditor still has the option of recommending modification or re-jection. However, AAM Contributions will not be subject to ad-ditional blind review. Like all other mBio articles, AAM Contribu-tions are expected to represent the top 10% of work in the field.

Papers cannot be “communicated” via the AAM Contribu-tion path; AAM Fellows can submit only papers that they haveauthored or coauthored.

Manuscripts that were previously rejected from the standardpeer review path are not eligible for resubmission through theAAM Contribution path.

Rejected Manuscripts

Authors who believe that their manuscript has been unfairlyrejected because an important aspect was misunderstood oroverlooked by the reviewers may submit an appeal. The appealwill be processed by the editor in chief, who may consult withthe Editor and/or Invited Editor of the manuscript. Please notethat while we are willing to entertain appeals, it is uncommonfor editorial decisions to be reversed.

Manuscripts that have been rejected, or withdrawn after be-ing returned for modification, may be resubmitted to mBio(once; see below) if the major criticisms have been addressed.

Manuscripts rejected by mBio may be resubmitted to a moreappropriate ASM journal without penalty; however, a manu-script rejected by another ASM journal is considered rejectedby mBio and will not be reviewed.

The cover letter of every resubmitted manuscript must statethat the manuscript is a resubmission, and the former manu-script control number must be provided. A point-by-point re-sponse to the review(s) must be included (as a separate “Responseto Reviewer Comments” file), and a copy of the revised manu-script tracking the changes should be included as supplementalmaterial for review only. Manuscripts resubmitted to the samejournal are normally handled by the original editor. Rejectedmanuscripts may be resubmitted only once unless permission hasbeen obtained from the original editor or from the editor in chief.

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6 January 2018, Instructions to Authors ® mbio.asm.org

Notification of Acceptance

When an editor has decided that a manuscript is acceptablefor publication on the basis of scientific merit, the author andthe Journals Department are notified. The text files undergo anautomated preediting, cleanup, and tagging process specific tothe particular article type, and the illustrations are examined. Ifall files have been prepared according to the criteria set forth inthese Instructions and those in the manuscript submission sys-tem, the acceptance procedure will be completed successfully.If there are problems that would cause extensive corrections tobe made at the copyediting stage or if the files are not acceptablefor production, ASM Journals staff will contact the correspondingauthor. Once all the material intended for publication has beendetermined to be adequate, the editorial staff of the ASM JournalsDepartment completes the editing of the manuscript to bring itinto conformity with prescribed standards.

mBio Publication Schedule

mBio articles are released in an article-based workflow. Ar-ticles are not held until an issue is released. The articles pub-lished over the preceding weeks are collected into a bimonthlyissue and moved into the mBio archive.

Page Proofs

Page proofs, together with a query sheet, will be made avail-able to the corresponding author electronically. Included inthe proofs will be the typeset pages of the article, a page show-ing the legends for any supplemental material (since these leg-ends will appear in the HTML view of the published article),and an author query sheet. All author queries must be an-swered, and any changes related to the queries, as well as anyadditional changes, must be indicated in the text. Note that thecopy editor does not query at every instance where a change hasbeen made. Queries are written only to request clarification orto draw attention to edits that may have altered the sense. It isthe author’s responsibility to read the entire proof. The cor-rected, annotated PDF file must be returned within two busi-ness days to mBio@asmusa.org.

The proof stage is not the time to make extensive corrections,additions, or deletions. Figures as they appear in the proofs are forvalidation of content and placement, not quality of reproductionor color accuracy. Print output of figures in the PDF page proofswill be of lower quality than the same figures viewed on a monitor.Please avoid making changes to figures based on quality of coloror reproduction in proof.

Important new information that has become available be-tween acceptance of the manuscript and receipt of the proofsmay be inserted as an addendum in proof with the approval ofthe editor. If references to unpublished data or personal com-munications are added, it is expected that written assurancegranting permission for the citation will be included. Limitchanges to correction of spelling errors, incorrect data, andgrammatical errors and updated information for references tomanuscripts that have been submitted or are in press. If URLshave been provided in the article, recheck the sites to ensurethat the addresses are still accurate and the material that youexpect the reader to find is indeed there.

Questions about proofs should be directed to the mBio staff(e-mail, mBio@asmusa.org).

Funding Agency Repositories

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) requests that itsgrantee and intramural authors provide copies of their ac-cepted manuscripts to PubMed Central (PMC) for posting inthe PMC Public Access Repository. mBio authors are automat-ically in compliance with this policy and need take no actionthemselves. For the past several years, ASM has deposited inPMC all publications from all ASM journals. Since mBio arti-cles are open access and are made available through PMC andinternational PMC-like repositories immediately after publi-cation, ASM is in full compliance with NIH policy. For moreinformation, see https://publicaccess.nih.gov/.

ASM also allows mBio authors whose work was supportedby funding agencies that have public access requirements likethose of the NIH (e.g., the Wellcome Trust) to post their ac-cepted manuscripts in publicly accessible electronic reposito-ries maintained by those funding agencies. If a funding agencydoes not itself maintain such a site, then ASM allows the authorto fulfill that requirement by depositing the article in an appro-priate institutional or subject-based open repository estab-lished by a government or noncommercial entity.

ASM requests that when submitting an accepted manuscriptto PMC or a similar public access site, the author specify thatthe posting release date for the manuscript be no earlier thanthe date of publication on the mBio website. Articles are pub-lished on the website as soon as they are processed, so delaysshould be minimal.

Publication Fees

Authors whose research was supported by grants, specialfunds (including departmental and institutional), or contracts(including governmental) or whose research was done as partof their official duties (government or corporate, etc.) are re-quired to pay an article processing charge (APC).

For a corresponding author who is an active member ofASM at any level except the Supporting member level, themBio APC (subject to change without notice) is $2,300 forResearch Articles and $1,200 for the shorter Observation andOpinion/Hypothesis formats. For a corresponding author whois a nonmember or Supporting member, the mBio APC (sub-ject to change without notice) is $3,150 for Research Articlesand $1,800 for the shorter Observation and Opinion/Hypothesis formats. Nonmember corresponding authors mayjoin ASM to obtain discounts on APCs. Former members whowish to renew their membership at the same level may do soonline. However, to change your membership level, pleasecontact customer service at Service@asmusa.org.

If the research was not supported by any of the means de-scribed above, a request to waive the fee may be made throughthe online submission form or submitted via e-mail tomBio@asmusa.org. The request must include the manuscriptcontrol number assigned by ASM and indicate how the workwas supported.

Minireviews, Commentaries, Perspectives, Editorials, andLetters to the Editor are not subject to APCs.

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January 2018, Instructions to Authors ® mbio.asm.org 7

Supplemental Material Fee

Authors are charged a flat fee for posting supplemental ma-terial as an adjunct to their published article. For a correspond-ing author who is an active member of ASM at any level exceptthe Supporting member level, the supplemental material fee is$210 (subject to change without notice). For a nonmember orSupporting member corresponding author, the supplementalmaterial fee is $320 (subject to change without notice). Non-member corresponding authors may join ASM to obtain dis-counts on supplemental material fees. Former members whowish to renew their membership at the same level may do soonline. However, to change your membership level, pleasecontact customer service at Service@asmusa.org.

Author Reprints

Instructions for ordering reprints can be found in thebilling notification e-mail sent to all corresponding authors.

ORGANIZATION AND FORMAT

Editorial Style

The editorial style of ASM journals conforms to the ASMStyle Manual for Journals (American Society for Microbiol-ogy, 2018, in-house document [you may find the ASMWord List helpful]) and How To Write and Publish a Scien-tific Paper, 7th ed. (Greenwood, Santa Barbara, CA, 2011),as interpreted and modified by the editors and the ASMJournals Department.

The editors and the Journals Department reserve the privilegeof editing manuscripts to conform with the stylistic conventionsset forth in the aforesaid publications andin these Instructions. Please note that ASM uses the serial comma.

On receipt at ASM, an accepted manuscript undergoes anautomated preediting, cleanup, and tagging process specific tothe particular article type. To optimize this process, manu-scripts must be supplied in the correct format and with theappropriate sections and headings.

Type every portion of the manuscript double-spaced (aminimum of 6 mm between lines), including figure legends,table footnotes, and References, and number all pages in se-quence, including the abstract, figure legends, and tables. Placethe last two items after the References section.

Manuscript pages should have continuous line numbers;manuscripts without line numbers may be editorially rejectedby the editor, with a suggestion of resubmission after line num-bers are added. The font size should be no smaller than 12points. It is recommended that the following sets of charactersbe easily distinguishable in the manuscript: 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 (�) andthe letter “ex” (x). Do not create symbols as graphics or usespecial fonts that are external to your word processing pro-gram; use the “insert symbol” function. Set the page size to 8.5by 11 inches (ca. 21.6 by 28 cm). Italicize any words that shouldappear in italics, and indicate paragraph lead-ins in boldfacetype.

Authors who are unsure of proper English usage shouldhave their manuscripts checked by someone proficient in theEnglish language or engage a professional language editing ser-vice for help.

Manuscripts may be editorially rejected, without review, onthe basis of poor English or lack of conformity to the standardsset forth in these Instructions.

Manuscript Submission Checklist

It is recommended that authors review the author checklist(http://mbio.asm.org/site/misc/checklist.pdf) prior to com-pleting their submission. Manuscripts that are not properlyformatted may be returned to the author before being re-viewed.

• Double-space all text, including references and figurelegends.

• Number pages.• Number lines continuously.• Present statistical treatment of data where appropriate.• Provide accession numbers for all newly published se-

quences in a dedicated paragraph, and if a sequence orsequence alignment important for evaluation of themanuscript is not yet available, provide the informa-tion as supplemental material (for review only) ormake the material available on a website for access bythe editor and reviewers.

• Format references in ASM style.• Provide references for accession numbers and code

(with URLs).• Confirm that genetic and chemical nomenclature con-

forms to instructions.• Include as supplemental material (for review only) in-

press and submitted manuscripts that are importantfor judgment of the present manuscript.

• Upload each item in the supplemental material (forposting) as a separate file, and provide a correspondinglegend for each item in the main text file.

Article Word Count

mBio article word counts are based on the article type. Re-search Articles should be approximately 5,000 words. Minire-views should be approximately 6,000 words maximum (withup to two figures or tables). Opinions/Hypotheses should beapproximately 2,500 words maximum. Perspectives should beapproximately 2,000 words maximum. Observations shouldbe approximately 1,200 words maximum. Commentariesshould be approximately 1,000 words maximum. Letters to theEditor and Replies should each be approximately 500 wordsmaximum. Word counts do not include references, tables, orfigure legends.

Authors will be asked to shorten overlong papers.

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material can be posted by mBio or, if authorsprefer, can be submitted by the authors for posting by a third-party service such as Dryad, figshare, or a similar repository. In

Instructions to Authors

8 January 2018, Instructions to Authors ® mbio.asm.org

the latter case, the assigned accession number(s) must be in-cluded in the manuscript submitted for review.

Supplemental items intended for posting by ASM must beuploaded as separate supplemental material (for posting) filesat the initial submission. Each item in the supplemental mate-rial should be submitted as a separate file; e.g., multiple figuresand/or tables should not be zipped together or combined in asingle PDF. Legends should not be included in the supplemen-tal files; rather, they should appear at the end of the main man-uscript text (see the next paragraph). ASM will post no morethan 10 individual supplemental items. The maximum sizepermitted for an individual file is 3 MB (20 MB for movie files).

To ensure broad access, we ask that supplemental files besubmitted in the following standard formats.

• Text: Word, RTF, or PDF files.• Figures: TIFF, EPS, PPT, PDF, JPEG, or GIF format.• Tables: Word, RTF, or PDF files.• Data sets: Excel (.xls), RTF, TXT, or PDF files.• Movies: Audio Video Interleave (.avi), QuickTime

(.mov), or MPEG files.

At the end of the manuscript text file, include a legend for eachitem in the supplemental material. If it is necessary to citereferences that are relevant only to these supplemental leg-ends, use the style described for “Citations in abstracts”; donot include these references in the References section of themanuscript. Supplemental material should be numbered withan “S” (e.g., Movie S1, Fig. S1, Fig. S2, etc.), and each itemshould be cited at least once in the text.

Supplemental material will be peer reviewed along with themanuscript. The main manuscript should include a distillationof the results such that the principal conclusions are fully sup-ported without referral to the supplemental material. Supple-mental material will not be edited by the ASM Journals staff,and proofs will not be made available. Supplemental materialwill always remain associated with the article and is not subjectto any modifications after publication.

Material that has been published previously (in print or on-line) is not acceptable for posting as supplemental material.Instead, the appropriate reference(s) to the original publica-tion should be made in the manuscript text.

Supplemental material is covered by the mBio AuthorWarranty and Provisional License to Publish; copyright forsupplemental material remains with the author. If you are notthe copyright owner, you must provide to ASM signed permis-sion from the owner that allows ASM to post the material as asupplement to your article. You are responsible for includingin the supplemental material any copyright notices required bythe owner.

For information about supplemental material posting fees,see “Publication Fees.”

Research Articles

Research Articles are limited to 5,000 words (exclusive ofreferences, tables, and figure legends) and should report a ma-jor advance in any area of microbiology or allied fields. Thesearticles should include the elements described in this section.

Title, running title, byline, affiliation line(s), and corre-

sponding author. Each manuscript should present the resultsof an independent, cohesive study; thus, numbered series titlesare not allowed. Avoid the main title/subtitle arrangement,complete sentences, and unnecessary articles. Indicate the spe-cific organisms under study in the title or abstract as appropri-ate. On the title page, include the title, the running title (not toexceed 54 characters and spaces), the name of each author, allauthors’ affiliations at the time the work was performed, thename(s) and e-mail address(es) of the corresponding au-thor(s), and a footnote (*) indicating the present address of anyauthor no longer at the institution where the work was per-formed. Place a number sign (#) in the byline after the affilia-tion letter(s) of the author to whom inquiries regarding thepaper should be directed (see “Correspondent footnote”). In-dicate each author’s affiliation with a superscript lowercaseletter placed after the author’s surname in the byline (separatemultiple affiliation letters with commas but no space). Eachaffiliation should have its own line and its own superscriptaffiliation letter preceding it. Do not consolidate different de-partments at one institution into one address with a singleaffiliation letter, even if all affected authors belong to all ofthose departments. Also include on the title page the wordcount for the abstract and the word count for the text (exclud-ing the references, table footnotes, and figure legends). Pleasereview this sample title page for guidance.

Correspondent footnote. The e-mail address for the corre-sponding author should be included on the title page of themanuscript. This information will be published with the articleto facilitate communication, and the e-mail address will beused to notify the corresponding author of the availability ofproofs and, later, of the PDF file of the published article. Nomore than two authors may be designated corresponding au-thors.

Two-part abstract. Research Articles have structured ab-stracts consisting of two sections with their own headings: “Ab-stract” and “Importance.” Because the structured abstract willbe published separately by abstracting services, it must be com-plete and understandable without reference to the text. Pleaserefer to a sample structured abstract for guidance. For a discus-sion of how to evaluate the importance of a piece of research,see the essay by A. Casadevall and F. C. Fang, Important Sci-ence—It’s All About the SPIN, Infect Immun 77:4177-4180.

The Abstract section should be no more than 250 words andshould concisely summarize the basic content of the paperwithout presenting extensive experimental details.

The Importance section should be no more than 150 wordsand should provide a nontechnical explanation of the signifi-cance of the study to the field. Avoid abbreviations and refer-ences, and indicate the specific organism under study. When itis essential to include a reference, use the format shown under“References” below (see the “Citations in abstracts” section).

Introduction. The introduction should supply sufficientbackground information to allow the reader to understand andevaluate the results of the present study without referring toprevious publications on the topic. The introduction shouldalso provide the hypothesis that was addressed or the rationale

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January 2018, Instructions to Authors ® mbio.asm.org 9

for the present study. Use only those references required toprovide the most salient background rather than an exhaustivereview of the topic.

Results. In the Results section, include the rationale or de-sign of the experiments as well as the results; reserve extensiveinterpretation of the results for the Discussion section. Presentthe results as concisely as possible in one of the following: text,table(s), or figure(s). Avoid extensive use of graphs to presentdata that might be more concisely presented in the text ortables. Limit photographs (particularly photomicrographs andelectron micrographs) to those that are absolutely necessary toshow the experimental findings. Number figures and tables inthe order in which they are cited in the text, and be sure to citeall figures and tables.

Discussion. The Discussion should provide an interpretation of the results in relation to previously published work andto the experimental system at hand and should not containextensive repetition of the Results section or reiteration of theintroduction. In short papers, the Results and Discussion sec-tions may be combined.

Materials and Methods. The Materials and Methods sec-tion should include sufficient technical information to allowthe experiments to be repeated. When centrifugation condi-tions are critical, give enough information to enable anotherinvestigator to repeat the procedure: make of centrifuge,model of rotor, temperature, time at maximum speed, andcentrifugal force (� g rather than revolutions per minute). Forcommonly used materials and methods (e.g., media and pro-tein concentration determinations), a simple reference is suf-ficient. If several alternative methods are commonly used, it ishelpful to identify the method briefly as well as to cite thereference. For example, it is preferable to state “cells were bro-ken by ultrasonic treatment as previously described (9)” ratherthan to state “cells were broken as previously described (9).”This allows the reader to assess the method without constantreference to previous publications. Describe new methodscompletely and give sources of unusual chemicals, equipment,or microbial strains. When large numbers of microbial strainsor mutants are used in a study, include tables identifying theimmediate sources (i.e., sources from whom the strains wereobtained) and properties of the strains, mutants, bacterio-phages, and plasmids, etc.

Enzyme purifications should be described in this section,but the results of such procedures should be described in theResults section. A method or strain, etc., used in only one ofseveral experiments reported in the paper may be described inthe Results section or very briefly (one or two sentences) in atable footnote or figure legend. It is expected that the sourcesfrom whom the strains were obtained will be identified.

As noted above, a paragraph dedicated to new accessionnumbers for nucleotide and amino acid sequences, microarraydata, protein structures, gene expression data, and MycoBankdata should appear at the end of Materials and Methods withthe paragraph lead-in “Accession number(s).” Please also pro-vide references (with URLs) for the accession numbers.

Acknowledgments. Statements regarding sources of directfinancial support (e.g., grants, fellowships, and scholarships,etc.) should appear in the Acknowledgments. A funding state-ment indicating what role, if any, the funding agency had inyour study (for example, “The funders had no role in studydesign, data collection and interpretation, or the decision tosubmit the work for publication.”) may be included. Fundingagencies may have specific wording requirements, and compli-ance with such requirements is the responsibility of the author.In cases in which research is not funded by any specific projectgrant, funders need not be listed, and the following statementmay be used: “This research received no specific grant from anyfunding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profitsectors.” Statements regarding indirect financial support (e.g.,commercial affiliations, consultancies, stock or equity inter-ests, and patent-licensing arrangements) are also allowed. It isthe responsibility of authors to provide a general statementdisclosing financial or other relationships that are relevant tothe study. (See the “Conflict of Interest” section above.)

Recognition of personal assistance should be given in theAcknowledgments section, as should any statements disclaim-ing endorsement or approval of the views reflected in the paperor of a product mentioned therein.

In addition to acknowledging sources of financial support inthe manuscript, authors should list any sources of funding inresponse to the Funding Sources question on the online sub-mission form, providing relevant grant numbers where possi-ble, and the authors associated with the specific fundingsources. In the event that your submission is accepted, thefunding source information provided in the submission formmay be published, so please ensure that all information is en-tered accurately and completely. (It will be assumed that theabsence of any information in the Funding Sources fields is astatement by the authors that no support was received.)

Appendixes. Appendixes that contain additional materialto aid the reader are permitted. Titles, authors, and referencesections that are distinct from those of the primary article arenot allowed. If it is not feasible to list the author(s) ofthe appendix in the byline or the Acknowledgments section ofthe primary article, rewrite the appendix so that it can be con-sidered for publication as an independent article. Equations,tables, and figures should be labeled with the letter “A” preced-ing the numeral to distinguish them from those cited in themain body of the text.

References. In the reference list, references are numberedin the order in which they are cited in the article (citation-sequence reference system). In the text, references are citedparenthetically by number in sequential order. Data that arenot published or not peer reviewed are simply cited parenthet-ically in the text (see section ii below).

(i) References listed in the References section. The follow-ing types of references must be listed in the References section:

• Journal articles (both print and online)• Books (both print and online)• Book chapters (publication title is required)• Patents

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10 January 2018, Instructions to Authors ® mbio.asm.org

• Theses and dissertations• Published conference proceedings• Meeting abstracts (from published abstract books or

journal supplements)• Letters (to the editor)• Company publications• In-press journal articles, books, and book chapters• Data sets• Code

Provide the names of all the authors and/or editors for eachreference; long bylines should not be abbreviated with “et al.”All listed references must be cited in the text. Abbreviate journalnames according to the PubMed Journals Database (NationalLibrary of Medicine, National Institutes of Health; availableat https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/journals), the pri-mary source for ASM style (do not use periods with abbreviatedwords). The EndNote output style for ASM Journals’ current ref-erence style can be found at http://journals.asm.org/site/misc/ASM_Journals.ens; click “Open” and then “Download and In-stall” to save it to your EndNote Styles folder (it should replace anyearlier output styles for ASM journals [all ASM journals use thesame reference style]). Note that DOIs are not needed formost references. ASM copy editors will automatically insertDOIs on all references in the CrossRef and PubMed databasesduring copyediting. URLs for government reports and otherreferences not indexed in these databases should be provided ifdesired; URLs for citations of database accession numbers andcode/software should be provided by you.

Follow the styles shown in the examples below.

1. Caserta E, Haemig HAH, Manias DA, Tomsic J, Grundy FJ,Henkin TM, Dunny GM. 2012. In vivo and in vitro analyses ofregulation of the pheromone-responsive prgQ promoterby the PrgX pheromone receptor protein. J Bacteriol 194:3386 –3394.

2. Bina XR, Taylor DL, Vikram A, Ante VM, Bina JE. 2013.Vibrio cholerae ToxR downregulates virulence factor pro-duction in response to cyclo(Phe-Pro). mBio 4:e00366-13.

3. Winnick S, Lucas DO, Hartman AL, Toll D. 2005. How doyou improve compliance? Pediatrics 115:e718 – e724.

4. Falagas ME, Kasiakou SK. 2006. Use of international unitswhen dosing colistin will help decrease confusion relatedto various formulations of the drug around the world. Anti-microb Agents Chemother 50:2274–2275. (Letter.) {“Letter”or “Letter to the editor” is allowed but not required at the end ofsuch an entry.}

5. Cox CS, Brown BR, Smith JC. J Gen Genet, in press.*{Article title is optional; journal title is mandatory.}

6. Forman MS, Valsamakis A. 2011. Specimen collection,transport, and processing: virology, p 1276 –1288. In Ver-salovic J, Carroll KC, Jorgensen JH, Funke G, Landry ML,Warnock DW (ed), Manual of clinical microbiology, 10thed, vol 2. ASM Press, Washington, DC.

7. da Costa MS, Nobre MF, Rainey FA. 2001. Genus I. Ther-mus Brock and Freeze 1969, 295,AL emend. Nobre, Truperand da Costa 1996b, 605, p 404 – 414. In Boone DR, Cas-tenholz RW, Garrity GM (ed), Bergey’s manual of system-atic bacteriology, 2nd ed, vol 1. Springer, New York, NY.

8. Fitzgerald G, Shaw D. In Waters AE (ed), Clinical micro-

biology, in press. EFH Publishing Co, Boston, MA.*{Chapter title is optional.}

9. Green PN, Hood D, Dow CS. 1984. Taxonomic status ofsome methylotrophic bacteria, p 251–254. In CrawfordRL, Hanson RS (ed), Microbial growth on C1 compounds.Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium. Ameri-can Society for Microbiology, Washington, DC.

10. Rotimi VO, Salako NO, Mohaddas EM, Philip LP. 2005.Abstr 45th Intersci Conf Antimicrob Agents Chemother,abstr D-1658. {Abstract title is optional.}

11. Smith D, Johnson C, Maier M, Maurer JJ. 2005. Distribu-tion of fimbrial, phage and plasmid associated virulencegenes among poultry Salmonella enterica serovars, abstrP-038, p 445. Abstr 105th Gen Meet Am Soc Microbiol.American Society for Microbiology, Washington, DC.{Abstract title is optional.}

12. Garcıa CO, Paira S, Burgos R, Molina J, Molina JF, CalvoC, Vega L, Jara LJ, Garcıa-Kutzbach A, Cuellar ML, Espi-noza LR. 1996. Detection of Salmonella DNA in synovialmembrane and synovial fluid from Latin American pa-tients using the polymerase chain reaction. ArthritisRheum 39(Suppl 9):S185. {Meeting abstract published injournal supplement.}

13. O’Malley DR. 1998. PhD thesis. University of California,Los Angeles, CA. {Title is optional.}

14. Stratagene. 2006. Yeast DNA isolation system: instruc-tion manual. Stratagene, La Jolla, CA. {Use the companyname as the author if none is provided for a companypublication.}

15. Odell JC. April 1970. Process for batch culturing. US pat-ent 484,363,770. {Include the name of the patented item/process if possible; the patent number is mandatory.}

16. Harrison F, Roberts AEL, Gabrilska R, Rumbaugh KP, LeeC, Diggle SP. 2015. A 1,000-year-old antimicrobial remedywith antistaphylococcal activity. mBio 6:e01129-15. {Orig-inal article that describes how data submitted to a databasewere generated.}

17. Harrison F, Roberts AEL, Gabrilska R, Rumbaugh KP, LeeC, Diggle SP. 2015. Data from “A 1,000-year-old antimi-crobial remedy with antistaphylococcal activity.” DryadDigital Repository https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.mn17p.{Citation for the database where the data in the previousreference were deposited; the URL is necessary.}

18. Wang Y, Rozen D. 2016. Colonization and transmission ofthe gut microbiota of the burying beetle, Nicrophorusvespilloides, through development. bioRxiv https://doi.org/10.1101/091702.

*A reference to an in-press ASM publication should state thecontrol number (e.g., mBio00123-18) if it is a journal article orthe name of the publication if it is a book.

In some online journal articles, posting or revision datesmay serve as the year of publication; a DOI (preferred) or URLis required for articles with nontraditional page numbers orelectronic article identifiers.

Magalon A, Mendel RR. 15 June 2015, posting date. Bio-synthesis and insertion of the molybdenum cofactor.EcoSal Plus 2015 doi:10.1128/ecosalplus.ESP-0006-2013.

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January 2018, Instructions to Authors ® mbio.asm.org 11

Note: a posting or accession date is required for any onlinereference that is periodically updated or changed.

Citations of ASM Accepts manuscripts should look like thefollowing example.

Wang GG, Pasillas MP, Kamps MP. 15 May 2006. Per-sistent transactivation by Meis1 replaces Hox functionin myeloid leukemogenesis models: evidence for co-occupancy of Meis1-Pbx and Hox-Pbx complexes onpromoters of leukemia-associated genes. Mol Cell Bioldoi:10.1128/MCB.00586-06.

Other journals may use different styles for their publish-ahead-of-print manuscripts, but citation entries must includethe following information: author name(s), posting date, title,journal title, and volume and page numbers and/or DOI. Thefollowing is an example:

Zhou FX, Merianos HJ, Brunger AT, Engelman DM. 13February 2001. Polar residues drive association of polyleu-cine transmembrane helices. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A doi:10.1073/pnas.041593698.

To encourage data sharing and reuse, ASM recommendsreporting data sets and/or code both in a dedicated “Data avail-ability” paragraph and in References. The components of acomplete data citation include the following:

• Responsible party (senior author, collector, agency),• Publication year,• Complete name of a data set, including the name of the

database or repository and its URL, or the name of theanalysis software (if appropriate), including the ver-sion and project,

• Publisher (if appropriate), and• Persistent unique identifier(s) (e.g., URL[s] or acces-

sion number[s]).

The following templates may be helpful.

Author. Year. Description of study topic. Retrieved fromDatabase URL (accession no. ●●●●●●). {Unpublished rawdata.}

Author. Year. Description or title of software (version).Repository URL. Retrieved day month year. {Software orcode.}

Examples follow.

Christian SL, McDonough J, Liu C-Y, Shaikh S, VlamakisV, Badner JA, Chakravarti A, Gershon ES. 2002. Datafrom “An evaluation of the assembly of an approximately15-Mb region on human chromosome 13q32-q33linked to bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.” GenBankhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/AF339794 (acces-sion no. AF339794). {Accession number.}

Sun Z. 2013. Reprocessed: in-depth membrane proteomicstudy of breast cancer tissues. ProteomeXchange http:

//proteomecentral.proteomexchange.org/cgi/GetDataset?ID�RPXD000665 (accession number requested). {Unas-signed accession number.}

Hogle S. 2015. Supplemental material for Hogle et al.2015 mBio. figshare https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.1533034.v1. Retrieved 16 March 2017. {Code and/or software.}

Nesbitt HK, Moore JW. 2016. Data from “Species andpopulation diversity in Pacific salmon fisheries underpinindigenous food security.” Dryad Digital Repositoryhttps://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.ng8pf. {Data set in reposi-tory.}

Manuscript submissions that have appeared in preprint ar-chives should cite the preprint in References, and the fact thata paper has appeared online before should be mentioned par-enthetically at the end of the introductory section: (This articlewas submitted to an online preprint archive [1].) The referenceshould take the form noted above in reference 18.

(ii) References cited in the text. References that should becited in the text include the following:

• Unpublished data• Manuscripts submitted for publication• Unpublished conference presentations (e.g., a report or

poster that has not appeared in published conferenceproceedings)

• Personal communications• Patent applications and patents pending• Websites

These references should be made parenthetically in the textas follows:

. . . similar results (R. B. Layton and C. C. Weathers, un-published data).

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

. . . as described previously (M. G. Gordon and F. L. Ratt-ner, presented at the Fourth Symposium on Food Mi-crobiology, Overton, IL, 13 to 15 June 1989). {For non-published abstracts and posters, etc.}

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

. . . as suggested by the World Health Organization (http://www.who.int/campaigns/immunization-week/2017/en/).

URLs for companies that produce any of the products men-tioned in your study or for products being sold may not beincluded in the article. However, company URLs that permitaccess to scientific data related to the study or to sharewareused in the study are permitted.

(iii) Citations in abstracts. Because the abstract must beable to stand apart from the article, references cited in itshould be clear without recourse to the References section. Use

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12 January 2018, Instructions to Authors ® mbio.asm.org

an abbreviated form of citation, omitting the article title, asfollows.

(P. S. Satheshkumar, A. S. Weisberg, and B. Moss, J Virol87:10700 –10709, 2013, doi:10.1128/JVI.01258-13)

(J. H. Coggin, Jr., p. 93–114, in D. O. Fleming and D. L.Hunt, ed., Biological Safety. Principles and Practices, 4thed., 2006)

“. . . in a recent report by D. A. Hopwood (mBio4:e00612-13, 2013, doi:10.1128/mBio00612-13) . . .”

When necessary, this style should also be used for referencescited in legends for supplemental material and in Addenda inProof.

(iv) References related to supplemental material. For thereader’s benefit, and to avoid the potential for error duringrevisions, references cited in the supplemental material mustbe maintained separately from the references cited in themain text.

If references must be cited for an item in the supplementalmaterial, include those references in the supplemental itemitself and cite them by those numbers. Do not include refer-ences in the main text that are cited only in the supplementalmaterial. If any references are cited in both the supplementalmaterial and the main text, those references should be includedseparately in both places.

If references must be cited in the supplemental legends inthe main text, use the format for “Citations in abstracts” ratherthan a numbered citation.

Observations

Observations are short descriptions (with a maximum of1,200 words and no more than 2 figures and 25 references) ofresearch results of exceptional importance and unusual inter-est to the broad microbiology community, e.g., reports of anew type of organism, a new organelle, a new association ofmicrobes and disease, etc.

The body of an Observation may have paragraph lead-ins.As with Research Articles, authors should include an abstractof 250 words or fewer as well as an Importance section of 150words or fewer providing a nontechnical explanation of whythe work was undertaken.

As noted above under “Data and Materials,” a paragraphdedicated to new accession numbers for nucleotide andamino acid sequences, microarray data, protein structures,gene expression data, and MycoBank data should appear atthe end of the text with the paragraph lead-in “Accessionnumber(s).”

Minireviews

Minireviews are brief summaries (with a maximum of6,000 words and up to two figures or tables) of importantdevelopments in microbiology research. They must bebased on published articles, and they may address any sub-ject within the scope of the journal.

Minireviews may be either solicited or proffered by authors

responding to a recognized need. Irrespective of origin, Mini-reviews are subject to review and should be submitted via theonline manuscript submission and peer review system. Thecover letter should state whether the article was solicited and bywhom.

Minireviews must have abstracts. Limit the abstract to 250words or fewer. The body of the Minireview may have sectionheadings and/or paragraph lead-ins.

Author bios. At the editor’s invitation, corresponding au-thors of minireviews may submit a short biographical sketchand photo for each author for publication with the article.Biographical information should be submitted at the modifi-cation stage.

• The text limit is 150 words for each author andshould include WHO you are (your name), WHEREyou received your education, WHAT positions youhave held and at WHICH institutions, WHERE youare now (your current institution), WHY you havethis interest, and HOW LONG you have been in thisfield.

• The photo should be a black-and-white head shot ofpassport size. Photos will be reduced to approximately1.125 inches wide by 1.375 inches high. Photos mustmeet the production criteria for regular figures andshould be checked for production quality by usingRapid Inspector, provided at the following URL: http://rapidinspector.cadmus.com/RapidInspector/zmw/index.jsp.

• To submit, upload the text and photos with your mod-ified manuscript in the eJP online manuscript submis-sion and peer review system. Include the biographicaltext after the References section of your manuscript, inthe same file. Upload the head shots in the submissionsystem as a “Minireview Bio Photo”; include the au-thor’s name or enough of it for identification ineach photo’s file name. Contact the mBio staff if youhave questions about what to write or if you havequestions about submitting your files.

Opinions/Hypotheses

Opinions/Hypotheses are short articles (with a maximum of2,500 words and no more than 25 references) that present orig-inal and well-developed insights without complete supportingdata. Although microbiology and allied fields are primarily ex-perimental sciences, this article type places equal importanceon new thought that is formulated in a manner that summa-rizes a problem, provides a new synthesis, and/or is suitable forsubsequent experimental testing.

In this category, the journal provides a highly visible venuefor the publication of ideas that have the potential to movefields and to challenge the status quo.

Authors should provide an abstract of 150 words or fewer.The body of an Opinion/Hypothesis article may have sectionheadings and/or paragraph lead-ins.

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Commentaries

Commentaries are short invited articles (with a maximumof 1,000 words) that discuss mBio papers of special interest.These are solicited by editors from reviewers or experts in thefield.

Authors should provide an abstract of 150 words or fewer.The body of a Commentary may have section headings and/orparagraph lead-ins.

Perspectives

Perspectives are brief reviews (limited to 2,000 words) thatoffer a succinct overview of a specific topic with an emphasison opinion and synthesis.

Authors should provide an abstract of 150 words or fewer.The body of a Perspectives article may have section headingsand/or paragraph lead-ins.

Editorials

Editorials communicated by members of the mBio Board ofEditors address issues of science, politics, or policy.

Editorials should include an abstract of 150 words or fewer.

Letters to the Editor

Letters to the Editor are intended for comments on articlespublished in the journal and must cite published references tosupport the writer’s argument.

Letters may be no more than 500 words long and must betyped double-spaced. All Letters to the Editor must be submit-ted electronically. The cover letter should refer to the article inquestion by its title and the last name of the first author. Inaddition, the volume and issue and/or DOI should be indi-cated. Letters to the Editor do not have abstracts. The Lettermust have a distinct title, which must appear on the manu-script and on the submission form. Figures and tables shouldbe kept to a minimum.

The Letter will be sent to the editor who handled thearticle in question. If the editor believes that publication iswarranted, he/she will solicit a reply from the correspond-ing author of the article and make a recommendation to theeditor in chief. Final approval for publication rests with theeditor in chief.

Please note that some indexing/abstracting services do notinclude Letters to the Editor in their databases.

Errata

Errata provide a means of correcting errors that occurredduring the writing, typing, editing, or publication (e.g., a mis-spelling, a dropped word or line, or mislabeling in a figure) ofa published article. Submit Errata via the mBio online submis-sion and peer review system at https://mbio.msubmit.net/cgi-bin/main.plex. In the Abstract section of the submission form(a required field), put “Not Applicable.” Upload the text ofyour Erratum as a Microsoft Word file. Please see a recent issuefor correct formatting.

Author Corrections

Author Corrections provide a means of correcting errors ofomission (e.g., author names or citations) and errors of a sci-entific nature that do not alter the overall basic results or con-clusions of a published article (e.g., an incorrect unit ofmeasurement or order of magnitude used throughout, con-tamination of one of numerous cultures, or misidentificationof a mutant strain, causing erroneous data for only a [noncrit-ical] portion of the study). Note that the addition of new data isnot permitted.

For corrections of a scientific nature or issues involving au-thorship, including contributions and use or ownership of dataand/or materials, all disputing parties must agree, in writing, topublication of the Correction. For omission of an author’sname, letters must be signed by the authors of the article andthe author whose name was omitted. The editor who handledthe article will be consulted if necessary.

Submit an Author Correction via the online manuscriptsubmission and peer review system at https://mbio.msubmit.net/cgi-bin/main.plex. In the submission form, select Erra-tum as the manuscript type; there is no separate selection in thesubmission system for an Author Correction, but your Correc-tion will be published as such if appropriate. In the Abstract sec-tion of the submission form (a required field), put “Not Applica-ble.” Upload the text of your Author Correction as a MicrosoftWord file. Please see a recent issue for correct formatting.

Retractions

Retractions are reserved for major errors or breaches of eth-ics that, for example, may call into question the source of thedata or the validity of the results and conclusions of an article.If you feel that a Retraction may be necessary for an article thatyou have authored, you should contact the mBio staff atmBio@asmusa.org. The mBio staff will submit a Retraction onyour behalf. The Retraction will be assigned to the editor in chiefof the journal, and the editor who handled the paper and thechairperson of the ASM Journals Board will be consulted. If theRetraction is approved, all authors will be asked to sign a letter ofagreement before the Retraction is processed for publication. If allparties agree to the publication and content of the Retraction, itwill be sent to the Journals Department for publication.

CrossMark

mBio has implemented CrossMark. CrossMark is a multi-publisher initiative to provide a standard way for readers tolocate the current version of an article. Clicking on the Cross-Mark logo will indicate whether an article is current or whetherupdates have been published. Additional information aboutCrossMark can be found on CrossMark’s website and onASM’s CrossMark policy page.

ILLUSTRATIONS AND TABLES

Illustrations

Image manipulation. Digital images submitted for pub-lication may be inspected by ASM production specialists for

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any manipulations or electronic enhancements that may beconsidered to be the result of scientific misconduct based onthe guidelines provided below. Any images/data found tocontain manipulations of concern will be referred to theeditor in chief, and authors may then be requested to pro-vide their primary data for comparison with the submittedimage file. Investigation of the concerns may delay publica-tion and may result in revocation of acceptance and/or ad-ditional action by ASM.

Linear adjustments to contrast, brightness, and/or colorare generally acceptable, as long as the measures taken arenecessary to view elements that are already present in the data andthe adjustments are applied to the entire image and not just spe-cific areas. Unacceptable adjustments to images include, but arenot limited to, the removal or deletion, concealment, duplication(copying and pasting), addition, selective enhancement, or repo-sitioning of elements within the image.

Nonlinear adjustments made to images, such as changes togamma settings, should be fully disclosed in the figure legendsat the time of submission. In addition, images created by com-piling multiple files, including noncontiguous portions of thesame image, should clearly convey that these multiple files arenot a single image. This can be done by “tooling,” or insertingthin lines, between the individual images.

File types and formats. Illustrations may be continuous-tone images, line drawings, or composites. On initial submis-sion, figures may be uploaded as individual PDF files or com-bined and uploaded as a single PDF file. Place each legend inthe text file, as well as on the same page with the figure to assistreview. At the modification stage, production-quality digitalfiles must be provided. The legends will be copyedited andtypeset for final publication and should not be included as partof the figure itself at this stage. All graphics submitted withmodified manuscripts must be bitmap, grayscale, or in theRGB (preferred) or CMYK color mode. See “Color illustrations.”Halftone images (those with various densities or shades) must begrayscale, not bitmap. mBio accepts only TIFF or EPS files; Pow-erPoint files will not be accepted.

Instructions for converting PowerPoint files may befound at http://art.cadmus.com/da/howto/creating_ai_eps_excell.jsp. General instructions for creating acceptable EPSand TIFF files may be found at http://art.cadmus.com/da/index.jsp.

We strongly recommend that before returning their modi-fied manuscripts, authors check the acceptability of theirdigital images for production by running their files throughRapid Inspector, a tool provided at the following URL: http://rapidinspector.cadmus.com/RapidInspector/zmw/index.jsp. Rapid Inspector is an easy-to-use, Web-based applicationthat identifies file characteristics that may render the imageunusable for production.

If you have additional questions about using the Rapid In-spector preflighting tool, please send an e-mail inquiry tohelpdesk.digitalartsupport@cenveo.com.

Minimum resolution. It is extremely important that a highenough file resolution is used. All separate images that youimport into a figure file must be at the correct resolution before

they are placed. (For instance, placing a 72-dpi image in a 300-dpi EPS file will not result in the placed image meeting theminimum requirements for file resolution.) Note, however,that the higher the resolution, the larger the file and the longerthe upload time. Publication quality will not be improved byusing a resolution higher than the minimum. Minimum reso-lutions are as follows:

• 300 dpi for grayscale and color• 600 dpi for combination art (lettering and images)• 1,200 dpi for line art

Size. All graphics must be submitted at their intended pub-lication size so that no reduction or enlargement is necessary.Resolution must be at the required level at the submitted size.Include only the significant portion of an illustration. Whitespace must be cropped from the image, and excess space be-tween panel labels and the image must be eliminated.

• Maximum figure width: 6.875 inches (ca. 17.4 cm)• Maximum figure height: 9.0625 inches (23.0 cm)

Contrast. Illustrations must contain sufficient contrast tobe viewed easily on a monitor or on the printed page.

Labeling and assembly. All final lettering and labeling mustbe incorporated into the figures. On initial submission, illus-trations should be provided as PDF files, with the legends in thetext file and with a legend beneath each image to assist review.At the modification stage, production-quality digital figurefiles (without legends) must be provided. Put the figure num-ber well outside the boundaries of the image itself. (Number-ing may need to be changed at the copyediting stage.) Eachfigure must be uploaded as a separate file, and any multipanelfigures must be assembled into one file.

Fonts. To avoid font problems, set all type in one of thefollowing fonts: Arial, Helvetica, Times Roman, European PI,Mathematical PI, or Symbol. Courier may be used but shouldbe limited to nucleotide or amino acid sequences, where a non-proportional (monospace) font is required. All fonts otherthan these must be converted to paths (or outlines) in the ap-plication with which they were created.

Compression. Images created with Macintosh applicationsmay be compressed with Stuffit. Images created with Windowsapplications may be compressed with WinZip or PKZIP.

Color illustrations. All figures submitted in color will beprocessed as color. Adherence to the following guidelines willhelp to ensure color reproduction that is as accurate as possible.

Color illustrations should be supplied in the RGB colormode as either (i) RGB TIFF images with a resolution of atleast 300 pixels per inch (raster files, consisting of pixels) or(ii) Illustrator-compatible EPS files with RGB color elements(vector files, consisting of lines, fonts, fills, and images). CMYKfiles are also accepted. Other than in color space, CMYK filesmust meet the same production criteria as RGB files. The RGBcolor space is the native color space of computer monitors and

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of most of the equipment and software used to capture scien-tific data, and it can display a wider range of colors (especiallybright fluorescent hues) than the CMYK (cyan, magenta, yel-low, black) color space used by print devices that put ink (ortoner) on paper. For reprints, ASM’s print provider will auto-matically create CMYK versions of color illustrations from thesupplied RGB versions. Color in the reprints may not matchthat in the online journal of record because of the smaller rangeof colors capable of being reproduced by CMYK inks on aprinting press. For additional information on RGB versusCMYK color, refer to the Cadmus digital art site, http://art.cadmus.com/da/guidelines_rgb.jsp.

Drawings

Submit graphs, charts, complicated chemical or mathemat-ical formulas, diagrams, and other drawings as finished prod-ucts not requiring additional artwork or typesetting. All ele-ments, including letters, numbers, and symbols, must be easilyreadable, and both axes of a graph must be labeled.

When creating line art, please use the following guidelines.

(i) All art must be submitted at its intended publication size.For acceptable dimensions, see “Size.”

(ii) Avoid using screens (i.e., shading) in line art. It can bedifficult and time-consuming to reproduce these imageswithout moire patterns. Various pattern backgrounds arepreferable to screens as long as the patterns are not im-ported from another application. If you must use imagescontaining screens,

(a) Generate the image at line screens of 85 lines per inchor less.

(b) When applying multiple shades of gray, differentiatethe gray levels by at least 20%.

(c) Never use levels of gray below 5% or above 95% as theyare likely to fade out or become totally black when output.

(iii) Use thick, solid lines that are no finer than 1 point inthickness.

(iv) Use type that is no smaller than 6 points at the finalpublication size.

(v) Avoid layering type directly over shaded or textured areas.

(vi) Avoid the use of reversed type (white lettering on a blackbackground).

(vii) Avoid heavy letters, which tend to close up, and un-usual symbols, which the printer may not be able to reproducein the legend.

(viii) 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 table columnheadings), avoid the ambiguous use of numbers with expo-nents. Usually, it is preferable to use the appropriate SystemeInternational d’Unites (SI) symbols (� for 10�6, m for 10�3, k

for 103, and M for 106, etc.). Thus, representation of 20,000cpm on a figure ordinate should be made by the number 20accompanied by the label kcpm. A complete listing of SI symbolscan be found in the International Union of Pure and AppliedChemistry (IUPAC) publication Quantities, Units and Symbols inPhysical Chemistry, 3rd ed. (RSC Publishing, Cambridge,United Kingdom, 2007), and at https://www.nist.gov/physical-measurement-laboratory/special-publication-811.

When powers of 10 must be used, the journal requires thatthe exponent power be associated with the number shown. Inrepresenting 20,000 cells per ml, the numeral on the ordinateshould be “2” and the label should be “104 cells per ml” (not“cells per ml � 10�4”). Likewise, an enzyme activity of 0.06 U/mlmight be shown as 6 accompanied by the label 10�2 U/ml. Thepreferred designation is 60 mU/ml (milliunits per milliliter).

Presentation of Nucleic Acid Sequences

Long nucleic acid sequences must be presented as figures inthe following format to conserve space. Print the sequence inlines of approximately 100 to 120 nucleotides in a nonpropor-tional (monospace) font that is easily legible when publishedwith a line length of 6 inches (ca. 15.2 cm). If possible, lines ofnucleic acid sequence should be further subdivided into blocksof 10 or 20 nucleotides by spaces within the sequence or bymarks above it. Uppercase and lowercase letters may be used todesignate the exon-intron structure or transcribed regions,etc., if the lowercase letters remain legible at a 6-inch (ca. 15.2-cm) line length. Number the sequence line by line; place nu-merals representing the first base of each line to the left of thelines. Minimize spacing between lines of sequence, leavingroom only for annotation of the sequence. Annotation mayinclude boldface, underlining, brackets, and boxes, etc. En-coded amino acid sequences may be presented, if necessary,immediately above or below the first nucleotide of each codon,by using the single-letter amino acid symbols. Comparisons ofmultiple nucleic acid sequences should conform as nearly aspossible to the same format.

Figure Legends

On initial submission, each legend should be placed in thetext file and be incorporated into the image file beneath thefigure to assist review.

Legends should provide enough information so that the fig-ure is understandable without frequent reference to the text.However, detailed experimental methods must be described inthe Materials and Methods section, not in a figure legend. Amethod that is unique to one of several experiments may bereported in a legend only if the discussion is very brief (one ortwo sentences). Define all symbols used in the figure and defineall abbreviations that are not used in the text.

The main text file should also contain a legend for each itemin the supplemental material (see “Supplemental Material”).

Tables

Tables that contain artwork, chemical structures, or com-plex shading must be submitted as illustrations in an accept-able format at the modification stage. The preferred format for

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regular tables is Microsoft Word; however, WordPerfect andAcrobat PDF are also acceptable. Note that a straight Excel fileis not currently an acceptable format. Excel files must be eitherembedded in a Word or WordPerfect document or convertedto PDF before being uploaded.

Tables should be formatted as follows. Arrange the dataso that columns of like material read down, not across. Theheadings should be sufficiently clear so that the meaning ofthe data is understandable without reference to the text. See the“Abbreviations” section of these Instructions for those thatshould be used in tables. Explanatory footnotes are acceptable,but more-extensive table “legends” are not. Footnotes shouldnot include detailed descriptions of the experiment. Tablesmust include enough information to warrant table format;those with fewer than six pieces of data will be incorporatedinto the text by the copy editor. Table 1 is an example of awell-constructed table.

Featured Image

Each collected bimonthly issue of mBio is represented by afeatured image, derived from an article in the issue. These fea-tured images are used to represent the issues in the onlinearchives.

Authors may receive an invitation to submit a featured im-age, or they may submit an unsolicited potential image (tomBio@asmusa.org), after their manuscript has been accepted.

The image should be related to the work presented in themanuscript, and it should meet the following specifications:

• TIF or EPS format.• Resolution of at least 300 dpi.• Square dimensions.

The image should be free of figure elements, e.g., arrows orpanel labels. The image should be accompanied by a short leg-end. A legend of just a few sentences works best (for an exam-ple, see http://mbio.asm.org/content/1/5.cover-expansion).

No material submitted for consideration will be returned tothe author. Authors will be notified only if their image is se-lected.

NOMENCLATURE

Chemical and Biochemical Nomenclature

The recognized authority for the names of chemical com-pounds is Chemical Abstracts (CAS; http://www.cas.org/) and

its indexes. The Merck Index Online (https://www.rsc.org/merck-index) is also an excellent source.

For guidelines to the use of biochemical terminology, con-sult Biochemical Nomenclature and Related Documents (Port-land Press, London, United Kingdom, 1992), available athttp://www.sbcs.qmul.ac.uk/iupac/bibliog/white.html, andthe Instructions to Authors of the Journal of Biological Chem-istry and the Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics.

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

For enzymes, use the recommended (trivial) name assignedby the Nomenclature Committee of the International Union ofBiochemistry (IUB) as described in Enzyme Nomenclature (Ac-ademic Press, Inc., New York, NY, 1992) and its supplementsand at http://www.sbcs.qmul.ac.uk/iubmb/enzyme/. If a non-recommended name is used, place the proper (trivial) name inparentheses at first use in the abstract and text. Use the ECnumber when one has been assigned. Authors of papers de-scribing enzymological studies should review the standards ofthe STRENDA Commission for information required for ade-quate description of experimental conditions and for report-ing enzyme activity data (http://www.beilstein-institut.de/en/projects/strenda/guidelines).

Nomenclature of Organisms

Mice. For mouse strain and genetic nomenclature, ASM en-courages authors to refer to the guidelines set forth by theInternational Committee on Standardized Genetic Nomencla-ture for Mice, available on the Mouse Genome Informaticshome page at http://www.informatics.jax.org/ and in GeneticVariants and Strains of the Laboratory Mouse, 3rd ed. (M. F.Lyon et al., ed., Oxford University Press, Oxford, England,1996).

Viruses. Names used for viruses should be those approvedby the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses(ICTV) and reported on the ICTV Virus Taxonomy website(https://talk.ictvonline.org/). In addition, the recommenda-tions of the ICTV regarding the use of species names shouldgenerally be followed: when the entire species is discussed as ataxonomic entity, the species name, as with other taxa, is italicand has the first letter and any proper nouns capitalized (e.g.,Tobacco mosaic virus, Murray Valley encephalitis virus). Whenthe behavior or manipulation of individual viruses is dis-cussed, the vernacular (e.g., tobacco mosaic virus, Murray Val-ley encephalitis virus) should be used. If desired, synonymsmay be added parenthetically when the name is first men-tioned. Approved generic (or group) and family names mayalso be used.

Bacteria. Binary names, consisting of a generic name and aspecific epithet (e.g., Escherichia coli), should be used for allbacteria. Names of categories at or above the genus level maybe used alone, but specific and subspecific epithets may not. Aspecific epithet must be preceded by a generic name, writtenout in full the first time it is used in a paper. Thereafter, thegeneric name should 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 bacterial taxa (kingdoms,

TABLE 1 Distribution of protein and ATPase in fractions of dialyzedmembranesa

Membrane Fraction

ATPase

U/mg of protein Total U

Control Depleted membrane 0.036 2.3Concentrated supernatant 0.134 4.82

E1 treated Depleted membrane 0.034 1.98Concentrated supernatant 0.11 4.6

a Specific activities of ATPase of nondepleted membranes from control and treatedbacteria were 0.21 and 0.20, respectively.

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January 2018, Instructions to Authors ® mbio.asm.org 17

phyla, classes, orders, families, genera, species, and subspecies) areprinted in italics; strain designations and numbers are not.

Two websites list current approved bacterial names: Prokary-otic Nomenclature Up-to-Date (https://www.dsmz.de/bacterial-diversity/prokaryotic-nomenclature-up-to-date.html) and Listof Prokaryotic Names with Standing in Nomenclature (http://www.bacterio.net/). If there is reason to use a name that doesnot have standing in nomenclature, the name should be en-closed in quotation marks in the title and at its first use in theabstract and the text and an appropriate statement concerningthe nomenclatural status of the name should be made in thetext. “Candidatus” species should always be set in quotationmarks.

Fungi. Since the classification of fungi is not complete, it isthe responsibility of the author to determine the accepted bi-nomial for a given organism. Sources for these names includeThe Yeasts: a Taxonomic Study, 5th ed. (C. P. Kurtzman, J. W.Fell, and T. Boekhout, ed., Elsevier Science, Amsterdam,Netherlands, 2011), and Ainsworth and Bisby’s Dictionary ofthe Fungi, 10th ed. (P. M. Kirk, P. F. Cannon, D. W. Minter,and J. A. Stalpers, ed., CABI International, Wallingford,Oxfordshire, United Kingdom, 2008); see also http://www.speciesfungorum.org/Names/Fundic.asp.

Genetic Nomenclature

To facilitate accurate communication, it is important thatstandard genetic nomenclature be used whenever possibleand that deviations or proposals for new naming systems beendorsed by an appropriate authoritative body. Reviewand/or publication of submitted manuscripts that containnew or nonstandard nomenclature may be delayed by theeditor or the Journals Department so that they may be re-viewed.

ABBREVIATIONS AND CONVENTIONS

Verb Tense

ASM strongly recommends that for clarity you use thepast tense to narrate particular events in the past, includingthe procedures, observations, and data of the study that youare reporting. Use the present tense for your own general con-clusions, the conclusions of previous researchers, and generallyaccepted facts. Thus, most of the abstract, Materials and Meth-ods, and Results will be in the past tense, and most of theintroduction and some of the Discussion will be in the presenttense.

Be aware that it may be necessary to vary the tense in asingle sentence. For example, it is correct to say “White (30)demonstrated that XYZ cells grow at pH 6.8,” “Figure 2shows that ABC cells failed to grow at room temperature,”and “Air was removed from the chamber and the mice died,which proves that mice require air.” In reporting statisticsand calculations, it is correct to say “The values for the ABCcells are statistically significant, indicating that the drug in-hibited. . . .”

For an in-depth discussion of tense in scientific writing, seeHow To Write and Publish a Scientific Paper, 7th ed.

Abbreviations

General. Abbreviations should be used as an aid to thereader, rather than as a convenience to the author, and there-fore their use should be limited. Abbreviations other thanthose recommended by the IUPAC-IUB (Biochemical Nomen-clature and Related Documents, 1992) should be used onlywhen a case can be made for necessity, such as in tables andfigures.

It is often possible to use pronouns or to paraphrase a longword after its first use (e.g., “the drug” or “the substrate”).Standard chemical symbols and trivial names or their symbols(folate, Ala, and Leu, etc.) may also be used.

Define each abbreviation and introduce it in parentheses thefirst time it is used; e.g., “cultures were grown in Eagle minimalessential medium (MEM).” Generally, eliminate abbreviationsthat are not used at least three times in the text (includingtables and figure legends).

Not requiring introduction. In addition to abbreviationsfor Systeme International d’Unites (SI) units of measurement,other common units (e.g., bp, kb, and Da), and chemical sym-bols for the elements, the following should be used withoutdefinition in the title, abstract, text, figure legends, and tables.

DNA (deoxyribonucleic 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, and GTP, etc.(for the respective 5�phosphates of adenosineand other nucleosides)(add 2�-, 3�-, or 5�- whenneeded for contrast)

ATPase and dGTPase, etc.(adenosine triphosphatase anddeoxyguanosinetriphosphatase, etc.)

NAD (nicotinamide adeninedinucleotide)

NAD� (nicotinamide adeninedinucleotide, oxidized)

NADH (nicotinamide adeninedinucleotide, reduced)

NADP (nicotinamide adeninedinucleotide phosphate)

NADPH (nicotinamide adenine

dinucleotide phosphate,reduced)

NADP� (nicotinamide adeninedinucleotide phosphate,oxidized)

poly(A) and poly(dT), etc. (poly-adenylic acid and polydeoxythy-midylic acid, etc.)

oligo(dT), etc. (oligodeoxythy-midylic acid, etc.)

UV (ultraviolet)PFU (plaque-forming units)CFU (colony-forming units)MIC (minimal inhibitory

concentration)Tris (tris[hydroxymethyl]

aminomethane)DEAE (diethylaminoethyl)EDTA (ethylenediaminetetraacetic

acid)EGTA (ethylene glycol-bis[�-

aminoethyl ether]-N,N,N�,N�-tetraacetic acid)

HEPES (N-2-hydroxyethylpiperazine-N�-2-ethanesulfonic acid)

PCR (polymerase chain reaction)AIDS (acquired

immunodeficiency syndrome)

Abbreviations for cell lines (e.g., HeLa) also need not be de-fined.

The following abbreviations should be used without defini-tion in tables.

amt (amount)approx (approximately)avg (average)

concn (concentration)diam (diameter)expt (experiment)

Instructions to Authors

18 January 2018, Instructions to Authors ® mbio.asm.org

exptl (experimental)ht (height)mo (month)mol wt (molecular weight)no. (number)prepn (preparation)SD (standard deviation)SE (standard error)SEM (standard error of the

mean)sp act (specific activity)sp gr (specific gravity)temp (temperature)vol (volume)vs (versus)wk (week)wt (weight)yr (year)

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, and 10�12, respectively. Likewise,use the prefix k for 103. Avoid compound prefixes such as m� or��. Use �g/ml or �g/g in place of the ambiguous ppm. Units oftemperature are presented as follows: 37°C or 324 K.

When fractions are used to express units such as enzymaticactivities, it is preferable to use whole units, such as “g” or “min,”in the denominator instead of fractional or multiple units, such as�g or 10 min. For example, “pmol/min” is preferable to “nmol/10min,” and “�mol/g” is preferable to “nmol/�g.” It is alsopreferable that an unambiguous form, such as exponentialnotation, be used; for example, “�mol g�1 min�1” is pref-erable to “�mol/g/min.” Always report numerical data inthe appropriate SI units.

For a review of some common errors associated with statis-tical analyses and reports, plus guidelines on how to avoid

them, see the articles by Olsen (Infect Immun 71:6689 – 6692,2003; Infect Immun 82:916 –920, 2014).

For a review of basic statistical considerations for virologyexperiments, see the article by Richardson and Overbaugh(J Virol 79:669 – 676, 2005).

Isotopically Labeled Compounds

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

35SO4). Brack-ets are not used when the isotopic symbol is attached to thename of a compound that in its natural state does notcontain the element (e.g., 32S-ATP) or to a word that is nota specific chemical name (e.g., 131I-labeled protein, 14C-amino acids, and 3H ligands).

For specific chemicals, the symbol for the isotope introducedis placed in square brackets directly preceding the part of the namethat describes the labeled entity. Note that configuration symbolsand modifiers precede the isotopic symbol. The following exam-ples illustrate correct usage:

[14C]ureaL-[methyl-14C]methionine[2,3-3H]serine[�-14C]lysine

[�-32P]ATPUDP-[U-14C]glucoseE. coli [32P]DNAfructose 1,6-[1-32P]bisphosphate

mBio follows the same conventions for isotopic labelingas the Journal of Biological Chemistry, and more-detailedinformation can be found in the Instructions to Authors ofthat journal.

Instructions to Authors

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