ISSN 0325-7541
printed version
ISSN 1851-7617
online version

Instructions to authors

• Scope and policy
• Form and p reparation of manuscripts
• Sending of manuscripts

Revista Argentina de Microbiología (RAM) is published by the Asociación Argentina de Microbiología on a quarterly basis. The am of this journal is to publish current scientific works in the different áreas of Microbiology.The Asociación Argentina de Microbiología reserves the right to use, reproduce and publish the accepted material.
GENERAL REQUIREMENTS
Manuscripts submitted for publication in RAM should be original research articles. Submitting a manuscript for publication implies that the authors have been authorized by the corresponding institutions to publish relevant data and that neither the manuscript ñor one with substantially similar content has been previously published, except in the case of partial presentations at scientific meetings, or is being considered for publication by another journal. If necessary, original data should be submitted to the Editorial Board. It should also be made clear that results come from projects approved by the Biosafety and Bioethics Committees of the participati ng institutions, and that when those results include patient information they conform to the Habeas Data Act.
SUBMISSION OF ORIGINALS AND COPYRIGHT
Manuscripts should be addressed to the Editorial Board of Revista Argentina de Microbiología accompanied by a cover letter according to the following model:
"Dear Editors of Revista Argentina de Microbiología,
As corresponding author (to whom correspondence should be addressed), hereby declare that the coauthors have accepted to be represented by myself before RAM with regard to the submission of the manuscript "...Title...", and they are jointly responsible with me for the contents of this work. Neither this manuscript (ñor any other with similar contents) has been previously published or i s being considered for publication by another journal. I also agree to transfer copyright to Revista Argentina de Microbiología o nce published".
All the authors of a manuscript should explicitly authorize its publication and will be responsible for the truthfulness of its contents. They should also express their agreement regarding the choice of one of them to become the corresponding author for editorial pur-poses. Furthermore, they should express their agreement with respect to their position in the list of authors, indicating their academic affiliation. A change of the corresponding author or in the order of the list of authors shall only be considered by a note signed by all the authors to that effect. The authors shall also disclose any existing conflict of interests that might affect the manuscript assess-ment on an attached letter. The Editorial Board shall treat all received manuscripts in strict confidence.
Funding sources for research work described in the manuscript, either from public or prívate institutions, commercial affiliati ons or consultancies, as well as co-ownership of patents for business purposes by one or more authors shall be indicated under the Acknowledgements Section.
Contributions will be assessed by the Editorial Board and submitted to the consideration of two scientific referees appointed for each case. The Editorial Board reserves the right to reject those manuscripts whose contents partially or totally overlap with works already published or whose topics are irrelevant to those of RAM. Furthermore, reasons for rejection are non-compliance of editorial requirements, ethical violations, low scientific quality and poor use of language, either English or Spanish.The Editorial Board reserves the right to make all necessary grammatical and style modifications.
ORGANIZATION AND FORMAT
RAM accepts original articles, brief reports, special articles, microbiological images, editorials and supplements. Careful reading of the specifications for each special format is recommended in order to choose the most adequate one and therefore, to expedit e the evaluation proceedings.
Manuscripts shall be written in Spanish or English.The Editorial Board encourages authors to use English as their language of choice so that their work reaches wider international scope and readership.
Original articles. They are full research papers which must be submitted in accordance to the following sections: Title (in Spanish and English) and Short Title, Abstract and Key words (in Spanish and English), Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgements and References. Manuscripts shall not exceed 8,000 words including all the sections and shall include a máximum of 6 tables or figures.
Brief reports. They are less extensive works. They include case reports, descriptions of new tecniques or equipment based on conclusive experimental work. Manuscripts should not be divided into sections and shall not exceed 3,000 words. References should be limited to fifteen citations and tables and figures to a máximum of three. Careful analysis of data presented should be obse rved so as to avoid their repetition in the text, tables and figures, in order to maintain the typical concisión in style that characterizes this type of articles.
Special articles. They are updates or workshop results on topics of regional and international weight. Their authors must be specialists in their field of study. Texts must include updated and comprehensive bibliography. Updates may include up to 10,000 words, 8 tables or figures. References should be limited to 100 bibliographic citations.
Microbiological images. They may include high-quality pictures of bacteria, fungi, parasites and viruses, from direct observation or staining under optical, electronic or fluorescent microscopy. They may also include other photographic images of microorganisms in culture media, lesions in humans or laboratory animáis, x-ray and ultrasound images, computed tomography scans, nuclear magnetic resonance, etc. These images having great instructional valué though not necessarily ground-breaking, should be accompanied by an explanatory text and indicating arrows when necessary.The set of images should fit one printed page at most. Quality requirements for images are described under the "Figures" section below.
Letters to the Editor. Letters can include either comments or new data. The comments consist in observations made on the articles published in the journal; the latter are aimed at communicating short pieces of work which do not have the appropriate length to be published as a complete work or brief report. Both contributions must not exceed 500 words, they should include the title in Spanish
Microbiolog   a completa con avisos jueves, 14 de junio de 2012 18:01:04
$
141
$
and English, they must not have an abstract, and may contain only one figure or table. The authors'affiliations should be placed at the bottom of the letter. Only the prlmary affiliation of each author should be ¡ndlcated. The comments should mentlon the volume and ¡ssue number where the article was publlshed, as well as the complete title and the flrst author's last ñame. Furthermore, the sender should mentlon the bibliographical references that support the letter contents. In order to publlsh a comment, the correspondin g author of the publlshed article will be flrst consulted, the final decisión and publication will remain at the edltor's discret Ion.
Contributions of new faets will be submltted to a specialist editor with knowledge ¡n the subject matter, who along wlth external revlewers will assess the information. It should be noted that some journal indexing services do not ¡nelude Letters to the Edi tor ¡n thelr databases.
Editorials. They focus on current scientific toplcs of special relevance to the scientific community specialized ¡n Mlcroblology, or are opinión works on scientific policles.This section is the solé domain of the Editoral Board, who will determine editorial p olicy and authorshlp, as well as the general guidelines.
Supplements. They will consist of detailed reviews of a specific subject conducted by one or several scientific organizations or universales, as well as abstraets of contributions presented at scientific meetings or universities organized by the Asociación Argentina de Microbiología or any of its divisions or branches (oral communications, boards, lectures, round tables.etc), and chaired by guest editors. Topics to be considered in the supplements and general outlines should be approved by the Editorial Board.
Revisión of manuscrlpts under the Supplements section will be in charge of revlewers appointed by the Editorial Board ¡n the case of extensive revlewing, and of guest editors in the case of abstraets of meetings. Supplements will be wholly financed by the body organizing the scientific meetlng, which will bear in mind that supplements should be distributed among participants to the meetings and all members of the Asociación Argentina de Microbiología either by subscrlption or on-line. As regards style and for-mat, supplements shall strictly conform to the standards of Revista Argentina de Microbiología in all respeets (cover, paper quality, prlnting, tables and figures, ¡llustrations, etc.), as described ¡n the "Instructions to Authors" section. Supplements correspo nding to abstraets of meetings shall ¡nelude the following Information ¡n this order: ñames of members of the Editorial Board of Revi sta Argentina de Microbiología, data about the event (complete title, venue and date), content list of meetings (¡n Spanish and English), acknowledgements, ñames of organizing officers and message dellvered by the Chair/s. Abstraets consecutlvely numbered ¡n Arabio numeráis as from 1 (one) should subsequently follow. An alphabetical Índex of authors and the English and Spanish versions of the instructions to authors of Revista Argentina de Microbiología should be printed next. The meeting schedule will only be ¡neluded ¡n the Supplement as a sepárate leaflet in the form of a triptych.

Manuscrlpts should be wrltten in A4 paper format wlth 3 cm margins on each slde, using Times New Román font, regular, 12, and double-spaced. Bold and ¡talles prlnting types should be used when necessary. Counting from the abstract section of the manuscript onwards, all pages should be consecutively numbered in the lower right margin, as well as the manuscript Unes. This shall also apply to text, tables, figures, legends and references. Pages including tables, figures and legends shall be ¡nelude d after the References section.
Front or title page. The first page shall ¡nelude the manuscript title using capitals only for the flrst letter and lowercase for the rest, the author's ñames (complete flrst ñame, initials of other ñames and súmame of all authors); place of work (institution ñame and mailing address), and a short title of the work with a máximum of 50 characters as running head. If authors have different working places, the institutional affiliation of each autor shall be indicated by numerical superlnscriptlons added to their nanes (not between parenthesis) to identify each author with his/her affiliation. The ñame of the corresponding author shall be marked by an asterisk in superscrlpt position next to his/her ñame. The corresponding author's e-mail shall also be included. If one or seve ral authors have changed his/her/thelr affiliation, the current affiliation where work was performed should be indicated and the current place of work in a footer.
Abstraets. They will only be included in original articles, brief reports and special artlcles and shall have a máximum of 250 words for original and special artlcles, and 150 words for brief reports. The first abstract will be written ¡n the language us ed in the work and the second in the other language. It shall be headed by the complete title of the work. Abstraets shall be followed by a list of three to six key words in the corresponding language. Abbrevlations and bibliographic citations should be avolded. A clear understandlng of abstraets should be ensured since they may be separately published by bibliographic services.
Introduction. It should provide sufficlent and relevant Information on the topic to be analyzed to allow the understandlng of non-specialized readers. It should also ¡nelude the hypothesis or scientific background that guided the experimental layout of the work as well as ¡ts clearly defined objectives. References mentioned ¡n this section should be the most relevant ones wlth resp ect to the topic and must be carefully chosen.
Materials and Methods. This section should include an aecurate and detailed descriptlon of the methods, equipment, reagents and procedures used, so that the experiments could be replicated. Frequently used or routine procedures and technlques may be mentioned by specific reference (eg., MIC determination by the CLSI methods, 2012). New methods or those especially developed for the study should be described ¡n detail, as well as ¡nfrequent drug sources or biological materials (bacterial, viral, fung al strains and plasmids, etc.). Trademarks and origin of reagents, culture means and equipment should be Indicated ¡n the text the first t ¡me they are mentioned, identifying the commercial brand ñame, state and country of origin.
Results. It should include the experimental layout and its scientific background as well as the results obtained presented in a concise way preferably as text, or as table/s or figure/s). Unnecessary use of tables and figures to mentlon data should be avo ¡ded when they could be included in the text. Do not repeat the same Information ¡n the text and in the tables or figures. Limit the number of photographs to the mínimum necessary to support experimental results. Number the tables and figures in the order they are mentioned in the text. Avoid repetitlons and ¡nelude only most relevant data. In-depth interpretaron will be ¡neluded ¡n the D iscus-sion section.
Discussion. Emphasis should be placed on ¡mportant cutting-edge findings; experimental data should be examined ¡n the light of previously publlshed works. Conclusions should be presented avoiding unnecessary repetition of data and concepts already ¡neluded in preceding sectlons. Results and Discussion can be presented as a jolnt section.
Acknowledgements. This section shall be typed ¡n smaller printing characters than those used ¡n the manuscript (Times New Román, 11). Financing sources and ñames of individuáis and/or instltutions contrlbuting wlth reagents, biological material or r esult discusslons should be briefly mentioned.
References. It ¡s convenient that 70 % whenever possible of bibliographic citations ¡n all manuscrlpts correspond to the last 10 years and the remaining 30 % be distributed ¡n key works from previous years. Ñames of authors cited shall be listed ¡n
^
Microbiolog    a completa con avisos jueves, 14 de junio de 2012 18:01:08
$
$
142
$
alphabetical order and numbered ¡n sequence with Arabio numeráis on a sepárate page. Citations ¡n the text should appear ¡n numbers placed between parenthesis, to coincide with the number they have ¡n the References section. Reference to personal comments and un-publlshed works should be presented as personal communlcatlon, written between parenthesis. References should ¡nclude the ñame of all the authors and conform to the following models:
a.  Periodical publications
Héritier C, Poirel L, Lamben T, Nordmann R Contrlbutlon of acqulred carbapenem-hydrolyzing oxacillinases to carbapenem resistance in Acinetobacter baumannii. Antimicrob Agents Chemother 2005; 49: 3198-202.
Ñames of journal tltles shall be abbreviated according to índex Medlcus, a list of whlch can be obtained at http://www.ncbl.nlmnlh.gov/ sites/entrez?db=journals.
b.  Chapters of books/modules
Martins Teixeira L, Siqueira Carvalho M da G, Facklam RR. Enterococcus. In: Murray PR, Barón EJ, Jorgensen JH, Landry ML, Pfaller MA, editors. Manual of Clinical Mlcroblology, 9th edition. Washington DC, ASM Press, 2007, p. 430-42.
c.  Presentations in scientific meetings or other events
Aguilar M, Punschke K, Touati D, Pianzzola MJ. Estudios fisiológicos y genéticos en la bacteria sulfato reductora Desulfoarculus baarsii. Terceras Jornadas Rioplatenses de Microbiología, 1997, Abstract J2, p. 102, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Argentina.
d.  Presentations in congresses or other scientific meetings in a supplement published by a períodic academic journal Fellner MD, Correa RM, Durand K, Teyssié AR, Picconi MA. Análisis del ADN circulante de virus Epsteln-Barr (EBV) en pacientes inmunosuprimidos con y sin linfomas asociados. VIII Congreso Argentino de Virología, Abstract 10416. Rev Argent Microbiol 2005; 37 Supl 1:95.
e.  Institutional publications
Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute. Disk diffusion. Performance Standards for Antimicrobial Susceptlbility Testing; 15th Informational Supplement, 2005; M100-S15. Wayne, PA, USA.
f.  Theses
Brizzio A. Aplicación de una PCR múltiple para la identificación de cepas de Staphylococcus aureus toxigénicas. Tesis de Maestría en Microbiología Molecular 2009. INEI-ANLIS "Dr. Carlos G. Malbrán" y Universidad Nacional de San Martín.
g.  On-line references
1.  For on-line Books
Sullivan CJ, editor. 1999-2001. Fungi: an evolving electronic resource for the microbiological community. ASM Press. {On-line) http://link.asmusa.de/link/service/books/91090. Accessed 7 September 2001.
2.  For on Une versions of printed journals
van der Zeiss L, Danziger VB. History of clinical microbiology. Clin Microbiol 1999; 100:123-234. (On-line)
3. For journals only available on-line
Zellnitz F, Foley PM. October 1998, posting {or revisión} date. History of virology. Am Viral J 1998; 1: 30-50. (On-line) http:// www.avj.html.
4.  For manuscrlpts published on Une ¡n advance of their publicatlon
Zheng Z, Zou J. 5 September 2001. The initial step of the glycerolipid pathway: identification of glycerol-3-phosphate/dihydroxy-acetone phosphate dual substrate acyltransferases in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. J Biol Chem. 10. 1074/jbc.M104749200.
g. ítems, references to works or congress abstracts not yet published, about to be published or under revisión, personal communlcations, existing or pending patents, databases and web pages shall be mentioned in the text between parenthesis as shown:
... similar results (Gómez H, unpublished results)
... new detection protocol used (González JL, Submitted for publicatlon).
... drug concentrations (López GO, 34th Intersci Conf Antimicrob Agents Chemother, abstr. 114, 1994).
... new type of cellulolytlc species (Márquez W, personal communlcation) previously commented by different sources (http://fcen.uba.edu.ar)
Tables. They should be included on sepárate pages, consecutively numbered with Arabio numeráis, preceded by an explanatory tltle, with captions and/or the corresponding explanations below. Reference marks for explanations in the form of footnotes shall use superscrlpted Arabic numbers betweeen parenthesis. Lines shall only be used in the external borders of the first and last row, and to sepárate the headings of the columns from the data. Rows and column borders shall not be ¡nserted.
Figures. They will be Included on sepárate pages with the figure number ¡n the upper left margin and ¡n the order they are mentioned ¡n the text. Drawings should be clear enough to ensure sultable reproductlon. Numbers, letters and signs shall have the adequate size to be readable once reduced as needed. References to symbols used ¡n the figures shall be Included within the same figure and not in the text legend. Photographs may be ¡n colour or black and white, ¡n JPEG orTIFF formats. Minimum photo resolu-tion requirements are 300 dpi for color and grayscale images and photo prints, 600 dpi for combined art images (letters and images) and 1200 dpi for ¡mages composed of Unes (graphs and drawings). Note: It is very ¡mportant to use the adequate file resolutlon. All Individual images ¡mported in a graphic file should be ¡n the correct resolutlon before uploading them. Bear ¡n mind that the h ¡gher the resolutlon, the larger the file and the longer ¡t will take to send ¡t electronically. Captions to the ¡llustrations should be Included on a sepárate page, ¡n consecutive order using Arabic numeráis.
Aminoacid and nucleic acid sequences. New sequences informed by publicatlon in thls journal should be deposited ¡n a datábase and their accesslon number included in the manuscript, no later than revisión stage. The mentioned accession numbers should be Included ¡n a sepárate paragraph at the end of the Materials and Methods section ¡n the case of original works or at the end of the text in the case of brief reports. The information about currently available databases ¡s the following:
DDBJ: Center for Information Biology and DNA Data Bank of Japan, National Institute of Genetics; e-mail. ddbj@ddbj.nig.ac.jp; URL, http://www.ddbj.nig.ac.jp
EMBL: EMBL Nucleotlde Sequence Submissions, European Bioinformatics Institute; e-mail. datasubs@ebi.ac.uk; URL, http://www.ebi.ac.uk
GenBank: National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine; e-mail. info@ncbl.nlm.nlh.gov; URL, http:// www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Nucleic acid sequences of up to 50 nucleotides Included ¡n the work developed ¡n the manuscript may be presented ¡n any style whatsoever. Significantly long sequences should be presented as Figures so as to reduce space, printing those having 80 to 120 nucleotides per Une in a readable font according to publishlng guidelines (16 cm, width of two RAM columns). If posslble, the sequence
^
Microbiolog    a completa con avisos jueves, 14 de junio de 2012 18:01:11
$
143
should be divided ¡nto blocks of 10 to 20 nucleotides separated by a space or by indicative numbers placed above the sequence. Lines should be numbered, indicating the corresponding number to the left of the flrst palr on each Une. Any necessary comment s shall be bold-typed, underlined or written between parentheses. If ¡t ¡s necessary to ¡nclude the amino acid sequence encoded b y the nucleotide sequence, ¡t shall be indicated by the use of one-letter symbols accepted as amino acid indicators placed under the flrst nucleotide of the encoding codon.

Manuscrlpts may be submitted by e-mail (ram@aam.org.ar) or ordinary malí to Deán Funes 472, C1214AAD, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Argentina, ¡ncludlng a CD-ROM electronic versión, with a label or inscription Indicating: tltle of work, the p rogram and program versión used for the text, figures, photographs and the tltle of all the files ¡t contains.
The complete text of the artlcle should be ¡ncluded ¡n only one file. If there are ¡mages, they should be sent on sepárate file s. Besldes, ¡t ¡s advisable that capital letters, spaces between words, ¡talles and bold letters are typed ¡n the same way they appear ¡n the printed versión. There should be no spaces before and after subheadings, the text should be justified and tab-setting should be used ¡nstead of the spacing bar for columns ¡n tables.
Authors should revise the check llst shown after these ¡nstructlons and see that all the requirements therein have been fulfill ed. Before submitting the manuscrlpts, authors should also examine one of the latest RAM issues in order to verify if all guidelines have been followed as regards format and style and to make all necessary modifications if neccessary.
Authors should delete from file propertles all kind of information that could identify thelr authorship.
EDITORIAL PROCESS
Once the manuscript has completed the editorial process and is ready for publication, a file in pdf format with the galley proof shall be sent by e-mail to the corresponding editor for making the corresponding typlng corrections. He/she should not change concepts ñor modify paragraphs which could alter the print format.The document should be printed after making the corrections on the text and sent by fax or as a scanned file by e-mail. Corrections may also be sent by e-mail, clearly specifying the page, paragraph and line to be corrected and should be returned within seven running days of receptlon, otherwise ¡t shall be assumed that its publication has been declined.
At that moment, the amount to be paid for the publication of the artlcle will be sent to the author.
Revista Argentina de Microbiología follows the policies for clinical trial registraron of the World Health Organization (WHO) and of the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), acknowledging the importance of those initiatives for the International dissemination of information on clinical research ¡n open access format. Therefore, only articles referring to triáis prevlously reglstered with an identifying number in one of the Clinical Trial Registers that meet WHO and ICMJE requirements will be accepted for publication. Thelr addresses are available in the ICMJE site. The identifying registration number shall be publish ed at the end of the abstract.
Publishing charges. Each published page will cost $ 75 or $ 200 (pesos) when the page ¡neludes color photographs (AAM members ¡n Argentina,), $ 200 o $ 600 (pesos) (AAM non-members ¡n Argentina) and U$S 70 o U$S 180 (in other countries).
The Secretary:   Deán Funes 472, (C1214AAD) Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires - Argentina; Tel.: (54-11) 4932-8858 and (54-11) 4932-8948; e-mail. info@aam.org.ar; http://www.aam.org.ar
ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION (4 issues)
AAM members                       $              120
Argentina non members       $             240
Latín América                      USD           100
Other countries                  USD          200
Payment: By check or money order, to the order of Asociación Argentina de Microbiología. Price ¡neludes malí postage.