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 aim of this journal is to publish current scientific works in the different areas 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 nor 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 participating 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 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 (nor any other with similar contents)has been previously published or is being con­sidered for publication by another journal. I also agree to transfer copyright to Revista Argentina de Microbiología once 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 pur­poses. Furthermore, they should express their agreement with respect to their position in the list of authors, indicating their academic affiliation. Achange 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 assess­ment 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 private institutions, commercial affiliations 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 expedite 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 maximum 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 maximum of three. Careful analysis of data presented should be observed so as to avoid their repetition in the text, tables and figures, in order to maintain the typical concision 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 animals, x-ray and ultrasound images, computed tomography scans, nuclear magnetic resonance, etc. These images having great instructional value 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.
Editorials. They focus on current scientific topics of special relevance to the scientific community specialized in Microbiology, or are opinion works on scientific policies. This section is the sole domain of the Editoral Board, who will determine editorial policy and authorship, 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 universities, as well as abstracts of contributions presented at scientific meetings or universities organized by the Asociación Argentina
75
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.
Revision of manuscripts under the Supplements section will be in charge of reviewers appointed by the Editorial Board in the case of extensive reviewing, and of guest editors in the case of abstracts of meetings. Supplements will be wholly financed by the body organizing the scientific meeting, 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 subscription or on line. As regards style and for­mat, supplements shall strictly conform to the standards of Revista Argentina de Microbiología in all respects (cover, paper quality, printing, tables and figures, illustrations, etc.), as described in the “Instructions to Authors” section. Supplements corresponding to abstracts of meetings shall include the following information in this order: names of members of the Editorial Board of Revista Argentina de Microbiología, data about the event (complete title, venue and date), content list of meetings (in Spanish and English), acknowledgements, names of organizing officers and message delivered by the Chair/s. Abstracts consecutively numbered in Arabic numerals as from 1 (one)should subsequently follow. An alphabetical index 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 included in the Supplement as a separate leaflet in the form of a triptych.

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 typing corrections. He/she should not change concepts nor 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 reception, otherwise it shall be assumed that its publication has been declined.
At that moment, the amount to be paid for the publication of the article will be sent to the author.
Revista Argentina de Microbiología follows the policies for clinical trial registration 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 in open access format. Therefore, only articles referring to trials previ­ously registered with an identifying number in one of the Clinical Trial Registers that meet WHO and ICMJE requirements will be accepted for publication. Their addresses are available in the ICMJE site. The identifying registration number shall be published at the end of the abstract.

Manuscripts should be written in A4 paper format with 3 cm margins on each side, using Times New Roman font, regular, 12, and double-spaced. Bold and italics printing 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 lines. This shall also apply to text, tables, figures, legends and references. Pages including tables, figures and legends shall be included after the References section.
Front or Title Page. The first page shall include the manuscript title using capitals only for the first letter and lowercase for the rest, the author’s names (complete first name, initials of other names and surname of all authors); place of work (institution name and mailing address), and a short title of the work with a maximum of 50 characters as running head. If authors have different working places, the institutional affiliation of each autor shall be indicated by numerical superinscriptions added to their names (not between parenthesis)to identify each author with his/her affiliation. The name of the corresponding author shall be marked by an asterisk in superscript position next to his/her name. The corresponding author’s e-mail shall also be included. If one or several authors have changed his/her/their affiliation, the current affiliation where work was performed should be indicated and the current place of work in a footer.
Abstracts. They will only be included in original articles, brief reports and special articles and shall have a maximum of 250 words for original and special articles, and 150 words for brief reports. The first abstract will be written in the language used in the work and the second in the other language. It shall be headed by the complete title of the work. Abstracts shall be followed by a list of three to six key words in the corresponding language. Abbreviations and bibliographic citations should be avoided. Aclear understanding of abstracts should be ensured since they may be separately published by bibliographic services.
Introduction. It should provide sufficient and relevant information on the topic to be analyzed to allow the understanding of non-specialized readers. It should also include the hypothesis or scientific background that guided the experimental layout of the work as well as its clearly defined objectives. References mentioned in this section should be the most relevant ones with respect to the topic and must be carefully chosen.
Materials and Methods. This section should include an accurate and detailed description of the methods, equipment, reagents and procedures used, so that the experiments could be replicated. Frequently used or routine procedures and techniques may be mentioned by specific reference (eg., MIC determination by the CLSI methods, 2010). New methods or those especially developed for the study should be described in detail, as well as infrequent drug sources or biological materials (bacterial, viral, fungal strains and plasmids, etc.). Trademarks and origin of reagents, culture means and equipment should be indicated in the text the first time they are mentioned, identifying the commercial brand name, 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 mention data should be avoided when they could be included in the text. Do not repeat the same information in the text and in the tables or figures. Limit the number of photographs to the minimum necessary to support experimental results. Number the tables and figures in the order they are mentioned in the text. Avoid repetitions and include only most relevant data. In-depth interpretation will be included in the Discus­sion section.
Discussion. Emphasis should be placed on important cutting-edge findings; experimental data should be examined in the light of previously published works. Conclusions should be presented avoiding unnecessary repetition of data and concepts already included in preceding sections. Results and Discussion can be presented as a joint section.
Acknowledgements. This section shall be typed in smaller printing characters than those used in the manuscript (Times New Roman, 11). Financing sources and names of individuals and/or institutions contributing with reagents, biological material or result discussions should be briefly mentioned.
References. It is convenient that 70% whenever possible of bibliographic citations in all manuscripts correspond to the last 10 years and the remaining 30% be distributed in key works from previous years. Names of authors cited shall be listed in alphabetical order and numbered in sequence with Arabic numerals on a separate page. Citations in the text should appear in numbers placed between parenthesis, to coincide with the number they have in the References section. Reference to personal comments and un­published works should be presented as personal communication, written between parenthesis.
References should include the name of all the authors and conform to the following models:
a. Periodical publications
Héritier C, Poirel L, Lambert T, Nordmann P. Contribution of acquired carbapenem-hydrolyzing oxacillinases to carbapenem resistance in Acinetobacter baumannii. Antimicrob Agents Chemother 2005; 49: 3198-202.
Names of journal titles shall be abbreviated according to Index Medicus, a list of which can be obtained at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=journals.
b. Chapters of books/modules
Martins Teixeira L, Siqueira Carvalho M da G, Facklam RR. Enterococcus. In: Murray PR, Baron EJ, Jorgensen JH, Landry ML, Pfaller MA, editors. Manual of Clinical Microbiology, 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 Desulfoar­76 Revista Argentina de Microbiología (2006) 38: 49-52
culus 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 periodic academic journal
Fellner MD, Correa RM, Durand K, Teyssié AR, Picconi MA. Análisis del ADN circulante de virus Epstein-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 Susceptibility 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 Refe��������rences
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 line 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 revision} date. History of virology. Am Virol J 1998; 1: 30-50. ��(On line)http://www.avj.html.
4. For manuscripts published�on line in advance of their publication
Zheng Z, Zou J. 5 September 2001. The initial step of the glycerolipid pathway: identification of glycerol-3-phosphate/dihydroxy­acetone phosphate dual substrate acyltransferases in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. J Biol Chem. 10. 1074/jbc.M104749200.
g. Items, references to works or congress abstracts not yet published, about to be published or under revision, personal commu­nications, 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 publication).
… drug concentrations (López GO, 34th Intersci Conf Antimicrob Agents Chemother, abstr. 114, 1994).
… new type of cellulolytic species (Márquez W, personal communication)
previously commented by different sources (http://fcen.uba.edu.ar)
Tables. They should be included on separate pages, consecutively numbered with Arabic numerals, preceded by an explanatory title, with captions and/or the corresponding explanations below. Reference marks for explanations in the form of footnotes shall use superscripted Arabic numbers betweeen parenthesis. Lines shall only be used in the external borders of the first and last row, and to separate the headings of the columns from the data. Rows and column borders shall not be inserted.
Figures. They will be included on separate pages with the figure number in the upper left margin and in the order they are mentioned in the text. Drawings should be clear enough to ensure suitable reproduction. Numbers, letters and signs shall have the adequate size to be readable once reduced as needed. References to symbols used in the figures shall be included within the same figure and not in the text legend. Photographs may be in colour or black and white, in JPEG or TIFF formats. Minimum photo resolu­tion 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 images composed of lines (graphs and drawings). Note: It is very important to use the adequate file resolution. All individual images imported in a graphic file should be in the correct resolution before uploading them. Bear in mind that the higher the resolution, the larger the file and the longer it will take to send it electronically. Captions to the illustrations should be included on a separate page, in consecutive order using Arabic numerals.
Aminoacid and nucleic acid sequences. New sequences informed by publication in this journal should be deposited in a database and their accession number included in the manuscript, no later than revision stage. The mentioned accession numbers should be included in a separate paragraph at the end of the Materials and Methods section in the case of original works or at the end of the text in the case of brief reports. The information about currently available databases is the following:
DDBJ: Center for Information Biology and DNAData Bank of Japan, National Institute of Genetics; e-mail: ddbj@ddbj.nig.ac.jp; URL, http://www.ddbj.nig.ac.jp
EMBL: EMBL Nucleotide 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@ncbi.nlm.nih.gov; URL, http:// www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Nucleic acid sequences of up to 50 nucleotides included in the work developed in the manuscript may be presented in any style whatsoever. Significantly long sequences should be presented as Figures so as to reduce space, printing those having 80 to 120 nucleotides per line in a readable font according to publishing guidelines (16 cm, width of two RAM columns). If possible, the sequence should be divided into 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 first pair on each line. Any necessary comments shall be bold-typed, underlined or written between parentheses. If it is necessary to include the amino acid sequence encoded by the nucleotide sequence, it shall be indicated by the use of one-letter symbols accepted as amino acid indicators placed under the first nucleotide of the encoding codon.
Abbreviatons. They must be made explicit when mentioned for the first in the text. Units of measurements will be expressed according to the standards of Système International d´Unités.

Manuscripts may be submitted by e-mail (ram@aam.org.ar)or ordinary mail to Deán Funes 472, C1214AAD, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires, Argentina, including a CD-ROM electronic version, with a label or inscription indicating: title of work, the program and program version used for the text, figures, photographs and the title of all the files it contains.
The complete text of the article should be included in only one file. If there are images, they should be sent on separate files. Besides, it is advisable that capital letters, spaces between words, italics and bold letters are typed in the same way they appear in the printed version. There should be no spaces before and after subheadings, the text should be justified and tab-setting should be used instead of the spacing bar for columns in tables. 77
Authors should revise the check list shown after these instructions and see that all the requirements therein have been fulfilled. Before submitting the manuscripts, 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 properties all kind of information that could identify their authorship.
Publishing charges. Each published page will cost $ 75 or $ 200 (pesos)when the page includes color photographs (AAM members in Argentina,), $ 200 o $ 600 (pesos)(AAM non-members in Argentina)and U$S 70 o U$S 180 (in other countries).
Reprints. Twenty five off prints will be provided free of charge.