Viruses. Names used for viruses should be those approved by the International Committee on Taxonomy of
Viruses (ICTV) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ICTVdb/. If desired, synonyms may be added parenthetically when
the name is first mentioned. Approved generic (or group) and family names may also be used.
Enzymes. For enzymes, use the recommended (trivial) name assigned by the Nomenclature Committee of the
International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology as described in Enzyme Nomenclature
http://www.chem.qmw.ac.uk/iubmb/ enzyme/.
Genes. Genetic nomenclature should essentially follow the recommendations of Demerec et al. (Genetics
(1966) 54: 61-76), and those given in the instructions to authors of the Journal of Bacteriology and Molecular
and Cellular Biology (January issues). Biochemical compounds. Consult the European Journal of Biochemistry or
the Nomenclature Committee of the International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
(http://www.chem.qmw.ac.uk/iubmb/).
Abbreviations. Abbreviations should only be used as an aid to the reader and their use should be strictly
limited. Define each abbreviation and introduce it in parentheses the first time it is used: e.g. 'cultures were
grown in Eagle minimal essential medium (MEM)'. Eliminate abbreviations that are not used at least six times in
the manuscript. In addition to abbreviations to the international system of units of measurements, other
common units (e.g., bp, kb, Da), chemical symbols for the elements, and the standard biochemical
abbreviations (see Eur. J. Biochem.) should be used without definition. Standard chemical symbols and trivial
names or their symbols (folate, Ala, Leu, etc.) may be used for terms that appear in full in the neighbouring
text. Abbreviations other than those recommended by the IUPAC-IUB (Biochemical Nomenclature and related
Documents, 1978) should be used only when a case can be made for necessity, such as in tables and figures. A
short guide on the use of common abbreviations can be found on the Author page on the FEMS website
(http://www.fems-microbiology.org/website/nl/page125.asp).
Reporting numerical data. The international system of units (SI) should be used; mL is acceptable in place of
cm
3
for liquid measures. The form for units is mg mL
_1
and not mg/mL, parentheses should be used to improve
clarity, e.g. mL (g drywt soil)
_1
h
_1
. The prefixes k, m, m, n, and p should be used in combination with the
standard units for reporting length, weight, volume and molarity for 10
3
, 10
_6
, 10
_9
, and 10
_12
, respectively. Use
mg mL
_1
or mg g
_1
instead of the ambiguous ppm. Units of temperature are presented as follows: 37 1C or 324
K.
References
Reference citations in the text follow the name and date system. References should be inserted in parentheses
in date order, as follows: (Brown, 1996; Brown & Smith, 1997; Smith et al., 1998). The reference list itself
must be in alphabetical order according to the first-named author, then by number of authors, then
chronologically within the one-author group, alphabetically within the two-author group and chronologically
within the three or more author group. The title of the article must be included. For papers with ten or fewer
authors, all authors must be listed. For papers with eleven or more authors, the first three names should be
listed, followed by 'et al.'. Standard abbreviations of journal titles should be used, as in the Index Medicus. The
following formats should be followed:
O'Donnell CM & Edwards C (1992) Nitrosating activity in Escherichia coli. FEMS Microbiol Lett 95: 87-94.
Dinter Z & van Morein B (1990) Virus Infections in Ruminants. Elsevier, Amsterdam.
McCarthy AJ (1989) Thermomonospora. Bergey's Manual of Systematic Bacteriology, Vol. 4 (Williams ST,
Sharpe ME & Holt JG, eds), pp. 2552-2572. Williams and Wilkins, Baltimore, MD.
Tang CR (2001) Cloning of a new ice nucleation active gene for insect pest control. PhD Thesis, Chinese
Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing.
Reference should not be made to work 'in press' unless it has been accepted for publication; a DOI number
should then be provided. Unpublished results and personal communications may be mentioned within the text
itself provided that (a) the names and initials of all the persons involved are listed, and (b) they have all
granted permission for the citation. In the case of an online journal publication the DOI number of the reference
should be used.
Nucleotide and amino acid sequences
Any new nucleotide or amino acid sequences must be deposited in an appropriate data bank. Authors are
encouraged to use the EMBL Data Library but can also use other archives, such as GenBank. An accession
number must be obtained before submission to the Editors and this fact should be mentioned in the
covering letter. Authors should include the accession number in the appropriate figure legend. Authors
wishing to enable other scientists to use the accession numbers cited in their papers via links to these sources,
should type this information in bold, underlined text. Letters in the accession number should always be
capitalised (e.g. GenBank accession nos. AI631510, AI631511, AI632198 and BF223228). Authors are
advised to check accession numbers very carefully. An error in a letter or number can result in a dead
link. In the final version of the printed article, the accession number text will not appear bold or underlined. In
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