mBio Article Types

Research Articles

Research Articles are limited to 5,000 words (exclusive of references, tables, and figure legends) and should report a major advance in any area of microbiology or allied fields. These articles should include the elements described in this section.

Title, running title, byline, affiliation line(s), and corresponding author. Each manuscript should present the results of an independent, cohesive study; thus, numbered series titles are not allowed. Avoid the main title/subtitle arrangement, complete sentences, and unnecessary articles. Indicate the specific organisms under study in the title or abstract as appropriate. On the title page, include the title, the running title (not to exceed 54 characters and spaces), the name of each author, all authors’ affiliations at the time the work was performed, the name(s) and e-mail address(es) of the corresponding author(s), and a footnote (*) indicating the present address of any author no longer at the institution where the work was performed. Place a number sign (#) in the byline after the affiliation letter(s) of the author to whom inquiries regarding the paper should be directed (see “Correspondent footnote”). Indicate each author's affiliation with a superscript lowercase letter placed after the author's surname in the byline (separate multiple affiliation letters with commas but no space). Each affiliation should have its own line and its own superscript affiliation letter preceding it. Do not consolidate different departments at one institution into one address with a single affiliation letter, even if all affected authors belong to all of those departments. Also include on the title page the word count for the abstract and the word count for the text (excluding the references, table footnotes, and figure legends).

If more than one co-first author is designated, authors are required to state how the order of names was decided as an additional footnote on the title page. For more information about this policy, please see the Editorial at the following URL: https://doi.org/10.1128/mBio.01981-19.

Please review this sample title page for guidance.

Correspondent footnote. The e-mail address for the corresponding author should be included on the title page of the manuscript. This information will be published with the article to facilitate communication, and the e-mail address will be used to notify the corresponding author of the availability of proofs and, later, of the PDF file of the published article. No more than two authors may be designated corresponding authors.

Two-part abstract. Research Articles have structured abstracts consisting of two sections with their own headings: “Abstract” and “Importance.” Because the structured abstract will be published separately by abstracting services, it must be complete and understandable without reference to the text. Please refer to a sample structured abstract for guidance. For a discussion of how to evaluate the importance of a piece of research, see the essay by A. Casadevall and F. C. Fang, Important Science—It’s All About the SPIN, Infect Immun 77:4177–4180, 2009.

The Abstract section should be no more than 250 words and should concisely summarize the basic content of the paper without presenting extensive experimental details.

The Importance section should be no more than 150 words and should provide a nontechnical explanation of the significance of the study to the field. Avoid abbreviations and references, and indicate the specific organism under study. When it is essential to include a reference, use the format shown under “References” below (see the “Citations in abstracts” section).

Introduction. The introduction should supply sufficient background information to allow the reader to understand and evaluate the results of the present study without referring to previous publications on the topic. The introduction should also provide the hypothesis that was addressed or the rationale for the present study. Use only those references required to provide the most salient background rather than an exhaustive review of the topic.

Results. In the Results section, include the rationale or design of the experiments as well as the results; reserve extensive interpretation of the results for the Discussion section. Present the results as concisely as possible in one of the following: text, table(s), or figure(s). Avoid extensive use of graphs to present data that might be more concisely presented in the text or tables. Limit photographs (particularly photomicrographs and electron micrographs) to those that are absolutely necessary to show the experimental findings. Number figures and tables in the order in which they are cited in the text, and be sure to cite all figures and tables.

Discussion. The Discussion should provide an interpretation of the results in relation to previously published work and to the experimental system at hand and should not contain extensive repetition of the Results section or reiteration of the introduction. In short papers, the Results and Discussion sections may be combined.

Materials and Methods. The Materials and Methods section should include sufficient technical information to allow the experiments to be repeated. When centrifugation conditions are critical, give enough information to enable another investigator to repeat the procedure: make of centrifuge, model of rotor, temperature, time at maximum speed, and centrifugal force (x g rather than revolutions per minute). For commonly used materials and methods (e.g., media and protein concentration determinations), a simple reference is sufficient. If several alternative methods are commonly used, it is helpful to identify the method briefly as well as to cite the reference. For example, it is preferable to state “cells were broken by ultrasonic treatment as previously described (9)” rather than to state “cells were broken as previously described (9).” This allows the reader to assess the method without constant reference to previous publications. Describe new methods completely and give sources of unusual chemicals, equipment, or microbial strains. When large numbers of microbial strains or mutants are used in a study, include tables identifying the immediate sources (i.e., sources from whom the strains were obtained) and properties of the strains, mutants, bacteriophages, and plasmids, etc.

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

As noted on ASM Journals' Data Policy page, a paragraph dedicated to new accession numbers for nucleotide and amino acid sequences, microarray data, protein structures, gene expression data, and MycoBank data should appear at the end of Materials and Methods with the paragraph lead-in “Data availability.” Please also provide references (with URLs) for the accession numbers.

Acknowledgments. Statements regarding sources of direct financial support (e.g., grants, fellowships, and scholarships, etc.) should appear in the Acknowledgments. A funding statement indicating what role, if any, the funding agency had in your study (for example, “The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.”) may be included. Funding agencies may have specific wording requirements, and compliance with such requirements is the responsibility of the author. In cases in which research is not funded by any specific project grant, funders need not be listed, and the following statement may be used: “This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.” Statements regarding indirect financial support (e.g., commercial affiliations, consultancies, stock or equity interests, and patent-licensing arrangements) are also allowed. It is the responsibility of authors to provide a general statement disclosing financial or other relationships that are relevant to the study.

Recognition of personal assistance should be given in the Acknowledgments section, as should any statements disclaiming endorsement or approval of the views reflected in the paper or of a product mentioned therein.

In addition to acknowledging sources of financial support in the manuscript, authors should list any sources of funding in response to the Funding Sources question on the online submission form, providing relevant grant numbers where possible, and the authors associated with the specific funding sources. In the event that your submission is accepted, the funding source information provided in the submission form may be published, so please ensure that all information is entered accurately and completely. (It will be assumed that the absence of any information in the Funding Sources fields is a statement by the authors that no support was received.)

Authors may include a statement that specifies contributor roles as a separate paragraph in the Acknowledgments section. ASM encourages transparency in authorship by publishing author contribution statements using the CRediT taxonomy as recommended by CASRAI. For some manuscript types, authors have the option of assigning CRediT roles during the online submission process.

Appendixes. Appendixes that contain additional material to aid the reader are permitted. Titles, authors, and reference sections that are distinct from those of the primary article are not allowed. If it is not feasible to list the author(s) of the appendix in the byline or the Acknowledgments section of the primary article, rewrite the appendix so that it can be considered for publication as an independent article. Equations, tables, and figures should be labeled with the letter “A” preceding the numeral to distinguish them from those cited in the main body of the text.

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

(i) References listed in the References section. The following 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 and patent applications
• Theses and dissertations
• Published conference proceedings
• Meeting abstracts, posters, and presentations
• 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 each reference; long bylines should not be abbreviated with “et al.” All listed references must be cited in the text. Abbreviate journal names according to the PubMed Journals Database (National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health), the primary source for ASM style. Do not use periods with abbreviated words. The EndNote output style for ASM Journals’ current reference style can be found at https://endnote.com/style_download/american-society-for-microbiology-asm-journals-2/; save it to your EndNote Styles folder (it should replace any earlier output styles for ASM journals [all ASM journals use the same reference style]). Note that DOIs are not needed for most references. ASM copy editors will automatically insert DOIs on all references in the CrossRef and PubMed databases during copyediting. URLs for government reports and other references not indexed in these databases should be provided if desired; URLs for citations of database accession numbers and code/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 of regulation of the pheromone-responsive prgQ promoter by 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 production in response to cyclo(Phe-Pro). mBio 4:e00366-13.
3. Winnick S, Lucas DO, Hartman AL, Toll D. 2005. How do you improve compliance? Pediatrics 115:e718–e724.
4. Falagas ME, Kasiakou SK. 2006. Use of international units when dosing colistin will help decrease confusion related to various formulations of the drug around the world. Antimicrob Agents Chemother 50:2274–2275. (Letter.) {“Letter” or “Letter to the editor” is allowed but not required at the end of such 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 Versalovic J, Carroll KC, Jorgensen JH, Funke G, Landry ML, Warnock DW (ed), Manual of clinical microbiology, 10th ed, vol 2. ASM Press, Washington, DC.
7. da Costa MS, Nobre MF, Rainey FA. 2001. Genus I. Thermus Brock and Freeze 1969, 295,^AL emend. Nobre, Trüper and da Costa 1996b, 605, p 404–414. In Boone DR, Castenholz RW, Garrity GM (ed), Bergey’s manual of systematic bacteriology, 2nd ed, vol 1. Springer, New York, NY.
8. Fitzgerald G, Shaw D. In Waters AE (ed), Clinical microbiology, in press. EFH Publishing Co, Boston, MA.* {Chapter title is optional.}
9. Green PN, Hood D, Dow CS. 1984. Taxonomic status of some methylotrophic bacteria, p 251–254. In Crawford RL, Hanson RS (ed), Microbial growth on C₁ compounds. Proceedings of the 4th International Symposium. American 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. Distribution of fimbrial, phage and plasmid associated virulence genes among poultry Salmonella enterica serovars, abstr P-038, p 445. Abstr 105th Gen Meet Am Soc Microbiol. American Society for Microbiology, Washington, DC. {Abstract title is optional.}
12. García CO, Paira S, Burgos R, Molina J, Molina JF, Calvo C, Vega L, Jara LJ, García-Kutzbach A, Cuellar ML, Espinoza LR. 1996. Detection of Salmonella DNA in synovial membrane and synovial fluid from Latin American patients using the polymerase chain reaction. Arthritis Rheum 39(Suppl 9):S185. {Meeting abstract published in journal supplement.}
13. O’Malley DR. 1998. PhD thesis. University of California, Los Angeles, CA. {Title is optional.}
14. Stratagene. 2006. Yeast DNA isolation system: instruction manual. Stratagene, La Jolla, CA. {Use the company name as the author if none is provided for a company publication.}
15. Odell JC. April 1970. Process for batch culturing. US patent 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, Lee C, Diggle SP. 2015. A 1,000-year-old antimicrobial remedy with antistaphylococcal activity. mBio 6:e01129-15. {Original article that describes how data submitted to a database were generated.}
17. Harrison F, Roberts AEL, Gabrilska R, Rumbaugh KP, Lee C, Diggle SP. 2015. Data from "A 1,000-year-old antimicrobial remedy with antistaphylococcal activity." Dryad Digital Repository https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.mn17p. {Citation for the database where the data in the previous reference were deposited; the URL is necessary.}
18. Wang Y, Rozen D. 2016. Colonization and transmission of the gut microbiota of the burying beetle, Nicrophorus vespilloides, through development. bioRxiv https://doi.org/10.1101/091702.

*A reference to an in-press ASM publication should state the control number (e.g., mBio00123-20) if it is a journal article or the name of the publication if it is a book.

In some online journal articles, posting or revision dates may serve as the year of publication; a DOI (preferred) or URL is required for articles with nontraditional page numbers or electronic article identifiers.

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

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

Citations of accepted ASM manuscripts should look like the following example.*

Wang GG, Pasillas MP, Kamps MP. 15 May 2006. Persistent transactivation by Meis1 replaces Hox function in myeloid leukemogenesis models: evidence for cooccupancy of Meis1-Pbx and Hox-Pbx complexes on promoters of leukemia-associated genes. Mol Cell Biol https://doi.org/10.1128/MCB.00586-06.

*ASM journals stopped publishing accepted manuscripts in the spring of 2022.

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

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

To encourage data sharing and reuse, ASM recommends reporting data sets and/or code both in a dedicated “Data availability” paragraph and in References. The components of a complete 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 the analysis software (if appropriate), including the version and project,
• Publisher (if appropriate), and
• Persistent unique identifier(s) (e.g., URL[s] or accession number[s])

The following templates might be helpful.

Author. Year. Description of study topic. Retrieved from Database URL (accession no. ••••••). {Unpublished raw data.}

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

Examples follow.

Christian SL, McDonough J, Liu C-Y, Shaikh S, Vlamakis V, Badner JA, Chakravarti A, Gershon ES. 2002. Data from “An evaluation of the assembly of an approximately 15-Mb region on human chromosome 13q32-q33 linked to bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.” GenBank https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nuccore/AF339794 (accession no. AF339794). {Accession number.}

Sun Z. 2013. Reprocessed: in-depth membrane proteomic study of breast cancer tissues. ProteomeXchange http://proteomecentral.proteomexchange.org/cgi/GetDataset?ID=RPXD000665 (accession number requested). {Unassigned 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 and population diversity in Pacific salmon fisheries underpin indigenous food security.” Dryad Digital Repository https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.ng8pf. {Data set in repository.}

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

• Unpublished data
• Manuscripts submitted for publication
• Personal communications
• Websites

These references should be made parenthetically in the text as follows:

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

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

. . . as described previously (M. G. Gordon and F. L. Rattner, presented at the Fourth Symposium on Food Microbiology, Overton, IL, 13 to 15 June 1989). {For nonpublished abstracts and posters, etc.}

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

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

URLs for companies that produce any of the products mentioned in your study or for products being sold may not be included in the article. However, company URLs that permit access to scientific data related to the study or to shareware used in the study are permitted.

(iii) Citations in abstracts. Because the abstract must be able to stand apart from the article, references cited in it should be clear without recourse to the References section. Use an abbreviated form of citation, omitting the article title, as follows.

(P. S. Satheshkumar, A. S. Weisberg, and B. Moss, J Virol 87:10700–10709, 2013, https://doi.org/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, 4th ed., 2006)

“. . . in a recent report by D. A. Hopwood (mBio 4:e00612-13, 2013, https://doi.org/10.1128/mBio.00612-13) . . .”

When necessary, this style should also be used for references cited in legends for supplemental material.

(iv) References related to supplemental material. For the reader’s benefit, and to avoid the potential for error during revisions, references cited in the supplemental material must be maintained separately from the references cited in the main text.

If references must be cited for an item in the supplemental material, include those references in the supplemental item itself and cite them by those numbers. Do not include references in the main text that are cited only in the supplemental material. If any references are cited in both the supplemental material and the main text, those references should be included separately in both places.

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

Observations

Observations are short descriptions (with a maximum of 1,200 words and no more than 2 figures and 25 references) of research results of exceptional importance and unusual interest to the broad microbiology community, e.g., reports of a new type of organism, a new organelle, a new association of microbes and disease, etc.

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

Minireviews

Minireviews are brief summaries (with a maximum of 6,000 words and up to two figures or tables) of important developments in microbiology research. They must be based on published articles, and they may address any subject within the scope of the journal.

Minireviews may be either solicited or proffered by authors responding to a recognized need. Irrespective of origin, Minireviews are subject to review and should be submitted via the online manuscript submission and peer review system. The cover letter should state whether the article was solicited and by whom.

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

Author bios. At the editor’s invitation, corresponding authors of minireviews may submit a short biographical sketch and photo for each author for publication with the article. Biographical information should be submitted at the modification stage.

• The text limit is 150 words for each author and should include WHO you are (your name), WHERE you received your education, WHAT positions you have held and at WHICH institutions, WHERE you are now (your current institution), WHY you have this interest, and HOW LONG you have been in this field.
• The photo should be a black-and-white head shot of passport size. Photos will be reduced to approximately 1.125 inches wide by 1.375 inches high. Photos must meet the production criteria for regular figures.
• To submit, upload the text and photos with your modified manuscript in the eJournalPress (eJP) online manuscript submission and peer review system. Include the biographical text after the References section of your manuscript, in the same file. Upload the head shots in the submission system as a Minireview Bio Photo; include the author’s name or enough of it for identification in each photo’s file name. Contact the mBio staff if you have questions about what to write or if you have questions about submitting your files.

Opinions/Hypotheses

Opinions/Hypotheses are short articles (with a maximum of 2,500 words and no more than 25 references) that present original and well-developed insights without complete supporting data. Although microbiology and allied fields are primarily experimental sciences, this article type places equal importance on new thought that is formulated in a manner that summarizes a problem, provides a new synthesis, and/or is suitable for subsequent experimental testing.

In this category, the journal provides a highly visible venue for the publication of ideas that have the potential to move fields 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 section headings and/or paragraph lead-ins.

Commentaries

Commentaries are short articles (with a maximum of 1,000 words) that discuss issues of particular significance to the field of microbial sciences. Commentaries may discuss papers of special interest published in mBio or other timely information or comment. Commentaries may be solicited by editors or unsolicited submissions.

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

Perspectives

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

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

Editorials

Editorials communicated by members of the mBio Board of Editors 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 articles published in the journal and must cite published references to support the writer’s argument.

Letters may be no more than 500 words long and must be typed double-spaced. All Letters to the Editor must be submitted electronically. The cover letter should refer to the article in question by its title and the last name of the first author. In addition, the volume and issue and/or DOI should be indicated. Letters to the Editor do not have abstracts. The Letter must have a distinct title, which must appear on the manuscript and on the submission form. Figures and tables should be kept to a minimum.

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

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