Microbes & Infection

1. THE CONTENTS OF MICROBES AND INFECTION

Microbes and Infection publishes 8 peer-reviewed issues per year in all fields of infection and immunity, covering the different levels of host-microbe interactions, and in particular:

• the molecular biology and cell biology of the crosstalk between hosts (human and experimental animals) and microbes (viruses, bacteria, parasites and fungi), including molecular virulence and evasion mechanisms.
• the immune response to infection, including pathogenesis and host susceptibility.
• emerging human infectious diseases.
• molecular epidemiology/genetics of host pathogen interactions.
• vaccine development, including novel strategies and adjuvants.

Clinical studies, accounts of clinical trials and biomarkers studies in infectious diseases, unless purely descriptive, are within the scope of the journal.
Microbes and Infection publishes articles on human pathogens or pathogens of model systems. However, articles on other microbes can be published if they contribute to our understanding of basic mechanisms of host-pathogen interactions. Purely descriptive and preliminary studies are discouraged.
Reviews of a major topic of current interest must be commissioned by a Microbes and Infection editor. Unsolicited contributions and presubmission enquiries will not be considered.
Special issues on the present knowledge of a virulent microbe and the disease it causes, the immune response in infectious disease, or on critical issues relevant to the scope of the journal.

2. TYPES OF PAPERS

• original article
• short communication
• review (commissionned)
• special issue (commissioned)

3. HOW TO SUBMIT A MANUSCRIPT

Please use our online e-submission site: https://www.editorialmanager.com/micinf/
Submission of revised manuscript: revision should be returned within two months

PLEASE NOTE:
BEFORE submitting and/or resubmittting your paper, it is imperative to have the entire manuscript checked by an English mother-tongue scientist. The journal does not correct the English syntax.

4. FORMAT

General information
Limit the abstract to 200 words or less; limit the text to 5000 words or less. A maximum of 50 references is allowed; and a maximum of 6 figures and tables (total) is allowed. Papers not respecting theses rules will not be sent to the reviewers 
Double-space throughout (including references, figure legends and table footnotes).
Use 2.5-cm (1 inch) margins on all four sides.
Use a font size of at least 12 points.
Number each page top right (title page is 1).
Number each chapter heading, starting with Introduction (see section 6.4. below)
Use either American or English spelling, but not both.

Number lines continuously.
In general, do not use capital letters (except for first letter) for titles, authors names, section headings, etc.
When referring to figures in the main text, "figure" is abbreviated to Fig. (e.g., Fig. 1). When referring to tables, use Arabic numerals (e.g., Table 2).
Differentiate between zero and the letter O, and between the number one and the letter "l".

5. CONVENTIONS

5.1. Microorganisms
Follow guidelines of the International Nomenclature Committee. Genus and species are written in full the first time the name appears in text; subsequently, only use the first letter of the genus, followed by the species (e.g., Escherichia coli, then E. coli). Note the space between the genus abbreviation and the species.
5.2. Units of measurement
Follow the Système International (SI). Always respect the space between the number and the unit (e.g., 100 °C, 25 mg). Do not use commas for decimals. Use small "l" for liter.
5.3. Use of italic/roman type
Genetic loci are italicized; protein products of the loci are not italicized. Latin words in current use, such as in vitro/vivo/situ, via, et al., a posteriori, etc., are not italicized (note the use of abbreviative points for expressions such as cf., e.g., i.e., et al., etc., which appear in roman type).
5.4. When using Greek letters, use the “font” command and not “insert”.

6. ORGANIZATION OF RESEARCH PAPERS AND SHORT COMMUNICATIONS

6.1. Title page 
Title: avoid using uppercase letters other than the first word. Do not use nonstandard acronyms or abbreviations.
Authors’ names: full first name followed by family name of each author. Superscript letters (a, b, etc.), not numbers, link the author’s name to his/her affiliation. The name of the author responsible for correspondence and proof correction is indicated by an asterisk (*) after the superscript letter. Use commas to separate names; do not use ’and’ before the last author’s name.
Affiliations: The complete address (department and/or laboratory, college, university, and full postal address) for each author, preceded by the superscript letter (a, b, etc.) should follow the list of names.
Each address is in a separate paragraph.
Up-to-date telephone and fax numbers, e-mail address, and present, complete postal address of the corresponding author appear separately on the title page.
6.2. Abstract and keywords
Abstract: a maximum of 200 words, summarizing the objective, and major conclusions. Do not use references, footnotes or abbreviations in the abstract.
Keywords: below the abstract, provide a list of at least 3 keywords (max 6 keywords) which exist in the MeSH® thesaurus. They are in lowercase letters, separated by semi-colons. They are used for indexing your paper and express the precise content.
6.3. Abbreviations
Used as an aid to the reader (therefore, sparingly), for words used at least 3 times, they are defined in the text the first time they appear, followed by the abbrevation in parentheses. Use this abbreviation thereafter.
6.4. Main text of original reports
Each chapter is numbered according to international standard (1. - 1.1. - 1.1.1., etc.). (See model below). For chapter headings, avoid using uppercase letters other than the first word, and do not use punctuation at the end.
The length of the main text should not exceed 5000 words.

Model for numbering of chapters

1. Introduction 
2. Materials and methods 
2.1. Infection models
2.1.1. Mouse model 
Titles in bold and subtitiles in italic not bold

1. Introduction: it should not summarize the results.
2. Materials and methods: avoid the use of commercial names.
3. Results: present the observations, with minimal reference to earlier literature and to interpretations.
4. Discussion: Avoid repeating parts of the Results.
Acknowledgments: personal acknowledgments precede those of agencies and institutions.

Conflict of interest: All authors are requested to disclose any actual or potential conflict of interest including any financial, personal or other relationships with other people or organizations within three years of beginning the submitted work that could inappropriately influence, or be perceived to influence, their work. See also http://www.elsevier.com/conflictsofinterest. If you have no conflict of interest, please state it.

6.5. References
References are limited to 50
In main text
Numbered references appear in the main text between square brackets ([1], [2, 3], [4–7], etc.), in the order of appearance in the text, from 1 to n.
In reference list
Numbering corresponds to the references in the text; the list is not in alphabetical order. Journal titles are abbreviated according to Index Medicus and Biosis. Only published work and manuscripts in press (indicate the journal which has accepted them, "ahead of print" and DOI number) appear in the list. Manuscripts in the submitted stage, or in preparation, and personal communications are designated "unpublished" in the text but are not numbered and do not appear in the list at the end.
Please use the order/style given in the following examples, as well as the exact punctuation. Use square brackets for the numbering.
If there are more than 6 authors, the first 6 authors names should be listed followed by et al.
Periodicals
[1]  Wu XB, Tian LH, Zou HJ, Wang CY, Yu ZQ, Tang CH, et al. Outer membrane protein OmpW of Escherichia coli* is required for resistance to phagocytosis. Res Microbiol 2014;164:848-55.
*Genus and species names in italics

Books
An entire volume:
[2]  Melchiorre C, Giannella M. Highlights in receptor chemistry, Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1984.

A chapter in a book:
[3] Takeda K, Akira S. Toll-like receptors: ligands and signalling, in Kaufmann SHE,  Medzhitov R,  Gordon  S (Eds), The innate immune response to infection, ASM Press, Washington, DC, 2004, pp 257-70.
To obtain the updated EndNote style of our journal, please visit: http://endnote.com/downloads/style/microbes-and-infection

6.6 Legends of figures
Place all legends (including title for each) together on one page. Figures are consecutively numbered with Arabic numerals (Fig. 1, 2, etc.), according to the order of appearance in the main text.

6.7. Figures
a maximum of 6 figures and tables (total) is allowed.
Magnification is indicated by a scale bar.
In the text, indicate where figures should appear: these call-outs are written as "Fig.1, Fig.2", etc.
Upload each figure separately.
Help us reproduce your artwork with the highest possible standards — in both paper and digital format, by consulting: "How to prepare your graphics files"at the e-submission site for instructions, http://ees.elsevier.com/micinf 

6.8. Tables
In the text, indicate where tables should appear: these call-outs for tables are written as "Table 1, Table 2, " etc.
Tables are consecutively numbered with Arabic numerals (Table 1, 2, etc.), according to the order of appearance in the main text. Each table carries a short title describing its contents in relation to the main text. Except for the heading and bottom of the table, avoid horizontal dividing lines; vertical lines are completely omitted from any table. Instead, the first column is left-aligned, and other columns are generally centered. (When making tables, use “insert” command and not “tabulation”).
Only the first letter of each heading is capitalized, and any units appear in parentheses after or under the corresponding heading in roman characters. Footnotes are collected under a table and referred to in the table by superscript letters (a, b, etc.). References in tables are numbered between square brackets, e.g., [5].

Upload each table separately.

7. FORMAT OF REVIEWS AND SPECIAL ISSUE

Reviews do not exceed 7000 words. References are limited to 70. Reviews begin with an abstract of about 50 words, stating the topic of the review or summarizing its content. The main text may be divided into sections with subheadings, and it ends with a concluding section. All sections are to be numbered.

8. SHORT COMMUNICATIONS

Follow the instructions for original reports. 100 words (abstract), 2500 words (main text),25 references maximum, 3 figures/tables total.

9. REPRINTS

We provide 25 free reprints. To purchase additional reprints, fill in the order form which accompanies the proofs and return it to the publisher together with the corrected proofs.

10. COPYRIGHT

Submission implies that the paper reports original research, has not been published previously, is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, and will not be published in whole or in part elsewhere (in the same or in any other language). As soon as the article is accepted, the author is considered to have transferred his or her rights to the publisher; submit a permission request using the online form at http://www.elsevier.com/locate/permissions

11. OPEN ACCESS 

This journal offers authors a choice in publishing their research:

Open access 
• Articles are freely available to both subscribers and the wider public with permitted reuse
• An open access publication fee is payable by authors or their research funder
Subscription
• Articles are made available to subscribers as well as developing countries and patient groups through our access programs (http://www.elsevier.com/access)
• No open access publication fee

All articles published open access will be immediately and permanently free for everyone to read and download. Permitted reuse is defined by your choice of one of the following Creative Commons user licenses:
Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY): lets others distribute and copy the article, to create extracts, abstracts, and other revised versions, adaptations or derivative works of or from an article (such as a translation), to include in a collective work (such as an anthology), to text or data mine the article, even for commercial purposes, as long as they credit the author(s), do not represent the author as endorsing their adaptation of the article, and do not modify the article in such a way as to damage the author's honor or reputation.
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA): for non-commercial purposes, lets others distribute and copy the article, to create extracts, abstracts and other revised versions, adaptations or derivative works of or from an article (such as a translation), to include in a collective work (such as an anthology), to text and data mine the article, as long as they credit the author(s), do not represent the author as endorsing their adaptation of the article, do not modify the article in such a way as to damage the author's honor or reputation, and license their new adaptations or creations under identical terms (CC BY-NC-SA).
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND): for non-commercial purposes, lets others distribute and copy the article, and to include in a collective work (such as an anthology), as long as they credit the author(s) and provided they do not alter or modify the article.

To provide open access, this journal has a publication fee which needs to be met by the authors or their research funders for each article published open access. 
Your publication choice will have no effect on the peer review process or acceptance of submitted articles.

The publication fee for this journal is $1950, excluding taxes. Learn more about Elsevier's pricing policy: http://www.elsevier.com/openaccesspricing.

Editor-in-Chief

Olivier Dussurget
Yersinia Research Unit
Microbiology Department
Institut Pasteur
75015 Paris, France

Email: olivier.dussurget@pasteur.fr

Editors

Contacts

If you wish to have more information concerning our journal, please write to:

Desk Editor: 
Jean Kanellopoulos
email: microbes@pasteur.fr

Managing Editor:
Géraldine Legras
email: microbes@pasteur.fr  

Institut Pasteur
Publications Service
28 rue du Dr.Roux
75724 Paris cedex 15, France
fax : 33 1 45 68 81 84