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Protein
& Peptide Letters
ISSN: 0929-8665 - Volume 17, 12 Issues, 2010
Instructions for Authors
Manuscripts may be submitted directly to
the Editorial Office.
ONLINE MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION: An online submission
and tracking service via Internet facilitates a speedy and
cost-effective submission of manuscripts. The full manuscript
has to be submitted online via Bentham's Content Management
System (CMS) at http://www.bentham-editorial.org/
(View
Submission Instructions)
Manuscripts must be submitted by one of the authors of the
manuscript, and should not be submitted by anyone on their
behalf. The principal/corresponding author will be required
to submit a Covering Letter along with the manuscript, on
behalf of all the co-authors (if any). The author(s) will
confirm that the manuscript (or any part of it) has not been
published previously or is not under consideration for publication
elsewhere. Furthermore, any illustration, structure or table
that has been published elsewhere must be reported, and copyright
permission for reproduction must be obtained.
For all online submissions, please provide soft copies of
all the materials (main text in MS Word or Tex/LaTeX), figures
/ illustrations in TIFF, PDF or JPEG, and chemical structures
drawn in ChemDraw (CDX) / ISISDraw (TGF) as separate files,
while a PDF version of the entire manuscript must also be
included, embedded with all the figures / illustrations /
tables / chemical structures etc.
It is imperative that before submission, authors should carefully
proofread the files for special characters, mathematical symbols,
Greek letters, equations, tables, references and images, to
ensure that they appear in proper format.
References, figures, tables, chemical structures etc. should
be referred to in the text at the appropriate place where
they have been first discussed. Figure legends/captions should
also be provided.
A successful electronic submission of a manuscript will be
followed by a system-generated acknowledgement to the principal/corresponding
author. Any queries therein should be addressed to sarwat@benthamscience.org
MANUSCRIPTS PUBLISHED: The Journal publishes
peer-reviewed, mini-reviews letters, research papers and crystallization
reports written in English. Single topic/thematic issues may
also be considered for publication.
Single Topic Issues: These special issues
are peer-reviewed and may either contain invited review articles
or a mixture of research, letter and review articles. A Single
Topic Special Editor will offer a short Perspective and co-ordinate
the solicitation of manuscripts between 3-5 (for a mini-hot
topic) to 6-10 (for full- length hot topic) from leading scientists.
Authors interested in editing a single topic issue in an emerging
topic of proteins and peptide sciences may submit their proposal
to the Editor-in-Chief at ppl@benthamscience.org
for his consideration. Visit http://www.bentham.org/ppl/Special-Issues.htm
for viewing forthcoming issues.
MANUSCRIPT LENGTH:
Mini-Reviews: The maximum page length for
Mini-Review articles is nine journal pages. Each journal page
is on average 900 words.
Letters Length: The maximum total page
length for Letter type articles published in the journal is
nine journal pages. Each journal page is on average 900 words.
Research Articles: The maximum total page
length for Research articles is thirty journal pages. Each
journal page is on average 900 words.
Crystallization Reports: The maximum page length
for Crystallization Reports is four journal pages. Each journal
page is on average 900 words.
There is no restriction on the number of figures,
tables or additional files e.g. video clips, animation and
datasets, that can be included with each article online. Authors
should include all relevant supporting data with each article
(Refer to Supplementary Material section).
MANUSCRIPT PREPARATION:
The manuscript should be written in English in a clear, direct
and active style. All pages must be numbered sequentially,
facilitating in the reviewing and editing of the manuscript.
For further convenience, the customer support team available
at Bentham Publishing Services (www.benthampublishingservices.com)
can provide assistance to authors for the preparation of manuscripts.
MANUSCRIPT SECTIONS FOR PAPERS: Manuscripts
may be divided into the following sections:
Covering letter
Title
Title page
Abstract
Keywords
Text organization
List of abbreviations (if any)
Conflict of interest (if any)
Acknowledgements (if any)
References
Appendices
Figures/illustrations (if any)
Chemical structures (if any)
Tables and captions (if any)
Supportive/supplementary material (if any)
Covering Letter: It is mandatory that a signed
covering letter also be submitted along with the manuscript
by the author to whom correspondence is to be addressed, delineating
the scope of the submitted article declaring the potential
competing interests, acknowledging contributions from authors
and funding agencies, and certifying that the paper is prepared
according to the 'Instructions for Authors'.
All inconsistencies in the text and in the reference section
and any typographical errors must be carefully checked and
corrected before the submission of the manuscript. The article
contains no such material or information that may be unlawful,
defamatory, fabricated, plagiarized, or which would, if published,
in any way whatsoever, violate the terms and conditions as
laid down in the copyright agreement. The authors acknowledge
that the publishers have the legal right to take appropriate
action against the authors for any such violation of the terms
and conditions as laid down in the copy right agreement. DOWNLOAD
COVERING LETTER.
Title: The title of the article should be precise
and brief and must not be more than 120 characters. Authors
should avoid the use of non-standard abbreviations. The title
must be written in title case except for articles, conjunctions
and prepositions.
Authors should also provide a short ‘running title’.
Title, running title, byline, correspondent, footnote and
key words should be written as presented in original manuscripts.
Title Page: Title page should include paper
title, author(s) full name and affiliation, corresponding
author(s) names complete affiliation/address, along with phone,
fax and email.
Abstract: The abstract should not exceed
250 words for review and research papers and should be limited
to only 150 words for letters and crystallization reports
summarizing the essential features of the article. The use
of abbreviations should be reduced to a minimum and the references
should not be cited in the abstract.
Key Words: Provide 6 to 8 key words in alphabetical
order.
Text Organization: The main text should begin
on a separate page and should be divided into separate sections.
The manuscript should be divided into title page, abstract
and the main text. The text may be subdivided further according
to the areas to be discussed, which should be followed by
the Acknowledgement (if any) and Reference sections. For Letter/Research
Articles, the manuscript should begin with the title page
and abstract followed by the main text, which must be structured
into separate sections as Introduction, Materials and Methods,
Results, Discussion, Conclusion, Acknowledgements and References.
The Review Article should mention any previous important recent
and old reviews in the field and contain a comprehensive discussion
starting with the general background of the field. It should
then go on to discuss the salient features of recent developments.
The authors should avoid presenting material which has already
been published in a previous review. The authors are advised
to present and discuss their observations in brief. Crystallization
reports are no longer routinely published by the journal.
Only reports on the first crystallization of proteins of substantial
interest or reports on new crystallization techniques of wide
application will be considered. Crystallization reports should
include data describing the source of the protein, composition,
pH and concentrations of precipitants and buffers etc., the
method employed, crystal size and morphology, and time of
growth etc. Unit cell dimensions, space-group assignments,
resolution limit, specific volume and asymmetric unit contents
must also be provided. The manuscript style must be uniform
throughout the text and 10 pt Times New Roman fonts should
be used. The full term for an abbreviation should precede
its first appearance in the text unless it is a standard unit
of measurement. The reference numbers should be given in square
brackets in the text. Italics should be used for Binomial
names of organisms (Genus and Species), for emphasis and for
unfamiliar words or phrases. Non-assimilated words from Latin
or other languages should also be italicized e.g. per
se, et al. etc.
Greek Symbols and Special Characters:
Greek symbols and special characters often undergo formatting
changes and get corrupted or lost during preparation of manuscript
for publication. To ensure that all special characters used
are embedded in the text, these special characters should
be inserted as a symbol but should not be a result of any
format styling (Symbol font face) otherwise they
will be lost during conversion to PDF/XML.2
Authors are encouraged to consult reporting guidelines. These
guidelines provide a set of recommendations comprising a list
of items relevant to their specific research design. Chemical
equations, chemical names, mathematical usage, unit of measurements,
chemical and physical quantity & units must conform to
SI and Chemical Abstracts or IUPAC.
All kinds of measurements should be reported only in International
System of Units (SI).
List of Abbreviations: If abbreviations are
used in the text either they should be defined in the text
where first used, or a list of abbreviations can be provided.
Conflict of Interest: Financial contributions
to the work being reported should be clearly acknowledged,
as should any potential conflict of interest.
Acknowlegements: Please acknowledge anyone
(individual/company/institution) who has contributed to the
study by making substantial contributions to conception, design,
acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data,
or who was involved in drafting the manuscript or revising
it critically for important intellectual content. Please list
the source(s) of funding for the study, for each author, and
for the manuscript preparation in the acknowledgements section.
This journal complies with the International Committee of
Medical Journal Editors' Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts
Submitted to Biomedical Journals http://www.icmje.org
and the FDA's Good Reprint Practices for the Distribution
of Medical Journal Articles and Medical or Scientific Reference
Publications on Unapproved New Uses of Approved Drugs and
Approved or Cleared Medical Devices http://www.fda.gov/oc/op/goodreprint.html
References: References must be listed in
the ACS Style only. All references should be numbered sequentially
[in square brackets] in the text and listed in the same numerical
order in the reference section. The reference numbers must
be finalized and the bibliography must be fully formatted
before submission.
See below few examples of references listed in the ACS Style:
Journal Reference:
[1] Bard, M.; Woods, R.A.; Bartón, D.H.; Corrie, J.E.;
Widdowson, D.A. Sterol mutants of Saccharomyces cerevisiae:
chromatographic analyses. Lipids, 1977,
12(8), 645-654.
[2] Zhang, W.; Brombosz, S.M.; Mendoza, J.L.; Moore, J.S.
A high-yield, one-step synthesis of o-phenylene ethynylene
cyclic trimer via precipitation-driven alkyne metathesis.
J. Org. Chem., 2005, 70, 10198-10201.
Book Reference:
[3] Crabtree, R.H. The Organometallic Chemistry of the
Transition Metals, 3rd ed.; Wiley & Sons: New York,
2001.
Book Chapter Reference:
[4] Wheeler, D.M.S.; Wheeler, M.M. In: Studies in Natural
Products Chemistry; Atta-ur-Rahman, Ed.; Elsevier Science
B. V: Amsterdam, 1994; Vol. 14,
pp. 3-46.
Conference Proceedings:
[5] Jakeman, D.L.; Withers, S.G.E. In: Carbohydrate Bioengineering:
Interdisciplinary Approaches, Proceedings of the 4th
Carbohydrate Bioengineering Meeting, Stockholm, Sweden, June
10-13, 2001; Teeri, T.T.; Svensson, B.; Gilbert, H.J.; Feizi,
T., Eds.; Royal Society of Chemistry: Cambridge, UK, 2002;
pp. 3-8.
URL(WebPage):
[6] National Library of Medicine. Specialized Information
Services: Toxicology and Environmental Health. http://sis.nlm.nih.gov/Tox/ToxMain.html
(Accessed May 23, 2004).
Patent:
[7] Hoch, J.A.; Huang, S. Screening methods for the identification
of novel antibiotics. U.S. Patent 6,043,045, March 28, 2000.
Thesis:
[8] Mackel, H. Capturing the Spectra of Silicon Solar
Cells. PhD Thesis, The Australian National University:
Canberra, December 2004.
E-citations:
[9] Citations for articles/material published exclusively
online or in open access (free-to-view) , must contain the
exact Web addresses (URLs) at the end of the reference(s),
except those posted on an author’s Web site unless editorially
essential, e.g. ‘Reference: Available from: URL’.
Some important points to remember:
• All references must be complete and accurate.
• All authors must be cited and there should be no use
of the phrase et al.
• Online citations should include the date of access.
• Journal abbreviations should follow the Index
Medicus/MEDLINE.
• Take special care of the punctuation convention as
described in the above-mentioned examples.
• Superscript in the in-text citations and reference
section should be avoided.
• Abstracts, unpublished data and personal communications
(which can only be included if prior permission has been obtained)
should not be given in the reference section but they may
be mentioned in the text and details provided as footnotes.
• The authors are encouraged to use a recent version
of EndNote (version 5 and above) or Reference Manager (version
10) when formatting their reference list, as this allows references
to be automatically extracted.
Appendices: In case there is a need to present
lengthy, but essential methodological details, use appendices,
which can be a part of the article. An appendix must not exceed
three pages (Times New Roman, 12 point fonts, 900 max. words
per page).The information should be provided in a condensed
form, ruling out the need of full sentences. A single appendix
should be titled APPENDIX, while more than one can be titled
APPENDIX A, APPENDIX B, and so on.
Figures/ Illustrations:
All authors must strictly follow the guidelines below for
preparing illustrations for publication in Protein
& Peptide Letters. If the figures are found
to be sub-standard, then the manuscripts will be rejected/
and the authors offered the option of figure improvement professionally
by Bentham Publishing Services.
The costs for such improvement will be charged to the authors.
The authors should provide the illustrations as separate files,
as well as embedded in the text file, numbered consecutively
in the order of their appearance. Each figure should include
a single illustration. Each figure should be closely cropped
to minimize the amount of white space surrounding the illustration.
If a figure consists of separate parts, it is important that
a single composite illustration file be submitted, containing
all parts of the figure.
Photographs should be provided with a scale bar if appropriate,
as well as high-resolution component files.
Scaling/ Resolution:
For Line Art image type, which is generally an image based
on lines and text and does not contain tonal or shaded areas,
the preferred file format is TIFF or EPS, with colour mode
being Monochrome 1-bit or RGB, in a resolution of 900-1200
dpi.
For Halftone image type, which is generally a continuous tone
photograph and contains no text, the preferred file format
is TIFF, with colour mode being or RGB or Grayscale, in a
resolution of 300 dpi.
For Combination image type, which is generally an image containing
halftone in addition to text or line art elements, the preferred
file format is TIFF, with colour mode being or RGB or Grayscale,
in a resolution of 500-900 dpi.
Formats:
For illustrations, the following file formats are acceptable:
• Illustrator
• EPS (preferred format for diagrams)
• PDF (also especially suitable for diagrams)
• PNG (preferred format for photos or images)
• Microsoft Word (version 5 and
above; figures must be a single page)
• PowerPoint (figures must be a single
page)
• TIFF
• JPEG (conversion should be done using
the original file)
• BMP
• CDX (ChemDraw)
• TGF (ISISDraw)
Bentham Science does not process figures submitted
in GIF format.
If the large size of TIFF or EPS figures acts as an obstacle
to online submission, authors may find that conversion to
JPEG format before submission results in significantly reduced
file size and upload time, while retaining acceptable quality.
JPEG is a 'lossy' format, however. In order to maintain acceptable
image quality, it is recommended that JPEG files are saved
at High or Maximum quality.
Files should not be compressed with tools such as Zipit or
Stuffit prior to submission as these tools will in any case
produce negligible file-size savings for JPEGs and TIFFs,
which are already compressed.
Please do not:
1. Supply embedded graphics in your word processor
(spreadsheet, presentation) document;
2. Supply files that are optimized for screen use (like GIF,
BMP, PICT, WPG); the resolution is too low;
3. Supply files that are too low in resolution;
4. Submit graphics that are disproportionately large for the
content.
Image Conversion Tools:
There are many software packages, many of them freeware
or shareware, capable of converting to and from different
graphics formats, including PNG.
Good general tools for image conversion include GraphicConverter
on the Macintosh, PaintShop Pro, for Windows, and ImageMagick,
which is available on Macintosh, Windows and UNIX platforms.
Note that bitmap images (e.g. screenshots) should not be converted
to EPS, since this will result in a much larger file size
than the equivalent JPEG, TIFF, PNG or BMP, with no increase
in quality. EPS should only be used for images produced by
vector-drawing applications such as Adobe Illustrator or CorelDraw.
Most vector-drawing applications can be saved in, or exported
as, EPS format. In case the images have been originally prepared
in an Office application, such as Word or PowerPoint, then
the original Office files should be directly uploaded to the
site, instead of being converted to JPEG or another format
that may be of low quality.
Color Figures/ Illustrations:
• The cost for the first published page of color figures
is US$ 893; the second additional page will
be for US$ 652 and each subsequent page for
US$ 441.
• Color figures should be supplied in CMYK not RGB colors.
Chemical Structures:
Chemical structures MUST be prepared in ChemDraw (CDX) file
and provided as separate file.
Structure Drawing Preferences:
[as according to the ACS style sheet]
Drawing Settings:
Chain angle 120°
Bond spacing 18% of width Fixed length 14.4
pt (0.500cm, 0.2in) Bold width
2.0 pt (0.071cm, 0.0278in) Line width
0.6 pt (0.021cm, 0.0084in) Margin width
1.6 pt (0.096cm) Harsh spacing 2.5 pt (0.088cm, 0.0347in)
Text settings:
Font Times
New Roman
Size 12pt
Under the Preference Choose:
Units
points Tolerances 3
pixels Under Page Setup Use: Paper US
letter
Scale
100%
Tables:
• Data Tables should be submitted in Microsoft Word
table format.
• Each table should include a title/caption being explanatory
in itself with respect to the details discussed in the table.
Detailed legends may then follow.
• Table number in bold font i.e. Table 1,
should follow a title. The title should be in small case with
the first letter in caps. A full stop should be placed at
the end of the title.
• Tables should be embedded in the text exactly according
to their appropriate placement in the submitted manuscript.
• Columns and rows of data should be made visibly distinct
by ensuring that the borders of each cell are displayed as
black lines.
• Tables should be numbered in Arabic numerals sequentially
in order of their citation in the body of the text.
• If a reference is cited in both the table and text,
please insert a lettered footnote in the table to refer to
the numbered reference in the text.
• Tabular data provided as additional files can be submitted
as an Excel spreadsheet.
Supportive/ Supplementary Material: We do
encourage to append supportive material, for example a PowerPoint
file containing a talk about the study, a PowerPoint file
containing additional screenshots, a Word, RTF, or PDF document
showing the original instrument(s) used, a video, or the original
data (SAS/SPSS files, Excel files, Access Db files etc.) provided
it is inevitable or endorsed by the journal's Editor.
Supportive/Supplementary material intended for publication
must be numbered and referred to in the manuscript but should
not be a part of the submitted paper. In-text citations as
well as a section with the heading "Supportive/Supplementary
Material" before the "References" section should
be provided. Here, list all Supportive/Supplementary Material
and include a brief caption line for each file describing
its contents.
Any additional files will be linked into the final published
article in the form supplied by the author, but will not be
displayed within the paper. They will be made available in
exactly the same form as originally provided only on our Web
site. Please also make sure that each additional file is a
single table, figure or movie (please do not upload linked
worksheets or PDF files larger than one sheet). Supportive/
Supplementary material must be provided in a single zipped
file not larger than 4 MB.
Authors must clearly indicate if these files are not for publication
but meant for the reviewers'/editors' perusal only.
PERMISSION FOR REPRODUCTION: Published/ reproduced
material should not be included unless you have obtained written
permission from the copyright holder, which should be forwarded
to the Editorial Office in case of acceptance of your article
for publication.
For obtaining permission for reproducing any material published
in an article by Bentham Science Publishers, please fill in
the request FORM
and send to ppl@benthamscience.org
for consideration.
AUTHORS AND INSTITUTIONAL AFFILIATIONS: The
author will be required to provide their full names, the institutional
affiliations and the location, with an asterisk in front of
the name of the principal/corresponding author. The corresponding
author(s) should be designated and their complete address,
business telephone and fax numbers and e-mail address must
be stated to receive correspondence and galley proofs.
PAGE CHARGES: No page charges will be levied
to authors for the publication of their article.
LANGUAGE AND EDITING: Manuscripts submitted
containing many English typographical errors will not be published.
Authors from non-English language countries are advised to
use the services of our professional language editing department
prior to submitting their manuscript to the Journal. Please
contact Bentham Publishing Services
www.benthampublishingservices.com
for a language editing quote at e-mail: info@benthampublishingservices.com
stating the total number of words of the article to be edited.
PROOF CORRECTIONS: Authors will receive page
proofs of their accepted paper before publications. To avoid
delays in publication, proofs should be checked immediately
for typographical errors and returned within 48 hours.
Major changes are not acceptable at the proof stage. If unable
to send corrections within 48 hours due to
some reason, the author(s) must at least send an acknowledgement
on receiving the galley proofs or the article will be published
exactly as received and the publishers will not be responsible
for any error occurring in the published manuscript in this
regard.
The corresponding author will be solely responsible for ensuring
that the revised version of the manuscript incorporating all
the submitted corrections receives the approval of all the
co-authors of the manuscript.
REPRINTS: Each first-named (corresponding)
author will receive electronically a certain number of free
e-reprints. Reprints may be ordered from the Publisher prior
to publication of the article. First named authors may also
order a personal print and online subscription of the journal
at 50% off the normal subscription rate by contacting the
subscription department at e-mail: subscriptions@bentham.org
OPEN ACCESS PLUS: Accepted articles can
be published online for free open access for all to view,
and be deposited by the Publishers in PubMed Central. Open
access publishing provides the maximum dissemination of the
article to the largest audience. Authors must pay for this
service. All corresponding authors will be asked to indicate
whether or not they wish to pay to have their paper made freely
available on publication. If authors do not select the Open
Access option, then their article will be published with standard
subscription-based access at no charge.
Bentham Science offers authors the choice of open access publication
of their articles at a fee of US $2,800 per published article
which allows indefinite free-to-view online publication with
Bentham Science.
Alternatively, authors may choose to publish their article
with Bentham Science at a reduced fee for a limited open access
period. Bentham Science is the first and only publisher to
offer authors the choice at a reduced open access fee to have
their article published for a limited open access period.
For open access publication for a period of either twelve
months or two months (limited open access option) the per
article fee is US $1,400 or US $700, respectively.
For more information please contact us at e-mail: openaccess@bentham.org
REVIEWING AND PROMPTNESS OF PUBLICATION:
All papers submitted for publication will be immediately subjected
to editorial scrutiny, usually in consultation with members
of the Editorial Advisory Board. Every effort will be made
to assess the papers quickly. The papers will be typeset and
the proofs dispatched to the authors normally within 4 weeks
of their acceptance.
COPYRIGHT: Authors who publish in Bentham
Science print & online journals will transfer copyright
to their work to Bentham Science Publishers. Submission of
a manuscript to the respective journals implies that all authors
have read and agreed to the content of the Covering Letter
or the Terms and Conditions. It is a condition of publication
that manuscripts submitted to this journal have not been published
and will not be simultaneously submitted or published elsewhere.
Plagiarism is strictly forbidden, and by submitting the article
for publication the authors agree that the publishers have
the legal right to take appropriate action against the authors,
if plagiarism or fabricated information is discovered. By
submitting a manuscript the authors agree that the copyright
of their article is transferred to the publishers if and when
the article is accepted for publication. Once submitted to
the journal, the author will not withdraw their manuscript
at any stage prior to publication.
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Publishers are pleased to offer electronic publication of
accepted papers prior to scheduled publication. These peer-reviewed
papers can be cited using the date of access and the unique
DOI number. Any final changes in manuscripts will be made
at the time of print publication and will be reflected in
the final electronic version of the issue. Articles ahead
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be requested by completing the available inquiry form.
Disclaimer: Articles appearing in E-Pub
Ahead-of-Schedule sections have been peer-reviewed and accepted
for publication in this journal and posted online before scheduled
publication. Articles appearing here may contain statements,
opinions, and information that have errors in facts, figures,
or interpretation. Accordingly, Bentham Science Publishers,
the editors and authors and their respective employees are
not responsible or liable for the use of any such inaccurate
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