Protein & Peptide Letters

ISSN: 0929-8665 - Volume 16, 12 Issues, 2009

Instructions for Authors

Manuscripts should be submitted openly to one of the following Editors with a copy to Ms. S. Abbasi, Bentham Science Publishers, P.O. Box 8484 R- 101, Zoramin Residency, Scheme 33, Gulzar-e-Hejri, Karachi - Pakistan; Fax Nos: +92-21-4612073, +92-21-4975781, +92-21-4977491, +92-21- 4819018, +92-21 4819019; E-mail: sarwat@benthamscience.org, without prior invitation at the following addresses:

Submissions from Northern and South America:

Prof. Ben M. Dunn, Distinguished Professor, (Protease enzymology, protein structure, protein folding, enzyme kinetics, HIV-1 protease, malarial proteases) Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Florida, College of Medicine, P.O. Box 100245, Gainesville, Florida 32610-0245, USA) Tel: +1 352-392-3362; Fax: +1 352-846-0412; E-mail: bdunn@ufl.edu

Vladimir N. Uversky, Director (Molecular mechanisms of protein folding, misfolding and non-folding) Director, Institute for Intrinsically Disordered Protein Research, Senior Research Professor Center for Computational Biology & Bioinformatics, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Indiana University School of Medicine, 410 W. 10th Street, HS 5009, Indianapolis, IN 46202: Telephone: 317-278-6448: Fax: 317-278-9217: E-mail: vuversky@iupui.edu

Francisco A.P. Campos, Professor, (Protein structure, proteomics, protein folding, plant proteins, anti-nutritional / toxic proteins) Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Federal University of Ceará, Campus do Pici, 60455-900 Fortaleza, Ceará, Brazil. Tel: +55 88-33669824; Fax: +55 85-33669789; E-mail: bioplant@ufc.br

Submissions from Western and Eastern USA:

Dr. Kuo-Chen Chou (Bioinformatics, protein structure prediction and modeling, enzyme kinetics, computational proteomics) Gordon Life Science Institute, 13784 Torrey Del Mar Drive, San Diego, California 92130, USA) Tel: +1 858-380-4623, Fax: +1 858-484-1018, E-mail: kchou@san.rr.com

Prof. Liang Tong (Protein structure and function, structural biology, signal transduction) Department of Biological Sciences, 1212 Amsterdam Avenue, MC 2451, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, USA), Tel: +212 865 8246; Fax: +212 865 8246, E-mail: ltong@columbia.edu

Submissions from Europe:

Prof. Anna Maria Papini (Peptide synthesis, semi-synthetic strategies to proteins, solid phase strategies, peptide mimetics, protein posttranslational modifications, glycoproteins, diagnostics, biomarkers, autoimmunity) Laboratory of Peptide & Protein Chemistry & Biology, Polo Scientifico, University of Florence, Via della Lastruccia 13, I-50019 Sesto Fiorentino, Florence, Italy) Tel: +39 055 4573561; Fax: +39 055 4573584; E-mail: annamaria.papini@unifi.it

Submissions from Australia & Asia:

Prof. John D. Wade (Protein structure, protein folding, peptide mimetics, solid phase peptide synthesis, drug design) NH&MRC Principal Research Fellow, Howard Florey Institute, University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010, Australia) Tel: 61-3- 9344-5654; Fax: 61-3-9348-1707; E-mail: j.wade@hfi.unimelb.edu.au

Yunlong Liu, PhD (Biotechnology and Sequencing) Department of Medicine, Division of Biostatistics, Center for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, Center for Medical Genomics, Indiana University School of Medicine, 410 W. 10th Street, HITS 5015, Indianapolis, IN 46202, USA; Tel: (317) 278-9222; Fax: (317) 278-9217; E-mail: yunliu@iupui.edu

Letters Length: The published Letter, written in English, can be 2, 4, 6, 8 or 10 pages of the journal's format, which can be reviewed at the website www.bentham.org/ppl with a maximum word count per page of ca. 900 words.

Crystallization Reports: 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.

Short Reviews: Short reviews are published on all aspects of the state-of-the-art science of proteins and peptides. Manuscripts featuring short reviews of 8-14 published pages in length may be submitted openly without prior invitation by the Editor-in-Chief. It is however advisable that authors first submit a short abstract of their review topic to Prof. Ben M. Dunn prior to submitting the whole manuscript.

Manuscript Organization: The manuscript should be typed in double spacing throughout on A-4 or US Letter (8.5x11 inches). Dot matrix print or any print that is difficult to read is unacceptable. All pages should be numbered. Abbreviations should be defined the first time they are used in the manuscript and a list of abbreviations used should also be provided.

The manuscript should be divided as: Title page, abstract and the main text. The text may be subdivided further according to the areas to be discussed. The Acknowledgements (if any) and Reference sections must then follow. The first page should contain the title, the author's names (initials and surname only), with an asterisk in front of the name of the principal (corresponding) author.

Conflict of Interest: Financial contributions to the work being reported should be clearly acknowledged, as should any potential conflict of interest.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: 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 www.icmje.org <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

Abstract: The abstract should not exceed 50 words and it should condense the essential features of the letter article, with the focus on the major advances in the field.

Keywords: Authors must supply up to six keywords along with their manuscript.

Text: The main text should begin on a separate page and it may be subdivided into separate sections. The reference numbers should be given in square brackets in the text. Acknowledgements should be kept to a minimum.

Tables:

• Data tables should be submitted in Microsoft Excel or in Microsoft Word table format.
• Each table should include a title/caption explaining what the table shows. Detailed legends may then follow.
• Tables should be given on separate pages with indications on the left hand margin to the text, as to the appropriate placement of the tables.
• Tables should not contain vertical rules.
• Columns and rows of data should be made visibly distinct by ensuring the borders of each cell display as black lines.
• Tables should be numbered consecutively in order of their citation in the body of the text, with Arabic numerals.
• If a reference is cited in both the table and text, 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.

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.

Editorial Requirements:

The quality of the illustrations printed in the journal largely depends on the quality of the figures/illustration provided by the author. The acceptance of a manuscript for publication is subject to the figures being up to the highest standards in terms of clarity and resolution. In case the figures supplied are not up to the standards required, then the manuscripts will be rejected, and the authors given the option to either return the manuscripts within one week with appropriate drawings/figures or they may opt to have these professionally prepared through the paid professional service available from Bentham Publishing Services.

• Submit the original artwork or a photographic print of the original for publication.
• Do not submit photocopies. (Hardcopy submission requirement).
• Illustrations should be provided as separate files, not embedded in the text. (Hardcopy submission requirement).
• Remove all color from graphics except for those illustrations (Greyscale), which are intended to be printed in color.
• Good quality of hardcopy originals are a requirement.
• Figures should be referred to as “Figure (1)”, “Figure (2)” etc. in the text with figure numbers in bold within round bracket.
• Revised manuscripts should contain a complete set of artwork and photographs.

Technical Details:

• Figures should be provided on high quality, white, smooth opaque paper (Hardcopy requirement).

Format & Resolution:

• The following file formats can be accepted. (Preference in order of appearance): TIFF, JPEG, GIF, PDF.
• Whenever possible, submit graphics that do not have to be reduced to fit the standard figure size or alternatively, submit the figures in their original program in which they have been drawn.
• Use the best resolution available (hardcopy submission requirement). For online submission the maximum resolution is 300 dpi.
• Avoid textures and shadings giving a three-dimensional effect to the illustration.
• Symbols and lettering in the illustration should be of similar size.
• Font: Times New Roman Font size: 12pt
• Line drawings should have clear and sharp lines and should be of uniform density. Moreover, lines should be continuous without any breaks.
• Do not use lines thinner than 1 point.

Color Figures / Illustrations:

• The cost for the first published page of color figures is USD 850; the second additional page will be for USD 621 and each subsequent page for USD 420.
• Color figures should be supplied in CMYK not RGB colors.
• Required resolution for online submission is 300 dpi. In case of hardcopy submission, please use the maximum resolution available. In case the figure(s) are of an inferior quality they will need to be improved either by the author or by the publisher on a charged basis.

Numbers in bold should identify all chemical structure. If a name is also used to describe the compound, the associated number if required, should be in bold and parenthesis, e.g. “compound (1)”.

Photographs: Submit high-contrast prints, they will not have to be reduced when printed. Negatives are not acceptable. However, in case of hardcopy submission, color illustrations and plates can be published from 35 mm color slides.

Chemical Structures: Chemical structures MUST be prepared according to the guidelines below.

Structures should be prepared in ChemDraw and provided as separate file, submitted both on disk and in printed formats.

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%

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.

Book Reference:
[2] Crabtree, R.H. The Organometallic Chemistry of the Transition Metals, 3rd ed.; Wiley & Sons: New York, 2001.

Book Chapter Reference:
[3] 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.

Abstracts, unpublished data and personal communications (which can only be included if permission has been obtained) should not be given in the references section but they may be mentioned in the text and details provided as footnotes. All authors of referenced papers must be cited and there must be no use of the short hand version of et al. when citing authors.

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.

Published/reproduced material should not be included unless you have obtained written permission from the copyright holder, which must be forwarded to the Editorial Office in case of acceptance of your article for publication.

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.

Abbreviations should be defined the first time that they are used in the manuscript and a list of abbreviations should also be provided.

Sequence and Coordinate Data: Nucleic acid and protein sequences, and atomic coordinates for crystal structures may be deposited with a database prior to manuscript submission. Appropriate databases are GenBank and EMBL for sequence: Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC), or Brookhaven Protein Data Bank for atomic coordinates.

Online Manuscript Submission (preferable): To facilitate speedy and cost-effective submission of abstracts and manuscripts, an online submission and tracking service via Internet is being offered. Once the Editor-in-Chief of the journal has accepted your abstract, we would prefer that you submit your full manuscript online via our online submission service available at www.bentham-mps.org or by FTP submission at www.bentham-ftp.org

For online submission, please provide your complete manuscript in the form of a single zipped folder, containing all the material (main text, figures/ illustrations, tables, chemical structures drawn in ChemDraw) as separate files and a PDF version of the entire manuscript with all the figures/ illustrations / tables / chemical structures etc., embedded in the text in the appropriate place. Authors are required to proofread the PDF version of their manuscript before submission. The article will be published exactly as received and the Publishers will not be responsible for any error occurring in the manuscript in this regard.

You may, however, still submit your abstracts and manuscripts through conventional surface mail.

A successful electronic submission of a manuscript will be followed by a system-generated acknowledgement to the principal/corresponding author within 72 hours of the dispatch of the manuscript. Any queries therein should be addressed to mahmood@bentham.org and copied to Jalil@bentham.org

Manuscript Submission: Two copies of the manuscript must accompany the original along with the soft copy of the manuscript on a computer floppy disk(s) in MS Word file format (or created in any other well-known word processing software) should be submitted. To achieve rapid publication, authors are encouraged to e-mail or fax their submission to the appropriate editorial office (see above) at the same time that they mail the manuscript. For even faster publication, authors are encouraged to submit their entire manuscript via Bentham Science's online submission service. Authors must provide their full address, telephone and fax numbers with e-mail address with all submissions.

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. Authors are encouraged, however, to suggest members of the Editorial Advisory Board for the initial review and up to four names of possible additional referees for their submissions. Authors can select the names of Editorial Advisory Board members from the list available at www.bentham.org/ppl. Please provide names and mailing address of additional referees, along with phone, fax and e-mail contact information of each. Every effort is made to assess the papers quickly and the decision conveyed to the authors in due course. The papers will be typeset and the proofs dispatched by e-mail to the authors.

Page Charges: No page charges will be levied to authors.

Language 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.

Proofs: Authors are sent page proofs. To avoid delays in publication, proofs should be checked immediately for typographical errors and returned within 48 hours. Authors will be charged for excessive changes made at the page proof stage.

Reprints: Each first-named (corresponding) author will receive electronically a certain number of free 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

Bentham Open Access: Accepted articles can be published online for free open access for all to view. 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 USD 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 USD 1,400 or USD 700, respectively.

For more information please contact us at e-mail: openaccess@bentham.org

Copyright: 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 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.