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JOURNAL ISSN (ONLINE VERSION): 2704-8845

Microbiota in Health and Disease publishes Editorials, Reviews, Original Papers, Clinical trials, Letters to the Editor. Brief reports, structured, are also welcome, with a maximum number of 800 words. Case reports will also be considered for publication only if they are of particular interest. Microbiota in Health and Disease is particularly interested in all issues related to the microbiota, from epidemiology to diagnosis and therapy, including translational and basic aspects. Reviews should include systematic revision of the literature and preferably meta-analyses, original illustrations, and tables.

Microbiota in Health and Disease is the official journal of the European Helicobacter and Microbiota Study Group – EHMSG, an international multidisciplinary group composed of one representative from most countries of the European Union, with the mission to promote research in the field of H. pylori and microbiota and their role in health and disease. In this direction, Microbiota in Health and Disease will also serve as a shared platform for communicating and debating challenges and opportunities on the path to the development of new diagnostic tools and treatments.

Microbiota in Health and Disease does not accept the publication of articles referring to “data not shown” or “unpublished data”. Letters are restricted to the discussion of papers already published in the journal, with a maximum of 300 words, one table or figure, and up to ten references.

Article Processing Charges (APCs)

No fee is required to publish in our Journal. Microbiota in Health and Disease does not charge APCs or submission charges.

Presentation of Manuscripts

Please read and apply the instructions given as follows, noting that all information entered during the submission process related to the manuscript should also be included, and be identical to the final submitted version of the manuscript – please see full details under “Presentation of Manuscripts”. Papers must be submitted exclusively to Microbiota in Health and Disease and are accepted on the understanding that they have not been, and will not be, published elsewhere. The correspondence for each article must be carried on only by the corresponding author.

Authors should submit their article as a unique word document (.doc, .docx), including all the aforementioned sections (except for figure files). Article pages should be numbered consecutively by inserting the page number (in Arabic numerals) at the bottom of each page. Authors must add continuous line numbering throughout the document in order to facilitate the review process and subsequent author revisions.

The text should start with a structured Abstract, not exceeding 300 words, organized into sections using all of the following headings INTRODUCTION or BACKGROUND or OBJECTIVE, PATIENTS AND METHODS or MATERIALS AND METHODS, RESULTS, CONCLUSIONS. The paper should then proceed conventionally: Introduction or Background or Objective, Patients and Methods or Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions, and References. Pages should be numbered consecutively in Arabic numerals, including tables, figure legends (with magnifications if needed), acknowledgments and declarations of interest. Review Articles and Systematic Reviews also require a structured text using all of the following headings: INTRODUCTION, MATERIALS AND METHODS (e.g., search terms used), RESULTS (avoid vague statements, e.g., ‘…will be discussed’), CONCLUSIONS (e.g., need for future studies).

References have to follow a numerical order, and should be identified in the text, tables, and legends through Arabic numbers in superscript. References must be verified by the Authors against the original documents.

Authors should observe the following guidelines:

1. Do not attempt to make your output approximate or match the typeset page.
2. Be consistent in style (i.e., units, abbreviations).
3. End paragraphs in a uniform manner, and in a different manner from line endings within paragraphs. A frequently used paragraph ending is simply two carriage returns.
4. Use double spacing in your document. Do not add extra line spacing (except as a normal paragraph ending indication) above or below titles, subheads, or between paragraphs.
5. Avoid using multiple spaces (horizontal) in your electronic manuscript. End sentences with only one space. Never use multiple spaces for the horizontal positioning of text.
6. Tables and figure captions should be sent in separate files. The editor will indicate the placement of this material within the text.
7. Additional tables or figures and/or extra methodological detail can be included in a separate Supplementary Appendix.

The following documents are required when submitting the manuscript:

• TITLE PAGE: The title page must contain the Authors’ names, appointments and affiliations, along with the full contact details of the Corresponding Authors, including their current e-mail addresses. Authors are strongly encouraged to add their ORCID ID account (a unique identifier number for authors) to easily identify authors’ previous works. A full and short-running title should be given, plus a small number of keywords (5-10) for indexing purposes. We recommend that the keywords are specific to the article.
• COVER LETTER: Authors who submit manuscripts to Eur Rev Med Pharmacol Sci must provide a supporting Cover Letter which briefly details the article relevance to the journal’s audience and how the article advances understanding of the field. The Cover Letter must include contact information [affiliation, postal address, e-mail address, telephone number] for all authors. Authors should indicate a Corresponding Author to whom correspondence will be sent if the manuscript is accepted for publication. In the Letter, authors must confirm that the manuscript has been submitted solely to this journal and is not published, in press, or submitted elsewhere (including preprint servers). Authors must confirm that all the research meets the ethical guidelines, including adherence to the legal requirements of the study country. Authors must confirm that the manuscript has been read and approved by all named authors and that there are no other persons who satisfied the criteria for authorship. The Cover Letter must be signed by the Corresponding Author on behalf of all other authors.
• ABSTRACT*: The Abstract should count a total of about 300 words maximum. It should be organized into sections using the following headings: BACKGROUND or OBJECTIVE; PATIENTS/MATERIALS/SUBJECTS AND METHODS or CASE REPORT/PRESENTATION (in case reports); RESULTS; CONCLUSIONS. A structured abstract is not required for narrative literature reviews. *The Abstract is not required for Letter to the Editors and Editorials.
• REFERENCES: References should be numbered in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text and should be located in superscript and not in parenthesis. References have to follow a numerical order and should be identified in the text, tables, and legends through Arabic numbers in superscript. References must be verified by the Authors against the original documents.
• FINAL STATEMENTS AND DECLARATION: the submission process requires a full declaration of personal interests and funding interests from all Authors; these details should also be included in the text of the manuscript (click here for detailed information).

Artificial Intelligence

At submission, the authors must disclose whether and how they used artificial intelligence or assisted technologies in the production of the study (including figures) in the cover letter as well as in the manuscript in an appropriate statement at the end of the text. Authors are responsible for the material submitted and produced by artificial intelligence and must be able to declare that there is no plagiarism in the manuscript, including figures.

Main Text

The main text of the articles should be organized into the above-mentioned sections: Introduction (or Background), Materials and Methods (or Patients/Subjects and Methods), Results, Discussion, Conclusions, References. This structure does not apply to Editorials, Letters to the Editors, Brief Commentaries. For more information, please, check Article Types.

Each section of the text should respect the following guidelines:

• Introduction: The authors in the introduction session should place the study in a broad context and highlight why it is important in comparison with published articles. They should define the aim of the work and clearly explain the specific hypothesis being tested. It is fundamental to specify if the observation could be based on previous research by others or your own pilot study and to include a summary of findings from previous, relevant studies.
• Materials/Patients/Subjects and Methods: The Methods section should prioritize clarity regarding the rationale and approach behind conducting the study in a specific manner. New experimental procedures and protocols should be described in detail, while well-established methods can be briefly described but appropriately cited. The materials and analysis should provide robust information to allow replication of the study. Study design should be described in detail, and descriptions of reagents and equipment (if present) should facilitate replication. Statistical methods and software program(s) must be described with enough detail in a specific paragraph (Statistical Analysis) in order to enable a knowledgeable reader with access to the original data to verify the results. The Methods section should incorporate a declaration confirming the approval of the research by a local, regional, or national review entity (such as an ethics committee or institutional review board) and adherence to the Declaration of Helsinki. For more information regarding Ethics, Institutional Review Boards, and Informed Consent, please check Policies, Licensing and COI. Authors employing AI technology should sufficiently detail its utilization in the methods section to facilitate replication of the approach, specifying the tool utilized and version.
• Participants selection and description
  Provide a detailed explanation of how participants, whether healthy individuals, patients, or controls, are selected for observational or experimental purposes. This should include clear criteria for eligibility and exclusion, as well as a description of the source population. Sex or gender of the participants should also be reported.
• Animal studies
  Research involving animals should adhere to globally recognized standards and to the ARRIVE guidelines for documenting experiments involving live animals. Animal species/strain, sex, source (vendor name, location), age range, weight and any additional data should be indicated. Please note that we encourage the use of both male and female animals. The use of a single sex should be scientifically justified.
• Data collection
  In the case of DNA/RNA quantification methods, they must be well described in terms of calculation and references adopted to enable researchers’ access to the raw data. The oligonucleotides sequence, as well as the PCR protocols, should be described in detail in the manuscript. DNA, RNA, and protein sequences used in the manuscript should be provided with an accession number. New sequence information must be deposited to the appropriate database (GenBank, EMBL, or DDBJ.) prior to submission of the manuscript. Instruments used must be accompanied by their model’s name, city, state and country of manufacture in round brackets. The clone’s name and source of monoclonal antibodies should be reported.
• Cell lines
  The contamination or misidentification of cell lines negatively impacts the validity of research observations. Therefore, authors are required to describe the source of the cell line, as well as the method used for authentication, in the Materials and Methods section.
• Statistical methods
  Statistical methods must be clearly described for original articles based on animal or human studies. The statistical methods and statistical software program(s), as well as the version used should be described. Two-tailed significance tests should be used unless explicitly stated. Controls should be described as completely as experimental subjects. Measures of location should be accompanied by measures of variability (e.g., mean and confidence intervals) as well as conventional probability values. Clinical trial reports should include the description of the statistical power of the study.
• Results: This section must contain all results obtained during (and, if applicable, after) the study, mentioning all study outcomes and findings, basing on the supporting data. Tables and Figures must summarize the most important findings. Supplementary materials and/or technical details can be inserted as supplementary files and appendix.
• Discussion: In the discussion section, author do not simply restate the results, but they have to widely explain them, interpreting the results and anticipating the conclusions and highlighting important aspects and findings of the study. In these sections, references to other articles in literature are usually suggested, in order to better explain the framework of the study. A final paragraph with limitations of the study (if any) is strongly suggested, in order to strengthen the validity of your work.
• Conclusions: In this final section, all general outcomes of your study must be mentioned, as well as the need of further studies if such conclusions remain limited. Any suggestion or advice for other authors should be added, in order to make your work a valuable contribution to scientific literature.

References

When reporting the reference numbers in the text, you must follow these rules: “1-2” must be written as “1,2” and so on. You have to put “-“ just in case you have many consecutive numbers. For example: “1,2,3,4,5,6” must be written as “1-6”;

References’ numbers must follow a chronological order within the text and must be inserted before the punctuation. (YES 12. NO .12)

Complete all the references in accordance with the Instructions for the authors: you must list all the authors (NOT et al), year without month of publication, and name of the journal. You have to write the international acronyms without any punctuation; you must put a space after semicolon and colon (NOT 2014;2014:907915, YES 2014; 2014: 907915); moreover, initial and final pages must be entirely reported (NOT 135-46; YES 135-146).

In the references, you must substitute “and” with “,” (comma) before the last author’s name;

NOT: Garcia-Contreras M, Brooks RW, Boccuzzi L, Robbins PD, and Ricordi C. Exosomes as biomarkers and therapeutic tools for type 1 diabetes mellitus. EurRevMedPharmacolSci 2017;21:2940-2956.

YES: Garcia-Contreras M, Brooks RW, Boccuzzi L, Robbins PD, Ricordi C. Exosomes as biomarkers and therapeutic tools for type 1 diabetes mellitus. Eur Rev Med Pharmacol Sci 2017; 21: 2940-2956.

Please try EndNote’s template for Microbiota in Health and Disease formatting 

Figures and Tables

Figure legends should be included in the main text of the manuscript and not form part of the figures. The authors are encouraged to send the highest-quality figures possible. For the accepted file format, see below:

The figure resolution/specification for various types of original figures, at their final size, should be as follows: Line art – Minimum 600 dpi, measuring preferably 13 by 18 cm and no more than 20 by 25 cm in size. Halftone (i.e., both B/W and Colour photographs) – Minimum 300 dpi, measuring preferably 13 by 18 cm and no more than 20 by 25 cm in size. Line and tone (line art and halftone combined) – Minimum 600 dpi, measuring preferably 13 by 18 cm and no more than 20 by 25 cm in size.

For line figures, the lines should be solid, the text in a standard font and not blurred, and the overall image should be sharp and clear. Avoid using tints if possible; if they are essential to the understanding of the figure, try to make them coarse. As a guide, if the electronic files are viewed at 400% on the computer screen and they look blurred or pixelated in any way, then they will NOT be of sufficient quality for printing.

Tables should be self-contained and complete; they must not duplicate the information already contained in the text. They should be supplied as editable files (preferably word files), not pasted as images. All abbreviations must be defined in footnotes. Footnote symbols: †, ‡, §, ¶, should be used (in that order) and *, **, *** should be reserved for p-values. Statistical measures such as SD or SEM should be identified in the headings.

Figure and table legends must be able to stand alone in the text and thus full descriptive legends for all figures and tables should be supplied.

Supplementary Material

Supplementary material should be uploaded to Publishing Manager and supplied as a separate file in both the following formats: .doc/.docx and .pdf. The authors should use the prefix “Supplementary” for each supplementary document submitted (e.g., Supplementary Table 1, Supplementary Figure 1). Files larger than 10 MB should be sent directly via email to submission.microbiota@verduci.it.

Authors must submit supplementary material together with the article and supply a concise and descriptive caption for each supplementary file. If authors wish to make changes to supplementary material at any stage of the process, they should make sure to provide an updated file. Including large datasets in supplementary information is not recommended. The preferred approach is to make the data accessible through repositories.

Units and Abbreviations

All measurements should be in SI units with the exception of hemoglobin (g/dL) and blood pressure (mmHg). Original observations recorded in other units should be stated, together with the appropriate conversion factors. Standard abbreviations, without punctuation, are used. Units, Symbols, and Abbreviations (1988) published by the Royal Society of Medicine, and SI: The International System of Units (1982) from HMSO both provide useful guides. Abbreviations, used sparingly, should follow the first full spelling, in parentheses. A list of abbreviations at the beginning of the article is accepted only if they are more than 8.

Genetic Nomenclature

Sequence variants should be described in the text and tables using both DNA and protein designations whenever appropriate. Sequence variant nomenclature must follow the current HGVS guidelines, where examples of acceptable nomenclature are provided.

Drug Names

Generic names should, in general, be used. If an Author desires, brand names may be inserted in parentheses. Drug names are spelled out according to the European Pharmacopoeia, but the American spelling should be used after the first use of a drug name.

Authorship and Copyright

According with the ICMJE guidelines, Authors must fulfill the following criteria:

• He/she must have made a substantial contribution to research design, or to the acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data;

• He/she must have drafted the paper or revised it critically;

• He/she must approve the submitted and final versions;

• Commitment to take full responsibility for all aspects of the work, ensuring that any questions regarding the accuracy or integrity of any part are thoroughly investigated and resolved.

More information regarding Authorship and Corresponding author’s responsibilities at Policies, Licensing and COI.

Changes to Authorship

Authors should carefully review the list and order of authors before submitting their manuscript and provide a final list at the time of the first submission. Any changes to the author list, such as deletions, additions, or rearrangements, can only be made before the manuscript is accepted and must be approved by the Editor-in-Chief.

To request for authorship changes, the corresponding author must submit an official request at submission.microbiota@verduci.it, explaining the reason for such change. This must be accompanied by written confirmation from all authors agreeing to the modification, including confirmation from the author being added or removed, if applicable.

Copyright Transfer Agreement

Authors will be required to sign a Copyright Transfer Agreement (click to download PDF) for all papers accepted for publication. The signature of the CTA is a condition of publication. After submission, authors cannot submit their manuscripts to other journals. After acceptance, the Publisher owns the rights of the manuscripts. To assist the Authors, an appropriate CTA form will be supplied by the editorial office. The original completed Copyright Transfer Agreement must be signed by the corresponding Author and sent by e-mail to Microbiota in Health and Disease. The Editors retain the usual right to modify the style and length of a contribution (major changes being agreed upon with the Corresponding Author) and to decide the time of publication.

Third-Party Permission and Trademarks

When submitting an article, authors must confirm that the manuscript does not contain the use of material protected by copyright. Authors who wish to use copyrighted third-party content (defined as any material within the manuscript which is not the author’s original work) must obtain permission from the copyright holder (usually the original publisher). Third-party content may consist of figures, photos, illustrations, equipment and tools, and may be found in several places such as, but not limited to, websites, print, and online books and articles, theses, annual reports, conference material, etc. Once obtained, documents certifying the permission to use third-party content should be sent to submission.microbiota@verduci.it for archiving purposes.
 

Reprints

Paper reprints shall be charged. Electronic offprints are sent to the first Author at his/her first email address on the title page of the paper, on request. For this reason, please ensure that the name, address, and email address of the corresponding Author are indicated on the manuscript title page if he/she is not the first author of the paper.