Virus Research provides a means of fast publication for original papers on fundamental research in virology. Contributions on new developments concerning virus structure, replication, pathogenesis and evolution are encouraged. These include reports describing virus morphology, the function and antigenic analysis of virus structural components, virus genome structure and expression, analysis on virus replication processes, virus evolution in connection with antiviral interventions, effects of viruses on their host cells, particularly on the immune system, and the pathogenesis of virus infections, including oncogene activation and transduction. The journal also publishes review articles on topics of current interest, special issues focused on a defined subject, and occasional book reviews and meeting reports.
Research articles should generally be divided into Summary, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion and Acknowledgements and References.
Short communications, approximately 8 typewritten pages in total, including a summary, illustrations and keywords but written without section headings.
Review articles on topics of current interest in Virology will be published. While some authors will be invited to write reviews, others wishing to contribute a review article are invited to contact Dr. Ben Berkhout at b.berkhout@amc.uva.nl.
Please contact Dr. Ben Berkhout at b.berkhout@amc.uva.nl for any other information in this regard.
Book Reviews or Meeting Reports.
No article can be publicised as in the press, or under revision, until the author has received an acceptance letter from the Editor. No prior acceptance pdf should be put online under any circumstance.
Characters not available on your wordprocessor should not be left open but indicated by a unique code (e.g., alpha, @, #, etc. for the Greek letter a). Such codes should be used consistently throughout the entire text. Please make a list of such codes and provide a key. Do not allow your word processor to introduce word splits.
Please ensure that all manuscript pages are numbered and that the lines on each page are also numbered. This will greatly assist the review process for your paper.
Each virus should be identified at least once, preferably in the 'Introduction' or 'Materials and Methods' section, using formal family, genus, and species terms and where possible by using a precise strain designation term as developed by an internationally recognized specialty group or culture collection. Please note that the word type is not used before species designations that include a number. Formal terms used for virus families, genera, and species should be those approved by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV):Viral Taxonomy. Ninth Report of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) by Andrew M. Q. King, Elliot J. Lefkowitz, Michael J. Adams and Eric. B. Carstens. October 2011 This volume also includes standard abbreviations for species. Once formal taxonomic names have been given in a paper, vernacular terms may be used.
1. Order Mononegavirales, family Rhabdoviridae, genus Lyssavirus, species Rabies virus.
2. Family Poxviridae, subfamily Chordopoxvirinae, genus Orthopoxvirus, species Vaccinia virus.
3. Family Picornaviridae, genus Enterovirus, species Poliovirus.
4. Family Bunyaviridae, genus Tospovirus, species Tomato spotted wilt virus.
In formal vernacular usage, virus order, family, subfamily, genus and species names are written in lower case Roman script: they are not capitalized, nor are they printed in italics or underlined. In informal usage, the name of the taxon should not include the formal suffix, and the name of the taxon should follow the term for the taxonomic unit; for example "the picornavirus family, the enterovirus genus." One particular source of ambiguity in vernacular nomenclature lies in the common use of the same root terms in formal family, genus or species names. Imprecision stems from not being able to easily identify in vernacular usage which hierarchical level is being cited. For example, the vernacular name "paramyxovirus" might refer to the family Paramyxoviridae, or one species in the genus Respirovirus, such as Human parainfluenza virus 1. The solution in vernacular usage is to avoid "jumping" hierarchical levels and to add taxon identification wherever needed. For example, when citing the taxonomic placement of Human parainfluenza virus 1, taxon identification should always be added: Human Parainfluenza virus 1 is a species in the genus Respirovirus, family Paramyxoviridae. In this example, as is usually the case, adding the information that this virus is also a member of the subfamily Paramyxovirinae and the order Mononegavirales is unnecessary.
It should be stressed that italics and capital initial letters need be used only if the species name refers to the taxonomic category. When the name refers to viral objects such as virions present in a preparation or seen in an electron micrograph, italics and capital initial letters are not needed and the names are written in lower case Roman script. This also applies when the names are used in adjectival form, for instance tobacco mosaic virus polymerase. The use of italics when referring to the name of a species as a taxonomic entity signals that it has the status of an officially recognized species. Please consult: Viral Taxonomy. Ninth Report of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) by Andrew M. Q. King, Elliot J. Lefkowitz, Michael J. Adams and Eric. B. Carstens (October 2011) to ascertain which names have been approved as official species names. When the taxonomic status of a new putative species is uncertain or its position within an established genus has not been clarified, it is considered a tentative species and its name is not written in italics although its initial letter is capitalized.
Origins of bioreagents - The origins of bioreagents should be described adequately, including citation of culture collections, companies, or colleagues from whom the bioreagents were obtained. If viruses were collected from nature, the collecting site and procedure should also be properly described. Bioreagents include but are not necessarily limited to virus strains and species, antibodies, and cell lines.