Research articles should be of 4000-6000 words with 75 or more references excluding figures, structures, photographs, schemes, tables, etc.

The length of a published comprehensive review article is from 35000 to 40000 words with 100 or more references excluding figures, structures, photographs, schemes, tables etc.

Systematic Reviews include systematic updates in review protocols, methods, research and results from all relevant fields for any studies and updates on already published issues. The total number of words for a published systematic review is from 35000 to 40000 words with 100 or more references excluding figures, structures, photographs, schemes, tables etc. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses must be reported according to PRISMA guidelines; (www.prisma-statement.org).

Mini-reviews should be 6000- 10000 words with 75 or more references excluding figures, structures, photographs, schemes, tables etc.

Letters should be 3000-6000 words with 40 or more references excluding figures, structures, photographs, schemes, tables, etc.

Trial studies should be 1500 to 4000 words with 50 or more references excluding figures, structures, photographs, schemes, tables etc.

This journal publishes open access reviews on recently published books (both print and electronic) relevant to the journal. Publishers and authors of books are invited to contact our book reviews editor at tobcj@benthamopen.net with book review requests. All submitted books will be reviewed by an independent expert in the field. No page charges will be levied to authors for the publication of book reviews.

Case reports should describe new observations of findings or novel/unique outcomes relevant to the field. The total number of words for a published case report is 1500 to 2000 words with 40 or more references excluding figures, structures, photographs, schemes, tables etc.

A perspective should provide a short overview of a research topic relevant to the field. The length of a published perspective ranges from 1500 to 1800 words with 20 or more references excluding figures, structures, photographs, schemes, tables, etc.

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.

The title should be precise and brief and must not be more than 120 characters. Authors should avoid the use of non standard abbreviations and question marks in titles. The title must be written in title case except for articles, conjunctions and prepositions.

As recommended by the Reporting guidelines information about the study should be a part of the title (particularly for systematic reviews).

Authors should also provide a short ‘running title’. Title, running title, by line correspondent footnote and key words should be written as presented in the original manuscript.

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.

The abstract of an article should be its clear, concise and accurate summary, having no more than 250 words, and including the explicit sub-headings (as in-line or run-in headings in bold). Use of abbreviations should be avoided and the references should not be cited in the abstract.

All the original research articles and systematic reviews must be accompanied with a structured abstract. Ideally, each abstract should include the following sub-headings, but these may vary according to requirements of the article.

• Background
• Objective
• Methods
• Results
• Conclusion

The headings can vary, but must state the purpose of the study, details of the participants, measurements, methods, main findings and conclusion.

6 to 8 keywords must be provided. Choose important and relevant keywords that researchers in your field will be searching for so that your paper will appear in a database search. In biomedical fields, MeSH terms are a good ‘common vocabulary’ source to draw keywords from https://www.nlm.nih.gov/mesh/meshhome.html.

The main text should begin on a separate page and 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 List of Abbreviations (if any), Conflict of Interest, Acknowledgements and Reference sections. For review, 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 Acknowledgements and Reference sections. 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.

For 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, Ethics Approval and Consent to Participate, Human and Animal Rights, Conflict of Interest, Acknowledgements and References.

All randomized clinical trials must include a flow diagram and authors should provide a completed randomized trial checklist (see CONSORT Flow Diagram and Checklist; www.consort-statement.org) and a trial protocol.

For case reports, the authors should follow the CARE guidelines. The CARE checklist should be submitted as a separate file.

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.

If abbreviations are used in the text either they should be defined in the text where first used, or a list of abbreviations should be provided.

Anonymous images, that do not identify the individual directly or indirectly, such as through any identifying marks or text, do not require formal consent, for example, X-rays, ultrasound images, pathology slides or laparoscopic images.

In case consent is not obtained, concealing the identity through eye bars or blurring the face would not be acceptable.

• Author(s) and Reviewers must be informed in case of misinterpretation or mishandling of International Acceptable Standards
• A strict notice should be sent to the author and reviewer to avoid future unethical misconduct
• An Editorial on the reported misconduct should be published or official notice of unethical behavior should be posted on the website
• Official letter about this misconduct should be issued to the Head of Departments, Funding Agencies of the accused author and the reviewer, as well as Abstracting & Indexing Agencies.
• Where required, retraction and withdrawal of publication may be undertaken from the Publisher’s journal in discussion with the Head of the Department of the author or reviewer, and other higher authorities should be informed
• The Publisher may impose restrictions for some period on future publications from the accused author in the journals

Bentham Science Publishers supports retrospective registration of systematic reviews, in a suitable registry (such as PROSPERO). The registered systematic review must include the registration number as the last line of the manuscript abstract.

If the manuscript has an individuals’ data, such as personal detail, audio-video material etc., consent should be obtained from that individual. In case of children, consent should be obtained from the parent or the legal guardian.

A specific declaration of such approval and consent-to-disclose form must be made in the copyright letter and in a stand-alone paragraph at the end of the article especially in the case of human studies where inclusion of a statement regarding obtaining the written informed consent from each subject or subject's guardian is a must. The original should be retained by the guarantor or corresponding author. Editors may request to provide the original forms by fax or email.

Randomized drug clinical trial studies are biomedical or health-related interventional and/or observational research studies conducted in phases in human beings who are randomly allocated to receive or not receive a preventive, therapeutic, or diagnostic intervention that follows a pre-defined protocol. The study is intended to determine the safety and efficacy of approaches to disease prevention, diagnosis and treatment.

Authors of randomized controlled trials are encouraged to submit trial protocols along with their manuscripts. All clinical trials must be registered (before recruitment of the first participant) at an appropriate online public trial registry that must be independent of for-profit interest (e.g.,www.clinicaltrials.gov). If you wish the editor(s) to consider an unregistered trial, please explain briefly why the trial has not been registered.

• All randomized clinical trials should include a flow diagram and authors should provide a completed randomized trial checklist (see CONSORT Flow Diagram and Checklist; www.consort-statement.org) and a trial protocol.
• Studies of diagnostic accuracy must be reported according to STARD guidelines; (www.stard-statement.org)
• Observational studies (cohort, case-control, or cross-sectional designs) must be reported according to the STROBE statement, and should be submitted with their protocols; (www.strobe-statement.org).
• Genetic association studies must be reported according to STREGA guidelines; (www.medicine.uottawa.ca)
• Systematic reviews and meta-analyses must be reported according to PRISMA guidelines; (www.prisma-statement.org)
• To find the reporting guidelines see (www.equator-network.org)

Important points to remember while submitting clinical trials:

• Each manuscript should clearly state an objective or hypothesis; the design and methods (including the study setting and dates, patients or participants with inclusion and exclusion criteria, or data sources, and how these were selected for the study); the essential features of any interventions; the main outcome measures; the main results of the study; a comment section placing the results in context with the published literature and addressing study limitations; and the conclusions. Data included in research reports must be original.
• Trial registry name, registration identification number, and the URL for the registry should be included at the end of the abstract and also in the space provided on the online manuscript submission form. If your research article reports the results of a controlled health care intervention, list the trial registry, along with the unique identifying number (Please note that there should be no space between the letters and numbers of your trial registration number). Studies designed for other purposes, such as to study pharmacokinetics or major toxicity (e.g., phase 1 trials), are exempted.
• All reports of randomized trials should include a section entitled “Randomization and Masking”, within the Methods section.
• The manuscript must include a statement identifying the institutional and/or licensing committee that has approved the experiments, including any relevant details.
• The SI system of units and the recommended international non-proprietary name (rINN) for drug names must be used. Kindly ensure that the dose, route, and frequency of administration of any drug you mention are correct.
• Please ensure that the clinical trials sponsored by pharmaceutical companies follow the guidelines on good publication practice: (www.gpp-guidelines.org)

The editors reserve the right to reject manuscripts that do not comply with the above-mentioned requirements. The author will be held responsible for false statements or failure to fulfill the above-mentioned requirements.

Different reference formats have different rules for citation. See below for some common format examples.

The minimum required information for a journal article reference is author, abbreviated journal title, year, publication, volume number, and initial page of cited article, though complete pagination is possible. Journal abbreviation and volume are italicized. Year of publication is bold. All authors must be cited and there should be no use of the phrase et al. Journal abbreviations should follow the Index Medicus/MEDLINE.

• [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.

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

• [4]  Wheeler, D.M.S.; Wheeler, M.M. D. Stereoselective Syntheses of Doxorubicin and Related Compounds In: Studies in Natural Products Chemistry; Atta-ur-Rahman, Ed.; Elsevier Science B. V: Amsterdam, 1994; Vol. 14, pp. 3-46.

• [5]  Jakeman, D.L.; Withers, S.G.E. In: Carbohydrate Bioengineering: Interdisciplinary Approaches, Proceedings of the 4^th 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.

• [6]  National Library of Medicine. Specialized Information Services: Toxicology and Environmental Health. sis.nlm.nih.gov/Tox/ToxMain.html (Accessed May 23, 2004).

• [7]  Hoch, J.A.; Huang, S. Screening methods for the identification of novel antibiotics. U.S. Patent 6,043,045, March 28, 2000.

• [8]  Mackel, H. Capturing the Spectra of Silicon Solar Cells. PhD Thesis, The Australian National University: Canberra, December 2004.

• [9]  Citations for articles/material published exclusively online or in open access (free-to-view), must contain the accurate 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 authors must be cited and there should be no use of the phrase et al.
• Date of access should be provided for online citations.
• Punctuation should be properly applied as mentioned in the examples given above.
• Abstracts, unpublished data and personal communications (which can only be included if prior permission has been obtained) should not be given in the references section. The details may however appear in the 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.

Different reference formats have different rules for citation. See below for some common format examples.

The required information for a journal article is author, abbreviated journal title, year, publication, volume number, and initial page of cited article, though complete pagination is possible. It is necessary to list all authors if the total number of author is six or less and for more than six authors use three authors and then et al (the term "et al." should be in italics). Journal abbreviations should follow the Index Medicus/MEDLINE. Capitalize the first letter of the first word in the title. The rest of the title is in lower-case, with the exception of proper names.

• [1]  Al-Habian A, Harikumar PE, Stocker CJ, Langlands K, Selway JL. Histochemical and immunohistochemical evaluation of mouse skin histology: comparison of fixation with neutral buffered formalin and alcoholic formalin. J Histotechnol. 2014 Dec;37(4):115-24.
• [2]  Guilbert TW, Morgan WJ, Zeiger RS, Mauger DT, Boehmer SJ, Szefler SJ, et al. Long-term inhaled corticosteroids in preschool children at high risk for asthma. N Engl J Med. 2006 May 11;354(19):1985-1997.

• [3]  Blaxter PS, Farnsworth TP. Social health and class inequalities. In: Carter C, Peel JR, Eds. Equalities and inequalities in health. 2nd ed. London: Academic Press 1976; pp. 165-78.

• [4]  Phillips SJ, Whisnant JP. Hypertension and stroke. In: Laragh JH, Brenner BM, Eds. Hypertension: pathophysiology, diagnosis, and management. 2nd ed. New York: Raven Press 1995; pp. 465-78.

• [5]  Larsen CE, Trip R, Johnson CR. Methods for procedures related to the electrophysiology of the heart. US Patent 5529067, 1995.

• [6]  Kimura J, Shibasaki H, Eds. Recent advances in clinical neurophysiology. Proceedings of the 10th International Congress of EMG and Clinical Neurophysiology; 1995 Oct 15-19; Kyoto, Japan. Amsterdam: Elsevier 1996.

• [7]  Borkowski MM. Infant sleep and feeding: a telephone survey of Hispanic Americans. PhD dissertation. Mount Pleasant (MI): Central Micihigan University 2002.

• [8]  Aylin P, Bottle A, Jarman B, Elliott, P. Paediatric cardiac surgical mortality in England after Bristol: descriptive analysis of hospital episode statistics 1991-2002. BMJ [serial on the Internet]. 2004 Oct 9; [cited: 15 October 2004]; 329: [about 10 screens]. Available from: sis.nlm.nih.gov/Tox/ToxMain.html

• [9]  Frangioni G, Bianchi S, Fuzzi G, Borgioli G. Dynamics of hepatic melanogenesis in newts in recovery phase from hypoxia. Open Zoo J 2009; 2: 1-7. Available from: www.benthamscience.com/open/tozj/openaccess2.htm [cited: 26^th Jan 2009]
• [10]  Abood S. Quality improvement initiative in nursing homes: the ANA acts in an advisory role. Am J Nurs [serial on the Internet]. June 2002 [cited: 12^th Aug 2002]; 102(6): [about 3 p.]. Available from: www.nursingworld.org/AJN/2002/june/Wawatch.htm

Some important points to remember

• Date of access should be provided for online citations.
• Avoid using superscript in the in-text citations and reference section.
• Abstracts, unpublished data and personal communications (which can only be included if prior permission has been obtained) should not be given in the references section. The details may however appear in the 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.

Illustrations must be provided according to the following guideline:

• Illustrations should be embedded in the text file, and must be numbered consecutively in the order of their appearance. Each figure should include only a single illustration which should be cropped to minimize the amount of space occupied by the illustration.
• If a figure is in separate parts, all parts of the figure must be provided in a single composite illustration file.
• Photographs should be provided with a scale bar if appropriate, as well as high-resolution component files.
• All the numbers, symbols and letters in figures should be consistent and clear throughout and large enough to remain readable when the size is reduced for publication.
• It must be ensured to cite each figure in the text in sequence.

Line Art image type is normally an image based on lines and text. It does not contain tonal or shaded areas. The preferred file format should be TIFF or EPS, with the color mode being Monochrome 1-bit or RGB, in a resolution of 900-1200 dpi.

Halftone image type is a continuous tone photograph containing no text. It should have the preferred file format TIFF, with color mode being RGB or Grayscale, in a resolution of 300 dpi.

Combination image type is an image containing halftone , text or line art elements. It should have the preferred file format TIFF, with color mode being RGB or Grayscale, in a resolution of 500-900 dpi.

Illustrations may be submitted in the following file formats:

• 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 OPEN does not process figures submitted in GIF format.

For TIFF or EPS figures with considerably large file size restricting the file size in online submissions is advisable. Authors may therefore convert to JPEG format before submission as this 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.

Zipit or Stuffit tools should not be used to compress files prior to submission as the resulting compression through these tools is always negligible.

Please refrain from supplying:

1. Graphics embedded in word processor (spreadsheet, presentation) document.
2. Optimized files optimized for screen use (like GIF, BMP, PICT, WPG) because of the low resolution.
3. Files with too low a resolution.
4. Graphics that are disproportionately large for the content.

Technical requirements for graphic/ figure submissions.

There are many software packages, many of them freeware or shareware, capable of converting to and from different graphics formats, including PNG.

General tools for image conversion include Graphic Converter on the Macintosh, Paint Shop Pro, for Windows, and ImageMagick, available on Macintosh, Windows and UNIX platforms.

Bitmap images (e.g. screenshots) should not be converted to EPS as they result in a much larger file size than the equivalent JPEG, TIFF, PNG or BMP, and poor 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. If the images were originally prepared in an Office application, such as Word or PowerPoint, original Office files should be directly uploaded to the site, instead of being converted to JPEG or another format of low quality.

[As according to the ACS style sheet]

The text of every submitted manuscript is checked using the Content Tracking mode in iThenticate. The Content Tracking mode ensures that manuscripts with an overall low percentage similarity (but which may have a higher similarity from a single source) are not overlooked. The acceptable limit for similarity of text from a single source is 5%. If the similarity level is above 5%, the manuscript is returned to the author for paraphrasing the text and citing the original source of the copied material.

It is important to mention that the text taken from different sources with an overall low similarity percentage will be considered as a plagiarized content if the majority of the article is a combination of copied material.

There may be some manuscripts with an overall low similarity percentage, but a higher percentage from a single source. A manuscript may have less than 20% overall similarity but there may be 15 % similar text taken from a single article. The similarity index in such cases is higher than the approved limit for a single source. Authors are advised to thoroughly rephrase the similar text and properly cite the original source to avoid plagiarism and copyright violation.

The publication fee for each published Research article is US $960.

The publication fee for each published Review article is US $1,060.

The publication fee for each published Mini Review article is US $750.

The publication fee for each published letter article / short communication / case report submitted is US $750.

The publication fee includes basic copy editing services. Once the paper is accepted for publication, the author will receive an electronic invoice via email. Subsequent submissions from the Bentham OPEN Authors will receive a discount of US$ 100 on the total publication charges providing their previous submission did not avail any discount off the listed full author open access fee rate. Please click here to download the Fee Form.

Bentham OPEN offers a 50% discount off the Publication Fee for manuscripts of all corresponding authors who reside in countries which are categorized as low-income economies by the World Bank. To see if you qualify for the discount, please refer to the complete list of these countries click here.

An optional fast publication fee-based service called “QUICK TRACK” is available to authors for their submitted manuscripts.

QUICK TRACK allows online publication within 1 week of receipt of the final approved galley proofs from the authors. The total publication time, from date of first receipt of manuscript to its online publication is only 6 weeks, subject to its acceptance by the referees and modification (if any) by the authors within one week.

The Authors will be charged US $300 processing fee (non-refundable) and an additional $450 publication fee (refundable if paper is not accepted for publication). The quick track publication fee together with the Bentham OPEN publication charges, will be payable before online publication of the paper. If the paper is rejected, there will be no further charges other than the $300 already paid.

Please note that whether the author opts for the QUICK TRACK facility or not, standard reviewing practices will be followed, which will not in any way affect the acceptance or rejection of the manuscript by the reviewers.

Authors who have availed QUICK TRACK services in a Bentham OPEN journal will be entitled for an exclusive 30% discount if they again wish to avail the same services in any Bentham OPEN journal within the next 12 months.

For more information please contact the Editorial Office by e-mail at quicktrack@benthamopen.net

Bentham OPEN offers a 50% discount off the Quick Track Fee for manuscripts of all corresponding authors who reside in countries which are categorized as low-income economies by the World Bank. To see if you qualify for the discount, please refer to the complete list of these countries click here.

Antimicrobial resistance represents a significant challenge to future healthcare provision.An acronym ESKAPEE has been derived from the names of the organisms recognised as the major threats although there are a number of other organisms, notably Neisseria gonorrhoeae, that have become equally challenging to treat in the clinic. These pathogens are characterised by the ability to rapidly develop and/or acquire resistance mechanisms in response to exposure to different antimicrobial agents. A key part of the armoury of these pathogens is a series of efflux pumps, which effectively exclude or reduce the intracellular concentration of a large number of antibiotics, making the pathogens significantly more resistant. These efflux pumps are the topic of considerable interest, both from the perspective of basic understanding of efflux pump function, and its role in drug resistance but also as targets for the development of novel adjunct therapies. The necessity to overcome antimicrobial resistance has encouraged investigations into the characterisation of resistance-modifying efflux pump inhibitors to block the mechanisms of drug extrusion, thereby restoring antibacterial susceptibility and returning existing antibiotics into the clinic. A greater understanding of drug recognition and transport by multidrug efflux pumps is needed to develop clinically useful inhibitors, given the breadth of molecules that can be effluxed by these systems. This review discusses different bacterial EPIs originating from both natural source and chemical synthesis and examines the challenges to designing successful EPIs that can be useful against multidrug resistant bacteria.