IJSEM Blog

We wrote a paper for the International Journal of Systematic and Evolutionary Microbiology (IJSEM). In this paper we described a new species belonging to the genera Blastococcus, Modestobacter, or Geodermatophilus. An IJSEM paper is very structured and there are specific guidelines one must follow that can be found in the instructions to the author on the IJSEM website. A typical paper includes a title with the novel species name and any emendations written. Next is the abstract which should tell something about the organism and what differentiates it from known species, as well as include the type strain number and culture collection number. The introduction discusses the known species and genre. A section on isolation and cultivation should include where the strain was collected, describe the environment and coordinates, tell what media it was grown on as well as temperature, pH, and NaCl concentration. The next section is colony morphology which should use scientific descriptions and include color changes in particular circumstances. A section on chemotaxonomy includes fatty acid and phospholipid composition and is sometimes found in the supplemental material. Phylogenetic analysis describes the 16S sequence of the strains and results from EzTaxon and/or BLAST as well as a phylogenetic tree which can be constructed using the program MEGA. The similarity of the new strains to previously described species should be used as evidence that the strain is a new species. DNA-DNA hybridization can also be included in this section. A section on physiology includes results from tests such as catalase, oxidase, and carbon utilization. A table can be used to display the data. Taxonomic conclusions should explain why the author is putting the suspected new species into the particular genus and why they believe it is new. A table differentiating the new and type species should be included. One of the most important sections is the description of the new species which should define the type strain, which collection it was put into, where it was isolated from, characteristics, name, and derivation. Finally the references section should be in IJSEM format. The biggest pro of IJSEM format is that every paper is formatted similarly and therefore comparisons between multiple papers is easier than if they were all formatted based on the preference of the author. The only con is that writing an IJSEM paper takes a lot of work to collect the data and a lot of time and put together the complete results.