Blood Style Guide - Abbreviations
Punctuation
Do not punctuate abbreviations with periods, except with persons’ initials and the abbreviation for number.
Nonscientific abbreviations
Avoid general nonscientific abbreviations (see examples below) in running text; such abbreviations listed in Webster’s are acceptable in parentheses, in figures (but not text legends), and in tables (but not table footnotes).
But when specifying locations, do not abbreviate country names.
When abbreviating US state names and Canadian province names, use the 2-letter postal abbreviations.
In mailing addresses (eg, the Reprints note), abbreviate street names and other mailing directions wherever possible. But do not abbreviate parts of institutional or department names.
St, Rd, Ave, Ste, Rm, Bldg
(not Dept or Univ)
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Units of measurement
Abbreviate units of measurement (including base pair and kilobase) without expansion when they follow a numeric quantity, using abbreviations on the list; if not on the list, use AMA 11.12. But when a unit is used in a general fashion (unconnected with a numeric quantity), spell it out.
The isoform measured 91 kDa.
Kilodaltons of molecular size markers are reported on the right.
Scientific abbreviations
Choice of abbreviation
Any scientific abbreviation representing a noun is acceptable, as long as each abbreviation is used consistently.
BMT (bone marrow transplant or bone marrow transplantation, but not both)
But the following abbreviations must always be used for their respective expansions:
VWF (von Willebrand factor)
VWD (von Willebrand disease)
Nonnoun abbreviations
Avoid using in running text abbreviations that represent nonnouns, including certain clinical abbreviations.
ntravenous, intravenously (not iv)
intraperitoneal, intraperitoneally (not ip)
once a day (not qd)
twice a day (not bid)
thrice a day (not tid)
four times a day (not qid)
after transplantation, posttransplantation (not pt)
Such abbreviations may be used in figure images and table entries, as long as they are explained at first occurrence.
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Article titles
Abbreviations in article titles need not be expanded as long as the abbreviation appears and is expanded in the abstract, but an author may choose to expand an abbreviation in a title.
General rule for abstracts and main text
Expand all scientific abbreviations (a) on first use in the abstract and (b) on first use in the main text, with 3 exceptions:
- If the abbreviation is on the list of exceptions, expansion is never required.
- If an abbreviation is first used in a section heading, it need not be expanded, as long as it is expanded at first use in the text of that section.
- Expansion of the names of genes, restriction enzymes, cell lines (but cells), or mouse strains is not required.
At each first instance, expand the abbreviation in running text and include the abbreviation afterward in parentheses.
But abbreviations of certain long chemical names should be defined by putting the expansion in parentheses after
the abbreviation; in order to preserve scientific meaning, be sure to retain any parentheses within the expansion when
you put the expansion inside parentheses.
General rule for figures and tables
In figure legends and table footnotes, only expand abbreviations if they have not been expanded in the main text
prior to that figure’s or table’s first callout. Similarly, if an abbreviation is first expanded in a figure or table,
it needn’t be expanded in the main text or anywhere else.
Author discretion
An author may choose to define any abbreviation or symbol even if expansion of it isn’t required or has already been provided. An author may also choose to include an abbreviation even if the abbreviation isn’t subsequently used.
Correspondence of expansion phrase to abbreviation
Abbreviations for scientific terms do not necessarily correspond to the order of words in the term.
CFU-E (erythroid colony-forming unit)
Plural abbreviations
Make abbreviations plural by adding an “s” to the end, including abbreviations in which the last character does not represent the plural term.
If you are making plural an abbreviation that ends with a lowercase letter, then for clarity use an apostrophe between the abbreviation and the “s”.
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Abbreviations never needing expansion
| AIDS | acquired immunodeficiency syndrome |
| DNA (and all variations with prefixes) | deoxyribonucleic acid |
| DNase | deoxyribonuclease |
| HIV (and all variations) | human immunodeficiency virus |
| IV | (as noun only) apparatus used to administer an intravenous injection or feeding |
| RNA (and all variations with prefixes) | ribonucleic acid |
| RNase | ribonuclease |
| RPMI 1640 | (medium named after Roswell Park Memorial Institute) |
Abbreviations that should be expanded in parentheses
| BCIP | 5-bromo-4-chloro-3-indoyl phosphate p-toluidine salt |
| DAPI | 4,6 diamidino-2-phenylindole |
| DIDS | 4,4'-di-isothiocyanato-2,2'-disulfostilbene |
| DDT | dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane |
| EDTA | ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid |
| EGTA | ethyleneglycoltetraacetic acid |
| HEPES | N-2-hydroxyethylpiperazine-N'-2-ethanesulfonic acid |
| MOPS | 3-[N-Morpholino]propanesulphonic acid |
| MTS | 3-(4,5 dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-5-(3-carboxymethoxyphenyl-2-(4-sulfophenyl)-2H-tetrazolium |
| Tris | tris(hydroxymethyl)aminomethane |
Remember not to alter parentheses within these expansions, even if the entire expansion is within parentheses.
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Abbreviations for units of measurement
| angstrom | Â* |
| base pair | bp |
| becquerel | Bq |
| Celsius | C |
| cubic millimeter | mm3 |
| curie | Ci* |
| Dalton | Da |
| day | d† |
| gram | g |
| gravity | g |
| gray | Gy |
| hertz | Hz |
| hour | h† |
| kilobase | kb |
| liter | L |
| meter | m |
| minute | min† |
| molar | M
|
| mole | mol |
| month | mon† |
| newton | N |
| rad | rad |
| second | s† |
| square millimeter | mm2 |
| unit | U |
| volume | vol |
| week | wk† |
| weight | wt |
| year | y† |
* Convert to SI units also.
† Only use these abbreviations in virgule constructions.
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