Reporting Protein Identification Data

In June 2004, in response to a growing concern among both editors and reviewers, we published a set of instructions to authors, developed in house by a committee chaired by Steve Carr, which spelled out criteria for reporting protein identifications determined by mass spectrometry. The overall response from the community at large to this effort was quite favorable, and we were encouraged to expand on this document by soliciting broader input from a larger group of stakeholders with the view of fashioning a universal set of guidelines that might be useful, in general, for publishers of journals reporting this type of data.