AIMS AND SCOPE

Journal of Molecular Cell Biology (JMCB) is a new international journal publishing authoritative reviews and high quality original articles in all areas of molecular and cell biology. We are especially interested in manuscripts reporting on inter-disciplinary studies at the cross-sections between molecular/cell biology and other disciplines of life sciences such as development, stem cell research, signaling, genetics/epigenetics/genomics, immunology, cancer biology, molecular pathogenesis, neuroscience, plant biology, and systems biology. We believe that this broad scope of JMCB reflects well the ever-increasing merging between molecular/cell biology and other life science disciplines.

The journal will mainly publish primary research papers with findings of unusual significance and broad scientific interest. The main criteria for weighing the appropriateness of a manuscript are its originality and novelty, potential significance and interest to the field, and robustness of data. Our goal is to develop JMCB into an elite society journal and provide a high profile venue for dissemination of highly significant scientific findings, alternative to the existing ones such as Molecular Cell, Developmental Cell, and Genes & Development. Review articles, letters and commentaries on timely topics are also welcome, and proposals for submitting such pieces will be considered in consultation with the Editor-in-Chief. Online peer review is used to increase the efficiency of paper handling.

MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSION

Before submission, please carefully read the instructions below to ensure that the article complies with JMCB standards.

Note that papers should be submitted electronically via the online submission website. Please read the online submission instructions first.

MANUSCRIPT ORGANIZATION

Overview

Manuscripts should be written in concise and correct English, and at a level that will be accessible to the broad readership of the journal.
The manuscript should be organized in the following order:

• Cover Letter
• Title Page
• Authorship
• Abstract
• Introduction
• Results
• Discussion
• Materials and Methods
• Acknowledgements
• Funding
• References
• Tables
• Figure Legends
• Supplementary Data

Cover letter

Each submission must be accompanied with a cover letter emphasizing any novel and special points to draw the editors’ attention. A brief illumination of what had been done previously, the scientific advance contained in the findings and the significance of the work to the readership of the journal should be provided. The corresponding author is asked to sign on the letter. Email address, telephone and fax numbers must be present.

Title Page

The title should occupy no more than 100 characters. Serial titles are not allowed. The title should be short and informative, and should not contain unconventional abbreviations. A running title of less than 50 characters is necessary to convey the significance of the paper. Authors’ full names and affiliations must be provided in an informative format. It is important to indicate a corresponding author, together with the email address, telephone and fax numbers.

Authorship

Each author must have contributed substantively to justify inclusion as an author; any other contributors should instead be acknowledged appropriately in the Acknowledgments section. The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all authors have made bona fide, substantive contributions to the research and have seen and approved the manuscript in final form prior to submission.

Abstract

This part consists of a single paragraph not exceeding 200 words. In particular, the Abstract should summarize the background of the research, novel finding of the paper and the importance of the results as briefly as possible. It should convey clearly and completely the significance and advance of the work to the readership before they have read the paper. Abbreviations and reference citation should generally be avoided.

Introduction

The introduction should provide the necessary background information with succinct words to give a proper perspective for the study. Only the necessary background information should be provided, instead of a detailed review of the field. Previous publications that provided the groundwork for the paper submitted must be mentioned. All symbols and abbreviations used must be defined, unless they are common abbreviations, symbols of chemical elements or standard units of measurements. Subheadings are not used in this section.

Results

This section could be subdivided with subheadings to give the manuscript more clarity. Concise and precise description should be used to present to a wide readership. Footnotes and sidenotes are not allowed in this section. Up to 8 figures and/or tables may be contained in an article.

Discussion

The Discussion may be subdivided or combined as appropriate. The Discussion should not repeat the Results, instead, more implications of the results and relevant information should be explored to bring the results into a broader context.

Materials and Methods

This section must be described with sufficient details so that others could repeat the procedures, in conjunction with cited references. Procedures such as appropriate experimental design and statistical methods should be described. Methods for quantification of levels or differences in levels of molecules in biological samples must be described fully and shown to be quantitative and reproducible, using appropriate replicates and statistical analyses. Additional information could be included as Supplementary Data if necessary. If there is any novel material, the authors are required to make it available for non-commercial research purposes.

Acknowledgements

These may be used to list the contributions of non-authors, funding sources and financial supports. Personal acknowledgements should precede their institutions or agencies. The Acknowledgements section should be listed at the end of the text, before the References.

Funding

Details of all funding sources for the work in question should be given in a separate section entitled 'Funding'. This should appear after the 'Acknowledgements' section.

The following rules should be followed:

• The sentence should begin: ‘This work was supported by …’
• The full official funding agency name should be given, i.e. ‘the National Cancer Institute at the National Institutes of Health’ or simply 'National Institutes of Health' not ‘NCI' (one of the 27 subinstitutions) or 'NCI at NIH’ (full RIN-approved list of UK funding agencies)
• Grant numbers should be complete and accurate and provided in brackets as follows: ‘[grant number ABX CDXXXXXX]’
• Multiple grant numbers should be separated by a comma as follows: ‘[grant numbers ABX CDXXXXXX, EFX GHXXXXXX]’
• Agencies should be separated by a semi-colon (plus ‘and’ before the last funding agency)
• Where individuals need to be specified for certain sources of funding the following text should be added after the relevant agency or grant number 'to [author initials]'.

An example is given here: ‘This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health [P50 CA098252 and CA118790 to R.B.S.R.] and the Alcohol & Education Research Council [HFY GR667789].

References

References should include only articles that are published or in press. Unpublished data, submitted manuscripts, abstracts, and personal communications should be cited within the text only. Personal communication should be documented by a letter of permission. Submitted articles should be cited as unpublished data, data not shown or personal communication. Note: "et al." should only be used after 10 authors. Please use the following style for references:

Article in a Periodical:
Cong, Y., and Shay, J.S. (2008). Actions of human telomerase beyond telomeres. Cell Res. 18, 725-732.

Article in a Book:
King, S.M. (2003). Dynein motors: Structure, mechanochemistry and regulation. In Molecular Motors, M. Schliwa, ed. (Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH), pp. 45–78.

An Entire Book:
Cowan, W.M., Jessell, T.M., and Zipursky, S.L. (1997). Molecular and Cellular Approaches to Neural Development (New York: Oxford University Press).

Tables

When creating a table, please use the Microsoft Word table function in a Word document. Word tables should not be tab or space delineated and should not use color. Tables should include a title, footnotes and/or concise legend. Tables in the submitted manuscript should be a separate section. Tables not created using the Microsoft Word table function will need to be revised by the author.

Figure Legends

This is an independent section in the submitted manuscript. A brief title describing the entire figure must be included in each figure legend. Each panel should be described exactly in this section. The information in the text, especially the experimental details, should not be repeated in Figure Legends. Bars, sample sizes and scales must be indicated clearly in Figure Legends. Figure numbers should be given in Arabic numerals and figure parts in upper case letters (1A, 1B…).

Supplementary Data

Data that are integral to the manuscript but impractical to include in the printed journal may be presented as Supplementary Data. We encourage authors to include all necessary data in the manuscript body. If large data sets or videos are necessary and cannot be accommodated in the text body, supplementary data can be submitted. However, each supplementary file must be less than 5MB.
Supplementary data should be submitted with the original manuscripts. They will be linked to the online article published on the journal’s website. All text and figures must be provided in suitable electronic formats in this section. All the figures and tables should have titles and legends just as what should be done in the original article.

FIGURE ORGANIZATION

All the Figures (line drawings, histograms and photographs) must be labeled in consecutive Arabic numerals, and must be referred to in the text (as Fig.1, Fig.2…). For figures with multiple panels, the labels should be set in upper case letters such as Fig.1A, Fig.1B.
For initial online submission, images could be submitted in one of the following formats: JPEG (.jpg), TIEF (.tif), Portable Document File (.pdf) or Encapsulated Postscript (.eps). These images should be placed after the References section.
Figures should be submitted in their desired final size to fit the width of the text. Please keep file size as small as possible. The minimum resolution for the figures is 300 dpi (dots per inch) for tone or color, 1200 dpi for line art at approximately the correct size for publication. Large file sizes (30 MB or greater) may occasionally be needed, but should be avoided if possible. Any lettering should be approximately in proportion to the overall dimensions of the figure. We can only accept one file per figure, so please do not submit separate panels on several pages. Micrographs should be provided with a scale bar.
All color images must be submitted in CMYK (Cyan-Magenta-Yellow-Black) color mode. The authors are responsible for ensuring that all figures correctly appear in black and white or in color.

PEER REVIEW

Peer review will be handled by our in-house team of professional editors in close consultation with an Associate Editor, an Editorial Board member, or the Editor-in-Chief. The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for the ultimate decision.
Manuscripts that are in principle inappropriate for the journal due to lack of sufficient novelty or general interest will be returned to the authors as rapidly as possible. If a manuscript is sent out for in-depth peer review, the journal aims to return reviewers’ comments to authors within a month or so. We will strive for a constructive and fair peer-review process. To provide the best possible service to our authors, when the situation is appropriate we may choose to grant the authors an opportunity to make a tentative response to the reviews before a formal editorial decision is made (e.g., in the case of conflicting comments by the referees).
Revised manuscripts should generally be submitted within two months after the initial editorial decision is received. Request for a further extension will be considered on a case-by-case basis by contacting the editorial office (jmcb@sibs.ac.cn).

MANUSCRIPT ACCEPTANCE

Copyediting

Accepted manuscripts will be copyedited for grammar and style before proofs are generated. The authors should check the manuscript and proof carefully to make sure that all the sections are correct. After the corrections are made, the article will be posted online as part of the continuous online publication of JMCB.

Offprints

The publishers will supply authors with free online access to their article with the option of purchasing printed offprints. If offprints are required, the corresponding author should download the offprint form here and return it to the address on the form.

Charges

There are no page charges for publishing in JMCB, and color figures that editors agree are essential will also be free of charge. Authors may need to justify that the color figure is essential for interpreting the results presented in the manuscript.

Proofs

The journal will deliver electronic page proofs to the corresponding author with the offprint order forms. Corrections should be returned within 24 hours. “Note added in proof” should only be inserted when there are essential changes. Notes added will be reviewed for appropriate content and style, and are subjected to approval by the editors. Excessive changes on the proof should be avoided unless they are for correction of errors introduced during production.

Policies

When submitting a manuscript, it is considered with the understanding that the work has not been published previously and the paper is not under consideration by another journal or book. It is a condition of publication for JMCB that the authors grant an exclusive licence to our editorial office.

The corresponding author of every accepted manuscript must sign a Licence to Publish form and return it to the address given on the form.

All the authors are required to ensure that they are all appropriate contributors for the paper and have agreed to the author list. The article’s content and its submission to JMCB must be approved by all the contributors.
JMCB policy encourages that each author reveals any financial conflict of interest, direct or indirect, that might influence the results or opinions stated in their manuscript. Any such conflict must be disclosed in cover letter and in the Acknowledgements section. The corresponding author will sign a potential conflict of interest form on behalf of all the authors at the time of acceptance.
Authors are encouraged to provide materials and protocols used in the article to promote scientific research in the field. All the clones, plasmid vectors and genetically modified animals are implied to be deposited in a public repository. If there are restrictions to the availability of any material, data, or reagents, they must be noticed in the cover letter at submission.
On acceptance of an article, the copyright will transfer from authors to the journal. However, authors still have the rights of making copies for the author’s own personal use including classroom teaching, conference reporting, students training and so on.

CONSENT AND APPROVAL

Manuscripts reporting on biomedical studies involving human subjects must include explicit assurance that written informed consent was obtained from each subject or from his or her guardian. Such manuscripts must include a statement that the human investigations were performed after approval by a local institutional review board and in accord with an assurance filed with and approved by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services or any other equivalent regulatory agency, where appropriate.

When a pedigree or family tree is depicted, assurance must be given that written informed consent was obtained from each living individual represented. In addition, authors must state in writing that they have not modified the pedigree or family tree to avoid potential identification of the family or its members. In rare instances, the editorial board may permit modification of a pedigree to preserve patient anonymity if the authors present compelling reasons for making such modifications and the changes made do not affect interpretation of the data. In such cases, authors must provide the original, unmodified data for examination by peer reviewers and the editorial board and must include a statement in the manuscript explaining that the pedigree has been modified.

ANIMAL WELFARE

Any study involving experiments with animals must state that their care was in accord with institution guidelines. Where applicable, the dose and schedule of anesthetics and analgesics should be reported.

CONTACTS AT JMCB

For pre-submission inquiries, e-mail: jmcb@sibs.ac.cn
For assistance with online submission, tel: +86-21-5492-2834 or +86-21-5492-0951; e-mail: jmcb@sibs.ac.cn
For status inquiries about submitted papers, e-mail: jmcb@sibs.ac.cn
For production queries, including proofs, e-mail: jmcb@oxfordjournals.org
For queries regarding permissions, e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org