Instruction to Authors

Authors biography

Authors are encouraged to add a biography (maximum 150 words) to the submission and publish it. This should be a single paragraph and should contain the following points:

  1. Authors’ full names followed by current positions;
  2. Education background including institution information and year of graduation (type and level of degree received);
  3. Work experience;
  4. Current and previous research interests;
  5. Memberships of professional societies and awards received.

 

Manuscript Preparation

  • Manuscript Template:
  • Original Research manuscripts should comprise:
    • Front matter: Title, Author list, Affiliations, Abstract, Keywords
    • Research manuscript sections: Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions (optional).
    • Back matter: Supplementary Materials, Acknowledgments, Author Contributions, Conflicts of Interest, References.
  • Systematic Review manuscripts should comprise the front matter, literature review sections and the back matter. It is not necessary to follow the remaining structure. Structured reviews and meta-analyses should use the same structure as original research articles.
  • Acronyms/Abbreviations /Initializes should be defined the first time they appear in each of three sections: the abstract; the main text; the first figure or table. When defined for the first time, the acronym/abbreviation / initialize should be added in parentheses after the written-out form.
  • SI Units (International System of Units) should be used. All other units should be converted to SI units whenever possible.
  • Accession numbers of RNA, DNA and protein sequences used in the manuscript should be provided in the Materials and Methods section.  
  • Equations: If you are using Word, please use either the Microsoft Equation Editor or the MathType add-on. Equations should be editable by the editorial office. Do not use picture format.
  • Research Data and supplementary materials: Note that publication of your manuscript implies that you must make all materials, data, and protocols associated with the publication available to readers. Disclose at the submission stage any restrictions on the availability of materials or information.  

Front Matter

These sections should appear in all manuscript types

  • Title: The title of your manuscript should be concise, specific and relevant. It should identify if the study reports (human or animal) trial data, or is a systematic review, meta-analysis or replication study. When gene or protein names are included, the abbreviated name rather than full name should be used.
  • Author List and Affiliations: Authors' full first and last names must be provided. The initials of any middle names can be added. Complete address information including city, zip code, state/province, and country. At least one author should be designated as corresponding author, and his or her email address and other details should be included at the end of the affiliation section.  
  • Abstract: The abstract should be a total of about 200 words maximum. The abstract should be a single paragraph and should follow the style of structured abstracts, but without headings: 1) Background: Place the question addressed in a broad context and highlight the purpose of the study; 2) Methods: Describe briefly the main methods or treatments applied. Include any relevant preregistration numbers, and species and strains of any animals used. 3) Results: Summarize the article's main findings; and 4) Conclusion: Indicate the main conclusions or interpretations. The abstract should be an objective representation of the article: it must not contain results which are not presented and substantiated in the main text and should not exaggerate the main conclusions.
  • Keywords: Three to ten pertinent keywords need to be added after the abstract. We recommend that the keywords are specific to the article, yet reasonably common within the subject discipline.

Research Manuscript Sections

  • Introduction: The introduction should briefly place the study in a broad context and highlight why it is important. It should define the purpose of the work and its significance, including specific hypotheses being tested. The current state of the research field should be reviewed carefully and key publications cited. Please highlight controversial and diverging hypotheses when necessary. Finally, briefly mention the main aim of the work and highlight the main conclusions. Keep the introduction comprehensible to scientists working outside the topic of the paper.
  • Materials and Methods: They should be described with sufficient detail to allow others to replicate and build on published results. New methods and protocols should be described in detail while well-established methods can be briefly described and appropriately cited. Give the name and version of any software used and make clear whether computer code used is available. Include any pre-registration codes.
  • Results: Provide a concise and precise description of the experimental results, their interpretation as well as the experimental conclusions that can be drawn.
  • Discussion: Authors should discuss the results and how they can be interpreted in perspective of previous studies and of the working hypotheses. The findings and their implications should be discussed in the broadest context possible and limitations of the work highlighted. Future research directions may also be mentioned. This section may be combined with Results.
  • Conclusions: This section is mandatory.  It is usually a brief summary of the entire work and highlights key recommendations and contributions made to knowledge in the study area.
  • Patents: This section is not mandatory but may be added if there are patents resulting from the work reported in this manuscript.

Back Matter

  • Supplementary Materials: Describe any supplementary material published online alongside the manuscript (figure, tables, video, spreadsheets, etc.). Please indicate the name and title of each element as follows Figure S1: title, Table S1: title, etc.
  • Funding: All sources of funding of the study should be disclosed. Clearly indicate grants that you have received in support of your research work and if you received funds to cover publication costs. Please add: “This research received no external funding” or “This research was funded by [name of funder] grant number [xxx]” and “The APC was funded by [XXX]” in this section.  
  • Acknowledgments: In this section you can acknowledge any support given which is not covered by the author contribution or funding sections. This may include administrative and technical support, or donations in kind (e.g., materials used for experiments).
  • Author Contributions: Authorship must include and be limited to those who have contributed substantially to the work. Each author is expected to have made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data; or the creation of new software used in the work; or have drafted the work or substantively revised it; AND has approved the submitted version (and version substantially edited by journal staff that involves the author’s contribution to the study); AND agrees to be personally accountable for the author’s own contributions and for ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work, even ones in which the author was not personally involved, are appropriately investigated, resolved, and documented in the literature.
    For research articles with several authors, a short paragraph specifying their individual contributions must be provided. The following statements should be used "Conceptualization, X.X. and Y.Y.; Methodology, X.X.; Software, X.X.; Validation, X.X., Y.Y. and Z.Z.; Formal Analysis, X.X.; Investigation, X.X.; Resources, X.X.; Data Curation, X.X.; Writing – Original Draft Preparation, X.X.; Writing – Review & Editing, X.X.; Visualization, X.X.; Supervision, X.X.; Project Administration, X.X.; Funding Acquisition, Y.Y.”.  
  • Data Availability Statement: In this section, please provide details regarding where data supporting reported results can be found, including links to publicly archived datasets analyzed or generated during the study. You might choose to exclude this statement if the study did not report any data.
  • Conflicts of Interest: Authors must identify and declare any personal circumstances or interest that may be perceived as influencing the representation or interpretation of reported research results. If there is no conflict of interest, please state "The authors declare no conflict of interest." Any role of the funding sponsors in the choice of research project; design of the study; in the collection, analyses or interpretation of data; in the writing of the manuscript; or in the decision to publish the results must be declared in this section.  
  • References: References must be numbered in order of appearance in the text (including table captions and figure legends) and listed individually at the end of the manuscript. We recommend preparing the references with a bibliography software package, such as EndNote, ReferenceManager or Zotero to avoid typing mistakes and duplicated references. We encourage citations to data, computer code and other citable research material. Use APA reference style only throughout your manuscript.