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Submissions checklist


Cover letter


Cover letters are optional in Bioscience Reports but are encouraged. If included with your submission, the cover letter should highlight the findings of your study, the advance it brings and its relevance to the field. The cover letter should not include reviewer suggestions, these can be added during the submission process.

Title


The title should succinctly reflect the content of the paper and must not exceed 20 words in length. 

Abstract


Abstracts must not exceed 250 words. Please ensure that there are no references included in the abstract. The Journal does not consider graphical abstracts.

Keywords


During the submission process you will be asked to provide a subject area and keywords that best represent your submission. Please select these carefully, as they will help to improve the discoverability of your paper should your paper be accepted for publication.

Author list


The Journal follows ICMJE’s recommendations on authorship, as detailed in our Editorial Policy. Please ensure that the authorship is correct, and that author names are listed exactly as you would like them to appear on the published paper. 

The Journal mandates that at the Corresponding Author must have an institutional email address as a requirement. If the author is unable to provide an institutional email address, the corresponding author’s institution must provide a letter (on letterheaded paper) that includes the following:

  • The full title of the paper
  • The full author list
  • The date of submission
  • Confirmation that the institution is aware of the work being submitted to the Journal
  • Confirmation of where the work was performed
  • Confirmation of when the work was completed
  • Confirmation of the corresponding author’s employment at their affiliated institution 
  • Contact details of the corresponding author
  • Contact details, signature and job title of the person who wrote the letter (This letter must be completed and signed by a research officer or department head, not an author of the paper)

Corresponding authors


The corresponding author is responsible for all communication with the Journal. The corresponding author must also ensure that all authors are aware of, and agree to, the submission and (if accepted) publication of the paper. The corresponding author is required to provide an ORCiD during submission of a revised paper. The email address of the corresponding author will be published in the paper and the corresponding author must also act as the point of contact for queries regarding the paper after publication. The submission system only allows for one corresponding author to be added, if the paper has more than one corresponding author, please clearly indicate this in the manuscript file and cover letter.

Main text


The main text of the paper should include an Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion section. 
The Methods section must include enough detail for the study to be replicated, including (as appropriate):

  • Catalogue number and supplier of critical reagents and kits, for example, drugs, hormones, inhibitors, substrates, and purification kit
  • Antibody origin (company), catalogue number, and dilution used
  • NCBI (or other accessible database) reference number for DNA/RNA sequences used, and nucleotide range for fragment
  • UniProtKB (or other accessible database) reference number for protein sequences used, and residue range for fragment
  • Sequences of every oligonucleotide used for PCR, RT-qPCR, cloning, siRNA, miR-RNA, mimics, etc. with 5’-3’ orientation
  • Origin and catalogue number of cell lines used
  • Detail on culture conditions such as media, serum, and supplements for every cell line used and specific cell reagents, such as for gene transfer experiments and siRNA
  • Number of cells seeded in wells or Petri dish for cellular assays, incubation time before treatment, drug concentration used, time of harvest after treatment
  • Web address of databases with details on the parameters used to perform specific searches
  • Number of independent repetitions, statistical tests used, including for multiple comparison

Ethics


For experiments with animals, please ensure that in your paper you state where the ethics approval has been sought/obtained from, the site where the animal work has taken place and the approval number obtained from the appropriate institutional review board. Papers describing any experimental work with humans should include a statement that the research has been carried out in accordance with the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki, and that all subjects provided written informed consent.

Data Policy


Upon submission, Authors agree to make any materials, data, code and associated protocols available upon request. For more information, please see our full Data Policy.

As of 5 October 2020, all research papers submitted to the Biochemical Society’s research journals will require a Data Availability Statement to be included upon submission. Please ensure this statement is included within your main manuscript file. This section should be placed immediately after the Conclusions, within the main manuscript text. This Data Availability Statement should indicate to the reader where data associated with the paper are available and how to access (including links and a reference citation, where applicable, to the online dataset or software).  If data sharing is not applicable to the paper, for any reason, please indicate this and explain why this is the case. Any restrictions on the availability of materials or information must be disclosed to the Journal at the time of submission. If your research/submission cannot comply with the data type specific deposit requirements, or if you require data to be deposited following an embargo period, please write to the Editorial Office in the first instance. For more information on Data Availability Statements, please visit our Data Policy page. Please contact the Editorial Office if you have any questions.


Figures


Figures may be embedded into the main text or provided as separate files. Please ensure all Figures have a title and legend. All Figures must be referred to in the main text. Figures must be provided at high resolution and the formatting of the labels should be consistent throughout the Figures. 

Images should not be enhanced or manipulated. Figures assembled from multiple images must be clearly indicated by white or black lines between each image.

Any paper that includes Western blots must also include the full uncropped and unedited versions of the blots as a supplementary file. These must be clearly titled and labelled to indicate which Figure they represent from the main article, and clearly show which lanes have been used to build each Figure. The outer edges of the membranes should be visible, and the blots should include the molecular mass markers.

For more information on preparing your Figures, please see our Figure Preparation guide and full Data Policy.

Tables


All tables should include a title and ideally a legend. References included in tables must follow the Vancouver style. 

Supplementary Files


All Supplementary Figures and Tables must include a title and legend (as appropriate for tables). Supplementary files should not include any methods, all methods must be included in the main article file.

Author contributions


Within your manuscript, please provide a paragraph detailing the contributions of all authors listed on the manuscript. Every author should be named in this statement.

Funding


Please provide details of any funding you received. This can be included in the Acknowledgements section or in a separate statement. If no funding has been received, this should be stated. 

Acknowledgements


The acknowledgements should note assistance from contributors that do not meet the criteria for authorship. 

References


Please use the Vancouver style for all references. Please format your reference list to include the relevant DOI (digital object identifier) wherever possible. All references must be numbered consecutively within the text and listed in numerical order in the reference list. Where a reference includes more than six authors, please list the first six names followed by ‘et al’. 

Example:

  1. Walker, N., Manwaring, Z., Rowe, O., Rodriguez, J., Glaister, K., Raanan, D, et al. (2023) Emergent reference pathways and citation explorations. Port Pubs. 67, 1-3 10.1042/PPL_12345678

 

Preprints should be cited using their DOI. The format should be: Author(s). (Year) Title. bioRxiv (or other preprint server name). DOI, posted date. For more information, please see our full policy on preprints. There is no limit on the number of references included.

 

Revised Papers


Please ensure all files are uploaded with your revised paper, including any Figures, Tables or Supplementary files. These will not be brought forward with the revised submission automatically. During the submission process of your revised paper, you will be asked to agree to the payment of an Article Publishing Charge (APC). More information on the APC can be found on our Open Access Policy page.

Response to reviewers


You will be required to provide a response to the comments made by the Associate Editor, Reviewers and Editorial Office. Please ensure these are included within a single file and that every comment is responded to and/or address in the article file as appropriate.

Tracked changes version


Please provide a tracked changes version of your revised paper, a version with the changes highlighted, as a separate file from the main article.

Changes to authorship


If there are changes to the authorship of the paper during the revision, an Authorship Change form must be completed. Please include your fully completed form with your revised submission. All changes are subject to moderation by the Editorial Office. More information on changes to authorship can be found on our Editorial Policy page.

Review articles


Normally commissioned, although non-commissioned reviews will be considered for publication. Prospective authors should complete our pre-submission enquiry form or contact Editorial Office providing a draft of their article if available. Please note that meta-analyses, systematic and bibliographical reviews are considered as research papers by the Journal.


Guidelines on length/ article structure requirements:

As a guideline, review articles are typically approx. 6,000 words (please note review article length is flexible). Inclusion of figures is welcomed and colour for these is encouraged. There is no limit on the number of references included. Review articles should be of broad interest and provide a balanced overview of the field. The use of main headings and subheadings to guide readers is encouraged. As with research articles, reviews should include a cover letter, title, abstract, author information, and references should be in Vancouver style. 

PRISMA checklist (for meta-analysis papers only)


For meta-analyses, the Journal endorses and follows the PRISMA Guidelines (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses). Authors are required to complete a PRISMA checklist as a condition of submission when reporting findings from a meta-analysis. Please ensure that your article adheres to the criteria addressed by each item of the checklist. Meeting these basic reporting requirements will greatly improve the value of your review.

Please note that the PRISMA checklist should be uploaded as a supplementary file during the submission process.

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