Submissions

Author Guidelines

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

Cover Letter

All cover letters are required to include the statements:

We confirm that neither the manuscript nor any parts of its content are currently under consideration or published in another journal.
All authors have approved the manuscript and agree with its submission.
Manuscript Formatting

General Considerations

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.
Graphical Abstract:
A graphical abstract (GA) is an image that appears alongside the text abstract in the Table of Contents. In addition to summarizing the content, it should represent the topic of the article in an attention-grabbing way. Moreover, it should not be the same as the Figure in the paper or just a simple superposition of several subfigures. Note that the GA must be original and unpublished artwork. Any postage stamps, currency from any country, or trademarked items should not be included in it. The GA should be a high-quality illustration or diagram in any of the following formats: PNG, JPEG, or TIFF. The minimum required size for the GA is 560 × 1100 pixels (height × width). The size should be of high quality to reproduce well.

SI Units (International System of Units) should be used. Imperial, US customary and other units should be converted to SI units whenever possible.
Equations: If you are using Word, please use either the Microsoft Equation Editor or the Math Type add-on. Equations should be editable by the editorial office and not appear in a 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

Language: Manuscripts must be written in English. Authors whose native language is not English are sturdily advised to have their manuscripts read/checked by a native English speaker before their submittal.
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 the full name should be used. Please do not include abbreviated or short forms of the title, such as a running title or head.
Author List and Affiliations: Authors' full first and last names must be provided. At least one author should be designated as the corresponding author. The email addresses of all authors will be displayed on published papers. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to ensure that consent for the display of email addresses is obtained from all authors. Equal Contributions: authors who have contributed equally should be marked with a superscript symbol (†). The symbol must be included below the affiliations, and the following statement added: “These authors contributed equally to this work”.
Abstract: The abstract should be a total of about 300 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 that are not presented and substantiated in the main text and should not exaggerate the main conclusions.
Keywords: Three to seven 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.
Abbreviations: Always define/spell out abbreviations at the first mention. Avoid using abbreviations in the abstract, but if they are indispensable, then use the standard ones, and they must be consistent throughout the manuscript.
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 the computer code used is available. Include any pre-registration codes. The authors should add a subsection in the materials and methods on experimental design and statistical description. The authors should report enough details of the experimental design and statistical analyses so that an independent researcher could reproduce their research. Relevant information could include yet is not limited to: experimental design, factors and levels, listing of fixed and random terms (with justification), number of replicates with experimental units identified, correlation structure for repeated measures, as well as software with version and procedures or packages used.
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 from the perspective of previous studies and the working hypotheses. The findings and their implications should be discussed in the broadest context possible and the limitations of the work highlighted. Future research directions may also be mentioned. This section may be combined with Results.
Conclusions: This section is not mandatory but can be added to the manuscript if the discussion is unusually long or complex.
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, Reference Manager, or Zotero in APA 7th Edition to avoid typing mistakes and duplicated references. We encourage citations to data, computer code, and other citation research material.