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Genes to Cells Instructions for Authors

Manuscripts should be submitted online only.

Aims and scope

Genes to Cells provides an international forum for the publication of papers describing important aspects of molecular and cellular biology. The journal aims to present papers that provide conceptual advance in the relevant field. Particular emphasis will be placed on work aimed at understanding the basic mechanisms underlying biological events.

Types of manuscripts

The journal accepts papers that present original research that has not been published previously. Papers should be intelligible to as wide an audience as possible. The journal does not, in general, publish papers on results that are confirmatory, preliminary or incomplete. Papers in the field of biotechnology, and those describing structures without direct implications for biological mechanisms, are only accepted for publication if they are considered to be of exceptional merit. Papers based primarily on nucleic acids/protein sequence and gene expression, such as microarray analyses, will be considered only when they provide exceptionally useful information on biological mechanisms.

Organization of manuscripts

The manuscript of an original article should be saved as a Microsoft Word document (.doc) or Rich Text Format (.rtf) and arranged in the following order:
Title page: The title page should be in the conventional style. The title should be understandable by general readers. The running title should be no more than 40 characters. The corresponding author's fax number and e-mail address and total character count of the paper (see below) should be presented.
Abstract page: Abstract should be in a single paragraph, not exceeding 200 words. It should summarize the aim of the report, methods of approach and significance of the results. It should be written so as to be intelligible to the non-specialist.
Main text: (Each of the following elements should start on a new page.)

  1. Introduction: The introduction should summarize briefly the background and aims, and end with a very brief statement of what has been achieved by the work.
  2. Results: The result section should present the experiments that support the conclusions to be drawn later in the Discussion. The Results section should conform to a high standard of rigor. Extended lines of inference, arguments or speculations should not be placed in this section.
  3. Discussion: The Discussion section should be separated from the Results section. This section allows authors to propose their interpretation of the results, and to discuss the significance of and implication from the results. It should end with a clear statement of the main conclusions of the research.
  4. Experimental procedures: Most of the experimental details should be placed in this section, leaving the Results section for exposition of the experimental design and results. They should be detailed enough to allow others to reproduce the results.
  5. Acknowledgements: This should be brief.
  6. References: In general, no more than 40 references that are essential for understanding the article should be presented. In the text, references should be cited by author and year. Published articles and those in press (state the journal that has accepted them) may be included. Personal communications (A. Johnson, personal communication) should be authorized in writing by those involved, and unpublished data should be cited as (G. Washington and A. Johnson, unpublished data). Both should be used as sparingly as possible and only when the unpublished data referred to are peripheral rather than central to the discussion. References to material available on the World Wide Web can be given. At the end of the text, references should be listed alphabetically according to the first-named author. The full titles of papers and books or abbreviated journal names and the first and last page numbers should be given. If there are more than 15 authors, use et al. after 3 names. The name of each journal should be abbreviated according to the World Scientific Periodicals and italicized. Abstracts of work presented at meetings should not be cited. Particular attention should be taken to ensure that references conform to the Journal style.

    Note: You can get the latest EndNote 'Style' file for Genes to Cells (Windows and Mac; version 4 or above) at the Genes to Cells Supplementary web site.

    Examples of reference style are given below:

    Hiom, K. & Gellert, M. (1998) Assembly of a 12/23 paired signal complex: a critical control point in V(D)J recombination. Mol. Cell 1, 1011-1019.

    Honda, T., Shimizu, K., Kawakatsu, T., et al. (2003) Antagonistic and agonistic effects of an extracellular fragment of nectin on formation of E-cadherin-based cell-cell adhesion. Genes Cells 8, 51-63.

    Gall, J.G. (1995) Beginning of the end: origins of the telomere concept. In: Telomeres (eds E. H. Blackburn & C. W. Greider), pp. 1-10. Cold Spring Harbor, New York: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press.

  7. Figure legends: Legends should be included in the main text. The legends should be clear and concise, containing sufficient information to be understood without reference to the text, and should only contain minimal methodology. All symbols and abbreviations used in the figures should be explained.
  8. Tables: You may either include the tables in the main text or save as separated files.

Tables and figures

Tables and figures should have a brief title and be numbered. Image file formats that can be submitted include JPEG (.jpg), GIF (.gif), TIFF (.tif), EPS (.eps), and PDF (.pdf). You can submit Miscrosoft PowerPoint files (.ppt), but we do not recommend using PowerPoint to assemble image files because it is relatively difficult to generate publication-grade files from PowerPoint format files. Generally, raster image files (JPEG, GIF, or TIFF) will be automatically converted into smaller files to reduce time to see them in the review process. Currently, large image files that are more than 2000 pixels in width or height cannot be converted properly, so please take care with the number of pixels of your files. Please note that figures will be reduced to single column width (80 mm), two-thirds page width (110 mm) or full page width (169 mm) when published. Lettering should be planned accordingly.

Abbreviations

Abbreviations should be defined in parentheses after their first mention in the text. Abbreviations should not be listed in a special section. Standard units of measurements and chemical symbols of elements may be used without definition.

Length of manuscript

The total character count (including spaces) for the original paper, including figure legends and references (excluding tables and Supplementary material) should not exceed 60,000 characters (the exact character count to be printed on the front page of the manuscript).
In general, up to seven figures or tables may be presented. Authors should make every effort to remain within a limit of 12 printed pages. Review articles are solicited by the Editor or Associate Editor. The length should not exceed 50,000 characters, five figures or tables. Although the maximum lengths of original and review articles are indicated, submission of shorter articles is encouraged. The length of the Commentary should be less than 30,000 characters with a short abstract.

Distribution of material

Publication of a paper in Genes to Cells implies that authors agree to distribute freely to academic researchers all materials such as organisms, cells, viruses, antibodies and nucleic acids that are used to obtain results presented in the paper.
New nucleotide data must be submitted and deposited in the DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank databases and an accession number obtained before the paper can be accepted for publication. The accession number should be included in the manuscript.
New microarray data Authors should refer to the MGED open letter specifying microarray standards at (http://www.mged.org/Workgroups/MIAME/miame_checklist.html). Manuscripts describing microarray experiments or similar gene expression studies must provide the data as Supplementary material. The data should be MIAME-compliant and supplied in a form that is accessible on different computer systems, preferably on CD-ROM. Genes to Cells strongly encourages submission of microarray data to CIBEX (http://cibex.nig.ac.jp), the ArrayExpress (http://www.ebi.ac.uk/arrayexpress) or GEO (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/geo) databases.

Supplementary material

Supplementary material may be attended to the manuscript at the submission stage. The material whose length is judged to be reasonable by the Editor-in-Chief will be considered. It should be clearly referred to in other sections of the manuscript. Supplementary material will only be published with the Online version of an accepted article.

Submission of manuscripts

Manuscripts should be submitted online at http://gtc.manuscriptcentral.com. It is highly recommended for acceleration of the editorial process that the author contact an Editor or Associate Editor in advance to ensure his or her availability for reviewing. However, an author can submit a paper to the Editor-in-Chief without prior consultation by presenting names of preferred Editors or Associate Editors who will edit the manuscript. Authors may present names of potential referees and of referees whom they would prefer not to review the manuscript.

Reviewing

Reviewing of manuscripts

The Editor or Associate Editor will supervise the refereeing of the paper and then recommend to the Editor-in-Chief, who is responsible for the final decision, on acceptance, revision or rejection of the paper. All articles, including review articles, are reviewed by two or more appropriate referees. Papers may, however, be returned to authors without review if they fail to meet the criteria of wide biological interest and novelty.

Revision of manuscripts

When a manuscript is returned to the author for minor revision prior to final acceptance, the revised version should be resubmitted within 14 days of the author's receipt of the judgment by the Editor. A manuscript returned for major revision is asked to be resubmitted within 3 months. If a revised manuscript is returned after 3 months, it will automatically be considered as a new submission. In general only a single round of revision will be permitted. On resubmission, authors are requested to respond point by point to the referee's comments.

Publication process

It is essential that authors return one signed copy of the Copyright Assignment Form and a completed Color Work Agreement Form (if the article contains color) to the Editorial Office when the manuscript is accepted.

CD-ROMs

When a manuscript is accepted, the original text file(s) saved in the Manuscript Central system will be used for production, but, as to figures, authors are requested to send a CD-ROM of original images/figures to the Editorial Office. Details should be given of the type of computer used, the software employed and the disk operating system. Text should not be justified. Particular attention should be taken to ensure that references conform to the Journal style. Figures should be saved using the normal 'save' procedure, and also as a postscript or EPS file.

Digital versions of figures
Basically we accept EPS and TIFF files only. Please save line artwork (vector graphics) as Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) and bitmap files (halftones or photographic images) as Tagged Image Format (TIFF), with a resolution of at least 300 dpi at final size (80mm, 110mm, or 169mm in width). Please ensure that electronic artwork is prepared such that, after reduction, all lettering will be clear and easy to read, i.e. no labels should be too large or too small. Avoid using tints on diagrams if possible. If the tints are essential to the figure, try to make them coarse as this aids their clear reproduction. We may accept files in Adobe Photoshop format (.psd, up to version CS2), Adobe Illustrator format (.ai, up to version CS2) and PDF format, but in such cases the authors must send one hardcopy of each figure printed with the best quality to the Editorial office and should not use special fonts. No artwork should be incorporated into the text files. Digital versions of figures should be sent only once the manuscript has been accepted.
Full details of submission of manuscripts and artwork on disk are available at http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/authors/digill.asp

Proofs

Page proofs will be dispatched via email as a PDF file about 4 weeks after acceptance of papers and should be corrected and returned within 2 days of receipt. Only corrections and essential changes can be made at this stage. The cost of any extensive changes will be charged to the authors. The editors reserve the right to make minor modifications to manuscripts that do not conform to accepted standards.

Publication

On approval of the proof, papers will be published OnlineEarly on an article-by-article basis. See http://blackwell-synergy.com/. These articles are fully peer reviewed, edited and complete except that they lack page numbers and volume/issue details. Once articles are published OnlineEarly, they are considered fully published from the date they first appear online. This date is shown with the article in the online table of contents. Because OnlineEarly articles are considered fully complete, please bear in mind that changes cannot be made to an article after the online publication date even if it is still yet to appear in print.
The articles are available as full text HTML or PDF and can be cited as references by using their Digital Object Identifier (DOI) numbers. For more information on DOIs, please see http://www.doi.org/faq.html
To view all the articles currently available, please visit the journal homepage on http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/ and simply click on the 'OnlineEarly' area at the top of the list of issues available to view. On print publication, the article will be removed from the OnlineEarly area and will appear instead in the relevant online issue, complete with page numbers and volume/issue details. No other changes will be made.
The implementation of OnlineEarly for Genes to Cells represents our commitment to make manuscripts available to the academic community as quickly as possible, reducing time to publication considerably without sacrificing quality or completeness.
Publication in printed journal will normally be within 4-6 weeks of receipt of corrected proofs.

Cover photographs

The Editors would welcome photographs suitable for the cover of Genes to Cells. It is preferable, but not essential, that these be related to submitted papers.

Reprints

A PDF reprint of the article will be supplied free of charge to the main author. Additional reprints (in units of 100) may be purchased.

Cost for color artwork

It is the policy of Genes to Cells for authors to pay the full cost for the reproduction of their color artwork. However, authors of Review articles are allowed two color figures free of charge. When your paper is accepted for publication, Blackwell Publishing requires you to complete and return a Color Work Agreement Form before your paper can be published.
This form can be downloaded as a PDF from the internet. The form is posted in the Instructions and Forms section of Manuscript Central at GTC Manuscript Central
If you are unable to access the internet, or are unable to download the form, please contact the editorial office.
Any article received by Blackwell Publishing with color work will not be published until the form is returned to the editorial office.
Once accepted, papers become the copyright of the Journal.
There are no page charges.

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