Editorial Policy

When a manuscript is submitted, the Editors assume that no similar paper has been or will be submitted for publication elsewhere. Further, it is understood that all authors listed on a manuscript have agreed to its submission. Upon acceptance, authors must sign a License to Publish. Should the authors choose to make their paper freely available, then the Open Access License Agreement must be signed and will replace the License to Publish (please see the Landes Bioscience Open Access Policy for further details.

Manuscripts should conform to the Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals (URMSBJ), which can be found in full at www.icmje.org. This is in addition to their need to conform to our general guidelines about layout, etc. In particular, the attention of authors is drawn to the following conditions (which are extracted from the URMSBJ):

Authorship (Informed Consent)
Authorship credit should be based on 1) substantial contributions to conception and design, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; 2) drafting the article or reviewing/revising it critically for important intellectual content and 3) final approval of the version to be published. Each author should meet all three of these criteria. Acquisition of funding, or general supervision of a research group, are not valid criteria for authorship. Individuals who have a lesser involvement should be thanked in the acknowledgements. If meeting these requirements causes problems for a particular manuscript, authors are encouraged to contact the Editor-in-Chief for advice on alternative ways other contributors can be listed.

Acknowledgment of Funding
Authors should list all sources of funding for the research described in a manuscript in the 'Acknowledgments' section.

Conflict of Interest
Potential conflicts of interest exist when an author or reviewer has financial or personal interests in a publication that might, in principle, influence their scientific judgment. Financial interests include, but are not limited to, stock-holding, consultancy, paid expert testimony and honoraria; they also include any limitations on freedom to publish that are imposed on an author by an employer or funding agency. In order to encourage transparency without impeding publication, authors are required to include a statement at the end of a manuscript that lists all potential financial interests or, if appropriate, that clearly states that there are none. Possible conflicts of interest of a personal nature should also be communicated to the Editor-in-Chief, who will discuss with the author whether these ought to be listed. Peer reviewers are also required to inform the Editor-in-Chief of any potential conflicts of interest, financial or otherwise.

Ethical Statements
If a study involves any ethical issues, which include patient confidentiality and treatment of animals, the paper must be accompanied by a statement to the effect that the authors complied with all of the legal requirements pertaining to the location(s) in which the work was done.
Indicate whether the procedures were approved by the Ethics Committee of Human Experimentation in your country, or are in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975.

Corrections and retractions
Authors are obliged to notify the Editor-in-Chief at once if they find that a published manuscript contains an error, plagiarism or fraudulent data. The journal will publish a correction, retraction or notice of concern at the earliest possible date: authors are encouraged to contact the Editor-in-Chief to discuss the most appropriate course of action.

Duplicate or redundant publication
We only publish original manuscripts that are not also published or going to be published elsewhere.
Duplicate publications, or redundant publications (re-packaging in different words of data already published by the same authors) will be rejected. If  detected after publication, the Editor reserves the right to publish a notice of the fact without requiring the authors' approval. Competing manuscripts on the same study, for example by collaborators who have split into rival teams after the data were gathered, are acceptable only under special circumstances: please contact the Editor-in-Chief for advice.

Plagiarism and other fraud
If the Editor has reason to suspect that a manuscript is plagiarized or fraudulent, he or she reserves the right to bring his concerns to the authors' sponsoring institution and any other relevant bodies. 

Upon submission all manuscripts go through a rigorous quality control check that includes evaluation by Ithenticate to identify any previously published phrases. Authors should pay particular attention to the originality of their work. 

Limits to freedom of expression
We are committed to academic freedom. It does, however, have to operate within the laws of the USA, where it is published. Although a liberal democracy that is committed to academic freedom, it does have certain legal restrictions on the publication of specific types of material (for example, defamation of character, incitement to racial hatred, material intended to aid terrorism, etc.). In the unlikely event that a manuscript contains material that contravenes these restrictions, the journal reserves the right to request that the material is removed from the manuscript or that the manuscript is withdrawn. In any case, the journal requires authors to take full legal responsibility for what they have written.

Ithenticate
Landes Bioscience uses iThenticate to screen for plagiarism before publication. The iThenticate software checks submissions against millions of published research papers, documents on the web, and other relevant sources. Authors, researchers and freelancers can also use the iThenticate system to screen their work before submission by visiting research.ithenticate.com.

Availability of Materials and Data
It is expected that authors should be able to provide any materials and/or protocols used in published experiments to other qualified researchers for their own use. Materials include (but are not limited to): cells DNA, antibodies, reagents, organisms, mouse strains, and Drosophila strains. These should be made available in a timely manner and it is acceptable to request reasonable payment to cover the cost of maintenance and transport. 



For materials such as mutant strains and cell lines, authors should use established public repositories and provide relevant accession numbers wherever possible. 



Repositories include:



• Jackson Laboratory (mouse strains)

• Bloomington Drosophila Stock Center at Indiana University (fly strains)

• Drosophila Genomics Resource Center (DNA clones and cell lines)

• MMRRC (Mutant Mouse Regional Resource Centers)

• UK Stem Cell Bank



Papers reporting protein or DNA sequences and molecular structures should provide an accession number to any of the three major collaborative databases: DDBJ, EMBL or GenBank. It is only necessary to submit to one database as data are exchanged between DDBJ, EMBL and GenBank on a daily basis. The suggested wording for referring to accession-number information is: 'These sequence data have been submitted to the DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank databases under accession number U12345.'

Peer Review
Each contribution is typically vetted by at least two expert reviewers who are either members of the Editorial Board or are recruited by Board members.

For original articles or short reports, reviewers will generally be asked to comment on the following aspects of the submitted manuscripts:

• •   significance to the field
• •   study of data
• •   quality of data
• •   quality of controls
• •   whether conclusions are justified
• •   whether the effects are meaningful
• •   whether the study is described clearly
• •   the novelty of the work

If the reviewers believe the paper is potentially acceptable, but could be improved, specific suggestions will be made for improvement.

Final acceptance of all submitted manuscripts is a decision made by the Editor(s) in consultation with the Editorial Board and reviewers. If a manuscript does not meet the standards of the journal or is otherwise lacking in scientific rigor or contains major deficiencies, the reviewers will attempt to provide constructive criticism to assist the authors in ultimately improving their work for publication, here or elsewhere. Manuscripts not invited for resubmission will not be reconsidered.

If a manuscript receives favorable reviews but is not accepted outright following the initial review, it may be invited for reconsideration with the expectation that the authors will fully address the reviewer’s criticisms. Resubmitted manuscripts with major revisions will be sent back for peer review.

If an author wishes to appeal an Editorial decision, please contact Kimberly Mitchell, Journal Publications Director.

Accepted papers will be rapidly posted to the journal website as an E-publication (ahead of print).

Open Access Policy

Landes Bioscience recognizes that an increasing number of research-funding agencies require agency-funded research be deposited in public repositories.  It is our mission to help authors comply with their institutions and funding agencies. 

As a brand new journal, all manuscripts published in Epigenetics in the first 1-2 years of publication will be freely available online immediately upon publication.  All authors must sign the Open Access License Agreement (see below). 

Landes Bioscience Open Access License Agreement

Authors who publish in Epigenetics within its first year of publication agree to license their manuscript under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License. With this license, authors retain the copyright to their work. This license also allows users to copy, distribute, transmit and adapt the work for non-commercial (educational and research) purposes.  It only requires that users attribute the original authorship as well as the journal and publisher as the original source with proper citation details.  Commercial rights are protected by Landes Bioscience.

Landes Bioscience Open Access Agreement

Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License

Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License – Full Legal Code

Compliance with Funding Agencies

All manuscripts that are agency-funded (e.g., NIH, HHMI, Wellcome Trust, etc.) AND paid for under the Open Access License Agreement will be automatically deposited and made publicly available in PubMed Central by the publisher. Agency-funded articles that are NOT open access will be deposited by the publisher and publicly available in PubMed Central (and UKPMC) within 6-12 months of publication, depending on the agency's public access policy.  

Author Self-Archiving

Authors are entitled to deposit a final version of their manuscript in their institution's repository immediately upon publication.  Again, we only require that a link to the published version at the journal's website is included, along with attribution to the journal as the original source (with full citation details). 

Online Submission
Epigenetics utilizes an online submission and tracking system designed to provide a better, more efficient service to authors.
•   Authors can submit manuscripts online from anywhere in the world.
•   Authors can track their manuscript through the peer review process.
•   Author files are automatically converted into a PDF (Portable Document Format) file and submissions are acknowledged by email.
•   Editors and reviewers access the PDF files on the website.

Click here to submit your manuscript to Epigenetics.

Previously Submitted
Epigenetics recognizes that excellent papers may have been erroneously rejected by other journals. We will reconsider papers that have been rejected by Nature, Science, Nature Medicine, Nature Cell Biology, Cell, Cancer Cell, Cell Metabolism, Developmental Cell, NEJM, Lancet, Genes & Development and some other journals in the original format of those journals, thus saving the authors effort and time. Authors are encouraged to enclose the reviewers' and/or editorial comments from the journals mentioned above. This will expedite the evaluation of the article. In some instances, the article may be accepted based on the previous review. This allows urgent and competitive research to be published soon after submission. Papers submitted using the Select Submission Track can be accepted within 1-2 days.

Please submit your paper and contact the Editor-in-Chief with the manuscript number and a PDF with the previous review. Upon acceptance, authors should provide the paper in Epigenetics’s format.

Pre-submission inquiries
Pre-submission inquiries are not necessary but are welcome. These may include either an abstract or a full-length manuscript as an email attachment (Microsoft Word). Pre-submission inquiries should be emailed to the Editor-in-Chief (Manel Esteller).

Non-Native Speakers of English
Authors who are not native speakers of English and submit manuscripts to international journals, often receive negative comments from referees or editors about English-language usage. These problems can contribute to a decision to reject a paper. To help reduce the possibility of such problems, we strongly encourage such authors to take at least one or both of the following steps:

• Have your manuscript reviewed for clarity by a colleague whose native language is English.
• Use a service such as one of those listed at the end of our guidelines. An editor will improve the English to ensure that your meaning is clear and identify problems that require your review. Note that the use of such a service is at the author's own expense and risk, and does not guarantee that the article will be accepted. Landes Bioscience accepts no responsibility for the interaction between the author and the service provider or for the quality of the work performed.

Research Papers/Reports
Research Papers or Reports should include the following sections in the following order:

• Abstract: A single paragraph of fewer than 250 words. The primary goal of the abstract should be to make the general significance and conceptual advance of the work clearly accessible to a broad readership. References should not be cited in the abstract.
• Key words: Include 5-10 for indexing purposes.
• Introduction.
• Results: Present results in a logical sequence in tables and illustrations. In the text, explain, emphasize or summarize the most important observations. Units of measurement should be expressed in accordance with Systeme International d'Unites (SI Units).
• Discussion: Do not repeat in detail data given in the Results section. Emphasize the new and important aspects of the study. Relate observations to other relevant studies. On the basis of your findings (and others'), discuss possible implications/conclusions. When stating a new hypothesis, clearly label it as such.
• Patients and Methods/Materials and Methods: Describe the selection of patients or experimental animals, including controls. Do not use patients' names or hospital numbers. Identify methods, apparatus (manufacturer's name and address) and procedures in sufficient detail to allow other workers to reproduce the results. Provide references and brief descriptions of methods that have been published. When using new methods, evaluate their advantages and limitations. Identify drugs and chemicals, including generic name, dosage and route(s) of administration.
• Indicate whether the procedures were approved by the Ethics Committee of Human Experimentation in your country, or are in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975.
• For reagents listed in the Materials and Methods section, the company that supplied the reagent and the catalog number should be listed in parentheses; do not list the company location.
• References: No more than 85.
• Figure legends.
• Tables: Tables should be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals and include descriptive titles and legends.

Brief Reports
Brief Reports should constitute unusually interesting data combined with a discussion of what the data might mean, or an explanation of why the data contradicts current paradigms. The primary goal of the abstract should be to make the general significance and conceptual advance of the work clearly accessible to a broad readership. Please include the following:

• Abstract (one paragraph of fewer than 150 words)
• 5-10 key words for indexing purposes

Reviews
Reviews should be recognized as scholarly by specialists in the field being covered, but should also be written with a view to informing readers who are not specialized in that particular field, and should therefore be presented using simple prose. Please avoid excessive jargon and technical detail. Reviews should capture the broad developments and implications of recent work. The opening paragraph should make clear the general thrust of the review and provide a clear sense of why the review is now particularly appropriate. The concluding paragraph should provide the reader with an idea of how the field may develop or future problems to overcome, but should not summarize the article. To ensure that a review is likely to be accessible to as many readers as possible, it may be useful to ask a colleague from another discipline to read the review before submitting it. Submitted reviews are subject to the same page charges as full-length reports—whether and how page charges will apply for commissioned reviews will be determined upon each commission. Reviews should include an abstract of 150 words and should cite no more than 150 references. Please include 5-10 key words for indexing purposes.

Meeting Reports
Meeting Reports are summaries of presentations from recent meetings in the field. Authors are encouraged to contact the Editor-in-Chief with proposals for meeting reports. Also, please contact the meeting organizers to verify that reports will be permitted. Please include an abstract of 150-200 words and 5-10 key words for indexing purposes.

Commentaries
There are several types of  Commentaries:

• Auto-commentary solicited by the Editorial Board of the most significant recent and forthcoming papers, published elsewhere, to provide a summary with additional insights, new interpretations or speculation on the relevant topic.  These manuscripts may include data or models which due to space limitations were not included or discussed in the original paper.  In other words, the authors may provide biased and uncensored points of view, complementing their articles.

• A focused review or theoretical paper that is primarily addressed to the experts in the field. It may emphasize an opinion of the authors', present a concept or authors' credo.

• A commentary on the most significant conceptual changes and on groundbreaking phenomena described in recent years, envisioning a potential conceptual framework for these phenomena.

•  Mini-reviews.

Please include an abstract of 150-200 words, 5-10 key words for indexing purposes. No more than 50 references, please.

Organization
All manuscripts should be in English. Please ensure that manuscripts are clear, concise and grammatically correct.

Text should be prepared in MS Word, double-spaced, with page numbers throughout.
Organize manuscripts in the following manner:

• •   Title page, including titles, author's names (first, MI, last) and affiliations
• •   5-10 key words (for indexing purposes)
• •   A list of abbreviations and acronyms used throughout the text
• •   An abstract (please see Type of Paper for word limit), the primary goal of which is to make the general significance and conceptual advance of the work clearly accessible to a broad readership. (References should not be cited in the abstract.)
• •   Text (length and organization depends upon type of paper)
• •   Acknowledgments
• •   References
• •   Figure legends
• •   Tables (with descriptive titles and legends)

There are no word limits for papers published, however, accepted manuscripts are published with the understanding that page and color charges will be assessed. Please see the section, Page and Color Charges below.

If your paper is to be published in a journal indexed by PubMed/Medline, the citation of your article will be sent to PubMed within one week of acceptance; therefore, please ensure that all information is correct.

Text Files and Tables
Please save text and table files as MS Word documents. Figure legends should be at the end of the manuscript following references. Tables will be reformatted during production and therefore should only be minimally formatted in your text file. Tables should appear after the figure legends in the manuscript file.

Figures
Figures should be as small and simple as clarity permits. Unnecessary figures and panels in figures should be avoided: data presented in small tables or histograms, for instance, can generally be stated briefly in the text instead. Avoid unnecessary complexity, coloring and excessive detail. Figures should not contain more than one panel unless the parts are logically connected. Where possible, text, including keys to symbols, should be provided in the text of the figure legend rather than on the figure itself. Any image processing should be explained clearly in the Materials and Methods section of your manuscript.

To aid in the processing and turnaround of issues, we ask that authors please adhere to the following figure guidelines. Authors will be asked to revise details and images if they do not adhere to the figure protocols.

Guidelines for Figure Preparation

Image presentation
(These guidelines for image presentation are adapted from the “Instructions for Authors” that are posted on the Journal of Cell Biology web site, and are included here with permission).

As you prepare your figures, please adhere to the following guidelines to accurately present your data:

1. No specific feature within an image may be enhanced, obscured, moved, removed, or introduced. 

2. The grouping of images from different parts of the same gel, or from different gels, fields, or exposures must be made explicit by the arrangement of the figure (i.e., using dividing lines) and in the text of the figure legend. 

3. Adjustments of brightness, contrast, or color balance are acceptable if they are applied to the whole image and as long as they do not obscure, eliminate, or misrepresent any information present in the original, including the background. Non-linear adjustments must be disclosed in the figure legend.

A more detailed discussion of image presentation can be found at the following URL: http://jcb.rupress.org/content/166/1/11.full (Rossner and Yamada, J. Cell Biol. 166:11–15)

Resolution
All submitted images must be of high quality and have resolutions of 300 dpi ready for print.

Formats
We require figures in electronic format. Please do not send PowerPoint, MS Word, presentation or paint files as they are inadequate for the creation of high quality images. Much of the information contained in PowerPoint or other file types is lost or skewed in the conversion of images. Figures should be provided as TIFF, Photoshop, EPS or high-resolution PDF files. Compatible graphic art programs are Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop.

Figure size
Figures should be submitted at the size they are to be published. Maximum width = 7.1 in. Maximum height = 9.5 in.

For multi-panel figures (such as Figure 1A, 1B, 1C, etc.), all panels should be assembled into one image file. Do not include separate panels on multiple pages, i.e., A, B, C and D should all fit on one page. Each panel should be sized so that the figure as a whole can be reduced by the same amount and reproduced on the printed page at the smallest size at which essential details, including type, are visible and readable.

Color mode
Save all color figures in CMYK mode at 8 bits/channel. Layering type directly over shaded or textured areas and using reversed type (white lettering on a colored background) should be avoided.

Type
Please be sure to embed all fonts. Use a sans serif font such as Helvetica. The font size should be no greater than 9 pt. and no smaller than 6 pt; however, panel labels (A, B, C) should be 15 pt. uppercase (not bold). Lettering in figures (labeling of axes and so on) should be in lowercase type, with the first letter capitalized and no full stop. Please keep font size relatively the same throughout the figures so as to avoid scaling issues. Also note that readability suffers if type is layered over a pattern or color other than white or black.

Units
Units should have a single space between the number and the unit, and follow SI nomenclature or the nomenclature common to a particular field. Thousands should be separated by commas (1,000). Unusual units or abbreviations should be defined in the legend. Please use the proper microsymbol (denoting a factor of one millionth) rather than a lower case u.

References
Include in the reference list only those articles that have been published or are in press. Unpublished data or personal communications must be cited within the text.

Please use "et al." after listing the first six authors. Do not use "et al." if there are less than six authors.

The list of references should be numbered consecutively according to the first time mentioned within the article. Cite only the number assigned to the reference:

When referring the reader to specific references as part of a sentence please state:

Journal References

Supplementary Files
The following fees apply for any supplementary material posted with a manuscript. A $100 fee is assessed for all text, figures and/or tables. Supplementary movies carry a rate of $150 for the first five movie files and $50 for each subsequent movie file. Fees will be outlined on the publication charge form authors receive with galley proofs.

Please provide supplementary material in the following formats:

• •   Text: MS Word file
• •   Table/Data: MS Word file or Excel file
• •   Figures: Please provide figures in a MS Word file or in a PPT file, clearly labeled with figure legends below them.
• •   Video Files: Video submissions for viewing online should be Audio Video Interleave (.avi), MPEG (.mpg), or Quick Time (.qt, .mov).

• • °   AVI files can be displayed via Windows Media Player (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/players.aspx); MPEG files can be displayed via Windows Media Player; Quick Time files require Quick Time software (free) from Apple (http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/index.html)
  • °   Videos should be brief whenever possible (<2-5 minutes). Longer videos will require longer download times and may have difficulty playing online. Videos should be restricted to the most critical aspects of your research. A longer procedure can be restructured as several shorter videos and submitted in that form.
  • °   It is advisable to compress files to use as little bandwidth as possible and to avoid overly long download times. Video files should be no larger than 5 megabytes. This is a suggested maximum. If files are larger, please contact the Managing Editor.
  • °   A caption giving a brief overall description of the video content should be provided for each video.
  • °   If your paper is accepted for publication you may wish to supply the editorial office with several different resolutions of your video files. This will allow viewers with slower connections to download a lower resolution version of your video.
  •  

Please also provide ALL files in one PDF file. Links to supplementary data will be included in the PDF of the published manuscript and in the online abstract.

Cover Image Submissions
Epigenetics publishes cover illustrations that are taken from articles in each issue, or that are designed to accompany an accepted article.

The cover illustration should be scientifically interesting and visually attractive. The illustration need not be a figure from the paper, but should be closely related to the subject of the paper. If you are interested in submitting a figure for use as the cover of Epigenetics, please email a high-resolution version of your image, conforming to the specifications below, and an explanatory caption of 50-60 words to the Managing Editor

All potential cover images should be sized to fit on a single letter size (8.5" x 11") page. Please remove all text, captions, etc. from the image. If you have variations of the image, you may send additional files. Please send no more than two alternate versions.

Accepted formats and resolution:
•   PSD (Adobe Photoshop: if graphics are built with layers, do not flatten), 300 dpi, CMYK at 100% size.
•   TIF, 300 dpi, CMYK at 100% size
•   JPG, 300 dpi highest quality, CMYK at 100% size.
•   EPS (scalable vector line art)
•   AI (Adobe Illustrator)

Publication Charges

Page Charges
Page charges apply at a rate of $100 per page or partial page used for articles classified as Reports, Research Papers, Technical Papers, Brief Reports and Short Communications.

Color Charges
Please note that color charges are assessed separately from page charges and will be added to the total amount of page charges assessed. Publication of color images is free for the online version of the journal, but carries a page charge of $340 for the first page and $150 for each additional page in the print edition. Authors may choose to convert color images to grayscale for the print edition of their manuscript in order to eliminate color charges. If this option is selected, authors should provide replacement figure legend text at the galley proof stage if the original legends contain references to color.

Supplementary File Charges
Supplementary fees apply for any supplementary material posted with a manuscript. A $100 fee is assessed for all text, figures and/or tables. Supplementary movies carry a rate of $150 for the first five movie files and $50 for each subsequent movie file.

Under exceptional circumstances, where there are no funds to cover page charges and articles cannot be reduced in size, authors may appeal directly to the Editor for page charges to be waived. This appeal must be supported by a letter signed by a finance official at the author’s institution, confirming that no funds are available to cover page charges.

Page Proofs
Page proofs will be sent to the author via email. Page proofs should be returned within two working days, preferably by email. Corrections should be marked on the actual proof and provided in a numbered list. Lengthy additions should be avoided, but where necessary should be provided in a MS Word file, with explicit instructions regarding placement.

Reprints
A reprint order form will be sent, along with an outline of publication charges, to authors via email with page proofs.