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Guide for authors

Aims and scope

The mission of CMGH is to publish impactful digestive biology research that ranges from mechanisms of normal function to pathobiology and covers a broad spectrum of themes in gastroenterology, hepatology, and pancreatology. The journal reports the latest advances in cell biology, immunology, physiology, microbiology, genetics, and neurobiology of gastrointestinal, hepatobiliary, and pancreatic health and disease. The research CMGH publishes is hypothesis driven, mechanistically novel, and appropriately designed and powered. Studies published in CMGH address important questions and use in vitro models, tissues or cells from patients, and animal models to make fundamental discoveries and translate them to human disease.

CMGH is primarily for basic and translational researchers. By providing a rigorous central forum for high quality digestive biology, CMGH ensures that this group, which includes trainees, new investigators, and established investigators, has access to a spectrum of outstanding work in one location. Reviews are handled fairly and rapidly by the Editors with assistance of an expert editorial board and external reviews. Following rigorous peer review, accepted manuscripts are available online within days of the final decision. For more information about the editors, including their experience and areas of research, read their biosketches here.

CMGH is ranked 17th out of 93 journals in the gastroenterology and hepatology category in the 2021 Journal Citation Reports© published by Clarivate Analytics, and has an Impact Factor of 8.797. On average, authors receive decisions on their manuscripts in less than three weeks. In an effort to distribute its content to the widest audience possible, CMGH is open access. The web-accessible digital platform is maximized by inclusion of graphical abstracts, large data sets, and video microscopy, endoscopy, and whole animal imaging approaches.

Cellular and Molecular Gastroenterology and Hepatology (CMGH) publishes cutting-edge digestive biology research that ranges from mechanisms of normal function to pathobiology and covers a broad spectrum of themes in gastroenterology, hepatology, and pancreatology. The journal reports the latest advances in cell biology, immunology, physiology, microbiology, genetics, and neurobiology of gastrointestinal, hepatobiliary, and pancreatic health and disease. CMGH publishes original papers, brief reports, reviews, editorials, commentaries, and letters to the editor. Manuscripts must be prepared in accordance with the "Uniform Requirements for Manuscripts Submitted to Biomedical Journals" developed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). CMGH is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

CMGH is primarily interested in rigorous, hypothesis-driven, mechanistically novel studies that provide new insight into all aspects of gastrointestinal, hepatobiliary, and pancreatic biology. There is no requirement for work to have a disease or translational link, but studies with such implications are welcome. Most of the original research published in CMGH will take advantage of cell lines, animal models, or tissues or cells from patients. All work must be appropriately designed and powered.

A founding principle of CMGH is that the wide dissemination of outstanding research is critical to progress in digestive health and disease. Therefore, CMGH is a completely digital, open access journal, meaning that its content is easily and freely accessible from around the globe.

General Information

Ethical Standards and Policies

CMGH considers research/publication misconduct to be a serious breach of ethics and will take action as necessary to address such misconduct. Misconduct can include failure to disclose a significant conflict of interest, plagiarism, duplicate submission, data falsification, and inappropriate image manipulation. The journal has specific policies addressing each of these forms of misconduct; those policies are provided below.

Each author who submits a manuscript to CMGH must attest to several author statements in the manuscript management system, thereby affirming the following information, all of which is included in the final published article:

  • Authorship responsibility,
  • Institutional Review Board approval and informed consent statement (human studies),
  • Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee approval (animal studies),
  • Role of study sponsor,
  • Financial disclosures,
  • Funding sources.

To be considered as an author of a paper, an individual must have been involved with each of the below activities:

  1. conception and design of the study;
  2. generation, collection, assembly, analysis and/or interpretation of data;
  3. drafting or revision of the manuscript;
  4. approval of the final version of the manuscript.

Contributions of each authorship must be disclosed using the Contributor Role Taxonomy (CRediT).

Conflict of Interest Policy

A. Potential Conflicts of Interest (COI)
The following are examples of COI that may occur for editors, authors (including invited authors), and reviewers. Interactions are considered pertinent if they occur at any time from the start of the research activity in a specific program until such time that a submission is anticipated to be published or one year from submission date, whichever is longer.

a. Editors: Editors who make final decisions about manuscripts must have no personal, professional, or financial involvement in any of the issues they might judge. Examples of personal involvement with an author include former student, fellow, mentor, or relative. Examples of professional involvement include academic rivalry, being from the same institution or research group as the author, evaluating a manuscript for which they are listed as an author, or collaborating (e.g., co-authoring research article or grant) with an author. Examples of financial involvement include employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants/patents received, and royalties with an entity (or competing entity) discussed in the manuscript.

b. Authors: COI for an author may arise if there exists a financial arrangement (e.g., employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants/patents received, and royalties) with a company whose product figures prominently in the submitted manuscript or with a company that makes a competing product.

c. Reviewers: COI for reviewers exist when they have had an ongoing collaboration, original publications, or grants with the authors within the previous two years, except when part of a multicenter group from a different site; are from the same institution as the authors; or have any financial arrangements (e.g., employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants/patents received, and royalties) with a company whose product figures prominently in the submitted manuscript or with a company that makes a competing product.

B. Process
Potential COI are to be disclosed at the beginning of the peer-review process.

a. Editors: An associate editor having COI with a submitted manuscript must recuse himself or herself from handling the manuscript and request that the manuscript be reassigned. The editor-in-chief having COI with a submitted manuscript must assign review to one of the associate editors or a guest editor for handling. A manuscript submitted by the editor-in-chief or one of the associate editors must be assigned to another member of the board. The editor/author must recuse themselves from all decisions and discussions relating to their submitted manuscript. Editorial staff will ensure that editors submitting manuscripts to their own journal are blinded in the system to the details of their manuscript's review.

b. Authors: The senior or corresponding author assumes full responsibility for supplying the following information on the title page at manuscript submission:

  • For each author, disclosure of any financial arrangement with any company whose product figures prominently in the submitted manuscript or that makes a competing product; or a statement for each author that there is no conflict to disclose.
  • A disclosure of all funding sources supporting the work and all institutional or corporate affiliations.
  • A list of individuals who provided writing assistance for the manuscript and the source of funds that supported this assistance.

In addition, at manuscript submission, each author must attest to several author statements in the manuscript management system, thereby affirming authorship responsibility, manuscript originality, payment of author fees, Institutional Review Board approval and Informed Consent statement (human studies), Animal Care and Use Committee approval (animal studies), role of study sponsor, financial disclosures, and funding sources. Based on the information provided, the editors will determine whether COI exists and decide to either a) reject the manuscript or b) publish the manuscript with the COI disclosed.

c. Reviewers: When invited, reviewers must decline to review a manuscript if a potential COI exists. After review, all reviewers must agree to and initial one of the following statements, which appear in the journals' manuscript tracking system:

  • I, the undersigned Reviewer, certify that I have not had an ongoing collaboration, original publication, or grant with the authors within the previous two years, except in the case of being a part of a multicenter group from a different site, nor am I from the same institution as the authors. I also certify that I do not have any financial arrangements (e.g., employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants/patents received, and royalties) with a company whose product figures prominently in the submitted manuscript or with a company that makes a competing product.
  • I have listed any potential conflicts of interest in the Comments to Editors field.

If the reviewer discloses a potential COI after the review, the handling associate editor decides if the review should still be used to judge the manuscript.

C. Sanctions
Should an editor, author, or reviewer fail to disclose a potential COI and this is discovered after publication, the following sanctions may be applied according to the severity of the infraction.

a. Editors:

  • A letter of reprimand and warning as to future conduct from the editor, in the case of an associate editor, or from the Chair of the Publications Committee, in the case of the editor.
  • Dismissal from the position.

b. Authors:

  • A letter from the editor of explanation and education where there appears to be a genuine misunderstanding of principles.
  • A letter from the editor of reprimand and warning as to future conduct.
  • A letter from the editor to the author's institution or funding body.
  • Publication of a notice detailing the author's failure to disclose the COI.
  • Publication of an editorial detailing the full details of the misconduct.
  • Refusal to accept future submissions from the author on a sliding scale of one-to-five years.
  • Formal retraction or withdrawal of the paper from the scientific literature.
  • Journal editors report the case to Office of Research Integrity, which promotes integrity in biomedical and behavioral research supported by the U.S. Public Health Service; monitors institutional investigations of research misconduct; and facilitates the responsible conduct of research through educational, preventive, and regulatory activities.

c. Reviewers:

  1. A letter from the editor of explanation and education where there appears to be a genuine misunderstanding of principles.
  2. A letter from the editor of reprimand and warning as to future conduct.
  3. A letter from the editor to the reviewer's institution.
  4. Refusal to allow the individual to review for the journal on a sliding scale of one-to-five years.

This policy was developed in accordance with the guidelines set forth by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

Plagiarism, Duplicate Submission/Publication Policy

A. Definitions
a. Plagiarism: Unreferenced use of published and unpublished ideas. It may occur at any stage of planning, research, writing, or publication and applies to print and electronic versions.
b. Duplicate Submission/Publication: Occurs when two or more papers, without full cross-reference, share the same hypothesis, data, discussion points, or conclusions.

B. Sanctions
Should plagiarism or duplicate submission/publication be identified, the journal editors will apply the following sanctions according to the severity of the infraction. They will apply sanctions to individual authors depending on their type of involvement with the article, as provided at the time of submission on the title page.

  • A letter of explanation from the journal editors to the authors where there appears to be a genuine misunderstanding of principles.
  • A letter of reprimand from the journal editors as to future conduct.
  • A formal letter from the journal editors to the author's institution, employer, or funding body.
  • Publication of a notice or editorial in journal.
  • Refusal to accept submissions from the author for a range of one-to-five years.
  • Formal withdrawal or retraction of paper from the scientific literature.
  • Journal editors report the case to Office of Research Integrity, which promotes integrity in biomedical and behavioral research supported by the U.S. Public Health Service; monitors institutional investigations of research misconduct; and facilitates the responsible conduct of research through educational, preventive, and regulatory activities.

This policy was developed in accordance with the guidelines set forth by the Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE) and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

Image Manipulation Policy

A. Definition*
Image manipulation is the misrepresentation of data by selectively altering portions of an image. The expectations for how images should be ethically handled are:

  • No specific feature within an image may be enhanced, obscured, moved, removed or introduced.
  • 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 (e.g., using dividing lines) and in the text of the figure legend.
  • Adjustments of brightness, contrast or color balance are acceptable if they are applied to every pixel in the image and as long as they do not obscure, eliminate or misrepresent any information present in the original, including backgrounds. Non-linear adjustments (e.g., changes to gamma settings) must be disclosed in the figure legend.

*Language used with permission from The Journal of Cell Biology.

For information and examples of appropriate figure edits, please visit our author resource on Image Integrity.

B. Process
The journal's graphics staff will screen all images after editorial acceptance. Authors will be notified when their manuscript has passed the graphic screen and can be considered "in-press." At that time, the work will be released and posted online as "in-press." If a manuscript passes graphics review, the date of editorial acceptance will be used as the official date of acceptance. The editorial staff will also review images that editors, reviewers, or readers suspect have been manipulated. If potential evidence of manipulation is identified, the staff and editors will initiate a complete investigation with the authors and possibly their institutions.

C. Sanctions
Should image manipulation be verified before or after publication of an article, one of the below sanctions will be applied, based on the severity of the infraction. The journal editor-in-chief and associate editors will determine, on a case-by-case basis, the severity of the infraction and corresponding sanction. Sanctions will be applied to individual authors depending on their type of involvement with the article, as provided at the time of submission on the title page.

  • A letter of explanation from the journal editors to the authors where there appears to be a genuine misunderstanding of principles.
  • A letter of reprimand from the journal editors as to future conduct.
  • A formal letter from the journal editors to the author's institution or employer.
  • Rejection or withdrawal of manuscript acceptance.
  • Publication of a correction or editorial.
  • Retraction of the published article.
  • Refusal to accept submissions from the author for a range of one-to-five years. For particularly egregious cases or series of cases, a life-time ban may be considered. The AGA reserves the right, on a case-by-case basis, to report particularly egregious cases to the relevant funding bodies.

This policy was developed in accordance with the guidelines set forth by the Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE).

Article Types

Original Articles
Original Articles are full-length reports of original research. Original Articles cover topics relevant to digestive biology research. Their focus may include the cell biology, immunology, physiology, microbiology, genetics, or neurobiology of gastrointestinal, hepatobiliary, and pancreatic health and disease. To be published, the work presented in the manuscript must be original, although, on occasion, confirmatory studies of timely and important observations will also be acceptable. Other considerations in evaluating the acceptability of a submitted manuscript include the importance of the findings, soundness of the experimental design, validity of the experimental and analytical methods, appropriateness of the conclusions, and quality of presentation.

Original Article submissions to CMGH must not exceed 6000 words, not including methods, figure and table legends, and references. Methods must be presented in sufficient detail to allow readers to replicate the studies and should not simply cite previous work. References should favor primary reports over reviews. The number of figures, tables, and references is unlimited. Supplementary material is limited to large data sets that are not amenable to typical page formats, including movies, or data that are tangential to the work, e.g. validation of an assay. The editors reserve the right to publish certain figures and tables as supplemental data or to ask authors to omit certain figures and tables.

Research Letters
In addition to full-length Original Articles, CMGH welcomes Research Letters for consideration. Research Letters address topics similar to those in full-length original articles, but are often explored in less detail. Research Letters are limited to 1000 words including no more than 10 references and 2 figures or tables.

Research Letters are not broken into separate sections and do not include an Abstract or Synopsis. Main text and figure legends, but not references, are counted in the 1000-word limit. Display items (figures and tables) are limited to 4 inches tall by 4 inches wide (each) and must be legible when printed at this size. References should be provided in the shortened format, listing only the first author followed by et al, the journal name, publication year, and page numbers. In contrast to Original Articles current CMGH instructions, supplemental information is encouraged. This should include a detailed methods section of up to 1000 words, up to 4 additional figures with legends of no more than 500 words each, and up to 20 additional references.

Reviews
Each issue of CMGH contains one or more topical review articles, often solicited by the Editors. Unsolicited reviews will be considered and may be submitted through the journal's submission website www.editorialmanager.com/cmgh. Reviews are written by experts and thought leaders in the field who share their own views while discussing timely and sometimes controversial topics. These undergo the same rigorous peer review as original research.

Reviews must not exceed 4000 words. A maximum of 150 references is permitted, and should favor primary reports over reviews. Reviews typically include 1-2 figures, illustrations, or tables. Whenever possible, authors are required to work with CMGH's medical illustrator in developing figures that will be available for download at CMGHjournal.org.

Editorials
Editorials provide comments on papers published in the same issue of CMGH and highlight the importance of new work and how the results change our understanding of the problem. Editorials are solicited by the Editor and are approximately 750 words in length.

Commentaries
Commentaries address a variety of scientific and societal issues that are of interest to CMGH's readership. Commentaries must not exceed 1500 words, not including references. Typically there are no more than 10 references.

Letters to the Editor
Letters to the Editor provide the opportunity to offer novel perspectives and opinions on articles published in CMGH. Letters must be submitted for consideration within 2 months of initial on-line publication of the corresponding article. Letters received are assessed by the Editors and, if deemed of interest to the Journal, will be sent to the authors of the original article for a response. Authors are given 2 weeks to reply. A decision will then be made whether to publish the letter with or without its reply. Letters are selected based on their relevance and originality.

Letters must not exceed 500 words, not including references. There are typically no more than 5 references. Original or unpublished data will only be considered under exceptional circumstances. The Journal reserves the right to edit all letters prior to publication.

Preprint Server Policy
CMGH allows manuscript submissions to have been posted to a preprint server, with the following stipulations:
  • The preprint cannot be updated while the manuscript is under review and cannot be updated if it is accepted for publication in the journal, even if the preprint server directs the author to do otherwise.
  • If a manuscript is already submitted to an AGA journal and is under review, that manuscript may be submitted to a preprint server at any time before the article is accepted so that it may be considered as a published work in grant applications. As above, that preprint cannot be edited or updated while under review and cannot be updated if it is accepted for publication in the journal.
  • Publication of a preprint must be noted on the title page of the submission, with the preprint DOI included.

We only allow submissions of preprint papers from platforms that allow you to update your record with a link to the published article (for example, bioRxiv).

Data Transparency Policy
CMGH is committed to supporting the transparency, openness and reproducibility of science; to that end, the journal has developed a comprehensive data transparency policy to help guide authors develop their manuscripts in a manner that advances this goal. The policy was developed with the guiding principles set forth by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and the Center for Open Science (COS).

Data Citation
CMGH requires authors to cite underlying or relevant datasets in your manuscript by citing them in your text and including a data reference in your Reference List. Data references should include the following elements: author name(s), dataset title, data repository, version (where available), year, and global persistent identifier. Add [dataset] immediately before the reference so we can properly identify it as a data reference. The [dataset] identifier will not appear in your published article.

Data, Materials, and Code
CMGH requires authors to indicate whether the data, methods used in the analysis, and materials used to conduct the research will be made available to any researcher for purposes of reproducing the results or replicating the procedure. Authors must, in the acknowledgments, indicate if they will or will not make their data, analytic methods, and study materials available to other researchers. If an author agrees to make materials available, the author must specify where that material will be available.

Transcript profiling (expression microarray) data must be submitted to an appropriate repository (either NCBI's GEO or EBI's ArrayExpress). The data should preferably be MIAME compliant . The repository URL and the data accession number must be included, both in the body of the manuscript and Editorial Manager, upon submission. The full dataset must be available to reviewers either via a download link or on a data disk (5 copies).

Other large datasets produced using genomics technologies (including but not limited to ChIP on Chip, Genotyping, aCGH, and Tilling Arrays) must be deposited in an appropriate public repository. The repository URL and the data accession number must be included, both in the body of the manuscript and Editorial Manager, upon submission. If there is no public repository for the submitted data, it is the author's responsibility to provide permanent publicly accessible links to the raw data and access for the reviewers.

Authors must also furnish information about the identity and purity of new chemical compounds. Experimental details and characterization data should be provided in either the main text or as supplemental material. Experimental details should be sufficient to allow other researchers to reproduce the synthesis of the compound.

Design and Analysis
CMGH requires authors to follow standards for disclosing key aspects of the research design and data analysis. Authors are encouraged to review the standards available for many research applications from the EQUATOR Network and use those that are relevant for the reported research applications. For Transcript profiling data, please refer to the MIAME guidelines.

Replication
CMGH supports publication of replication studies that address topics of significant scientific value. Authors of such studies are encouraged to submit them to the journal for consideration for publication.

Contact Information

The address for correspondence is: Klaus H. Kaestner, PhD, and Michael Pack, MD, co-Editors, CMGH, AGA Institute, 4930 Del Ray Avenue, Bethesda, Maryland 20814-3015. Fax: (301)-654-1140. To contact the Editorial Office, call (301) 941-9783 or e-mail [email protected].

Submitting a Manuscript

All manuscripts to be considered for publication in CMGH must be submitted using our online submission system at www.editorialmanager.com/cmgh.

Corresponding Author Duties:

When submitting a manuscript, the Corresponding Author needs to contribute the following:

  • Have an active account on editorialmanager.com/cgh with a current email address.
  • Submit the manuscript with all of the steps.
  • List a current email address for all co-authors, so they can confirm their roles and co-authorship for the paper.
  • Respond promptly to all editorial correspondence.

Submission Guidelines

All manuscripts should be double-spaced and should contain the following sections in the order given below. To help facilitate the peer-review process, we strongly encourage new manuscripts be uploaded as a single PDF with figure legends appearing directly before or directly after each figure. Please note that separate files will be required for all revised manuscripts.

Cover Letter
CMGH strongly encourages authors to suggest 2 to 5 referees (include their email addresses, and phone and fax numbers) and the associate editor they believe is best qualified to review their paper. Authors may also list a non-preferred associate editor and non-preferred referees, but the ultimate selection of an associate editor and referees is at the sole discretion of the editor and associate editor.

Title Page
Title—Limit: 120 characters with spaces. Use no abbreviations.
Short Title—Limit: 45 characters.
Authors—Include first names of all authors and name and full location of department and institution where work was performed.
Grant Support—List grant support and other assistance.
Abbreviations—List abbreviations alphabetically (Note: In general, the use of abbreviations is discouraged.)
Correspondence—Provide name, complete address, e-mail address, telephone number, and fax number of corresponding author.
Disclosures—All authors must disclose any potential conflicts (financial, professional, or personal) that are relevant to the manuscript. If the author(s) has nothing to disclose, this must be stated.
Preprint server—If your manuscript is posted to a preprint server, you must indicate as such on the title page and include the DOI of the preprint.
Transcript Profiling—Provide accession number of repository for expression microarray data.
Word count—Include word count of main document text, not including methods, tables/figures, or references.
Writing Assistance—List the names and funding source for individuals who provided writing assistance.
Author Contributions—This information no longer needs to be included on the Title Page. Instead, the Corresponding Author will select from a list of roles for each co-author from CRediT Taxonomy. Detailed instructions can be found at editorialmanager.com/cgh when submitting a manuscript.
Data Transparency—Statement if of whether data, analytic methods, and study materials will or will not be made available to other researchers. If study materials will be made available, specify where they will be made available.
SAGER Guidelines—We encourage following the SAGER guidelines for sex and gender reporting. Regarding the title page, if only one sex is included in the study, or if the results of the study are to be applied to only one sex or gender, the title and the abstract should specify the sex of animals or any cells, tissues and other material derived from these and the sex and gender of human participants.

Synopsis
All submissions should be accompanied by a 2 to 3 sentence synopsis that explains the primary accomplishments of the work. This should not exceed 40 words and should not include nonstandard abbreviations.

Abstract
Abbreviations must be spelled out at least once. Do not use footnotes or references.
Limit: 260 words. Organize according to the following headings: Background & Aims, Methods, Results, Conclusions, and Keywords.
Background & Aims: Describe the importance of the study and the precise research objective(s) or study question(s).
Methods: Describe techniques, cell/animal models used, and critical reagents, chemicals, and equipment.
Results: Provide the main outcomes of the study including confidence intervals or P values. Report the absolute values and risk differences so that readers can determine the absolute, as well as the relative, impact of the results.
Conclusions: State only conclusions that are directly supported by the evidence and the implications of the findings.

Keywords
Include 3–4 keywords associated with your manuscript, separated by semicolons (eg, transcriptional regulation; steatosis; vesicular traffic; tight junction). The keywords should be different than the words in the title of your manuscript. Should your manuscript be accepted, the keywords will appear with the published manuscript, making it easier to find in search engines such as PubMed.

Please also consider including some of the keywords on DEI topics, noted below. They will not count toward the overall keyword limit.

  • URM/URIM (underrepresented minorities and race and ethnic categories such as: Black/African-American; Hispanic/Latinx; Native American/Indigenous/American Indian)
  • AAPI (Asian-American/Pacific Islander)
  • MENA (Middle Eastern/North African)
  • White/Caucasian
  • Race/Racial
  • Bias
  • Disparities/Disparity/Disparate/Parity
  • Socioeconomic
  • Equity
  • Diverse/Diversity
  • Unequal
  • Equality
  • Equal
  • Income
  • Gender
  • Inclusion
  • Status

Drug, chemical, gene, and protein names
Identify drugs and chemicals used by generic name (if trademarks are mentioned, manufacturer name and city are given).
All gene and protein names must be written according to NCBI or HUGO nomenclature.

Inclusive language and equitable research practice
CMGH envisions a scientific publishing enterprise that upholds the highest standard of inclusive language and equitable research practice. The Journal has adopted the Sex and Gender Equity in Research (SAGER) guidelines for sex and gender research reporting. [Accordingly, if only one sex is included in the study, or if the results of the study are to be applied to only one sex or gender, the title and the abstract should specify the sex of animals or any cells, tissues and other material derived from these and the sex and gender of human participants.] Please review to ensure consistent reporting of sex and gender throughout the publication.

The Journal has also adopted updated recommendations from the 11th edition of the AMA Manual of Style, including capitalizing race and ethnic identity designations, e.g. Black and White, and use of person-first language (e.g. Black participants rather than Blacks), and authors of original reports are encouraged to collect and provide disaggregated data that specifically evaluate individual racial, ethnic, and other groups as appropriate. Of note, the terms White or European descent are preferred over Caucasian given the frequent misuse of this term and historical roots in white supremacist ideology. The methods and the specific groups included in data collection should be described in the analyses even if numbers are sparse, to enable transparent assessment of the inclusiveness of research studies. Race conscious language should be used in risk assessment tools, acknowledging race as a social construct and social determinants of health as the driving force of racial disparities detected in human subjects research.

Submissions to CMGH will be reviewed for consistency with these SAGER and AMA guidelines.

SAGER guidelines
We encourage following the SAGER guidelines for sex and gender reporting. Regarding the abstract, if only one sex is included in the study, or if the results of the study are to be applied to only one sex or gender, the title and the abstract should specify the sex of animals or any cells, tissues and other material derived from these and the sex and gender of human participants.

Introduction
We encourage following the SAGER guidelines for sex and gender reporting. Regarding the introduction, authors should report, where relevant, whether sex and/or gender differences may be expected.

Methods
For manuscript flow and readability, the methods section should appear at the end of the manuscript, between the discussion and references.

Describe ethical guidelines followed; cite approval of animal welfare (IACUC) and human subjects protection (IRB) committees; describe in detail hazardous procedures or chemicals involved, including precautions observed and relevant oversight, e.g. IBC approval.

Statistical methods used must be described. When reporting the results of hypothesis testing, report P values and/or confidence intervals; avoid using phrases such as "not significant."

A statement that all authors had access to the study data and had reviewed and approved the final manuscript must be included within the methods section.

All commercially-obtained siRNA, viruses, plasmids, antibodies, mouse lines, cell lines, and other specialized materials should be fully-described, including vendor, catalog number, and for items with significant variation between lots, e.g. polyclonal antisera, lot number(s). For specialized materials obtained from non-commercial sources, sufficient detail should be provided to allow incontrovertible identification of the reagent used.

Studies involving animal experiments must conform to the Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments (ARRIVE) guidelines, developed by the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs) to improve standards and reporting of animal research. Please review the ARRIVE checklist and disclose all relevant animal research information as directed.

We encourage following the SAGER guidelines for sex and gender reporting. Regarding the Methods, authors should report how sex and gender were taken into account in the design of the study, whether they ensured adequate representation of males and females, and justify the reasons for any exclusion of males or females.

A statement if data, analytic methods, and study materials will or will not be made available to other researchers. If study materials will be made available, specify where they will be made available.

Data Presentation and Analysis

CMGH is committed to publishing the highest quality, rigorous data. Data presentation and analysis should be in accordance with the following guidelines:

  • All data should be shown. Do not refer to "data not shown" or to unpublished results not provided.
  • The number of biological and technical replicates, with a clear explanation of what these represent, should be provided for all data in every panel of every figure. Every experiment should be carried out independently at least 3 times. Statistical analyses should be carried out on the entire dataset, including points from all independent experiments.
  • It is acceptable to show representative images in figures, but when at all possible quantification for the entire dataset should be provided, and the image shown should be representative of the mean value.
  • Similarly, representative western blots may be shown, but quantification of bands from at least 3 independent blots should be provided.
  • The last paragraph in the Methods section should describe the statistical tests used to analyze data, including the post-tests used to derive P values for multiple comparison tests.

Authors who are uncertain about the appropriate statistical tests for their data are strongly encouraged to consult a biostatistician. This may be required for revisions where significant statistical concerns were identified in the original submission.

Results
We encourage following the SAGER guidelines for sex and gender reporting. Regarding the Results, where appropriate, data should be routinely presented disaggregated by sex and gender. Sex- and gender-based analyses should be reported regardless of positive or negative outcome. In clinical trials, data on withdrawals and dropouts should also be reported disaggregated by sex.

Discussion
We encourage following the SAGER guidelines for sex and gender reporting. Regarding the discussion, the potential implications of sex and gender on the study results and analyses should be discussed. If a sex and gender analysis was not conducted, the rationale should be given. Authors should further discuss the implications of the lack of such analysis on the interpretation of the results.

References
List references using arabic numerals by order of appearance in the text.
Cite personal communications and unpublished data directly in text without being numbered.
All abbreviations should follow the Index Medicus abbreviations.
CMGH requires authors to cite underlying or relevant datasets in their manuscript by citing them in the text and including a data reference in the Reference List. Data references should include the following elements: author name(s), dataset title, data repository, version (where available), year, and global persistent identifier. Add [dataset] immediately before the reference so we can properly identify it as a data reference. The [dataset] identifier will not appear in your published article.

Follow CMGH requirements for style:

Article (list all authors):
1. Nam KT, Lee HJ, Mok H, Romero-Gallo J, Crowe JE, Jr., Peek RM, Jr., Goldenring JR. Amphiregulin-deficient mice develop spasmolytic polypeptide expressing metaplasia and intestinal metaplasia. Gastroenterology 2009;136:1288–96.

Book:
2. Sitaraman S and Friedman LS. Essentials of Gastroenterogy. West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012.

Chapter in Book:
3. Turner JR. The gastrointestinal tract. In: Kumar V, Abbas AK, Fausto N, Aster JC, eds. Robbins and Cotran Pathologic Basis of Disease. 8th ed: Elsevier, 2009:763–831.

Dataset:
[dataset] 5. Oguro, M, Imahiro, S, Saito, S, Nakashizuka, T. Mortality data for Japanese oak wilt disease and surrounding forest compositions, Mendeley Data, v1; 2015. https://doi.org/10.17632/xwj98nb39r.1

Tables
Tables may either be uploaded separately from the manuscript or embedded in the file that contains your manuscript. Tables should be prepared using the word processing software table tool, rather than tabs.

Figures

General Figure Concerns: Please use the following guidelines when preparing figures for CMGH. For information and examples of appropriate figure edits, please visit our author resource on Image Integrity.

  • A single PDF file containing all pieces of the manuscript submission, with figure legends directly before or directly after each figure (for new submissions only; this format is strongly encouraged for new submissions to help facilitate the review process)
  • All figures should be of high quality (300 dpi or greater when set to the size you would want the figure to print legibly).
  • The physical size of a figure cannot exceed 7 inches wide by 9 inches tall. All figures should be prepared in portrait orientation.
  • Text presented in figures should be 8-10 point sans-serif (preferably Arial or Helvetica), but may not go below 6 point or above 13 point, except for panel labels.
  • Panel labels must be 16 point Arial bold. Please avoid placing panel labels over images.
  • Figures should not be created in programs such as Word or PowerPoint. Images become compressed when embedded in these programs and will not be as clear and high-resolution as the originals. Software such as Adobe Illustrator should be used for figure creation.

Images: Images should be of high quality as described above, clear, and in good focus. All photomicrographs and photographs must have unlabeled scale bars whose length is defined in the legend. Photographs must be scaled to the same extent in all dimensions, e.g. it is not permissible to stretch a photograph in the horizontal dimension without applying the same changes to the vertical dimension. If patients are studied, names and all other identifiers must be removed from figures.

Gel electrophoresis: The position of standard sizing markers must be included on all electrophoretic gels. The position and identity of relevant bands should also be indicated. The editors reserve the right to request full, uncropped gels during the editorial and image review processes.

Line Art and Graphs: Please be sure that any graphs or line art you submit are at a resolution of at least 300 ppi so that they are readable to reviewers. Please do not submit 3-D style graphs or charts. When preparing graphs, color, and symbol shape should be used appropriately to clearly distinguish between different conditions. CMGH requires the use of box plots rather than bar graphs, as important information can be lost when data are aggregated in bar graphs. Box plots must show individual data points and superimpose either means and standard deviations or means and confidence intervals. Standard error of the mean (SEM) should be used only to indicate the precision of estimated mean of a population.

Figure Legends: Where applicable, figure legends must specify the imaging equipment used, e.g. camera, microscope, etc., including lenses or objectives, as well as acquisition software and post-acquisition processing and analysis software. Additionally, figure legends must specify the number of replicates (n), e.g. samples, animals, etc., in each of the experimental and control groups for the individual experiment shown as well as the total number of times each experiment was performed independently. It is preferable, but not required, to also specify the number of replicates in the separate independent experiments.

Preferred Figure File Formats: The preferred formats for figure files are PDF (.pdf) and jpeg (.jpg). For new submissions only, the preferred format is a single PDF file, containing all pieces of the manuscript submission, with figure legends directly before or directly after each figure. This format is strongly encouraged for new submissions to help facilitate the review process.

Accepted Figure File Formats: Other acceptable file formats include: .bmp, .gif, .pbm, .pcx, .png, .pct, .msp, .tif, .eps, .xbm, .psd, .ai, .indd, and .tga files. When sending image files, please do not embed them in Word. You may submit mixed file formats (image1.jpg, image2.tif, image3.eps, etc.).

Image File Formats not Supported at this Time: Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Excel Spreadsheets, ChemDraw, CorelDraw, Canvas, FreeHand, SigmaPlot, QuarkXpress, and Equation Editor. You may export image files from these programs as PDF, JPEG, or other acceptable file formats. For questions regarding the conversion of these file formats to our preferred formats, please view our Figure Submission FAQs.

Color Files: Figures should be submitted in the RGB color space. This will allow optimal presentation of computer-generated imaging data. Authors are also encouraged to present color figures in a manner that will allow the data to be interpreted by colorblind readers. CMGH suggests that authors present dual-labeled images in green and magenta rather than in green and red.

Supplemental Material
For full-length original contributions, we encourage you to include all figures and text in the main manuscript. Supplementary material is limited to large data sets that are not amenable to typical page formats, including movies, or data that are tangential to the work, e.g. validation of an assay.

The portions of your manuscript that you would like to include as supplementary material (including figures and tables) must be uploaded separately from the manuscript file as "supporting documents." The supplementary material will appear at the end of the PDF and also be downloadable via a hyperlink.

Graphical Abstract
Graphical abstracts are strongly encouraged with all manuscript submitted to CMGH. Click here for more information.

Access to Data
In the methods section, a statement must be made that all authors had access to the all data and have reviewed and approved the final manuscript.

SAGER Guidelines
We invite authors to review and when possible, confirm that the SAGER guidelines (Sex and Gender Equity in Research) were followed during the experiments and composition of the paper.

Manuscript Processing and Review

Submissions

Submit your manuscript to the Journal's manuscript management system, Editorial Manager, at www.editorialmanager.com/cmgh. Each new manuscript receives a unique number, and information on the manuscript is recorded in the Editorial Manager database. The editorial staff releases information on manuscripts only to authors. The Editorial Office will e-mail a letter to the corresponding author acknowledging receipt of a manuscript, whether new or a resubmission.

Review process

Each manuscript is assigned to an associate editor who has expertise on the subject of the manuscript. After review by the associate editor, if the manuscript is judged to be appropriate and competitive for publication in CMGH, it is sent to experts in the appropriate area for peer review. The associate editor chooses reviewers, who remain anonymous. Authors are encouraged to suggest an associate editor and 2 to 5 reviewers in the cover letter, though final assignments are at the discretion of the editor.

Reviewers provide comments for the editor and for the authors. The Journal expects reviewers to treat manuscripts as confidential communications and not to use the content for their own purposes or make copies of manuscript files or printed materials. Reviewers are also expected to declare to the editor any possible conflicts of interest.

Decisions

The single most important criterion for acceptance is the originality of the work. However, a decision to accept a manuscript is not based solely on the scientific validity of its content. Other factors affecting decisions include the extent and importance of new information in the paper compared with that in other papers being considered, the Journal's need to represent a wide range of topics, and the overall suitability for CMGH. Decision letters usually, but not always, convey all factors considered for a particular decision. Occasionally, the comments to the authors may appear to be inconsistent with the editorial decision, which takes into consideration reviewers' comments to the editor, as well as the additional factors listed above.

Decisions on peer-reviewed papers are typically e-mailed to the authors within 14–21 days from the date of submission.

We make every effort to contact authors within 2 days for manuscripts that are rejected internally without peer review.

Appeals Policy

The AGA values the opinions of its editors and reviewers and strongly discourages appeals, however if you believe your submission was rejected because the editors misunderstood it or there was unethical conduct in the peer-review process, you may submit an appeal. Please note the AGA journals do not accept appeal requests for manuscripts that were not externally peer reviewed.

  • Your appeal request will be processed by the CMGH managing editor. The appeal request will then be considered by the journal's editor-in-chief, who may seek input from the original submission's associate editor.
    • If the reason you are submitting an appeal is complex and requires an objective third-party evaluation, your appeal will instead be reviewed by the chair of the AGA Publications Committee and the relevant editorial staff.
  • There are several outcomes that could arise from your appeal request, including an invitation to revise, the upholding of the original decision, or an alternate course of action.
  • The editorial office will aim to provide the results of your appeal request back to you within two weeks, however there may be variation based on the complexity of the appeal. Please note that all decisions arising from an appeal request are considered final.

Publication

We will forward your unedited manuscript to our publisher for posting to the (Articles in Press) section of our web site. Your article should be posted within 2-3 days of receipt of files.

The publisher will forward page proofs to you for your final review within 4-6 weeks. The final version of your paper will be published online once proof corrections have been received.

Our medical illustration staff may redraw or reformat line art and graphs for publication quality, or contact you if higher quality versions are needed. Please be sure to carefully review your figures when you receive your publication proofs.

For a complete list of rights you retain as author, click here.

There is a press embargo for all studies published in CMGH until they are posted online in our Articles in Press section as the paginated author-corrected proof in an "in progress" issue. Studies cannot be publicized as accepted manuscripts or uncorrected proofs. Please see our embargo policy at www.cmghjournal.org/content/embargo for more details.

Manuscripts are copyedited to make them consistent with Journal style. If a particular section in the manuscript is not clear or requires additional information, the copy editor will direct questions to the author. These questions, or "author queries," will appear in the proofs that are sent to the author. Authors are required to return proofs to the publisher within 48 hours. If changes are not returned within 48 hours, the manuscript will move forward in the production process.

Publication Fees
For papers that are accepted for publication, authors will be charged a publication fee. If the corresponding or first author is an AGA member, the fee is $2121. Non-members pay $3030. Cases of hardship will be considered on an individual basis. There are no color, page, or open access charges. Submission fees are presently waived.

Licensing Options
CMGH offers authors the choice of different forms of Creative Commons licenses that will allow others to make use of the published work. Authors must select the type of license at the time of submission. An overview of these licenses is included below. For more detailed information, please go to www.elsevier.com/openaccesslicenses.

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs (CC-BY-NC-ND): Allows others to access and download an article and share it with others as long as they credit the author (and do not represent the author as endorsing their work), but they cannot change the article in any way or use it commercially.

Distribution of Materials Described in Published Papers
Authors are expected to make available materials such as cell lines, cDNA clones, DNA constructs, antibodies, biological reagents, unique animals, etc. to any qualified investigator. Prior to the submission of newly cloned genes or nucleic acid sequences, the Journal requires authors to provide an accession number to a publicly accessible, recognized data repository (e.g. GenBank) on the title page of the manuscript.

Transcript profiling (expression microarray) data must be submitted to an appropriate repository (either NCBI's GEO or EBI's ArrayExpress). The data should preferably be MIAME compliant. The repository URL and the data accession number must be included, both in the body of the manuscript and in the manuscript management system, upon submission. The full dataset must be available to reviewers.

Other large datasets produced using genomics technologies (including but not limited to ChIP on Chip, Genotyping, aCGH and Tilling Arrays) must be deposited in an appropriate public repository. Please include the repository URL and the data accession number, both in the body of the manuscript and the manuscript management system, upon submission. If there is no public repository for the submitted data, it is the author's responsibility to provide permanent publicly accessible links to the raw data and access for the reviewers.

Chemical Compounds: Authors must furnish information about the identity and purity of new chemical compounds. Experimental details and characterization data should be provided in either the main text or as supplemental material. Experimental details should be sufficient to allow other researchers to reproduce the synthesis of the compound.

These guidelines are a means of encouraging the free exchange of scientific information and to promote progress in all areas of investigation.