Guide for Authors
Mitochondrion
is a definitive, high profile, peer-reviewed international research journal. The scope of
Mitochondrion is broad, reporting
on basic science of mitochondria from all organisms and from basic research to pathology and clinical aspects of mitochondrial diseases.
The journal welcomes original contributions from investigators working in diverse sub-disciplines such as evolution, biophysics, biochemistry,
molecular and cell biology, genetics, pharmacology, toxicology, forensic science, programmed cell death, aging, cancer and clinical features
of mitochondrial diseases.
Types of paper
Original Articles
Peer-reviewed, high-quality,
concise research investigations that represent new and significant contributions to science.
Fast Track Articles
Peer-reviewed,
short studies that are refereed rapidly and published generally within 10 weeks. These papers should be a concise complete piece of work
of special significance and timeliness and should not exceed 4 printed pages (i.e., 10 pages of double-spaced typescript, including tables
and figures up to a total number of 4).
Review Articles
Reviews of major importance in mitochondrial biology. These articles
will be peer-reviewed. Articles may be of any length; however, unusually long articles should be discussed with the editor before submission.
MitoMatters
Editorial and news of general interest invited by Editorial Office. Profiles and Perspectives: Invited by
Editorial Office and written by senior investigators in the field.
The Mito Mew
Editorial and news of general interest.
Letters to the Editor
Comments on papers published in the Journal and on other matters of interest to mitochondria researchers.
These should be less than 400 words and may include one illustration or table.
Book Reviews
Invited by the editorial office.
Announcements and Calendar
Providing notices of forthcoming meetings, courses, and other events relevant to mitochondria
researchers.
Contact details for submission
Please submit manuscripts intended for Mitochondrion
via the journal's online editorial and submission system available at
http://ees.elsevier.com/mitoch.
Customer
support is available 24/7:
Please use our help site at:
http://epsupport.elsevier.com/. Here you will be able to learn
more about EES via interactive tutorials, explore a range of online submission solutions via our knowledgebase, and find answers to frequently
asked questions. You will also find our 24/7 support contact details should you need any assistance from one of our customer service
representatives.
For questions regarding the reviewing process, please contact the Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Keshav K. Singh at
mitochondriona@roswellpark.org
or at
Keshav K. Singh, Ph.D Department of Cancer Genetics Roswell Park Cancer Institute Cell and Virus Building, Room 247 Elm and
Carlton Streets Buffalo, NY 14263 USA
Ethics in publishing
For
information on Ethics in publishing and Ethical guidelines for journal publication see
http://www.elsevier.com/publishingethics
and
http://www.elsevier.com/ethicalguidelines.
Policy and ethics
When conducting
scientific research using human tissue and which is intended for publication in Mitochondrion, authors should follow procedures that
are in accordance with the ethical standards as formulated in the Helsinki Declaration of 1975 (revised 1983). When conducting experiments
on animals, authors should adhere to the local or national requirements for the care and use of laboratory animals.
Conflict of interest
All authors are requested to disclose any actual or potential conflict of interest including
any financial, personal or other relationships with other people or organizations within three years of beginning the submitted work
that could inappropriately influence, or be perceived to influence, their work. See also
http://www.elsevier.com/conflictsofinterest.
Submission declaration
Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously
(except in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis), that it is not under consideration for publication
elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was
carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere including electronically in the same form, in English or in any
other language, without the written consent of the copyright-holder.
Changes to authorship
This
policy concerns the addition, deletion, or rearrangement of author names in the authorship of accepted manuscripts:
Before the
accepted manuscript is published in an online issue: Requests to add or remove an author, or to rearrange the author names, must
be sent to the Journal Manager from the corresponding author of the accepted manuscript and must include: (a) the reason the name should
be added or removed, or the author names rearranged and (b) written confirmation (e-mail, fax, letter) from all authors that they agree
with the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the author
being added or removed. Requests that are not sent by the corresponding author will be forwarded by the Journal Manager to the corresponding
author, who must follow the procedure as described above. Note that: (1) Journal Managers will inform the Journal Editors of any such
requests and (2) publication of the accepted manuscript in an online issue is suspended until authorship has been agreed.
After
the accepted manuscript is published in an online issue: Any requests to add, delete, or rearrange author names in an article published
in an online issue will follow the same policies as noted above and result in a corrigendum.
Copyright
Upon
acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to complete a 'Journal Publishing Agreement' (for more information on this and copyright
see
http://www.elsevier.com/copyright). Acceptance of the agreement will ensure the widest possible dissemination of information.
An e-mail will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript together with a 'Journal Publishing Agreement'
form or a link to the online version of this agreement.
Subscribers may reproduce tables of contents or prepare lists of articles
including abstracts for internal circulation within their institutions. Permission of the Publisher is required for resale or distribution
outside the institution and for all other derivative works, including compilations and translations (please consult
http://www.elsevier.com/permissions).
If excerpts from other copyrighted works are included, the author(s) must obtain written permission from the copyright owners and credit
the source(s) in the article. Elsevier has preprinted forms for use by authors in these cases: please consult
http://www.elsevier.com/permissions.
Retained author rights
As an author you (or your employer or institution) retain certain rights; for details
you are referred to:
http://www.elsevier.com/authorsrights.
Role of the funding source
You
are requested to identify who provided financial support for the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article and to briefly
describe the role of the sponsor(s), if any, in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing
of the report; and in the decision to submit the article for publication. If the funding source(s) had no such involvement then this
should be stated. Please see
http://www.elsevier.com/funding.
Funding body agreements and
policies
Elsevier has established agreements and developed policies to allow authors whose articles appear in journals
published by Elsevier, to comply with potential manuscript archiving requirements as specified as conditions of their grant awards. To
learn more about existing agreements and policies please visit
http://www.elsevier.com/fundingbodies.
Language and language services
Please write your text in good English (American or British usage is accepted,
but not a mixture of these). Authors who require information about language editing and copyediting services pre- and post-submission
please visit
http://webshop.elsevier.com/languageservices
or our customer support site at
http://support.elsevier.com
for more information.
Submission
Submission to this journal proceeds totally online and
you will be guided stepwise through the creation and uploading of your files. The system automatically converts source files to a single
PDF file of the article, which is used in the peer-review process. Please note that even though manuscript source files are converted
to PDF files at submission for the review process, these source files are needed for further processing after acceptance. All correspondence,
including notification of the Editor's decision and requests for revision, takes place by e-mail removing the need for a paper trail.
Referees
Please submit, with the manuscript, the names, addresses and telephone, fax and e-mail details (where
possible) of five suitable, potential reviewers. If there are compelling reasons for excluding some individuals as potential reviewers,
these may be mentioned. However, the ultimate reviewer selection is at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief.
Additional
Information
After final acceptance of an article, only corrections to the title and list of authors as they appear on the
accepted article will be permitted, not changes; particularly, no author names may be added to or deleted from the accepted lists.
The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for the professional review of the manuscripts. Receipt of manuscripts by the Editor-in-Chief will
be acknowledged.
All materials submitted become the property of
Mitochondrion. In the case of rejection of a paper, manuscripts
will not be returned to authors.
Mitochondrion is the Official Journal of the Mitochondria Research Society. The journal is included
as a part of the annual subscription to the society. Information regarding the society can be obtained from The Mitochondria Research
Society, P.O. Box 306, Riderwood, MD 21139-0306, USA or visit the society's web site at
http://www.mitoresearch.org.
Use of wordprocessing software
It is important that the file be saved in the native format of the wordprocessor used. The text should be in single-column format. Keep the layout of the text as simple
as possible. Most formatting codes will be removed and replaced on processing the article. In particular, do not use the wordprocessor's
options to justify text or to hyphenate words. However, do use bold face, italics, subscripts, superscripts etc. When preparing tables,
if you are using a table grid, use only one grid for each individual table and not a grid for each row. If no grid is used, use tabs,
not spaces, to align columns. The electronic text should be prepared in a way very similar to that of conventional manuscripts (see also
the Guide to Publishing with Elsevier:
http://www.elsevier.com/guidepublication). Note that source files of figures, tables
and text graphics will be required whether or not you embed your figures in the text. See also the section on Electronic artwork.
To
avoid unnecessary errors you are strongly advised to use the 'spell-check' and 'grammar-check' functions of your wordprocessor.
Article structure
Subdivision - numbered sections
Divide your article into
clearly defined and numbered sections. Subsections should be numbered 1.1 (then 1.1.1, 1.1.2, ...), 1.2, etc. (the abstract is not included
in section numbering). Use this numbering also for internal cross-referencing: do not just refer to 'the text'. Any subsection may be
given a brief heading. Each heading should appear on its own separate line.
Introduction
State
the objectives of the work and provide an adequate background, avoiding a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results.
Material and methods
Provide sufficient detail to allow the work to be reproduced. Methods already published
should be indicated by a reference: only relevant modifications should be described.
Results
Results
should be clear and concise.
Discussion
This should explore the significance of the results
of the work, not repeat them. A combined Results and Discussion section is often appropriate. Avoid extensive citations and discussion
of published literature.
Conclusions
The main conclusions of the study may be presented
in a short Conclusions section, which may stand alone or form a subsection of a Discussion or Results and Discussion section.
Essential title page information
•
Title.
Concise and informative. Titles are often used
in information-retrieval systems. Avoid abbreviations and formulae where possible.
•
Author names and affiliations.
Where the family name may be ambiguous (e.g., a double name), please indicate this clearly. Present the authors' affiliation addresses
(where the actual work was done) below the names. Indicate all affiliations with a lower-case superscript letter immediately after the
author's name and in front of the appropriate address. Provide the full postal address of each affiliation, including the country name
and, if available, the e-mail address of each author.
•
Corresponding author.
Clearly indicate who will handle
correspondence at all stages of refereeing and publication, also post-publication.
Ensure that telephone and fax numbers (with country
and area code) are provided in addition to the e-mail address and the complete postal address. Contact details must be kept up to date
by the corresponding author.
•
Present/permanent address.
If an author has moved since the work described
in the article was done, or was visiting at the time, a 'Present address' (or 'Permanent address') may be indicated as a footnote to
that author's name. The address at which the author actually did the work must be retained as the main, affiliation address. Superscript
Arabic numerals are used for such footnotes.
Abstract should not exceed
100 words.
Keywords
Immediately after the abstract, provide a maximum of 6 keywords, using American spelling and avoiding
general and plural terms and multiple concepts (avoid, for example, 'and', 'of'). Be sparing with abbreviations: only abbreviations firmly
established in the field may be eligible. These keywords will be used for indexing purposes.
Abbreviations
Define
abbreviations that are not standard in this field in a footnote to be placed on the first page of the article. Such abbreviations that
are unavoidable in the abstract must be defined at their first mention there, as well as in the footnote. Ensure consistency of abbreviations
throughout the article.
Acknowledgements
Collate acknowledgements in a separate section
at the end of the article before the references and do not, therefore, include them on the title page, as a footnote to the title or
otherwise. List here those individuals who provided help during the research (e.g., providing language help, writing assistance or proof
reading the article, etc.).
Database linking
Elsevier aims at connecting online articles
with external databases which are useful in their respective research communities. If your article contains relevant unique identifiers
or accession numbers (bioinformatics) linking to information on entities (genes, proteins, diseases, etc.) or structures deposited in
public databases, then please indicate those entities according to the standard explained below.
Authors should explicitly mention
the
database abbreviation (as mentioned below) together with the actual database number, bearing in mind that an error in a
letter or number can result in a dead link in the online version of the article.
Please use the following format:
Database ID:
xxxx
Links can be provided in your online article to the following databases (examples of citations are given in parentheses):
•
ASTM: ASTM Standards Database (ASTM ID: G63)
•
CCDC:
Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC ID: AI631510)
•
GenBank:
Genetic sequence database at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) (GenBank ID: BA123456)
•
GEO:
Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO ID: GSE27196; GEO ID: GPL5366; GEO ID: GSM9853)
•
MI:
EMBL-EBI OLS Molecular Interaction Ontology (MI ID: 0218)
•
MINT:
Molecular INTeractions database (MINT ID: 6166710)
•
NCBI Taxonomy:
NCBI Taxonomy Browser (NCBI Taxonomy ID: 48184)
•
NCT: ClinicalTrials.gov
(NCT ID: NCT00222573)
•
OMIM: Online Mendelian Inheritance
in Man (OMIM ID: 601240)
•
PDB: Worldwide Protein Data
Bank (PDB ID: 1TUP)
•
TAIR: The Arabidopsis Information Resource
database (TAIR ID: AT1G01020)
•
UniProt: Universal Protein Resource
Knowledgebase (UniProt ID: Q9H0H5)
Math formulae
Present simple formulae in the line of
normal text where possible and use the solidus (/) instead of a horizontal line for small fractional terms, e.g., X/Y. In principle,
variables are to be presented in italics. Powers of e are often more conveniently denoted by exp. Number consecutively any equations
that have to be displayed separately from the text (if referred to explicitly in the text).
Footnotes
Footnotes
should be used sparingly. Number them consecutively throughout the article, using superscript Arabic numbers. Many wordprocessors build
footnotes into the text, and this feature may be used. Should this not be the case, indicate the position of footnotes in the text and
present the footnotes themselves separately at the end of the article. Do not include footnotes in the Reference list.
Table
footnotes
Indicate each footnote in a table with a superscript lowercase letter.
Artwork
Electronic artwork
General points
• Make sure you use uniform lettering and sizing of your
original artwork.
• Save text in illustrations as 'graphics' or enclose the font.
• Only use the following fonts in
your illustrations: Arial, Courier, Times, Symbol.
• Number the illustrations according to their sequence in the text.
•
Use a logical naming convention for your artwork files.
• Provide captions to illustrations separately.
• Produce images
near to the desired size of the printed version.
• Submit each figure as a separate file.
A detailed guide on electronic
artwork is available on our website:
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions
You are urged to visit this
site; some excerpts from the detailed information are given here.
Formats
Regardless of the application used, when
your electronic artwork is finalised, please 'save as' or convert the images to one of the following formats (note the resolution requirements
for line drawings, halftones, and line/halftone combinations given below):
EPS: Vector drawings. Embed the font or save the text
as 'graphics'.
TIFF: Color or grayscale photographs (halftones): always use a minimum of 300 dpi.
TIFF: Bitmapped line drawings:
use a minimum of 1000 dpi.
TIFF: Combinations bitmapped line/half-tone (color or grayscale): a minimum of 500 dpi is required.
If
your electronic artwork is created in a Microsoft Office application (Word, PowerPoint, Excel) then please supply 'as is'.
Please
do not:
• Supply files that are optimised for screen use (e.g., GIF, BMP, PICT, WPG); the resolution is too low;
•
Supply files that are too low in resolution;
• Submit graphics that are disproportionately large for the content.
Color artwork
Please make sure that artwork files are in an acceptable format (TIFF, EPS or MS Office files)
and with the correct resolution. If, together with your accepted article, you submit usable color figures then Elsevier will ensure,
at no additional charge, that these figures will appear in color on the Web (e.g., ScienceDirect and other sites) regardless of whether
or not these illustrations are reproduced in color in the printed version.
For color reproduction in print, you will receive information
regarding the costs from Elsevier after receipt of your accepted article. Please indicate your preference for color: in print or
on the Web only. For further information on the preparation of electronic artwork, please see
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.
Please note: Because of technical complications which can arise by converting color figures to 'gray scale' (for the printed version
should you not opt for color in print) please submit in addition usable black and white versions of all the color illustrations.
Figure captions
Ensure that each illustration has a caption. Supply captions separately, not attached to the
figure. A caption should comprise a brief title (
not on the figure itself) and a description of the illustration. Keep text in
the illustrations themselves to a minimum but explain all symbols and abbreviations used.
Tables
Number
tables consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text. Place footnotes to tables below the table body and indicate them
with superscript lowercase letters. Avoid vertical rules. Be sparing in the use of tables and ensure that the data presented in tables
do not duplicate results described elsewhere in the article.
References
Citation
in text
Please ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa). Any
references cited in the abstract must be given in full. Unpublished results and personal communications are not recommended in the reference
list, but may be mentioned in the text. If these references are included in the reference list they should follow the standard reference
style of the journal and should include a substitution of the publication date with either 'Unpublished results' or 'Personal communication'.
Citation of a reference as 'in press' implies that the item has been accepted for publication.
Web references
As
a minimum, the full URL should be given and the date when the reference was last accessed. Any further information, if known (DOI, author
names, dates, reference to a source publication, etc.), should also be given. Web references can be listed separately (e.g., after the
reference list) under a different heading if desired, or can be included in the reference list.
References
in a special issue
Please ensure that the words 'this issue' are added to any references in the list (and any citations
in the text) to other articles in the same Special Issue.
Reference management software
This
journal has standard templates available in key reference management packages EndNote (
http://www.endnote.com/support/enstyles.asp)
and Reference Manager (
http://refman.com/support/rmstyles.asp). Using plug-ins to wordprocessing packages, authors only
need to select the appropriate journal template when preparing their article and the list of references and citations to these will be
formatted according to the journal style which is described below.
Reference style
Text:
All citations in the text should refer to:
1.
Single author: the author's name (without initials, unless there is ambiguity)
and the year of publication;
2.
Two authors: both authors' names and the year of publication;
3.
Three or more authors:
first author's name followed by 'et al.' and the year of publication.
Citations may be made directly (or parenthetically). Groups
of references should be listed first alphabetically, then chronologically.
Examples: 'as demonstrated (Allan, 2000a, 2000b, 1999;
Allan and Jones, 1999). Kramer et al. (2010) have recently shown ....'
List: References should be arranged first alphabetically
and then further sorted chronologically if necessary. More than one reference from the same author(s) in the same year must be identified
by the letters 'a', 'b', 'c', etc., placed after the year of publication.
Examples:
Reference to a journal publication:
Van der Geer, J., Hanraads, J.A.J., Lupton, R.A., 2010. The art of writing a scientific article. J. Sci. Commun. 163, 51–59.
Reference to a book:
Strunk Jr., W., White, E.B., 2000. The Elements of Style, fourth ed. Longman, New York.
Reference to
a chapter in an edited book:
Mettam, G.R., Adams, L.B., 2009. How to prepare an electronic version of your article, in: Jones, B.S.,
Smith , R.Z. (Eds.), Introduction to the Electronic Age. E-Publishing Inc., New York, pp. 281–304.
Submission
checklist
The following list will be useful during the final checking of an article prior to sending it to the journal
for review. Please consult this Guide for Authors for further details of any item.
Ensure that the following items are present:
One author has been designated as the corresponding author with contact details:
• E-mail address
• Full postal
address
• Telephone and fax numbers
All necessary files have been uploaded, and contain:
• Keywords
•
All figure captions
• All tables (including title, description, footnotes)
Further considerations
• Manuscript
has been 'spell-checked' and 'grammar-checked'
• References are in the correct format for this journal
• All references
mentioned in the Reference list are cited in the text, and vice versa
• Permission has been obtained for use of copyrighted
material from other sources (including the Web)
• Color figures are clearly marked as being intended for color reproduction
on the Web (free of charge) and in print, or to be reproduced in color on the Web (free of charge) and in black-and-white in print
•
If only color on the Web is required, black-and-white versions of the figures are also supplied for printing purposes
For any further
information please visit our customer support site at
http://support.elsevier.com.
Use of the Digital Object Identifier
The
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) may be used to cite and link to electronic documents. The DOI consists of a unique alpha-numeric character
string which is assigned to a document by the publisher upon the initial electronic publication. The assigned DOI never changes. Therefore,
it is an ideal medium for citing a document, particularly 'Articles in press' because they have not yet received their full bibliographic
information. The correct format for citing a DOI is shown as follows (example taken from a document in the journal
Physics Letters
B):
doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2010.09.059
When you use the DOI to create URL hyperlinks to documents on the web, the DOIs are
guaranteed never to change.
Proofs
One set of page proofs (as PDF files) will be sent by
e-mail to the corresponding author (if we do not have an e-mail address then paper proofs will be sent by post) or, a link will be provided
in the e-mail so that authors can download the files themselves. Elsevier now provides authors with PDF proofs which can be annotated;
for this you will need to download Adobe Reader version 7 (or higher) available free from
http://get.adobe.com/reader. Instructions
on how to annotate PDF files will accompany the proofs (also given online). The exact system requirements are given at the Adobe site:
http://www.adobe.com/products/reader/tech-specs.html.
If you do not wish to use the PDF annotations function, you may
list the corrections (including replies to the Query Form) and return them to Elsevier in an e-mail. Please list your corrections quoting
line number. If, for any reason, this is not possible, then mark the corrections and any other comments (including replies to the Query
Form) on a printout of your proof and return by fax, or scan the pages and e-mail, or by post. Please use this proof only for checking
the typesetting, editing, completeness and correctness of the text, tables and figures. Significant changes to the article as accepted
for publication will only be considered at this stage with permission from the Editor. We will do everything possible to get your article
published quickly and accurately – please let us have all your corrections within 48 hours. It is important to ensure that all
corrections are sent back to us in one communication: please check carefully before replying, as inclusion of any subsequent corrections
cannot be guaranteed. Proofreading is solely your responsibility. Note that Elsevier may proceed with the publication of your article
if no response is received.
Offprints
The corresponding author, at no cost, will be provided
with a PDF file of the article via e-mail or, alternatively, 25 free paper offprints. If the corresponding author opts for paper offprints,
this preference must be indicated via the offprint order form which is sent once the article is accepted for publication. Additional
paper offprints can also be ordered via this form for an extra charge. The PDF file is a watermarked version of the published article
and includes a cover sheet with the journal cover image and a disclaimer outlining the terms and conditions of use.
For inquiries relating to the submission of articles (including electronic submission) please
visit this journal's homepage. Contact details for questions arising after acceptance of an article, especially those relating to proofs,
will be provided by the publisher. You can track accepted articles at
http://www.elsevier.com/trackarticle. You can also
check our Author FAQs (
http://www.elsevier.com/authorFAQ) and/or contact Customer Support via
http://support.elsevier.com.
