Molecular and Cellular Probes provides a unique forum for research on the location,
diagnosis, and
monitoring of inherited and infectious disease utilizing molecular,
immunological and proteomic techniques. Crossing the traditional
boundaries of
diagnostic and clinical medicine, the journal provides an invaluable common meeting
ground for workers from a variety of
fields.
Special attention is given to papers dealing with Human Molecular Genetics and
Infectious Diseases, including: The description
and clinical evaluation of molecular
techniques; Marker discovery by proteomics for disease diagnosis; Improved
strategies for the production
of probes; New strategies for the generation and
detection of signals from probes; Use of polymerase chain reaction and other gene
amplification
techniques; Methods applied to infectious disease; Diagnosis, prenatal
diagnosis, and carrier detection of inherited disorders by molecular
technology;
Analysis of risk factors in multifactorial disorders using DNA polymorphisms; Animal
studies with relevance to human disease;
Protein profiling and sequencing for
microbial discrimination. Types of papers
Original high-quality research papers (preferably
no more than 20 double line spaced
manuscript pages, including tables and illustrations). Short communications, for
rapid publication
(no more than 10 double line spaced manuscript pages including
tables and figures). Authorship
Each author should have
participated sufficiently in the work to justify authorship.
This participation must include: (a) critically important intellectual contribution
to the
conception, design, and/or analysis and interpretation; (b) drafting the manuscript or
critically reading it; and (c) thorough
reading and final approval of the version to be
published. Participation solely in the collection of data or provision of funds, space
or
equipment does not justify authorship. All authors take public responsibility for the
paper as a whole, i.e., conception and design,
data, analysis, and interpretation.
The acknowledgement section should list (a) other contributors for whom authorship
is not justified,
e.g. technical help; (b) financial and material support. Previously published material
Results submitted for publication
must not repeat findings that have already been, or
are intended to be, published by the authors elsewhere. They should refer to their
previous findings in the same way as they would refer to results from a different
group. This applies not only to figures or tables,
or parts of them, but has to be
understood in a wider sense. Ethics
The research described in papers submitted to Molecular
and Cellular Probes that
involve the use of human beings, including healthy volunteers, must adhere to the
principles of the Declaration
of Helsinki as well as to Title 45, U.S. Code of Federal
Regulations, Part 46, Protection of Human Subjects, Revised November 13, 2001,
effective December 13, 2001. Research involving animals must adhere to the
American Physiological Society.s Guiding Principles in the
Care and Use of Animals.
All investigations involving humans or animals that are reported in the journal must
be conducted in conformity
with these principles, and that a statement of protocol
approval from an IRB or IACUC or equivalent is included in the methods section
of
the paper. Manuscripts reporting the results of experiments on human subjects,
including healthy volunteers, must include a statement
that informed consent was
obtained. Online submission of papers
Authors are requested to submit their manuscripts electronically,
by using the
EESubmit submission tool at http://ees.elsevier.com/ymcpr/. After registration,
authors will be asked to upload
their article and associated artwork. The submission
tool will generate a PDF file to be used for the reviewing process. The submission
tool generates an automatic reply which incorporates the manuscript number for
future correspondence.
Submission items (details are
provided online in EES)
The following files must be uploaded when submitting a manuscript (* indicates
mandatory files):
1. *
Cover letter
2. * Manuscript
3. * Referee suggestions (for new submissions only)
4. * Rebuttal notes (for revised manuscripts
only)
5. Figures
6. Permission note(s) Cover Letter
Manuscripts submitted must be accompanied by a cover letter.
It must state (a) that
the work is original in that it has not been published before or submitted for
publication elsewhere, and will
not be submitted elsewhere before a decision has
been taken as to its acceptability by Molecular and Cellular Probes. (b) that
each
author meets the criteria for authorship above and assumes the corresponding
responsibility. Referee suggestions
Authors are requested to submit at least five names (with full addresses, including
phone, fax and e-mail) of appropriate reviewers for
their manuscripts. The editors
will consider these nominations even though they are not constrained to follow them. Form of Manuscripts
These guidelines are in accordance with the Uniform Requirements Submitted to
Biomedical Journals. (The complete document is available
in the 12 June 1982 issue
of the British Medical Journal and the June 1982 issue of the Annals of Internal
Medicine.) Articles must be
written in good English.
Prepare the entire manuscript using double spacing and wide (3 cm) margins. (Avoid
full justification, i.e.,
do not use a constant right-hand margin.) Ensure that each
new paragraph is clearly indicated. Present tables and figure legends on separate
pages at the end of the manuscript. If possible, consult a recent issue of the journal
to become familiar with layout and conventions.
All pages should be numbered in sequence beginning with the title page. Submit the
manuscript arranged in the following order:
1.
Title page
Provide the following data on the title page (in the order given): The Title should be concise and informative.
Titles are often used in informationretrieval
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 is willing to 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.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.
2. AbstractAbstract. A concise
and factual abstract is required (maximum length 200 words).
The abstract should state briefly the purpose of the research, the principal
results
and major conclusions. An abstract is often presented separate from the article, so it
must be able to stand alone. References
should therefore be avoided, but if
essential, they must be cited in full, without reference to the reference list.
3. KeywordsKeywords.
Immediately after the abstract, provide a maximum of six keywords,
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 by abstracting
and indexing services.
4. Text
This should follow the format: Introduction, Materials
and Methods, Results,
Discussion and Conclusions, Acknowledgements and References. Subdivision of the article:
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. Materials 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. Discussion and Conclusions:
This should explore the significance of the
results of the work, not repeat them.
5. Illustrations, Tables and Equations
Figures (to be uploaded as separate file(s), see below)
and tables should be
numbered in Arabic numerals. In the text they should be referred to as Fig. 1, Table
2, e.g. 3 etc. (not as fig.
1, figure 1; tab. 2, table 2). The lettering of the figures
must be large enough to be legible after reduction to the final size; the
maximal
print width is 7.5 cm for narrow figures (one column width) and 16 cm for wide
figures (two columns). A calibration bar should
be given on all micrographs. Each
table should be typed on a separate sheet and numbered correctly. Each illustration
and table should
have a caption and these should be typed on a separate sheet of
the manuscript. The approximate position of figures and tables should
be indicated in
the margin of the text. Figure files:
Figures should be uploaded as separate file(s). Please make sure that
artwork files
are in an acceptable format (TIFF, EPS or Microsoft Office files) and with the correct
resolution. Please note that normally
the resolution needs to be correct before
conversion to an acceptable format. Reproduction of Colour Illustrations:
For
colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from
Elsevier after receipt of your accepted article.
For submitting colour illustrations
online, authors are recommended to go to the web page describing the preparation
of electronic artwork
(http://authors.elsevier.com/artwork) for detailed information.
If, together with your accepted article, you submit usable
colour figures then Elsevier
will ensure, at no additional charge, that these figures will appear in colour on the
web (e.g., ScienceDirect
and other sites) regardless of whether these illustrations
are reproduced in colour in the printed version. Please note: Because of technical
complications which can arise by converting colour figures to .grey scale. (for the
printed version should you opt to not pay for colour
in print) please submit, in
addition, usable black and white prints corresponding to all colour illustrations. As
only one figure caption
may be used for both colour and black and white versions of
figures, please ensure that the figure captions are meaningful for both versions,
if
applicable. Tables:
Tables should be typed on separate pages, numbered consecutively with Arabic
numerals in accordance
with their appearance in the text, and collected at the end of
the manuscript. All tables must have descriptive headings and should be
understandable without reference to 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.
6. ReferencesCitations in the 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 should not be in the reference list,
but may be mentioned in the text. Citation of a reference as
.in press. implies that
the item has been accepted for publication.
Indicate references by number(s) in square brackets in line with
the text. The actual
authors can be referred to, but the reference number(s) must always be given.
Example: ...... as demonstrated [3,6].
Barnaby and Jones [8] obtained a different
result ..... List: Number the references (numbers in square brackets) in the
list in the order in
which they appear in the text.Examples:
Reference to a journal publication:
[1] van der Geer J, Hanraads
JAJ, Lupton RA. The art of writing a scientific article. J
Sci Commun 2000;163:51-59.
Reference to a book:
[2] Strunk Jr W, White
EB. The Elements of Style; third edition. New
York: Macmillan; 1979.
Reference to a chapter in an edited book:
[3] Mettam GR,
Adams LB. How to prepare an electronic version of your
article. In: Jones BS, Smith RZ, editors. Introduction to the Electronic Age.
New
York: E-Publishing Inc.; 1999. p. 281-304. How to cite an 'in press' article, using a Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
Creating
a Digital Object Identifier Link
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
DOI will never change. 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:
doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2003.10.071
When you use the DOI to create URL hyperlinks to documents on the web, they are
guaranteed never to change. Complete the following
steps to resolve a DOI:
Open the following DOI site with your browser: http://dx.doi.org
Enter the entire DOI citation
in the text box provided, and then click Go. The article
that matches the DOI citation appears in your browser window. The DOI scheme
is
administered by the International DOI Foundation. Many of the world's leading
learned publishers have come together to build a DOI-based
article linking scheme
known as CrossRef. How to link to an article using the Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
Creating a
link to a specific article can easily be done using the DOI: DOI links will
remain valid even if the content moves from ScienceDirect
to another (DOI
compliant) platform. The structure of a DOI link is always the same, whichever
publisher the article is from, which makes
it easy to use.
A DOI link has the following structure: http://dx.doi.org/doi
For example, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0014-5793(02)03627-X
The DOI is found on the top left hand corner on every article on ScienceDirect. You
can also go to http://dx.doi.org/ and subsequently
type in the DOI to get a certain
article.
7. Nomenclature of micro-organisms
Binominals should be used in accordance with the
International Rules of
Nomenclature. Binominals should be underlined in the manuscript. A specific name
should not be used without an
accompanying capitalized generic name. The generic
name for each species should be written in full where it occurs first both in the
text
and in the summary.
8. Genetic nomenclature
Use standard genetic nomenclature in accordance with the recommendations of
Demeric et al.(Genetics 1966; 54: 61.76 or Journal of General Microbiology 1968;
50: 1.14) and Bachmann & Low (Microbiological Reviews
1980; 44: 1.56) for
bacteria, Novick et al.(Bacterial Review 1976; 40: 168.89), Low (Bacterial Review
1972; 36: 587.607), Campbell et
al. (Gene 1979; 5: 197.206) for plasmids and
transposons, and Roberts (Nucleic Acids Research 1981; 9: r75.r96) for restriction
enzymes
and DNA fragments. Whenever mutant and plasmid numbers, as well as
DNA sequences, have been established they should be registered at
the
corresponding registry (Escherichia coli Genetic Stock Center, Yale University School
of Medicine, P.O. Box 3333, New Haven,
CT 06510, USA; Salmonella Genetic Stock
Center, Department of Biology, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2N
1N4;
for Staphylococcus aureus: Peter & Pattee, Department of Microbiology, lowa
State University, Ames, IA 50011, USA; Plasmid Reference
Center, Department of
Medical Microbiology, Standard University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94305,
USA; information of nucleic acid
sequence data banks from Walter Goad, Los Alamos
National Laboratory, P.O. Box 1663, Los Alamos, NM 87545, USA).
9. Units of measurements
Systeme Internationale (SI) units should be used. Concentrations should be
expressed as molar (M) or as moles or milligrams per millilitre
(mol ml-1 or mg ml-
1); molecular weights can be expressed either as molecular mass (e.g. 30 000
daltons or 30 kDa) or relative molecular
mass (molecular weight) (e.g. Mr = 30
000). If other quantities are mentioned, give their equivalent in SI.
You are urged to consult
IUB: Biochemical Nomenclature & Related Documents
http://www.chem.qmw.ac.uk/iubmb/ for further information.
10. Abbreviations
Define abbreviations that are not standard in this field at their first occurrence in the
article: in the abstract but also in the main
text after it. Ensure consistency of
abbreviations throughout the article.
11. DNA sequences and GenBank accession numbers.
Many
Elsevier journals cite "gene accession numbers" in their running text and
footnotes. Gene accession numbers refer to genes or DNA sequences
about which
further information can be found in the databases at the National Center for
Biotechnical Information (NCBI) at the National
Library of Medicine. Elsevier authors
wishing to enable other scientists to use the accession numbers cited in their papers
via links
to these sources, should type this information in the following manner: For
each and every accession number cited in an article, authors
should type the
accession number in bold, underlined text. Letters in the accession number should
always be capitalised. (See
Example 1 below). This combination of letters and format
will enable Elsevier's typesetters to recognize the relevant texts as accession
numbers and add the required link to GenBank's sequences.
Example 1: "GenBank accession nos. AI631510, AI631511, AI632198,
andBF223228, a B-cell tumor from a chronic lymphatic leukemia (GenBank accession
no. BE675048), and a T-cell lymphoma
(GenBank accession no. AA361117)".
Authors are encouraged to check accession numbers used very carefully. An error in
a letter or number
can result in a dead link. In the final version of the printed article,
the accession number text will not appear bold or underlined
(see Example 2 below).
Example 2: "GenBank accession nos. AI631510, AI631511, AI632198, and
BF223228, a B-cell tumor from a chronic lymphatic
leukemia (GenBank accession no.
BE675048), and a T-cell lymphoma (GenBank accession no. AA361117)".
In the final version of the electronic
copy, the accession number text will be linked to
the appropriate source in the NCBI databases enabling readers to go directly to that
source from the article (see Example 3 below).
Example 3: "GenBank accession nos. AI631510, AI631511, AI632198, and
BF223228, a B-cell
tumor from a chronic lymphatic leukemia (GenBank accession no.
BE675048),and a T-cell lymphoma (GenBank accession no. AA361117)". Supplementary data
Elsevier accepts supplementary material to support and enhance your scientific research. Supplementary files
offer the author additional possibilities to publish supporting applications, movies, animation sequences, high-resolution images, background
datasets, sound clips and more. Supplementary files supplied will be published online alongside the electronic version of your article
in Elsevier Web products, including ScienceDirect: http://www.sciencedirect.com. In order to ensure that your submitted
material is directly usable, please ensure that data is provided in one of our recommended file formats. Authors should submit the material
in electronic format together with the article and supply a concise and descriptive caption for each file. For more detailed instructions
please visit our artwork instruction pages at http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions. Proofs
One set
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author, (or the first-named author if no corresponding author
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to, the accepted (and subsequently
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Proofs should be returned within 48 hours of receipt, preferably by e-mail.
Corrections
should be restricted to typesetting errors; any other amendments made
may be charged to the author. Any queries should be answered in
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do everything possible to get your article corrected and published as quickly and
accurately as possible. Therefore,
it is important to ensure that all of your corrections
are returned to us in one all-inclusive e-mail or fax. Subsequent additional
corrections
will not be possible, so please ensure that your first communication is
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Publication
of research articles in Molecular and Cellular Probes is taken to imply that
the authors are prepared then to distribute freely
to academic researchers, for their
own use, probes or other unique materials described in the experiments that have
been reported. Materials
made available in this way are, of course, not to be sold or
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