About Epigenetics & Chromatin
This page includes information about the aims and scope of Epigenetics & Chromatin, editorial policies, open access and article-processing charges, the peer review process and other information. For details of how to prepare and submit a manuscript through the online submission system, please see the instructions for authors.
Aims & scope
Epigenetics & Chromatin is a peer-reviewed, open access, online journal that publishes articles providing novel insights into epigenetic inheritance and chromatin-based interactions.
Epigenetics & Chromatin is the top-ranking journal dedicated to epigenetics, and is in the top quartile of genetics and heredity journals. The Editors-in-Chief maintain an average time from submission to a first decision of 21 days. To find out if your manuscript is suitable for Epigenetics & Chromatin you can send a pre-submission inquiry to editorial@epigeneticsandchromatin.com.
Epigenetics & Chromatin aims to understand how gene and chromosomal elements are regulated and their activities maintained during cell division, differentiation and environmental alteration. Epigenetic research is concerned with heritable changes that do not change DNA sequence, but rather involve stable modifications of chromatin, DNA or protein conformation, and includes research on non-coding RNAs, nuclear organisation and chromatin interactions. Epigenetics is a broad area of research that is important for understanding the basic processes of cellular life, and as such has implications for a wide range of disciplines. The field encompasses studies that use model systems to discover and investigate epigenetic mechanisms and studies of human development and disease with an emphasis on epigenetic mechanisms or chromatin organisation.
Epigenetics & Chromatin fulfills the need for a journal that reflects the breadth of epigenetic research. Topics include, but are not limited to, gene silencing and imprinting, nuclear reprogramming, nucleosome modification, remodeling and dynamics, DNA methylation, non-coding RNAs, chromosomal maintenance elements, dosage compensation and nuclear organisation. Approaches that apply cutting-edge technologies to problems in the field are especially welcome.
Open access
All articles published by Epigenetics & Chromatin are made freely and permanently accessible online immediately upon publication, without subscription charges or registration barriers. Further information about open access can be found here.
Authors of articles published in Epigenetics & Chromatin are the copyright holders of their articles and have granted to any third party, in advance and in perpetuity, the right to use, reproduce or disseminate the article, according to the BioMed Central copyright and license agreement.
For authors who are US government employees or are prevented from being copyright holders for similar reasons, BioMed Central can accommodate non-standard copyright lines. Please contact us if further information is needed.
Article-processing charges
Open access publishing is not without costs. Epigenetics & Chromatin therefore levies an article-processing charge of £1520/$2545/€1835 for each article accepted for publication. We routinely waive charges for authors from low-income countries. Generally, if the submitting author's institution is a Member the cost of the article-processing charge is covered by the membership, and no further charge is payable. In the case of authors whose institutions are Supporter Members, however, a discounted article-processing charge is payable by the author. For further details, see our article-processing charge page. A limited number of waivers for article-processing charges are also available at the editors' discretion, and authors wishing to apply for these waivers should contact the editors.
Indexing services
All articles published in Epigenetics & Chromatin are included in PubMed, the most widely used biomedical bibliographic database service, which is run by the US National Library of Medicine. Other bibliographic databases that index articles published in Epigenetics & Chromatin include:
- Biological Abstracts
- CAS
- Citebase
- DOAJ
- Embase
- EmBiology
- Google Scholar
- OAIster
- PubMed
- PubMed Central
- Science Citation Index Expanded
- Scirus
- Scopus
- SOCOLAR
- Zetoc
- Zoological Record
The full text of all research articles is deposited in PubMed Central, the US National Library of Medicine's full-text repository of life science literature, and other digital archives including e-Depot (The Netherlands).
The full text of all research articles published by BioMed Central is also available on SpringerLink.
Epigenetics & Chromatin is tracked by Thomson Reuters (ISI) and has an Impact Factor of 4.19.
Publication and peer review process
Content overview
Research: reports of data from original research. These articles will form the major content of the journal.
Reviews: comprehensive, authoritative, descriptions of any subject within the scope of the journal.
Methodology articles: present a new experimental method, test or procedure. The method described may either be completely new, or may offer a better version of an existing method. Methodology articles will only be accepted for publication if they represent a significant advance in the field.
Peer-review policies
All manuscripts are reviewed by internationally recognized experts in the field, selected in part from our Editorial Board. Reviews are rapid and the suitability of a manuscript for publication is assessed solely on criteria of scientific excellence. First and final decisions are made by the Editors-in-Chief.
The average time from submission to a first decision is 21 days.
Edited by Frank Grosveld and Steven Henikoff, Epigenetics & Chromatin is supported by an expert Editorial Board.
Decisively handled peer review
All manuscripts submitted to Epigenetics & Chromatin are handled by active scientists in the field. The Editors-in-Chief exercise their judgement concerning the necessity for reviewer-requested experiments. Authors will only be asked to perform further work that is essential, for the conclusions drawn in their article, thus minimising delays in the publication of exciting results.
Expedited peer review policy
Epigenetics & Chromatin recognises that scientifically sound, high quality manuscripts are often turned away from broad-scope "high-impact" journals based on the issue of "general interest." As a specialist journal, Epigenetics & Chromatin will consider rapid publication of such manuscripts in our field if they are submitted together with the original peer reviewer reports, letter of rejection, and a brief rebuttal, all as ‘Additional material files’.
The Editors-in-Chief will utilize the previous reviews when making their decision, although in some cases they may choose to take advice from additional referees. If you have any questions regarding the journal’s expedited peer review policy, please contact the editorial office.
Authors will be able to check the progress of their manuscript through the submission system at any time by logging into My Epigenetics & Chromatin, a personalized section of the site.
Copyediting and proofs
All articles published in Epigenetics & Chromatin are copyedited before publication of the final version.
Articles published in Epigenetics & Chromatin are published immediately on acceptance in the form of a provisional PDF. Copyedited and fully formatted PDF and full-text (HTML) versions are made available shortly after that.
Edited versions will be sent by email and corrections should be returned within two working days. Please provide a typed list of corrections clearly indicating where the corrections should be made and please send this list by email.
The editing is designed only to correct such things as misused words, spelling errors, missing references or incomplete citation information.
Reprints
High-quality, bound reprints can be purchased for all articles published. Please see our reprints website for further information about ordering reprints.
Supplements
Epigenetics & Chromatin will consider supplements based on proceedings (full articles or meeting abstracts), reviews or research. All articles submitted for publication in supplements are subject to peer review. Published supplements are fully searchable and freely accessible online and can also be produced in print. All full length articles (proceedings, reviews or research articles) are indexed by PubMed. PubMed displays the title of the supplement only in the case of meeting abstract collections. For further information, please contact us.
Editorial policies
All manuscripts submitted to Epigenetics & Chromatin should adhere to BioMed Central's editorial policies.
Citing articles in Epigenetics & Chromatin
Articles in Epigenetics & Chromatin should be cited in the same way as articles in a traditional journal. Because articles are not printed, they do not have page numbers; instead, they are given a unique article number.
Article citations follow this format:
Authors: Title. Epigenetics & Chromatin [year], [volume number]:[article number].
e.g. Roberts LD, Hassall DG, Winegar DA, Haselden JN, Nicholls AW, Griffin JL: Increased hepatic oxidative metabolism distinguishes the action of Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor delta from Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor gamma in the Ob/Ob mouse. Epigenetics & Chromatin 2009, 1:115.
refers to article 115 from Volume 1 of the journal.
Why publish your article in Epigenetics & Chromatin?
High visibility
Epigenetics & Chromatin's open access policy allows maximum visibility of articles published in the journal as they are available to a wide, global audience. Articles that have been especially highly accessed are highlighted with a 'Highly accessed' graphic, which appears on the journal's contents pages and search results.
Speed of publication
Epigenetics & Chromatin offers a fast publication schedule whilst maintaining rigorous peer review; all articles must be submitted online, and peer review is managed fully electronically (articles are distributed in PDF form, which is automatically generated from the submitted files). Articles will be published with their final citation after acceptance, in both fully browsable web form, and as a formatted PDF; the article will then be available through Epigenetics & Chromatin, BioMed Central and PubMed Central and will also be included in PubMed.
Flexibility
Online publication in Epigenetics & Chromatin gives authors the opportunity to publish large datasets, large numbers of color illustrations and moving pictures, to display data in a form that can be read directly by other software packages so as to allow readers to manipulate the data for themselves, and to create all relevant links (for example, to PubMed, to sequence and other databases, and to other articles).
Promotion and press coverage
Articles published in Epigenetics & Chromatin are included in article alerts and regular email updates. Some may be included in abstract books mailed to academics and are highlighted on Epigenetics & Chromatin's pages and on the BioMed Central homepage.
In addition, articles published in Epigenetics & Chromatin may be promoted by press releases to the general or scientific press. These activities increase the exposure and number of accesses for articles published in Epigenetics & Chromatin. A list of articles recently press-released by journals published by BioMed Central is available here.
Copyright
Authors of articles published in Epigenetics & Chromatin retain the copyright of their articles and are free to reproduce and disseminate their work (for further details, see the BioMed Central copyright and license agreement).
For further information about the advantages of publishing in a journal from BioMed Central, please click here.
The instructions for authors includes information about preparing a manuscript for submission to Epigenetics & Chromatin, criteria for publication and the online submission process. Other relevant information about the journal's policies, the refereeing process and so on can be found in 'About this journal'.
If you wish to make a presubmission enquiry about the suitability of your manuscript, please email the editors who will respond to your enquiry as soon as possible.
Copyright rests with the authors. For more information on copyright of articles, see our publisher's copyright and license policy.
