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Submission of a paper implies that it reports unpublished work and that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. The EMBO Journal reserves the right not to publish material that has already been pre-published (either in electronic or other media).
Prior to submission
To avoid unnecessary delays in the review process, please consider the following policies carefully before you submit your manuscript.
Availability of published material
It is understood that by publishing a paper in The EMBO Journal the authors agree to make freely available to colleagues in academic research any of the organisms, viruses, cells, nucleic acids, antibodies, etc. that were used in the research reported and that are not available from commercial suppliers.
Conflicts of interest
In the interests of transparency and to help reviewers assess any potential bias, The EMBO Journal requires authors of original research papers to declare any competing commercial interests in relation to the submitted work.
Electronic manipulation of images
Image enhancement with computer software is acceptable practice, although it can result in the presentation of quite unrepresentative data as well as in the loss of real and meaningful signals. During manipulation of images a positive relationship between the original data and the resulting electronic image must be maintained. If a figure has been subjected to significant electronic manipulation, the specific nature of the enhancements must be noted in the figure legend or in the Materials and Methods. The Editors reserve the right to request original versions of figures from the authors of a paper under review.
Accession codes
The EMBO Journal will only review and publish manuscripts if the authors agree to make all relevant data, e.g. novel nucleotide sequences, structural data, or data from large-scale gene expression experiments, freely available in one of the public databases listed below (see Submission to public databases below). Accession codes must be provided at the time a revised manuscript is returned to the Editorial Office.
Supplementary information
Any manuscripts under review or accepted for publication elsewhere should accompany the submission if they are relevant to its scientific assessment. Authors should also provide upon submission any kind of supplementary material (e.g. details of microarray experiments) that will aid the review process.
Submission
The editors reserve the right to return manuscripts that are not in accordance with the following instructions. Manuscripts must be written in clear and concise English and be intelligible to a broad readership.
Authors should include the names of four potential reviewers when submitting their manuscript. Papers are generally reviewed by three appropriate referees selected by the Editors and based on their reports, the decision concerning publication, revision or rejection is taken. Papers may, however, be returned to authors without review, if in the judgement of the Editors and the Editorial Board, they fail to meet the criteria of wide biological significance and novelty, or if they are considered too preliminary. The decision of EMBO Council to limit the number of pages published annually means that not all papers receiving a balance of favourable reports can be accepted.
We will acknowledge receipt of a submitted manuscript by e-mail as soon as an Editor has been assigned to the paper. All further correspondence will also be by e-mail. If hard copies of a manuscript are submitted, only original figures available at the time of the editorial decision will be returned to the authors.
General format
The total character count (including spaces) for the entire paper, including title page, abstract, figure legends and references (excluding tables and supplementary material) may not exceed 55 000 characters (the exact character count to be printed on the title page). Manuscripts exceeding this limit at submission may be returned to the authors for amendment. Authors should consider including a Supplementary material section (see below) if the manuscript exceeds the above limitations.
The total length of the paper when published will not exceed 10 pages, and excess page charges will apply for papers longer than 6 printed pages (see Charges below). Please bear in mind the total page limit when preparing figures and tables.
Manuscripts should be legibly typed on A4 or American quarto paper. Please use Times font at 10 or 12 point size for all text pages, Symbol font for non-Latin characters, and Helvetica or a similar sans-serif font for lettering on figures. Number each page at the bottom (Title page is 1).
Manuscripts should be subdivided into the following sections:
Title page
Abstract
Introduction
Results
Discussion
Materials and methods
Acknowledgements
References
Figure legends
Figures
Tables
Supplementary material
Title Page
The title should be short and informative, and should not contain any abbreviations. The total length of the title should not exceed 100 characters (including spaces). Serial titles are not accepted.
The name of each author should be followed by his or her department, institution, city with postal code and country. Any changes of address may be given in numbered footnotes. The author(s) to whom all correspondence is to be addressed should be indicated, including e-mail address, telephone and fax numbers.
The title page must also state the precise character count of the manuscript.
Please provide a running title of not more than 50 characters including spaces.
Up to five keywords, which may or may not appear in the title, should be given in alphabetical order, below the abstract, each separated by a slash (/).
Authors should indicate appropriate Subject Categories for the submitted manuscript. Up to two categories can be selected from the following list:
Development
Immunology
Neuroscience
Plant Biology
Structural Biology
Genomic & Computational Biology
Genome Stability & Dynamics
Chromatin & Transcription
RNA
Proteins
Cellular Metabolism
Signal Transduction
Cell Cycle
Differentiation & Death
Membranes & Transport
Cell & Tissue Architecture
Microbiology & Pathogens
Molecular Biology of Disease
Subject Categories will be used as of January 2004 to structure the current and archived content of The EMBO Journal, and to help readers interested in particular areas of molecular biology find relevant information more easily. These will be indicated in the table of contents and on the title page of the published article. The table of contents and the archive will also be searchable by Subject Categories online.
Abstract
This should be a single paragraph not exceeding 175 words. The Abstract should be comprehensible to readers before they have read the paper, and abbreviations and reference citations should be avoided.
Introduction
The Introduction should be succinct and provide only the necessary background information, rather than a comprehensive review of the specific field. It should not contain subheadings.
Results and Discussion
These sections may each be divided by subheadings and could be combined into one section if appropriate. Please avoid footnotes.
Materials and methods
This section should contain sufficient detail so that all experimental procedures can be repeated by others, in conjunction with cited references. Lengthy descriptions of methodology or materials that are not of immediate importance for the understanding of the manuscript may also be included as Supplementary material.
Acknowledgements
These should be placed at the end of the text and not in footnotes. Personal acknowledgements should precede those of institutions or agencies.
References
Authors are responsible for the accuracy of the references. Published articles as well as those in press (please state the name of the journal and enclose a copy of the manuscript) may be included. In the text of the manuscript, a reference should be cited by author and year of publication; not more than two authors may be cited per reference; et al should be used if there are more than two authors (Ferrier & Lunkes, 2003; Wiersdorff et al, 2000). In the reference list, citations should be listed in alphabetical order and then chronologically, with the authors' surnames and initials inverted; et al should not be used unless there are more than 20. Publications by the same author(s) in the same year should be identified with a, b, c after the year of publication.
The name of each journal should be abbreviated according to Index Medicus and italicized. References should therefore be listed (and will subsequently appear in print) as follows:
Akhmedkhanov A, Toniolo P, Zeleniuch-Jacquotte A, Koenig KL, Shore RE (2002) Aspirin and lung cancer in women. Br J Cancer 87: 49-53
Wendland J (2003) Analysis of the landmark protein Bud3 of Ashbya gossypii reveals a novel role in septum construction. EMBO rep 4: 200-204
Personal communications (J. Doe, personal communication, 2001) should be authorized in writing by those involved, and unpublished data should be cited as (J. Smith and D. Jones, unpublished data, 2001). References to manuscripts in preparation or submitted, but not yet accepted, should be cited in the text as (C. Lee and N. Jones, in preparation) and should not be included in the list of references.
Figure legends
All symbols and abbreviations used in the figure must be defined. Common abbreviations or those that have been defined in the text should not be redefined in the figure legend. Experimental details should, where possible, be given in the Materials and Methods section, and not repeated in the figure legends.
Authors are asked to submit figure legends which will accurately reflect the published figures when reproduced in either colour or mono.
Figures
Figures should be labeled in consecutive Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, ?. The final size of figures will be between 82 mm and 172 mm wide on the printed page. Please bear this in mind when submitting your manuscript for review and allow for sufficient resolution at a suitable size.
Figures divided into parts should be labeled with an upper-case, bold letter (A, B, C, ?. Figures with several parts should also be in proportion, with consistently sized lettering so that the whole figure can be reduced by the same amount to the smallest size at which the essential details are visible. Use a sans-serif font such as Helvetica for all the lettering and Symbol font for any symbols.
Scale bars, rather than magnification factors, should be used, with the length of the bar defined in the legend rather than on the bar itself. In general, visual cues on the figure itself are preferred rather than verbal explanations (for example, 'broken line' or 'filled black triangles') in the legend.
Colour on the Web
Authors who wish their articles to have FREE colour figures on the web (only available in the HTML full text version of manuscripts and NOT on the online PDF) must supply separate files in the following format. These files should be submitted as supplementary information and authors are asked to mention they would like colour figures on the web in their submission letter.
For Single Images :
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Valerie obtained her PhD from the University of Marseille where she studied Fas signalling of cell death. She went on to work for Nature Cell Biology as an Associate Editor from 1999 to 2002. She joined The EMBO Journal team in 2002.
Connie completed her PhD in the Program of Cellular and Molecular Biology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. After postdoctoral studies examining protein import into mitochondria at the University of Munich, she worked for 3 years as Assistant Managing Editor of FEBS Letters. She started at The EMBO Journal in 2003.
Astrid received her PhD from the University of Düsseldorf, where she focused on the genetics of inherited neurological diseases. During her postdoctoral studies at the IGBMC in Strasbourg, Astrid investigated the role of protein degradation and misfolding in neurodegenerative disorders. She joined The EMBO Journal in 2001.
Volker has been with the EMBO Journal since 1997. He obtained his PhD from the University of Heidelberg for his research on signal transduction and developmental biology of Drosophila melanogaster. 
Frank is the Executive Director of EMBO, the Secretary General of the European Molecular Biology Conference, and is a senior scientist at the EMBL in Heidelberg, with an active research group working on the estrogen receptor.