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	FEBS LETTERS	
		
	
An international journal established for the rapid publication of
essentially final short reports in the fields of molecular biosciences.


/FEBS Letters/ and /Molecular Oncology/
<http://www.molecularoncology.org> are published by Elsevier on behalf
of the Federation of European Biochemical Societies <http://www.FEBS.org>

*Guide for Authors*

1. Brief Guidelines <#brief>
2. Editorial Policy <#edpol>
2.1 Aims and Scope <#aims>
2.2 Submission of Manuscripts <#submit>
2.3 Evaluation of Manuscripts <#eval>
2.4 Language Editing <#language>
2.5 Ethics of Experimentation <#ethics>
2.6 Colour reproduction <#colour>
2.7 Copyright <#copy>
2.8 Press releases <#press>
3. Submission Procedure <#subproc>
3.1 Original submissions <#orig>
3.2 Revisions and Resubmissions <#revres>
3.2.1 Revisions <#rev>
3.2.2 Resubmissions <#res>
4. Manuscript Preparation Guidelines <#manu>
4.1 Research Letters <#reslet>
4.1.1 Title Page <#title>
4.1.2 Abstract <#abst>
4.1.3 Acknowledgements <#ackn>
4.1.4 References <#refs>
4.1.5 Tables <#tabs>
4.1.6 Figures <#figs>
4.1.7 Supplementary material <#supp>
4.2 Minireviews and Hypotheses <#mini>
5. Publication Matters <#pubmat>
5.1 Proofs <#proofs>
5.2 Reprints <#reprints>

1. *Brief Guidelines*
FEBS Letters requires authors to submit all manuscripts online at:
External link http://www.ees.elsevier.com/febsletters. Authors unable to
submit online should contact the editorial office at
febs.letters@bzh.uni-heidelberg.de
<mailto:febs.letters@bzh.uni-heidelberg.de>.

    * Please submit the text of your manuscript (including title,
      keywords, abbreviations, main text, references and figure legends)
      followed by tables and figures as a *single .word file.*
    * Upload your figures separately as .jpg .eps or .tiff files. Tables
      should be uploaded as .word or .xls files.
    * Each figure should be labeled with a figure number.
    * *Standard fonts* should be used. *Times, Times New Roman* or
      *Courier* for the general text and *Arial* or *Helvetica* for the
      figures.
    * Use the *Symbol font* and the "Insert Symbol" option from the menu
      bar for introducing symbols in MS Word.
    * The length of the manuscript should not exceed 3000 words (16 000
      characters).




*Original submissions*


/Fast-Track Publication/
FEBS Letters offers expedited handling of manuscripts that have been
rejected from very high-level journals. Authors are encouraged to
enclose reviews and/or comments from the editor of previously reviewed
manuscripts to expedite their handling as your manuscript may be
accepted based on the previous reviews. You will receive a final
decision from the Managing Editor within a few days of submitting
manuscripts with reviews.


2. *Editorial Policy*
FEBS Letters is an international journal established for the rapid
publication of short reports in the molecular biosciences. It provides a
forum for reviews and research reports that merit urgent publication.
FEBS Letters is published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of the *F*ederation
of *E*uropean *B*iochemical *S*ocieties (*FEBS*).

2.1
Papers should be short but complete and essentially final reports. FEBS
Letters is not a vehicle for the publication of preliminary or
fragmentary observations, for reports that are scientifically sound but
do not warrant urgent publication or are only addressed to a specialized
readership. As a rule, we do not publish the following: cloning and
sequencing of cDNA or genes that have previously been reported for other
species; conventionally achieved expression of a protein; incomplete NMR
or other spectroscopic assignments; conventionally achieved
crystallization of a protein; correlative studies; or negative
observations. As a general policy, methodological papers are not
published unless they are truly novel and significant. Manuscripts
applying standard bioinformatics approaches to limited sets of publicly
available protein or gene sequences will only be considered if the
results are of great biological interest and are not easily obtained
using readily available methods. The overriding criterion is that a
paper must be of sufficient immediate importance to justify urgent
publication.

The subject area of FEBS Letters is broad. It covers biochemistry
(including protein chemistry, enzymology, nucleic acid chemistry,
metabolism, and immunochemistry) structural biology, biophysics,
computational biology (genomics, proteomics, and bioinformatics),
molecular genetics, molecular biology, molecular cell biology (signal
transduction, intracellular traffic, regulation of cellular
proliferation, cell-cell interactions) and systems biology. Studies on
microbes, plants and animals performed at the molecular level are within
the scope of FEBS Letters.

2.2 *Submission of Manuscripts*
All material submitted to FEBS Letters must be original and not
published or submitted for publication elsewhere. Closely related papers
that are in press or that have been submitted elsewhere must be included
with the manuscript.

We assume that all of the authors have approved the submitted
manuscript. If this assumption turns out to be incorrect, the manuscript
will be withdrawn and will not be published.

Submission of a research letter implies that the authors are willing to
make available to academic researchers cell lines, DNA clones,
antibodies or similar materials that have been used in the experiments
reported.

Data regarding protein or nucleic acid sequences, solution-state or
crystallographic structures should be deposited in an appropriate,
publicly available database such as Genbank, EMBL, SWISS-PROT, PDB and
BMRB. Microarray data should be submitted to the GEO or ArrayExpress
databases. Data describing three-dimentional protein models may be
submitted to the PMDB database (External link
http://www.caspur.it/PMDB/). Authors are encouraged to deposit plasmid
constructions in a public repository, such as Addgene or similar. The
databank must be in general use in the field and give free access to
researchers. Database accession numbers should be listed in the
manuscript and must be obtained before the paper can be accepted for
publication. For any data set for which there is no public repository,
data must be made freely available following publication of the manuscript.

Submitted manuscripts will generally be published within a week of
acceptance and thus be made public.

NIH Policy: Effective May 2, 2005, The National Institutes of Health
(NIH) will initiate its "Public Access Policy" which requests that
NIH-funded authors submit their peer-reviewed author manuscripts to
PubMed Central (PMC) within 12 months of final publication. NIH has made
clear that it will not penalize NIH-funded authors who choose not to
meet the NIH's request. Should you wish to comply, however, please
consult the Elsevier information page on the NIH initiative for further
details. External link
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authorshome.authors/nihauthorrequest

2.3 *Evaluation of Manuscripts*
Initial evaluation of manuscripts takes place at the FEBS Letters
editorial office. Papers that pass this first screen will be assigned to
an editor with experience in the field who will decide whether it should
be sent out for peer review. All papers published in FEBS Letters
(Research Letters, Minireviews and Hypotheses) are peer-reviewed.

2.4 *Language Editing*
Authors who are unsure of correct English usage should have their
manuscript checked by someone proficient in the language. Manuscripts in
which the English is difficult to understand may be returned to the
author for revision before scientific review. The following external
services are offered here for your consideration only:

/International Science Editing Limited/ and /Asia Science Editing/ offer
a language and copyediting service to authors who want to publish in
scientific peer-reviewed journals. All of their science editors are
native English speakers and those working for /International Science
Editing Limited/ also have postgraduate qualifications and experience in
science research. For more information please see: External link
http://www.internationalscienceediting.com or External link
http://www.asiascienceediting.com. With Asia Science Editing, Elsevier
has negotiated a rate of EUR 0.024 per word (ca EUR 6 per page). A EUR
10 handling fee per manuscript is added, if payment is by credit card.
Different rates apply for mathematic-based manuscripts. Turnaround time
is typically 5 days.

For all third party language editing recommendations, all interaction
and responsibility is between the Author and the Language Editor.
Language editing should not be confused with the copy-editing that takes
place during the production process after a manuscript has been accepted.

2.5 *Ethics of Experimentation*
Scientific investigations involving humans or animals must have approval
of the appropriate ethics committee. Animal experiments should be
carried out in accordance with the EU (86./609/EEC) or the NIH
guidelines. A statement that informed consent was obtained from all
subjects must accompany investigations involving humans.

2.6 *Colour reproduction*
When essential to the understanding of a paper, figures may be
reproduced in colour (print and Web versions) at no cost to the authors.
The use of free colour is at the discretion of the editorial office.
Authors who wish to use colour (without the approval of the editorial
office) may do at no cost for the Web version, but will be charged Euro
340 (exclusive of sales tax) for a single page printed in colour. For
more than one full colour page, the cost per page is Euro 227 plus sales
tax.

2.7 *Copyright*
Authors, or a third party, wishing to reproduce figures, tables, or
brief quotations from the text of articles published in FEBS Letters for
non-commercial purposes may do so, provided that the original
publication is acknowledged accordingly and the authors' approval is
obtained. No special permission is needed from FEBS, the Publisher, or
the Managing Editor for this. If authors, or a third party, wish to use
a major part of an article or an entire article elsewhere, whether in
English or any translation, permission must be asked from the Publisher,
who will, if necessary, contact FEBS, the copyright holder.

2.8 *Press releases*
Authors who wish to issue a press release on material accepted by FEBS
Letters are welcome to do so. The best time for a press release is after
completion of the typesetting of the issue, i.e., usually about two
weeks before the dispatch date. Only then is the correct and complete
reference known. The initiative of a press release may be taken by the
handling editor, who will contact the authors and the editorial office.

3. *Submission Procedure*
Please submit your manuscript through our online submission and
peer-review system at: External link
http://www.ees.elsevier.com/febsletters. Please prepare your text and
figures according to the manuscript preparation guidelines.

3.1 *Original submissions*
Authors are welcome to suggest one or two members of the _FEBS Letters
Editorial Board_ whom they feel would be the most appropriate to handle
their manuscript. Please understand that these requests cannot always be
fulfilled. Authors are also requested to provide the names and e-mail
addresses of 3 to 4 people who have the expertise to review their
manuscript. Authors may request that certain people - who are in direct
competition, or otherwise have a conflict of interest - be excluded from
the review process.

The editorial office will acknowledge receipt of your manuscript within
24 hours of submission. Please contact the editorial office
(febs.letters@bzh.uni-heidelberg.de
<mailto:febs.letters@bzh.uni-heidelberg.de>) if you do not receive
confirmation within this period of time. The 'date of receipt' that
appears in the published paper will be the date when the handling editor
received the manuscript.

3.2 *Revisions and Resubmissions*

3.2.1 *Revisions*
Papers may be returned to authors for revision. Authors will be given
four weeks after receipt of the reviewers' comments to revise their
paper. Revisions must be submitted via the online submission system,
under the heading "Submit a revised manuscript". Click on the link
"Revised manuscripts" then on the "View comments/Respond" link to view
the comments of the editor and reviewers. Then click on the title of the
manuscript to upload your revised files. Please do not submit the
revision via email.

3.2.2 *Resubmissions*
Resubmissions of manuscripts are only considered when encouraged by the
handling Editor. Authors may be encouraged to resubmit the paper after
additional experimental data is obtained. Resubmissions should be
submitted via the online submission system under "submit first draft of
a new manuscript". The paper must be marked as a resubmission and list
the handling editor and manuscript number of the original submission.
Please also provide a letter giving point-by-point responses to the
referees of the previous version.


4. *Manuscript Preparation Guidelines*
For the submission and peer-review process, FEBS Letters urges you to
prepare your manuscript as a single file using a word processing program
and saving it as a .doc, .rtf, .ps or .pdf file. When your paper is
accepted for publication, you will be asked to provide one complete copy
of the paper containing printers quality figures and a CD with the most
recent version of the text and figures to the editorial office.

4.1 *Research Letters*
General arrangement - The length of the submitted manuscript should not
exceed16,000 characters or 3000 words, including the figure legends,
tables, and references. Editors will accept longer papers only when
there are compelling reasons to do so. Any repetition of information in
the text and figures should be avoided.

The text should be double-spaced and size 11 or larger and a standard
font (Times, Times New Roman, Arial, or Helvetica) should be used. When
using Word, insert all symbols by selecting "Insert - Symbol" from the
menu and use the "Symbol" font.

The title page of the manuscript should be followed by numbered sections:

   1. Introduction.
   2. Materials and Methods.
   3. Results.
   4. Discussion.
   5. Acknowledgements.
   6. References.
   7. Figure legends.
   8. Tables and figures.


When appropriate, results and discussion sections may be combined.

4.1.1 *Title Page*
The first page of the manuscript should contain the following information:

Title
The title should be a maximum of two printed lines in the journal (140
characters, including spaces). Active titles are preferred. Technical
terms, such as 'cloning,' 'expression,' 'purification' and specialized
abbreviations should be avoided. Titles should not be repetitive but
clearly and concisely state the subject of the manuscript. FEBS Letters
reserves the right to edit titles for length and clarity.

Authors' names and affiliations
The full names and affiliations should be provided for all authors. The
corresponding author should also provide a full postal address,
telephone and fax number (including country code), and an e-mail address
as a footnote on the title page.

Keywords
The keywords should reflect the significant factors of the investigation
as a whole. Authors are requested to consult the annual cumulative
subject index of FEBS Letters or the list of subject headings from Index
Medicus. A maximum of six keywords should be selected and included with
the submitted manuscript. The list submitted may be amended to ensure
that index entries are consistent in the master index. General terms
such as enzyme or membrane should not be used unless qualified, e.g.
membrane translocation, enzyme activation.

List of abbreviations
Authors should follow internationally agreed rules as set out in
"Biochemical Nomenclature and Related Documents" (A Compendium, 2nd
edition, 1992) International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular
Biology, published by Portland Press, London and Chapel Hill, UK.
Abbreviations should be expanded in a footnote on the title page.

4.1.2 *Abstract*
The abstract should be submitted as a separate file. Absracts must be
less than 100 words in length and summarize the question being addresses
and the pertinent findings.

4.1.3 *Acknowledgements*
In this section authors may acknowledge the assistance of persons who do
not meet criteria of authors. Financial and material support could be
acknowledged in this section. Dedications should not be listed in this
section but on the title page, after the author affiliation and before
the abstract (see section 4.1.1).

4.1.4 *References*
These should be numbered in square brackets, e.g. [7], or [11-13,17], in
order of citation in the text. The list of references will be printed at
the end of the paper. References to databases, personal communications
or unpublished data should be cited in the text or as footnotes.
Articles may only be cited as 'in press' if a copy of the acceptance
notice is supplied at the time of submission. *References should include
the title of the article* and be cited as follows:

Examples of journals [1] [2] and books [3] [4]:
[1] MacKinnon, R. (2003) Potassium channels. FEBS Lett. 555, 62-65.
[2] Nixon, J.E., Wang, A., Morrison, H.G., McArthur, A.G., Sogin, M.L.,
Loftus, B.J. and Samuelson, J. (2002) A splicesomal intron in Giardia
lamblia. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 99, 422-431.
[3] Langer, T. and Neupert, W. (1994) Chaperoning mitochondrial
biogenesis. in: The Biology of Heat Shock Proteins and Molecular
Chaperones (Morimoto, R.I., Tissieres, A. and Georgopoulos, C., Eds),
pp. 53-83. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, Plainview, NY.
[4] Feldmann, H. (2004) Forty years of FEBS. Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Oxford.

4.1.5 *Tables*
Tables should be used only when the data cannot be presented clearly in
the text. Authors are requested to consult recent issues of FEBS Letters
for the proper table layout. The heading of the table should make its
general meaning understandable without reference to the text.

4.1.6 *Figures*
Use quality graphic programs such as Adobe PhotoShop, Adobe Illustrator,
Corel Draw, or Freehand to create your figures. Figures should be
approximately the same size as you would like them to appear in press.
Please prepare and save your figures according to the chart below.

Images should not be modified to change their appearance or enhance any
specific feature. Any adjustments of brightness and contrast or colour
balance must be applied to the entire image and should not result in
loss or gain of information. Unacceptable modifications include the
addition, alteration or removal of a particular feature of an image. All
figures in manuscripts will be examined for any indication of improper
modifications. The final acceptance of all manuscripts is contingent on
any concerns raised by referees and editors being resolved.

	*Line art*
Charts, graphs and hand-drawn images 	*Halftones*
Photographic images, micrographs 	*Combination art*
work artwork with both, text/lines and photographic images (e.g. gels
with lanes labeled)
Text 	Use standard fonts or embed all fonts 	N/A 	Use standard fonts or
embed all fonts; use solid black or white text
Color encoding: 	RGB 	RGB 	RGB
Compression: 	Color - noneBlack & White - LZW 	Color - noneBlack & White
- LZW 	Color - noneBlack & White - LZW
Save as: 	.eps (recommended)or .tiff (*1000 dpi*)*** 	.tiff (*300
dpi*) 	.eps (recommended),or .tiff (*500 dpi*)***

*Use .tiff format for scanned images or when it is not possible to save
in .eps format

*Note:* While an image may look perfect on the screen, it is often of
insufficient resolution for publication. Try viewing your figure at 400%
on the screen, if it is not blurry, it is probably of high enough
resolution for the printing process.

Glossary:
RGB - (red, green, blue) colour mode
LZW - type of compression recommended for black and white images
Dpi - (dots per inch) measure of resolution for printers, scanners and
displays
EPS - (Encapsulated PostScript) files are the preferred format for
electronic line art and combination art (not for Corel Draw, see below)
.tiff - (Tagged Image File Format) is the recommended file format for
scanned halftones, bitmaps and colour images: Corel Draw files should be
saved in .tiff format using a minimum resolution of 500 dpi.

While we strongly encourage you to save your figures as .tiff or .eps
files, the following format types are also acceptable, provided you
follow Elsevier's instructions Word (.doc), Excel (.xls) or PowerPoint
(.ppt).• Adobe PDF, Adobe Illustrator (.ai) or PhotoShop (.psd). For
more detailed information on artwork, please see External link
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions

4.1.7 *Supplementary material*
Authors are requested to include sequence, microarray, and other
supporting data as supplementary data. Figures and text should be
prepared according to the above guidelines and should be provided at the
time of initial submission.

Movies/animations - Supplementary movies or animation files should be
provided in one of the following formats: .mpg, .mov, .gif, and .avi.
For more information please see: External link
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.

4.2 *Minireviews and Hypotheses*
The Minireviews and Hypotheses should be topical and of interest not
only to specialists in the field but also to the general reader.
Sufficient information should be included in the introduction to provide
background to non-specialists. Minireviews should not be longer than
2500 words, and preferably not have more than 50 references and 3
figures or tables. They should contain at least one figure, scheme or
table that illustrates a central aspect of the review. A short abstract
(less than 100 words) and 3-6 keywords should be included. The author(s)
should use short descriptive subtitles. Papers labeled 'Hypothesis'
should present novel ideas or new interpretations of established
observations, but should be based on sound data and avoid excessive
speculation (please note that preliminary experiments cannot be
published as a Hypothesis).

Since the majority of Minireviews and Hypotheses are solicited, authors
who wish to submit such manuscripts should e-mail the FEBS Letters
Editorial Office (febs.letters@bzh.uni-heidelberg.de
<mailto:febs.letters@bzh.uni-heidelberg.de>) prior to submission,
providing a title, abstract and key references of the article to be
considered.

5. *Publication Matters*
For general enquiries and answers to frequently asked questions, please
visit Author Gateway at External link http://authors.elsevier.com. The
Author Gateway also provides the facility to track accepted articles and
set up e-mail alerts to inform you when an article's status has changed,
as well as detailed artwork guidelines and copyright information.

Please address all queries concerning accepted manuscripts to FEBS
Letters Issue Management. E-mail: FEBSLettersIM@elsevier.com
<mailto:FEBSLettersIM@elsevier.com>, specifying the manuscript number
and handling editor.

5.1 *Proofs*
The corresponding author will receive proofs by e-mail (PDF proofs).
Authors are requested to check the proofs and return any corrections
within 48 hours. Thereafter, proofs will be processed and included in
the first available issue. Late corrections cannot be accepted. If the
authors wish to introduce extensive changes (at the issue manager's
discretion) the proofs will be sent to the handling editor and be
treated as a revised version. Amendments requiring this extra procedure
at the proof stage may delay the appearance of the paper by several weeks.

5.2 *E-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.
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.

Copyright © *1996-2007*, Federation of European Biochemical Societies.
All rights reserved. Last updated October 2007

	
		

		

		
	
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