Aims and Scope
Article Types
Manuscript Preparation:
・Basic Instructions
・Detailed Instructions
Online Submission:
・Basic Instructions
・Detailed Instructions
Review Process
Publication
Open Access Charges
Ethics
Misconduct

Aims and Scope

DNA Research publishes research articles with original findings of substantial importance in broad aspects of DNA- and genome-related fields. As genome data provide the most fundamental basis for a variety of research and applications derived thereof, we are willing to accept articles investigating genomes of various organisms to enrich the collection of useful genome data resources. In addition, we will accept articles expected to expand the research fields covered by our journal. In accordance with this policy, we publish comprehensive review articles, surveying research progresses in the fields of interest to encourage readers to challenge unsolved important problems of various sorts.

The list below shows examples of topics and fields we are interested in:

• High-precision analysis of genomes and their structural variations of a broad range of organisms of interest;
• Evolutionary mechanisms of diversification, adaptation and specification of organisms;
• Functional roles of chromosomes and their fine structures;
• Characterization of genomic, epigenomic, transcriptomic, proteomic, metabolomic and other omic layers;
• Genome editing and its applications in biotechnology;
• Implications of genome modifications and epigenomics;
• Genomes/metagenomes of microbiome under a variety of environmental conditions;
• Development of techniques, equipments, software/algorithms and databases useful for deeper analysis of genomes;

We also welcome manuscripts reporting novel findings of biological significance in related scientific disciplines.

Article Types

DNA Research publishes three types of articles.

• Research Article: Articles presenting novel findings of biological significance that advance the current knowledge in a specific research field and attract a broad interest of readers.
• Resource Article: Genomes Explored *: Articles concisely reporting the results of analysis of genomes, transcriptomes and related aspects of diverse organisms to be considered useful as genomic resources.
• Review: Articles providing an overview in a constructive and provocative manner of a specific field or topic that has been significantly developed in recent years.

^* This article type was introduced in 2020 to provide a useful genomic resource for scientists. Manuscripts should concisely report the results of analysis of genomes, transcriptomes and related aspects of diverse organisms.

Manuscript Preparation: Basic Instructions

Manuscripts are limited to 10 typeset pages in principle (approximately 7,000 words or 30 manuscript pages), but supporting data may be presented as supplementary data, if accepted. Authors are expected to follow the journal’s basic manuscript structure and formatting requirements written below. 

Manuscripts should be structured to contain the following sections: (1) title, (2) abstract (no more than 200 words) with a few key-words, (3) introduction, (4) materials and methods, (5) results, (6) discussion, (7) references, (8) tables, and (9) figures. Please note that sections (5) and (6) may be combined into a single section as ‘results and discussion’. In addition, relevant table footnotes and figure legends should be provided.

Format of the manuscript: Upon initial submission, the manuscript may be structured differently, so far as all of the above sections are included, some of which may be under different captions. However, when a revised manuscript is submitted, it should be structured to contain all of the above sections in the order shown. Manuscripts which do not comply with these may be returned to the corresponding author for re-submission together with necessary additions and/or amendments.

Cover letter: Authors are required to submit a cover letter which should briefly state the originality, significance and advancement made by the work in the relevant field, and confirm that the criteria for authorship described in the ‘Authorship’ section below are fulfilled.

Detailed instructions on preparing manuscripts for submission can be found below.

Online Submission: Basic Instructions

Submissions should be made through the online submission system. 

As your manuscript will be subjected to critical evaluation by editors and peer reviewers, we would like to ask you to pay attention to the following points: in addition to making the manuscript clear and concise, please avoid large-sized and/or complicated figures/tables wherever possible. This is to aid readers in understanding the article and to help ensure that the file size of the manuscript PDF including figures/tables does not become too large.

Please provide figures/ tables to which their number and caption are clearly indicated along with appropriate footnote/figure legend so that they can be easily evaluated by reviewers. You should provide table footnotes/figure legends in the main text as well. These precautions will enhance the speed of peer-reviewing process.

Detailed instructions on submitting manuscript files can be found below.

Review Process

All manuscripts are peer-reviewed by qualified reviewers and edited by one of the editorial board members. Authors are notified, generally within 6 weeks after submission, of the editor’s decision. When a manuscript is returned to the author for  amendment, it should be returned to the editor within 3 months, otherwise it may be considered withdrawn.

Publication

DNA Research aims to publish authors’ accepted manuscripts on our Advance articles page within 24 hours of receipt at OUP. In order to do this, it is imperative that authors sign their licence agreements immediately.

Manuscripts are then copyedited, typeset, proofed out, and corrected. Once the manuscripts are finalised, the uncorrected manuscripts are taken off the Advance Access page and replaced with the final corrected articles.

Open Access Charges

DNA Research is a fully open access journal, and all articles are published in the journal under an open access license immediately upon publication. You will need to pay an open access charge to publish under an open access license.

Details of the open access licenses and open access charges.

Regular charge - $1,400

Corresponding authors based in countries and regions, that are part of the developing countries initiative are eligible for a full waiver of publishing fees in our fully open access journals. For further details, please see our APC Waiver Policy.

OUP has a growing number of Read and Publish agreements with institutions and consortia which provide funding for open access publishing. This means authors from participating institutions can publish their papers under an open access license, and the institution may pay the charge. Find out if your institution is participating in one of OUP’s Read and Publish agreements.

Authors publishing in DNA Research can use the following Creative Commons licenses for their articles:

Creative Commons Attribution license (CC BY)
Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial license (CC BY-NC)

Where applicable, authors should follow institutional or funder requirements when selecting their publishing license. Information on the differences between Creative Commons licenses can be found on the Creative Commons website.

Ethics

When reporting animal experiments, authors should indicate whether the institution’s, national research council’s, or any other law on the care and use of laboratory animals was followed. When reporting on human subjects, authors should indicate whether the procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Helsinki Declaration (1964, amended most recently in 2008) of the World Medical Association. Manuscripts should include a statement that the patient’s written consent was obtained and any information, including illustrations, should be as anonymized as far as possible. Authors should indicate that the design of the work has been approved by local ethical committees or that it conforms to standards currently applied in the country of origin. The name of the authorizing body and the authorization number of the study should be stated in the paper.

When preparing your manuscript, we recommend referring to the ARRIVE guidelines.

Misconduct

Misconduct on submitted manuscripts is taken seriously and will lead to immediate rejection. This includes dual-submission, plagiarism (including self-plagiarism or salami-slicing publication), figure manipulation, duplicate publication and fraudulent data. If authors are not using original material, they must obtain the relevant permission(s) to reproduce any copyright material and acknowledge the original source in their manuscript.

If misconduct is discovered after a manuscript is accepted, the article will be retracted and a note to announce retraction will be published. Any possible case of misconduct will be dealt with and if it cannot be resolved by discussion with the authors, the case may be reported to the appropriate authorities. If, during the course of reviewing an article, an editor is alerted to possible problems such as fraudulent data in another publication, the Editor-in-Chief may contact the journal in which the previous publication appeared to raise the concern.

DNA Research is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and investigates all potential cases of misconduct thoroughly on a case-by-case basis. Cases of research or publication misconduct may be referred to COPE in an anonymised format. 

Plagiarism

Manuscripts submitted may be screened with iThenticate anti-plagiarism software in an attempt to detect and prevent plagiarism. Any manuscript may be screened, especially if there is reason to suppose part or all of the text has been previously published. Prior to final acceptance any manuscript that has not already been screened may be put through iThenticate. Please see more information about iThenticate.

Submission of Manuscripts

The journal follows CSE style. Please refer to these requirements when preparing your manuscript after initial review. More information is available in our mini style guide.

Manuscript Preparation: Detailed Instructions

Manuscripts are limited to 10 typeset pages in principle (approximately 7,000 words or 30 manuscript pages), but supporting data may be presented as supplementary data, if accepted. Authors are expected to follow the journal’s basic manuscript structure and formatting requirements. Papers which do not comply may be unsubmitted by the Editorial Office and a request sent to the corresponding author to resubmit the manuscript with the necessary additions or amendments.

Manuscripts should be structured to include the following sections: (1) title page, (2) abstract (no more than 200 words), (3) introduction, (4) materials and methods, (5) results and discussion, (6) references, (7) tables, and (8) figure legends. The title page, abstract, references, tables (each table), and figure legends must begin on a new page.

Cover letter:

Authors are required to submit a cover letter which should briefly state the originality, significance and advancement made by the work in the relevant field, and confirm that the criteria for authorship described in the ‘Authorship’ section below are fulfilled.

Preprint policy:

Authors retain the right to make an Author’s Original Version (preprint) available through various channels, and this does not prevent submission to the journal. For further information see our Online Licensing, Copyright and Permissions policies. If accepted, the authors are required to update the status of any preprint, including their published paper’s DOI, as described on our Author Self-Archiving policy page. If a preprint version is published online, authors are requested to state this fact in the cover letter at initial submission stage.

File Format:

Follow the instructions below regarding the format of your manuscript and references. Prepare the main text with Microsoft Word and add line numbers for convenience in the review process. Please also use 1.5 line spacing. We recommend using the Times New Roman font, in size 10.5. If you have any questions regarding this, please contact the Editorial Office at [email protected].

Title page:

The title page must contain a brief title which accurately describes the contents, and a running title of no more than 50 characters (including spaces). The names of all authors should be provided along with the full name and address of each institution. The name, complete address, and telephone and fax numbers should be provided for the author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

Abstract and key words:

The abstract should be one paragraph of no more than 200 words summarizing the basic content of the paper. Avoid abbreviations and references. When it is essential to include a reference, a full literature citation except for the article title should be provided. After the abstract, between 3 and 5 key words should be included that will assist in cross indexing.

Introduction:

State the reasons for performing the work with brief reference to relevant previous work (no longer than one type-written page).

Materials and Methods:

Describe the materials and methods used to allow the experiments to be reproduced. Describe only the methods specifically used in detail. For commonly used methods, citation of references is sufficient.

Results and Discussion:

This section may be divided into subsections with short subtitles. The conclusions are to be provided in this section.

Acknowledgements:

Include here the names of those to be acknowledged as well as all sources of financial support.

References:

The references should be cited in the text in the order in which they first appear using superscript arabic numbers. List all authors when there are 6 or less; when 7 or more, list only the first 3 authors followed by "et al." Abbreviations of journals must conform to those used in the NLM Catalogue. The reference section should be arranged as follows:

1. Sprengel, R., Braun, T., Nikolics, K., Segaloff, D. L., and Seeburg, P. H. 1990, The testicular receptor for follicle cDNA stimulating hormone-Structure and functional expression of cloned cDNA, Mol. Endocrinol., 4, 525-530.

2. Sambrook, J., Frietsch, E. F., and Maniatis, T. 1989, Molecular cloning: A Laboratory Manual, 2nd Ed., Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, New York.

3. Maxam, A. M. and Gilbert, W. 1980, In: Grossman, L., Moldave, K. (eds) Methods in Enzymology, Vol. 65. Academic Press, New York, pp. 499-559.

If you use EndNote and/or Reference Manager to facilitate referencing citations (not required for submission), this journal's style is available for use.

Tables:

Type each table on a separate page with a heading at the top and footnotes at the bottom. All acronyms and abbreviations must be defined. 

Figures:

To avoid wasted white space and clutter, please ensure that the figure is reasonably sized and laid out. Line drawings must be clear, with high black and white contrast. TIFF files are preferable. Figures should be created in the same size you wish them to appear, and at the following resolution:
Line Drawings: higher than 1200 dpi
Half Tones: higher than 300 dpi
Single column figures should be less than 85mm wide. Double column figures should be less than 170 mm wide. Appropriately sized numbers, letters and symbols should be used, no smaller than 2 mm in size. If you are submitting figures in ppt format, please include the figure number and caption within the ppt file. For useful information on preparing your figures for publication, go to Cadmus Digital Art.

Figure accessibility and alt text

Incorporating alt text (alternative text) when submitting your paper helps to foster inclusivity and accessibility. Good alt text ensures that individuals with visual impairments or those using screen readers can comprehend the content and context of your figures. The aim of alt text is to provide concise and informative descriptions of your figure so that all readers have access to the same level of information and understanding, and that all can engage with and benefit from the visual elements integral to scholarly content. Including alt text demonstrates a commitment to accessibility and enhances the overall impact and reach of your work.  

Alt text is applicable to all images, figures, illustrations, and photographs. 

Alt text is only accessible via e-reader and so it won’t appear as part of the typeset article. 

Detailed guidance on how to draft and submit alt text. 

Figure legends:

Figure legends should bear enough information to understand the figure without reference to the text.

Third-Party Content in Open Access papers:

If your paper contains material for which you do not have Open Access re-use permissions, please state this clearly by supplying the following credit line alongside the material:

Title of content
Author, Original publication, year of original publication, by permission of [rights holder]

This image/content is not covered by the terms of the Creative Commons licence of this publication. For permission to reuse, please contact the rights holder.

Data:

Where ethically feasible, DNA Research strongly encourages authors to make all data on which the conclusions of the paper rely available to readers. We suggest that data be presented in the main manuscript or additional supporting files, or deposited in a public repository whenever possible. Information on general repositories for all data types, and a list of recommended repositories by subject area, is available on the Research Data Policy page.

Data Citation:

DNA Research supports the Force 11 Data Citation Principles and requires that all publicly available datasets be fully referred to in the reference list with an accession number or unique identifier such as a digital object identifier (DOI). Data citations should include the minimum information recommended by DataCite: 

[dataset]* Authors, Year, Title, Publisher (repository or archive name), Identifier

*The inclusion of the [dataset] tag at the beginning of the citation helps us to correctly identify and tag the citation. This tag will be removed from the citation published in the reference list.

Presentation of sequence data:

DDBJ, EMBL or GenBank accession numbers for nucleotide and/or amino acid sequence data must be included in the manuscript. In order to designate exons and introns, coding regions, transcribed regions etc., uppercase and lowercase letters may be used. Encoded amino acid sequences may be presented, using single-letter amino acid codes.

Supplementary data:

Additional sequence or mapping data that provide supporting evidence to a paper can be published separately as online-only material. The materials to be included in this section should be provided in their final form and should include a brief description that provides enough information to the data. When references are included, a full citation should be provided. Please note that Supplementary data will not be edited, so ensure that it is clearly and succinctly presented, and that the style of terms conforms to the rest of the paper. Also ensure that the presentation will work on any internet browser.

Abbreviations and symbols:

All abbreviations used in the text, except for those listed in this document, should be defined at their first mention in the text. Use single-letter or three-letter codes to designate symbols for amino acids.

Authorship:

All persons designated as authors should qualify for authorship. The order of authorship should be a joint decision of the co-authors. Each author should have participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for the content. Authorship credit should be based on substantial contribution to conception and design, execution, or analysis and interpretation of data. All authors should be involved in drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content, and must have read and approved the final version of the manuscript. Assurance that all authors of the paper have fulfilled these criteria for authorship should be clearly stated in the cover letter.

Language editing:

If English is not your first language, you may wish to have your manuscript edited for language before submitting it. This is not a mandatory step, but may help to ensure that the academic content of your paper is fully understood by journal editors and reviewers. Language editing does not guarantee that your manuscript will be accepted for publication. There are many specialist language editing services available and you can find these easily by searching online. Authors are liable for all costs associated with such services. Please note that edited manuscripts will still need to undergo peer-review by the journal.

Crossref Funding Data Registry:

In order to meet your funding requirements authors are required to name their funding sources, or state if there are none, during the submission process. For further information on this process or to find out more about CHORUS, visit the CHORUS initiative.

Online Submission: Detailed Instructions

DNA Research only accepts submissions via its online submission system.

1.    Follow the instructions above regarding the format of your manuscript and references.

2.    Prepare your manuscript, including tables, and save it as a .doc, .docx, .rtf or .ps file. All files in these formats will be converted to .pdf format upon submission. Prepare your figures at publication quality resolution, using applications capable of generating high-resolution .tif files (1200 d.p.i. for line drawings and 300 d.p.i. for colour and half-tone artwork). For useful information on preparing your figures for publication, go to Cadmus Digital Art.

3.    Any supplementary data to be submitted for review may be uploaded as Microsoft Excel spreadsheets or other appropriate file types. These will not be converted to PDF upon submission.

4.    When naming your files, please use simple filenames and avoid special characters and spaces. If you are using a Mac, you must also type the three-letter extension at the end of the file name you choose (e.g. .doc, .rtf, .jpg, .gif, .tif, .ppt, .xls, .pdf, .eps, .mov).

5.    The online submission software will automatically create a single .pdf file containing your main text and reduced-resolution versions of any figures you have submitted. This document will be used when your manuscript undergoes peer review. Your submitted files will appear in this .pdf sequentially, as specified by you on the submission page, and you will have an opportunity to enter figure captions/legends and to check the .pdf file prior to final submission. Please make sure that you proof the converted pdf file so no material is missing, and there are no conversion errors.

Now that your files are ready, visit the online submission web site. Please see here for instructions on using the online submission system.