Preparing a publication for journals: Research involving cells and plants

In the Methods sections, submissions reporting cellular studies must state their origin. The introduction should state which methods were chosen for the study. In the section, you must fully describe the experimental design or research process in such a way that any competent reader can reproduce your results.

If previously unpublished cell lines were used, including those from another laboratory, details of institutional review board or ethics committee approval must be provided, and written informed consent must be provided if the line is of human origin.

Experimental research on plants, including the collection of plant material, must comply with institutional, national or international regulations and the Convention on the Biological Diversity of Endangered Wild Fauna and Flora.

For each submitted manuscript, supporting genetic and lineage information must be provided. For studies involving rare plants, specimens must be available at a herbarium or museum. Data may be requested by future researchers to verify the identity of the material used in the study. They should include details of the populations selected at the place of collection, the date of collection, and document the plant part(s) used in the study. For rare, endangered, or endangered species, this may be waived, but the author needs to describe this in a cover letter.

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