About Molecular Cytogenetics

This page includes information about the aims and scope of Molecular Cytogenetics, 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

Molecular Cytogenetics encompasses all aspects of chromosome biology and the application of molecular cytogenetic techniques in all areas of biomedicine, including structural and functional organization of the chromosome and nucleus, genome variation, expression and evolution, chromosome abnormalities and genomic variations in medical genetics and tumor genetics.

Molecular Cytogenetics primarily defines a large set of the techniques that operate either with the entire genome or with specific targeted DNA sequences.

Topical areas include, but are not limited to:

• Structural and functional organization of chromosome and nucleus
• Genome variation, expression and evolution
• Animal and plant molecular cytogenetics and genomics
• Chromosome abnormalities and genomic variations in clinical genetics
• Applications in preimplantation, pre- and post-natal diagnosis
• Applications in the central nervous system, cancer and haematology research
• Previously unreported applications of molecular cytogenetic techniques
• Development of new techniques or significant enhancements to established techniques

This journal is a source for numerous scientists all over the world, who wish to improve or introduce molecular cytogenetic techniques into their practice.

Open access

All articles published by Molecular Cytogenetics 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 Molecular Cytogenetics 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.

Article-processing charges

Open access publishing is not without costs. Molecular Cytogenetics therefore levies an article-processing charge of £1075/$1700/€1335 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

Molecular Cytogenetics has an unofficial impact factor of 2.41. BioMed Central is working with Thomson Reuters (ISI) to ensure that citation analysis of articles published in Molecular Cytogenetics will be available.

Publication and peer review process

Criteria for publication

• Reviews: comprehensive, authoritative, descriptions of any subject within the journal's scope. Reviews can cover any topical themes such as basic science and clinical reviews, ethics, pro/con debates, equipment reviews and thematic series to highlight specific topics in the field.
• Research: reports of data from original research.
• Short reports: brief reports of data from original research, usually about 1500 words.
• Methodology articles: short articles presenting an untested original hypothesis backed solely by previously published results rather than any new evidence. They should outline significant progress in thinking that would also be testable, and be about 1500 words.
• Case reports: reports of clinical cases that can be educational, describe a diagnostic or therapeutic dilemma, suggest an association, or present an important adverse reaction.
• Letters to the Editor: they can take three forms: a substantial re-analysis of a previously published article, or a substantial response to such a re-analysis from the authors of the original publication, or an article that may not cover 'standard research' but that may be relevant to readers.
• Hypotheses: short articles presenting an untested original hypothesis backed solely by previously published results rather than any new evidence. They should outline significant progress in thinking that would also be testable, and be about 1500 words.
• Commentaries: short, focused and opinionated articles on any subject within the journal's scope. These articles are usually related to a contemporary issue, such as recent research findings, and are often written by opinion leaders invited by the Editorial Board. They focus on specific issues and are about 800 words.

Peer-review policies

Molecular Cytogenetics has a ‘closed’ peer review policy. All submitted manuscripts will be screened by the Editors-in-Chief or specialists from the Editorial board, and appropriate manuscripts will be sent for peer review. Decisions on acceptance or rejection will be based on the reports of two reviewers; a further reviewer will be invited in cases where initial reviewers disagree. Final decisions, however, rest with the Editors-in-Chief, who aim to provide an initial decision within six weeks.

Edited by Thomas Liehr, Lisa Shaffer and Yuri Yurov, Molecular Cytogenetics is supported by an expert Editorial Board.

Authors will be able to check the progress of their manuscript through the submission system at any time by logging into My Molecular Cytogenetics, a personalized section of the site.

Portability of peer review

In order to support efficient and thorough peer review, we aim to reduce the number of times a manuscript is re-reviewed after rejection from Molecular Cytogenetics, thereby speeding up the publication process and reducing the burden on peer reviewers. Therefore, please note that, if a manuscript is not accepted for publication in Molecular Cytogenetics and the authors choose to submit a revised version to another BioMed Central journal, we will pass the reviews on to the other journal's editors at the authors' request. We will reveal the reviewers' names to the handling editor for editorial purposes unless reviewers let us know when they return their report that they do not wish us to share their report with another BioMed Central journal.

Reprints

High-quality, bound reprints can be purchased for all articles published. Please see our reprints website for further information about ordering reprints, and to enquire about further details, including fees, please contact BioMed Central's reprint service.

Supplements

Molecular Cytogenetics 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

Any manuscript, or substantial parts of it, submitted to the journal must not be under consideration by any other journal. In general, the manuscript should not have already been published in any journal or other citable form, although it may have been deposited on a preprint server. Information on duplicate/overlapping publications can be found here. Authors are required to ensure that no material submitted as part of a manuscript infringes existing copyrights, or the rights of a third party.

Correspondence concerning articles published in Molecular Cytogenetics is encouraged. A 'post a comment' feature is available on all articles published by Molecular Cytogenetics. Comments will be moderated by the editorial office (see our Comment policy for further information) and linked to the full-text version of the article, if suitable.

Editorial standards

BioMed Central is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Data and materials release

Submission of a manuscript to Molecular Cytogenetics implies that readily reproducible materials described in the manuscript, including all relevant raw data, will be freely available to any scientist wishing to use them for non-commercial purposes.

Any 'in press' articles cited within the references and necessary for the reviewers' assessment of the manuscript should be made available if requested by the editorial office.

Appeals and complaints

Authors who wish to appeal a rejection or make a complaint should, in the first instance, contact the Editor-in-Chief who will provide details of the journal's complaints procedure.

Competing interests

Molecular Cytogenetics requires authors to declare any competing financial or other interest in relation to their work. All competing interests that are declared will be listed at the end of published articles. Where an author gives no competing interests, the listing will read 'The author(s) declare that they have no competing interests'.

Plagiarism detection

Molecular Cytogenetics's publisher, BioMed Central, is a member of the CrossCheck plagiarism detection initiative. In cases of suspected plagiarism CrossCheck is available to the editors of Molecular Cytogenetics to detect instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted manuscripts. CrossCheck is a multi-publisher initiative allowing screening of published and submitted content for originality.

Citing articles in Molecular Cytogenetics

Articles in Molecular Cytogenetics 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. Mol Cytogenet [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. Mol Cytogenet 2009, 1:115.

refers to article 115 from Volume 1 of the journal.

Why publish your article in Molecular Cytogenetics?

High visibility

Molecular Cytogenetics'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

Molecular Cytogenetics 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 are published with their final citation immediately upon acceptance in a provisional PDF form. The article will subsequently be published in both fully browsable web form, and as a formatted PDF; the article will then be available through Molecular Cytogenetics, BioMed Central and PubMed Central and will also be included in PubMed.

Flexibility

Online publication in Molecular Cytogenetics 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 papers).

Promotion and press coverage

Articles published in Molecular Cytogenetics are included in article alerts and regular email updates. Some may be included in abstract books mailed to academics and are highlighted on Molecular Cytogenetics's pages and on the BioMed Central homepage.

In addition, articles published in Molecular Cytogenetics 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 Molecular Cytogenetics. A list of articles recently press-released by journals published by BioMed Central is available here.

Copyright

Authors of articles published in Molecular Cytogenetics 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.