Author Guidelines

Editorial policy
Acta Biochimica Iranica is a free peer-reviewed journal and publishes original papers related to all areas of Biochemistry, Molecular and Cellular Biology, Structural Biology, Disease Biology, Chemical Biology, Genetics, Genomics and Biotechnology. Reviews, symposia, short communications, letters to the Editor are also accepted.
Manuscripts are accepted on condition that they have not been previously published or submitted for publication, and are not going to be sent to other journals. This restriction does not apply to works published in a form of abstracts or summaries. Manuscripts should be written in English. Manuscripts should be submitted online via the Acta Biochimica Iranica online manuscript submission and review system. After the manuscript is submitted online, the corresponding author will receive a manuscript number. See Manuscript Preparation and Submission Requirements, and other details in these instructions for additional requirements. Manuscripts will be archived if not meet the required abovementioned information and Journal’s preparation checklist.
Manuscripts describing any experimental work with humans should include a statement that the Ethical Committee of the institution in which the work was done has approved it, and that the subjects gave informed consent to the work. Experiments with animals should be done in accordance with the legal requirements of the relevant local or national authority reparation checklist.

Review Process

Manuscripts will be sent to at least two referees for evaluation. The journal always attempts to minimize the potential for conflict of interest in the reviewing of manuscripts and, therefore, authors may request any individuals with possible conflict of interest not to be involved in the reviewing of their manuscript. Authors may provide the names and addresses of a few potential reviewers.  Contributors will receive an email from one of the Editors stating whether their manuscript has been accepted. Revised manuscripts should be submitted through the online submission system.

Cover Letters

Submissions should include a cover letter. The cover letter must state that the manuscript has not been submitted or published at any other journal and anything else the author wishes for the editor to know. This could be specific questions the author wishes for reviewers to address, or suggestions for reviewers.

Form and Style of Manuscript

Before submitting a manuscript, authors should ensure that they understand the formatting requirements.

All manuscripts must be typed double spaced and include line and page numbers.

The Original manuscript should not exceed 12 printed pages (or 5000 words in length) including tables and figures.

Short communications should not exceed 4 printed pages (or 500-2000 words in length) including one table and two figures. Short communication is suitable for recording the results of complete small investigations or giving details of new models or hypotheses, innovative methods, techniques or apparatus.

A Case Report or letters to the Editor must include an abstract of no more than 50 words. It may be no more than 800 words long. The total number of tables and figures (combined) must not exceed

Review articles are accepted. Reviews should be concise and no longer than 4 to 6 printed pages. Reviews are also peer-reviewed.

Graphical abstract

A Graphical abstract is optional and should summarize the contents of the article in a concise, pictorial form designed to capture the attention of a wide readership online. Authors must provide images that clearly represent the work described in the article. Graphical abstracts should be submitted as a separate file in the online submission system.

Highlights 

Highlights are optional for this journal. They consist of a short collection of bullet points that convey the core findings of the article and should be submitted in a separate file in the online submission system. Please use 'Highlights' in the file name and include 3 to 5 bullet points (maximum 85 characters, including spaces, per bullet point). 

Organization of the manuscript

   A desirable plan for the organization of regular or short communication manuscripts is as follows: (a) Title Page(S), (b) Abstract, (c) Introduction, (d) Materials and Methods, (e) Results, (f) Discussion, (g) References, (h), Acknowledgements and Funding, (i) Conflict of Interest, (j) Figure Legends, (k) Tables and (l) Figures.

Title Page(s)

Provide a title page(s), containing the following items.

1. The form of the paper (Regular Paper or Rapid Communication).
2. A short informative title containing the major key words. The title should not contain abbreviations.
3. List the full names and affiliation of all authors.
4. Running title. Provide a short running title of less than 60 characters. It should be as informative as possible.
5. The name, complete mailing address, telephone number, Fax number, and E-mail address of the person to whom correspondence should be sent.
6. Abbreviations. Non-standard abbreviations should be defined, even if they are known to those familiar with the field. List all non-standard abbreviations used in the paper, in alphabetical order.

 Abstract

The Abstract should be clearly written in 250 words or less and should include objectives, materials and methods, results and conclusions.

Key words: Provide 5-7 key words identifying the nature of the subject matter, alphabetically in the last part of the summary.

Materials and Methods

 This section should provide enough detail to allow suitably skilled or less-skilled investigators to fully replicate your study. Specific information and/or protocols for new methods should be included in detail. If materials, methods, and protocols are well established, the authors may cite articles where those protocols are described in detail, but the submission should include sufficient information to be understood independent of these references. The Methods sections of papers on research using human or animal subjects and/or tissue or field sampling must include required Ethics statements of the relevant local or national authority. Cell lines must state the origin of the cell lines used. Novel nucleotide or protein sequence data must be deposited in the GenBank, EMBL or DDBJ databases and an accession number obtained before the paper can be accepted for publication. For each accession number cited in an article, authors should type the accession number in capital. Example: (GenBank accession nos. AA361117-AA361127). SI units should be used throughout the text. When drugs and chemicals used, precisely identify including generic names (s), dose (s), and route (s) of administration.

Results

 Present your results in logical sequence in the text, tables, and illustrations. Do not repeat in the text all the data in the tables or illustrations; emphasize or summarize only important observations.

Discussion

 Emphasize the new and important aspects of the study and the conclusions that follow them. Do not repeat in detail data or other material given in the Introduction or the Results section. Include in the Discussion section the implications of the findings and their limitations, including implications for further research

Acknowledgments

 Contributions from anyone who does not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed, with permission from the contributor, in an Acknowledgments section. Financial and material support should also be mentioned.

Conflict of Interest Statement

 Authors should disclose information on financial conflicts of interest or other interests that may influence the manuscript. When authors have nothing to declare the following statement may be used: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest. 

References

 It should be in limited numbers and up-to-dated, also numbered consecutively as they occur in the text (number in parentheses). Please also ensure that every reference cited in the text is also present in the reference list (and vice versa). Unpublished results and personal communications are not recommended in the reference list, but may be mentioned in the text.

Examples of references:

If number of authors is more than 6, write et al.

1. Nakamura Y, Kitamura Y, Sumiyoshi Y, Naito N, Kan S, Ushio S, et al. Involvement of 5-HT2A receptor hyperfunction in the anxiety-like behavior induced by doxorubicin and cyclophosphamide combination treatment in rats. J Pharmacol Sci 2018;138:192-7.
2. Ringsven MK, Bond D. Gerontology and leadership skills for nurses. 2nd ed. Albany (NY): Delmar publishers; 1996.
3. Phillips SJ, Whisnant Jp. Hypertension and stroke. In: Laragh JH, Brenner BM, editors. Hypertension: patho-physiology, diagnosis, and management. 2nd edition. New York: Raven Press; 1995:465-78.
4. Kimura J, Shibasaki H, editors. Recent advances in clinical neurophysiology. Proceedings of the 10th International Congress of EMG and clinical Neurophysiology; 1995 Oct  15-19; Kyoto, Japan. Amsterdam: Elsevier; 1996.

Figure legends

 The legends should have a title and include sufficient description so that the figure is understandable without reading the text of the manuscript. Information given in legends should not be repeated in the text. 

Tables

 Tables should be typed on separate pages and numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals. Tables should be self-explanatory and include a brief descriptive title. Give each column a short or abbreviated heading. Place explanatory matter in footnotes indicated by lower case letters, not in the heading. Explain in footnotes all nonstandard abbreviations that are used in each table. Footnotes should not include extensive experimental details. Be sure that each table is cited in the text. If you use data from another published or unpublished source, obtain permission and acknowledge them fully.

Figures

 Figures should be in limited numbers, with high quality art work mounted on separate pages. Use Arabic numerals to designate figures consecutively in accordance with their appearance in the text. Graphics should be prepared in high resolution GIF, TIFF, JPEG.

Submission checklist

The following list will be useful during the final checking of an article prior to sending it to the journal for review:

• One author has been designated as the corresponding author with contact details, E-mail   address, full postal address, and phone numbers.
• Graphical abstract (optional)
• Highlights (Optional)
• Cover letter
• Abstract
• Keywords
• All figure captions
• All tables (including title, description, footnotes)

Further considerations

• The Manuscript has been 'spell-checked' and 'grammar-checked'
• All sections of the manuscript must be typed double-spaced and all pages numbered starting from the title page.
• References are in the correct format for this journal
• All references mentioned in the Reference list are cited in the text, and vice versa
• All necessary files in DOC, DOCX , PDF , RTF (rich text format)  must be uploaded.