ChemBioChem

Notice to Authors

General Information

ChemBioChem—a European Journal of Chemical Biology, is co-owned by a group of 14 European Chemical Societies and published by Wiley-VCH. Contributions in ChemBioChem cover chemical biology and biological chemistry, bioinorganic and bioorganic chemistry, biochemistry, molecular and structural biology; that is, research at the interface of chemistry and biology that deals with the application of chemical methods to biological problems or uses life science tools to address questions in chemistry. ChemBioChem publishes Communications and Full Papers, Reviews, Minireviews, Highlights, Concepts, Book Reviews and Conference Reports. Viewpoints, Correspondence, Essays, and Web Sites and Databases are also occasionally featured.

ChemBioChem does not publish manuscripts that have already appeared (in part or full) in print or electronically (e.g., online resources, reviews, proceedings or preprints). The author must inform the Editor of manuscripts submitted, soon to be submitted, or in press at other journals that have a bearing on the manuscript being submitted to ChemBioChem. The Ethical Guidelines for Publication in Journals and Reviews issued by the European Association for Chemical and Molecular Sciences are followed and applied by the editors of ChemBioChem. Authors should reveal all sources of funding for the work presented in the manuscript, and should declare any conflict of interest, for example, financial support of the research by companies who stand to profit from publication of the results. If the manuscript is a revised/extended version of a paper previously rejected by ChemBioChem or any of its sister journals (e.g., Angewandte Chemie, ChemMedChem, Chemistry—A European Journal) then authors must inform the Editor of the previous submission in their cover letter and explain, in detail, the changes and revisions that have been made. Authors submitting a manuscript to ChemBioChem for the first time are asked to characterize their main research interests with a maximum of five keywords from the Keyword List for Authors and Reviewers.

With the exception of Book Reviews, Conference Reports, and Web Sites and Databases, all manuscripts that are suitable for consideration will be peer-reviewed and, if accepted for publication, edited with a view to clarity, brevity, and consistency. Authors are welcome to suggest referees.

Manuscript Submission

We request that you submit your manuscript by using our online submission service, manuscriptXpress. For the initial submission of a manuscript please prepare a single file (allowed formats: Word, RTF, Postscript, PDF) that contains all Schemes, Figures, Tables and Supporting Information, where appropriate, but not crystallographic CIF files. Please follow the instructions at the submission site. If you encounter any problems please make use of the contact form. Please include a short text justifying why your article should appear in ChemBioChem and avoid formatted text in your cover letter. Any information that is intended for the editorial office only (e.g., suggested reviewers and conflict of interest with potential reviewers) should be given in the box "Additional Upload Comment". If a video is to be included in the Supporting Information section, then please contact the editorial office for further advice on submission (please also see the "Supporting Information" section below).

MSWord templates for Reviews, Minireviews, Highlights, Concepts, Full Papers and Communications are available on the homepage in the section "For Authors". Authors are welcome to use these templates.

Types of Contribution

Except for original research papers (Communications and Full Papers) all other article types are generally invited. Unsolicited manuscripts are welcome as long as they fit into the scope of the journal. It would, however, be helpful if the Editor is informed of the topic and outline of a proposed review article prior to submission. All article types mentioned in Sections 1–5 will be peer-reviewed by two or more independent referees.

1. Reviews

Reviews deal with topics of current interest in any of the areas covered by ChemBioChem. Rather than an assemblage of detailed information with a complete literature survey, a critically selected treatment of the material is desired. Unsolved problems and possible developments should also be discussed.

Reviews should be divided into numbered sections. Cross-references in the text refer to these section numbers. The review starts with a Lead-in or Abstract (1000–1500 characters). This text should not be a mere summary rather it should arouse the readers' interest. The Introduction should primarily introduce the nonspecialist to the subject as clearly as possible. A Review should conclude with a Summary and Outlook section, in which the achievements and new challenges for the subject are presented succinctly. In addition, a biographical sketch (500–700 characters) and a portrait-quality black-and-white photograph of each author, as well as a graphical suggestion for the first page of the Review (frontispiece; 18 cm wide×19.5 cm high) should be submitted. Please note that a color frontispiece carries a charge of 495 Euros (including tax).

A Review should consist of a maximum of 40 pages (approximately 65000 characters) of main text, footnotes, literature citations, Tables and legends.

2. Minireviews

A Minireview introduces the reader to a particular area of research through a concise overview of a selected topic. The content should balance scope with depth, and references to important works by others that are significant to the topic, should be included.

As a Minireview is much more focused than a Review, it is shorter (15 pages of text, approximately 25000 characters) and does not contain a frontispiece or biographical sketch(es).

3. Highlights

In the Highlights section very important new results of original research are described, in general by a third person, with a view to highlighting their significance. The results should be presented clearly, but as succinctly as possible, without the comprehensive detail required for an original article. Highlights may be organized as the author wishes, but should not be more than five manuscript pages (approximately 8500 characters) in length. Chemical formulae, Figures, and Schemes should be restricted to important examples, and the number of references kept to a minimum.

4. Concepts

Concepts are short articles emphasizing the general concepts that have guided important developments in a specific area and their implications for future research. The reference section should only include the key papers that have contributed to conceptual advances in the field under review, rather than being fully comprehensive. The author should aim to provide the nonspecialist reader with a useful guide and the expert with a new angle on a familiar problem. Concept articles may be organized as the author wishes, but should include a short Abstract (approximately 600–1000 characters) that succinctly describes the concepts under discussion. Articles should consist of around ten pages of text (approximately 17000 characters) including references, Tables and legends. The liberal use of Schemes and Figures is encouraged.

5. Communications and Full Papers

Communications and Full Papers present results of experimental or theoretical studies of general interest or great importance to the development of a specific area of research. A short text justifying why the manuscript should appear in ChemBioChem should be submitted. Detailed information that could be of importance to the referees, but that is unlikely to be of interest to the reader can be submitted as an enclosure or clearly marked as Supporting Information. Only articles that have already been published in a scientific journal should be cited. The citation should be fair and informative but not excessive. Copies of cited publications not yet available publicly should be submitted along with the manuscript. Unpublished results and lectures should only be cited for exceptional reasons.

Inclusive of all references, footnotes and Tables, a Communication should be no longer than six manuscript pages (approximately 10000 characters). Longer Communications will be accepted only if their quality warrants special consideration, and a written justification of their length is provided. Communications should not be divided into sections. However, experimental details can be summarized separately under the heading Experimental Section or Computational Methods. The first paragraph of a Communication should give an introduction to enable readers unfamiliar with the subject to become acquainted with the importance of the results presented. In the final paragraph the results should be summarized succinctly, and one sentence should be devoted to their significance and, if appropriate, to remaining challenges.

Full Papers, which generally contain an Experimental Section and/or Computational Methods, have no length restrictions. However, the editorial office requests that space be used thoughtfully and economically. ChemBioChem will not publish Full Papers that consist mainly of results reported in previous Communications with an added experimental section. Full Papers contain an Abstract, which should be brief (600–1000 characters) and not too technical, and an Introduction including relevant references. The presentation of Results and Discussion may be combined or kept separate. These sections may be further divided by subheadings.

Detailed facts of importance to specialist readers can be submitted as Supporting Information and will be made accessible on the internet. Color and animated multimedia applications are welcome (please see below).

If a crystal structure analysis or sequence determination is not an essential part of a manuscript, only a footnote is required to indicate where the detailed results can be found. This can be a separate publication or a freely accessible database.

Manuscripts containing animal experiments must include a statement in the Experimental Section to state that permission was obtained from the relevant national or local authorities. The institutional committees that have approved the experiments must be identified and the accreditation number of the laboratory or of the investigator given where applicable. If no such rules or permissions are in place in the country where the experiments were performed, then this must also be clearly stated. Manuscripts with experiments with human subjects or tissue samples from human subjects must contain a disclaimer in the Experimental Section to state that informed, signed consent was obtained from either the patient or next of kin.

Computer-aided image enhancement is often unavoidable. However, such manipulation cannot result in data that are less relevant or unrepresentative being shown, and/or genuine and significant signals being lost. A clear relationship must remain between the original data and the electronic images that result from those data. If an image has been electronically modified, the form of the modification should be given in the Figure caption. If computer-aided processing or modification of an image is a fundamental part of the experimental work, then the form that this processing takes must be clearly described in the Experimental Section.

The identity and purity of all new compounds must be fully determined with appropriate analytical methods (e.g., NMR spectroscopy, X-ray crystal structure analysis, elemental analysis, etc.). If these data exceed the scope of the Experimental Section then they must be given in the Supporting Information.

Equipment and conditions used for the measurement of physical data as well as any organisms, proteins, or nucleic acids used should be described at the beginning of the Experimental Section.

6. Book Reviews

Reviews of books are written on invitation. Suggestions for books to be reviewed and for reviewers are welcome. Publishers should send brochures or, preferably, the books directly to the editorial office. Unsolicited books will not be returned.

7. Conference Reports, Viewpoints/Essays, Correspondence, etc.

Reports on recent events and comments on publications in ChemBioChem or on topics of high current interest are welcome if they contribute to the scientific discussion in the area of chemical biology.

8. Corrigenda

Scientifically incorrect or incomplete information in published articles should be corrected in a Corrigendum. Corrigenda are printed directly after the Table of Contents and should be kept as short as possible. We request that authors submit the Corrigendum electronically like any other article, and that they cite the publication to be corrected along with its digital object identifier (DOI).

General Remarks

Color Figures: Printing of Schemes and Figures in color is expensive and part of the additional costs must be carried by the authors. If color printing is essential and the author does not have access to funds for this purpose, then the Editor can make an exception.

Spelling may be British or American but consistency should be maintained within a manuscript. Authors are asked to make their manuscripts suitable for a heterogeneous readership of biologists and chemists and to be considerate to our many readers for whom English is a foreign language—please use a simple, clear style, and avoid jargon.

Abbreviations and acronyms should be used sparingly and consistently and follow the system of abbreviations and symbols recommended by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) and the International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (IUBMB). Where they first appear in the text, they should—apart from the most common ones, such as NMR, IR, PCR or UV—be defined. You may prefer to explain large numbers of abbreviations and acronyms at the end of the text. Names of organisms should comply with genetic conventions, with genus and species names written in italics and spelled out in full on first appearance. Abbreviations for genes should be italicized, those of corresponding protein products should not be italicized (e.g., hsp70 and Hsp70, respectively). Generally, nomenclature conventions for any given organism, group, or kingdom should be observed. Enzyme names should be accompanied by the respective Enzyme Commission (EC) numbers.

For all types of contribution described in Sections 1–5, a short text for the Table of Contents should be included. This text should be about five lines (approximately 300 characters) in length and formulated to arouse curiosity. Repetition or paraphrasing of the title and presentation of experimental details should be avoided. The use of graphics (formula or part of a Figure) is encouraged and a color picture will be reproduced free of charge. Pictures should be kept small with minimum detail, as the maximum final width is either approximately 5.5×5.5 cm or 11.5×2 cm.

In addition, for all manuscripts mentioned in Sections 1–5, a maximum of five Keywords should be given. In order to aid online searching, at least two of the keywords should be taken from Basic Keyword List.

Suggestions for the cover picture (18.0 cm wide×17.0 cm high) with an explanatory text (approximately 500 characters) beginning with "The cover picture shows..." are welcome. The cover picture is chosen by the Editor shortly before an issue is to be published. Part of the additional cost for color printing must be paid by the author. Details will be provided upon selection of the cover picture.

The correspondence author will receive page proofs by e-mail (in most cases as PDF); corrected page proofs should be returned to the editorial office within three days. Corrections after online (EarlyView) publication will only be accepted for formal mistakes or misprints; for all other corrections a Corrigendum has to be submitted (see Section 8). The correspondence author will also receive a complementary copy of the journal and a reprint PDF file, restricted to 25 printouts.

Please note, that Wiley-VCH will deposit manuscripts with PubMed Central (PMC) on behalf of our authors who are recipients of National Institute of Health (NIH) grants. PMC may display the peer-reviewed manuscript (unedited and not proof-read) twelve months after Wiley-VCH has published the article. By assuming this responsibility, we will ensure our authors are in compliance with NIH requirements, as well as making certain that the appropriate version of the manuscript is deposited. We await the release by PMC of protocols regarding manuscript submission. We reserve the right to change or rescind this policy.

Open Access: If authors must or wish to make their publications freely available after publication (open access) ChemBioChem offers such a service. You can find all the relevant information about this topic on our homepage under the keyword OnlineOpen.

If authors wish to maintain an updated list of their publication on their personal or laboratory homepages, in general we recommend that they incorporate a link on their homepage to their ChemBioChem publication through the "Digital Object Identifier" (DOI). Only in this way can Crossref function correctly and full-text downloads be tallied.

Guidelines for the Preparation of Manuscripts

Your manuscript can be processed more rapidly if it is arranged as described below. Unless stated otherwise, the following instructions apply to all categories of contributions.

Title page (in order): title; authors names with academic titles, alphabetical footnotes (^[a],^[b],....) referring to addresses, and an asterisk to denote the correspondence author; footnotes containing affiliations of all authors including the full postal address, fax number, and e-mail address of the correspondence author; series title, number, and reference to the previous paper in the series, if applicable; dedication, if applicable.

Keywords: A maximum of five keywords to appear in the printed and online indexes should be given in alphabetical order. At least two keywords should be taken from the basic keyword list available on the journal's homepage to aid online searching.

Experimental Section/Computational Methods (applicable to Full Papers and Communications only) should be given in sufficient detail to enable others to repeat the work.

In so far as is practical authors should use a systematic name for each title compound in the Experimental Section (as suggested by the IUPAC, IUBMB or Chemical Abstracts). Please do not use computer programs to generate elaborate systematical names or use extremely long compound names. For the sake of clarity general descriptors, such as compound 1, dendrimer 2, or alcohol 3, should be used.

References: In the text numbers corresponding to the appropriate reference should be typed in square brackets as superscripts (e.g., Blobel^[3]) and after punctuation, where applicable. References must be listed in order of their appearance in the text. Journal titles should be abbreviated according to the Chemical Abstracts Service Source Index (CASSI). Unpublished results and lectures should only be cited for exceptional reasons; if a lecture is cited, then the express permission of the lecturer will be required for citation. The references section should be organized as follows:

Journals: [1] a) J. A. Pitcher, N. J. Freedman, R. J. Lefkowitz, Annu. Rev. Biochem. 1998, 67, 653–692; b) P. Sears, C.-H. Wong, Angew. Chem. 1999, 111, 2446–2471; Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 1999, 38, 2300–2324; c) A. N. Author, ChemBioChem DOI: 10.1002/cbic.200900123.

[2] a) W. D. Wagner, Ann. N.Y. Acad. Sci. 1985, 454, 52-–68, and references therein; b) J. C. Wang, Sci. Am. 1982, 247, 94–97.

Books (without editor): [3] E. Wingender, Gene Regulation in Eukaryotes, 2nd ed., VCH, Weinheim, 1993, Chapter 5.

Books (with editor): [4] T. D. Tullius in Comprehensive Supramolecular Chemistry, Vol. 5 (Eds.: J. L. Atwood, J. E. D. Davies, D. D. MacNicol, F. Vögtle, K. S. Suslick), Pergamon, Oxford, 1996, pp. 317-–343.

Miscellaneous: [5] a) C. R. A. Botta (Bayer AG), DE-B 2235093, 1973 [Chem. Abstr. 1974, 80, 55356c]; b) A. Student, PhD thesis, University of Newcastle (UK), 1991.

Structural Formulae, Figures and Schemes: Each Figure or Scheme should have a legend; structural formulae do not require a legend. Please use only one size of writing and font in any one diagram. Writing above an arrow in a Scheme may be a little smaller. Good quality, legible graphics should be submitted for referees and editors. Microscopy images (optical, electron or scanning probe) should always contain a scale bar. Editors or referees may ask authors to provide full images of gels.

For high quality reproduction, high resolution graphics (300 dpi or higher) must be supplied. All illustrations should, if possible, be designed for reduction to a one- (8.6 cm wide) or two-column format (17.8 cm wide). For optimum reproduction, illustrations should be larger than the desired final size. We recommend: Helvetica font for script; size of lettering, 3–3.5 mm; total maximum width, 14 cm (or 28 cm for two-column width) for 60% reduction.

Tables must have a brief title and should only be subdivided by three horizontal lines (head rule, neck rule, foot rule). Footnotes in Tables are denoted [a], [b], [c], etc. Tables should not be created as graphics files.

Please italicize symbols of physical quantities in both graphics and the text, but not their units (e.g., T for temperature, in contrast to T for the unit Tesla; J, but Hz; a, but nm). Stereochemical information (cis, Z, R, etc.), locants (N-methyl, α-amino), and symmetry designations (C_2v) should also be italicized. Chemical formulae should be numbered with boldface Arabic numerals (e.g., 1). Labels of axes should be separated from their units by a slash (e.g., T/K). Abbreviations, such as Me, Et, nBu, iPr, sBu, tBu, and Ph (not φ) may be used. General substituents should be indicated by R¹, R² (not R₂, which means 2R), or R, R′. The spatial arrangement of the substituents should be indicated by hatched lines or a wedge. A minus sign must be as long as the crossbar of a plus sign.

Mathematical formulae should not be incorporated into the text as graphic files. Please either type mathematical formulae as normal text in the body of the text, as far as is possible, or present them in Formula Manager.

Guidelines for the Preparation of Final Revised Versions of Manuscripts

The final revised version of the manuscript and related production data should be submitted after the paper has been accepted for publication, either as a compressed ZIP or Stuffit file through your homepage.

To save unnecessary work with the electronic version of the text, please ensure your manuscript also fulfills the following criteria:

1. Graphics should not be integrated in the text. Please store each chemical formula, Figure, and Scheme in a separate graphic file. Though several graphics programs and formats can be used by the editorial staff and the printer, they are not equally suitable. To ensure trouble-free reproduction of the electronic graphics files, it is important to refer to the information given in the Guidelines for the Preparation of Graphical Material on our homepage.

2. Legends: Figure and Scheme legends should be listed together at the end of the references section and not included with the drawings in the graphics files. Please use the full word "Figure" or "Scheme" in all parts of the manuscript.

3. The text should be stored in two formats: in the standard format of the word-processing program and in RTF (rich text format). Any Supporting Information should be saved as a separate document with no title page in pdf format.

4. Tables are edited in the text, and should therefore not be sent as graphic files; they should be prepared with tabulators.

5. Preferred word-processing programs are: Microsoft Word for Windows 6.0, 7.0, and updates, WordPerfect, and Macintosh files, preferably stored in Word format. Documents prepared with other word-processing programs should be converted if possible. ChemTex files, for example, cannot be used.

6. Avoid end-of-line word divisions, and please use only one font type—except for Greek letters, which should be typed in the Symbol font.

7. The text should be typed as "continuous text", that is, with carriage returns only at the end of a paragraph, title, heading, and similar features. Formula numbers, and in the reference section, the year of publication (but not headings, e.g., "Table 1" or "Figure 1") should be in boldface. The symbols for 1 (one) and l ("ell"), 0 (zero) and O ("oh") should be distinct.

Structure and Sequence Data

Prior to manuscript submission, author(s) must deposit the following information in the appropriate databases: data of X-ray structure analyses of inorganic and organic compounds, proteins, or nucleic acids; structure determination of proteins and nucleic acids by NMR spectroscopy (together with a list of NEOs), and sequence determinations of proteins or nucleic acids. The name of the database and the deposition number(s) must be stated in the part of the manuscript where the respective structure or sequence determination(s) is described so that referees can retrieve the information electronically. Detailed instructions for data submission can be found on the homepages of the databases listed below.

Structure Data

Organic and organometallic compounds: Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC; WWW: http://www.ccdc.cam.ac.uk).

Inorganic compounds: Fachinformationszentrum Karlsruhe (FIZ; WWW: http://www.fiz-karlsruhe.de).

Proteins: Protein Data Bank (WWW: http://pdbbeta.rcsb.org).

NMR spectroscopy data: BioMagResBank (WWW: http://www.bmrb.wisc.edu).

Sequence Data

Nucleic acids: GenBank (WWW: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/Genbank) or EMBL Nucleotide Sequence Database (WWW: http://www.ebi.ac.uk/embl).

Proteins: Protein Information Resource (PIR; WWW: http://pir.georgetown.edu) or SWISS-PROT (WWW: http://www.expasy.org).

Please note that referees should be able to access data in databanks during the peer-review process.

Supporting Information

Supporting Information may be included for deposition on the internet. The author must keep a copy to make available to readers who do not have internet access. This material is peer-reviewed and must therefore be included with the original submission. After acceptance, the Supporting Information text and related graphics should be provided as a single pdf file. Please do not include a title page in your Supporting Information document. Supporting Information should not include crystallographic or sequence data that are available from the relevant databases. Color and animated multimedia applications are welcome for Supporting Information (acceptable formats: mpeg, avi, quicktime; size: 10–15 MB). Please contact the editorial office for submission of videos/animation, and do not upload these online.

Basic Keyword List

An interjournal browsing facility (automatic links to lists of thematically related contributions) has been developed for the readers of Wiley-VCH journals Angewandte Chemie International Edition, ChemBioChem, ChemCatChem, ChemMedChem, ChemPhysChem, ChemSusChem, Chemistry–A European Journal, Chemistry–An Asian Journal, European Journal of Inorganic Chemistry, European Journal of Organic Chemistry, Advanced Synthesis & Catalysis, and the Zeitschrift für Anorganische und Allgemeine Chemie.

To enable this option, the editors of these journals have compiled a common keyword catalogue. This catalogue is subdivided to facilitate the search for keywords but can also be completely searched. Some of the keywords are used in more than one area. As with all such records, a few guidelines facilitate its use, and these are briefly explained below:

1. At least two of the maximum of five keywords assigned to an article must come from this list.

2. Named reactions will be incorporated only in exceptional cases. Generally the reaction type is selected instead. For example, Diels–-Alder reactions will be found under "cycloadditions" and Claisen rearrangements under "rearrangements".

3. Heteroanalogues of compounds are mainly classified under the C variants, for example, (hetero)cumulenes, (hetero)dienes. A few aza and phospha derivatives are exceptions.

4. Compounds with inorganic components that are central to the article are listed under the element, for instance, iron complexes under "iron" and, if appropriate, the ligand type. Some group names such as "alkali metals" exist alongside the names of important members of the group, for example, "lithium". In such cases the group name is used for these members only when comparative studies are described. The members that do not appear separately are also categorized under the group name.

5. A keyword in the form "N ligand" is only chosen if a considerable portion of the paper deals with the coordination of any ligand that coordinates through the atom concerned (in the example, nitrogen).

6. Spectroscopic methods are assigned as keywords only if the article is about the method itself or if the spectroscopic technique has made an important contribution to the problem under investigation.

7. "Structure elucidation" is intended only if the crux of the paper is a structural elucidation or if a combination of several spectroscopic techniques were needed for conclusive solution of the structure.

8. An attempt has been made to avoid synonyms and to select more general concepts rather than specialized terms. Thus the term "double-decker complexes" is excluded in favor of "sandwich complexes". See also points 3 and 4 in these guidelines.

9. Enzymes should be assigned to one of the six main enzyme classes (hydrolases, isomerases, ligases, lyases, oxidoreductases, transferases).

This list is a "living" catalogue, flexible enough to absorb new developments in chemistry. We therefore welcome all suggestions from our readers and authors that might improve its user-friendliness. The current version can be found in the World Wide Web.

Contact Information

Regular mail: ChemBioChem, Postfach 101161, 69451 Weinheim, Germany.
Courier services: ChemBioChem, Boschstrasse 12, 69469 Weinheim, Germany.Tel.: (+49)6201-606-278
Fax: (+49)6201-606-331 or -328
E-mail: chembiochem@wiley-vch.de
Homepage: http://www.chembiochem.org
Manuscript submission: http://www.manuscriptxpress.com