Trends in Bioinformatics

Trends in Bioinformatics is a newly launched international journal, provides the way to the scientists and researchers to publish their significant research findings, new developments in computational biology and its related fields. The scope of this journal aims to provide all the aspects of development, testing and statistical methods for modeling and analysis of all kinds of biological data using information technology.

Submit your best paper to Trends in Bioinformatics via online submission system.

Communications – Guidelines

Communications should be organized as per the bellow listed instructions for each segment:


Quick points:

  • Should not exceed from 250 characters
  • Should be accurate, clear and concise, condensing the contents of the reported work in a few words.
  • Differentiating the paper from other papers of the same subject area and avoiding abbreviations where possible.
  • Capitalize initially (all first letters of each word of the title, except prepositions or helping verbs).


Quick points:

  • Author(s) full name (No abbreviations) with institutional addresses (specific to general, i.e., Full Name, Department, Faculty, University, City, Area Code, Country) and e-mail addresses of all authors should be mentioned.
  • The corresponding author should also mention clearly about who will be responsible for correspondence at all stages of refereeing and publication, also post-publication.

We encourage authors to supply LiveDNA IDs during manuscript submission. Otherwise, we will request to the author to provide us most updated CV of the corresponding author to generate LiveDNA.

Want to know more about LiveDNA? Visit the website of the LiveDNA.


Quick points:

  • Should not exceed 300 words
  • Do not use non-standard abbreviations unless they appear at least three times in the text.
  • Must be structured into separate sections: Background, the context and purpose of the study; Materials and Methods, how the study was performed and statistical tests used; Results, summarize the most important results and their significance; Conclusions, brief summary and potential implications.
  • Minimize the use of abbreviations
  • Do not cite references in the abstract.

Keywords are a tool to help indexers and search engines find relevant papers. If database search engines can find your journal manuscript, readers will be able to find it too. This will increase the number of people reading your manuscript, and likely lead to more citations.

However, to be effective, Keywords must be chosen carefully. They should:

  • Represent the content of your manuscript
  • Be specific to your field or sub-field
Examples:

Manuscript title: Direct observation of nonlinear optics in an isolated carbon nanotube
Poor keywords: molecule, optics, lasers, energy lifetime
Better keywords: single-molecule interaction, Kerr effect, carbon nanotubes, energy level structure

Manuscript title: Region-specific neuronal degeneration after okadaic acid administration
Poor keywords: neuron, brain, OA (an abbreviation), regional-specific neuronal degeneration, signaling
Better keywords: neurodegenerative diseases; CA1 region, hippocampal; okadaic acid; neurotoxins; MAP kinase signaling system; cell death

Manuscript title: Increases in levels of sediment transport at former glacial-interglacial transitions
Poor keywords: climate change, erosion, plant effects
Better keywords: quaternary climate change, soil erosion, bioturbation

Authors must submit a statement of no more than 120 words about the significance of their research paper written at a level understandable to an undergraduate-educated scientist outside their field of specialty. The primary goal of the Significance Statement is to explain the relevance of the work in a broad context to a broad readership. Significance statements are not required for Brief Reports, Perspectives, Letters to the Editor.


Quick points:

  • Should be written without subheading
  • Provide an adequate background
  • State the objectives of the work
  • The introduction should briefly explain the study in a broad context and highlight why it is important.
  • It should be brief and limited to the definition of the problem, the aims and purposes of the research and its relation to other studies in the field. Also the working hypothesis must be clearly stated.
  • Should define the purpose of the work and its significance, including specific hypotheses
  • Current state of the research field should be reviewed carefully along with and the citation of key publications.
  • Highlight controversial and diverging hypotheses where necessary.
  • It should give reference to relevant results of previously published work.
  • State the objectives of the work and provide an adequate background, avoiding a detailed literature survey or a summary of the results.
  • Prior work based on the same project and/or data must be referenced, and the unique contribution of the new submission must be stated explicitly.


Quick points:

  • May be divided by subheadings
  • For experiments reporting results on animal or human subject research, an ethics approval statement should be included in this section
  • The procedure should be described with sufficient details to allow others to replicate and build new ones based on published results.
  • Well-established methods can only be briefly described and appropriately cited.
  • Give the name and version of any software used and make clear whether computer code used is available.
  • The outcomes of the study should be defined, and the outcome measures should be objectively validated.
  • The methods used to analyze the data must be statistically sound.
  • If the authors used a technique from a published study, they should include a citation and a summary of the procedure in the text.
  • All materials and instruments should be identified, including the supplier's name and location.
  • This section should not have information that belongs to another section (such as the Introduction or Results).


Quick points:

  • The results should be stated concisely without discussion
  • Should not normally contain any references.
  • Avoid repetition of the same data in figures and tables.
  • Do not repeat all the data that are set out in the tables or figures in the text
  • Emphasis or summarize only important observations.


Quick points:

  • This section may be combined with Results.
  • This section should deal with the interpretation of the results and not recapitulate them.
  • Authors should discuss the results and how they can be interpreted in perspective of previous studies and of the working hypotheses.
  • The findings and their implications should be discussed in the broadest context possible and limitations of the work highlighted
  • Future research directions may also be mentioned.
  • Discussion should fit with the aims of the study stated in the Introduction
  • Authors should adequately compare their findings with the results of other published studies
  • The Author should not present the results of the study in this section.
  • Authors should explain how the study's results might influence future research
  • Avoid extensive citations and discussion of published literature.
  • This section may be divided by subheadings.
  • Discussions should cover the key findings of the study
  • Discuss the potential shortcomings and limitations and their interpretations
  • Discuss their integration into the current understanding of the problem and how these advances the current views
  • Speculate on the future direction of the research and freely postulate theories that could be tested in the future
  • Provide a concise and precise description of the experimental results
  • A clear presentation of experimental results obtained, highlighting any trends or points of interest.

  • Conclusions contain essentially the 'take-home' message of a paper.
  • Conclusions are not an extension of the discussion or a summary of the results.
  • Authors are advised to list important implications of their work in form of a bulleted list.
  • Conclusions must not contain references to the cited literature.


Quick points:

  • The financial support received from individuals, organizations, grants, corporations, and/or any other sources must be acknowledged.
  • Grant support, if received, needs to be stated and the specific granting institution(s) name(s) and grant numbers must be provided where applicable.
  • Any individual(s) involved in the writing/editing/researching of the paper who has not been named as authors should be identified by their specified role and funding source; for example, "Joseph Smith, a medical writer supported by funding from [company name], provided drafts and editorial assistance to the authors during preparation of this manuscript."
  • For work involving a biomedical product or potential product partially or fully supported by corporate funding, a note must be included stating: This study was supported (in part) by research funding from [company name] to [author's or authors' initials]..
  • All sources of institutional, private and corporate financial support for the work within the manuscript must be fully acknowledged.
  • People who contributed to the work but do not fit criteria for authorship should also be listed in the Acknowledgments, along with their contributions.


Quick points:

  • Please ensure that all work cited in the text is included in the reference list
  • References must always be given in sufficient detail for the reader to locate the work cited
  • There must be only one reference per number.

In the text

  • References must be cited in the text in superscript digits at the end of sentence or paragraph before punctuation or full stop1.
  • In case of two or more references, separate the superscript digits by comma1,2,6.
  • Moreover, if there are more than one references, but in continuous numbers then use dash between superscript digits2-6.
  • Citation may be direct or indirect, see the following examples:

Direct citation

  • Variations in cuticular hydrocarbons may also assist for species recognition and foraging behaviour, investigated by Zeeshan and Pasha3.
  • Farooq et al.1 studied the temperature effect on cuticular hydrocarbons of termite.
  • According to Shafqat and Saba2, cuticular hydrocarbons can be used to identify termite species.

Indirect citation

  • Temperature affects cuticular hydrocarbons of termite1.
  • Cuticular hydrocarbons can be used to identify termite species2.
  • Variations in cuticular hydrocarbons may also assist for species recognition and foraging behavior3.
  • Text citations of reference should consist of superscript numbers.

Reference List

  • Include references in numerical order at the end of the article according to the order of citation in the manuscript text.

Reference Style
  • Journal Article

  • Author(s): full name if available
  • Year of publication
  • Article title
  • Journal title (with/without abbreviations)
  • Volume
  • Number
  • Pages (starting page and ending page)
  • DOI (if available)
  • Web Link (if available)

  • Book

  • Author(s): full name
  • Year of publication
  • Book title
  • Edition (except for 1st edition)
  • Place of publication
  • Publisher
  • International Standard Book Number (ISBN)

  • Book Chapter

  • Author(s) of the chapter
  • Year of publication
  • Chapter title

  • In

  • Author of the book or editor (omitted in case the author of the chapter is the same)
  • Title of the book

  • Place of publication
  • Publisher
  • Number of pages (starting page and ending page)

  • Paper in Conference Proceedings

  • Author(s): full name if available
  • Year of Publication
  • Document title

  • In

  • Name of conference, congress, meeting, etc.
  • Conference, congress, meeting number
  • Date of conference, congress, meeting, etc.
  • Place of conference, congress, meeting, etc. (city and country)

  • Work title
  • Publisher
  • Number of pages


Quick points:

  • Tables must be numbered with Arabic numerals in the order in which they are cited in the text.
  • They should have a brief descriptive title placed at the top.
  • A short description is also accepted.
  • Footnotes can be included below the table.
  • Do not present the same information in both a table and a figure.
  • Please do not include any graphical representations of any kind.
  • If a table must have a graphical aspect, then it should be renamed a figure.
  • A table has the same column headings throughout.
  • If the column headings change, it should be treated as a new table with a new table number and a new title.


Quick points:

  • All figures must be referred to in the text.
  • Number all figures cited in the text consecutively using Arabic numerals (Fig. 1, Fig. 2, etc.).
  • If a figure is cited only in an appendix, then the figure is labeled accordingly (e.g., a figure cited only in appendix B would be labeled 'Fig. B1').
  • Figure legends should be double-spaced on a separate sheet.
  • Line drawings should be professionally drawn, or generated by high-quality computer software capable of producing print-quality images.
  • Images should fit on paper no larger than that used for typing the text.
  • Do not use boldface lettering. The final size (after reduction or enlargement) of lettering on figures should be no less than 1.5 mm.
  • Use small letters to label figure parts. Line art, charts, cladograms, and annotated photographs, are best supplied as Encapsulated PostScript (.eps) or PDF format.
  • Photographs and other continuous tone images should be in TIFF format, saved at the intended final size, and with a resolution of at least 300 dpi.
  • Excessively high resolutions will not improve the output quality, but may produce an unnecessarily large file.

Download the Template for Communications