Journal of Genetics and Genomics (JGG), founded in 1974 and previously known as Acta Genetica Sinica, is an international journal publishing peer-reviewed articles of novel and significant discoveries in all areas of biology and biomedicine.

JGG publishes papers reporting findings of general interest that provide significant insights into important biological processes in any living organisms, from microbes to plants, animals, and humans. The primary criterion for publication in JGG is whether the results report novel discoveries, mechanistic insights, or new technologies/tools and resources. In addition to research articles, we also publish reviews or opinion articles on recent cutting-edge studies and advances. We also welcome fast-track papers and presubmission inquiry.

Original Research The main text of Research Article should include the following sections: Title page, Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Results, Discussion, Materials and methods, Ethics statement (if applicable), Data availability, Code availability (if applicable), CRediT authorship contribution statement, Conflict of interest, Acknowledgments, References, Tables (if applicable), and Figure legends. Figures and regular Supplementary data should be uploaded as separate files and not as part of the manuscript. These files will be converted, along with the manuscript, into a single PDF on upload.

Review The main text of Review Article should include the following sections: Title page, Abstract, Keywords, Main text, Ethics statement (if applicable), Data availability (if applicable), Code availability (if applicable), Conflict of interest, Acknowledgments, References, Tables (if applicable), and Figure legends. Figures should be separately uploaded and not enclosed in the text. The length is usually not less than 5000 words.

Research Communications The main text of Research Communications, Commentary, and other types of short papers should include the following sections: Title page, Main text, Ethics statement (if applicable), Data availability (if applicable), Code availability (if applicable), Conflict of interest, Acknowledgments, References, Table (if applicable), and Figure legends. There is no abstract, and only one composite figure and/or table reflecting the main results is included. The additional results and important materials and methods should be showed as Supplementary Data. The length of main text (excluding the references) is limited to less than 2000 words, and the total number of the references is limited to 20. The author's name(s) and affiliation(s) should be put at the end of the text.

This journal follows a single anonymized review process. Your submission will initially be assessed by our editors to determine suitability for publication in this journal. If your submission is deemed suitable, it will typically be sent to a minimum of two reviewers for an independent expert assessment of the scientific quality. The decision as to whether your article is accepted or rejected will be taken by our editors.

Read more about peer review.

Our editors are not involved in making decisions about papers which:

• they have written themselves.

• have been written by family members or colleagues.

• relate to products or services in which they have an interest.

Any such submissions will be subject to the journal's usual procedures and peer review will be handled independently of the editor involved and their research group. Read more about editor duties.

Authors may submit a formal appeal request to the editorial decision, provided it meets all the requirements and follows the procedure outlined in Elsevier’s Appeal Policy. Only one appeal per submission will be considered and the appeal decision will be final.

We refer you to our open access information page to learn about open access options for this journal.

Authors must follow ethical guidelines stated in Elsevier's Publishing Ethics Policy.

When authors submit an article to an Elsevier journal it is implied that:

• the work described has not been published previously except in the form of a preprint, an abstract, a published lecture, academic thesis or registered report. See our policy on multiple, redundant or concurrent publication.

• the article is not under consideration for publication elsewhere.

• the article's publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out.

• if accepted, the article will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, including electronically, without the written consent of the copyright-holder.

To verify compliance with our journal publishing policies, we may check your manuscript with our screening tools.

All authors should have made substantial contributions to all of the following:

1. The conception and design of the study, or acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data.

2. Drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual content.

3. Final approval of the version to be submitted.

Authors should appoint a corresponding author to communicate with the journal during the editorial process. All authors should agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work to ensure that the questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

The editors of this journal generally will not consider changes to authorship once a manuscript has been submitted. It is important that authors carefully consider the authorship list and order of authors and provide a definitive author list at original submission.

The policy of this journal around authorship changes:

• All authors must be listed in the manuscript and their details entered into the submission system.

• Any addition, deletion or rearrangement of author names in the authorship list should only be made prior to acceptance, and only if approved by the journal editor.

• Requests to change authorship should be made by the corresponding author, who must provide the reason for the request to the journal editor with written confirmation from all authors, including any authors being added or removed, that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement.

• All requests to change authorship must be submitted using this form. Requests which do not comply with the instructions outlined in the form will not be considered.

• Only in exceptional circumstances will the journal editor consider the addition, deletion or rearrangement of authors post acceptance.

• Publication of the manuscript may be paused while a change in authorship request is being considered.

• Any authorship change requests approved by the journal editor will result in a corrigendum if the manuscript has already been published.

• Any unauthorized authorship changes may result in the rejection of the article, or retraction, if the article has already been published.

All authors must disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence or bias their work. Examples of potential competing interests include:

• Employment

• Consultancies

• Stock ownership

• Honoraria

• Paid expert testimony

• Patent applications or registrations

• Grants or any other funding

• Affiliation with the journal as an Editor or Advisory Board Member

The declarations tool should always be completed.

Authors with a journal affiliation to declare should enter the following text under “Other Activities” within the  declarations tool and should inform the journal and publisher prior to completing the submission process:
Given their role as [insert journal role title], [insert your name] had no involvement in the peer-review of this article and has no access to information regarding its peer-review.  Full responsibility for the editorial process for this article was delegated to another journal editor.

Authors with no competing interests to declare should select the option "I have nothing to declare".

The resulting Word document containing your declaration should be uploaded at the "attach/upload files" step in the submission process. It is important that the Word document is saved in the .doc/.docx file format. Author signatures are not required.

Authors must disclose any funding sources who provided financial support for the conduct of the research and/or preparation of the article. The role of sponsors, if any, should be declared in relation to the study design, collection, analysis and interpretation of data, writing of the report and decision to submit the article for publication. If funding sources had no such involvement this should be stated in your submission.

List funding sources in this standard way to facilitate compliance to funder's requirements:

Funding: This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health [grant numbers xxxx, yyyy]; the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Seattle, WA [grant number zzzz]; and the United States Institutes of Peace [grant number aaaa].

It is not necessary to include detailed descriptions on the program or type of grants, scholarships and awards. When funding is from a block grant or other resources available to a university, college, or other research institution, submit the name of the institute or organization that provided the funding.

If no funding has been provided for the research, it is recommended to include the following sentence:

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Authors must declare the use of generative AI in the manuscript preparation process upon submission of the paper.

Elsevier recognizes the potential of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies (“AI Tools”), when used responsibly, to help researchers work efficiently, gain critical insights fast and achieve better outcomes. Increasingly, these tools, including AI agents and deep research tools, are helping researchers to synthesize complex literature, provide an overview of a field or research question, identify research gaps, generate ideas, and provide tailored support for tasks such as content organization and improving language and readability.

Authors preparing a manuscript for an Elsevier journal can use AI Tools to support them. However, these tools must never be used as a substitute for human critical thinking, expertise and evaluation. AI technology should always be applied with human oversight and control.

Ultimately, authors are responsible and accountable for the contents of their work. This includes accountability for:

• Carefully reviewing and verifying the accuracy, comprehensiveness, and impartiality of all AI-generated output (including checking the sources, as AI-generated references can be incorrect or fabricated).

• Editing and adapting all material thoroughly to ensure the manuscript represents the author’s authentic and original contribution and reflects their own analysis, interpretation, insights and ideas.

• Ensuring the use of any tools or sources, AI-based or otherwise, is made clear and transparent to readers. If AI Tools have been used, we require a disclosure statement upon submission; please see example below.

• Ensuring the manuscript is developed in a way that safeguards data privacy, intellectual property and other rights, by checking the terms and conditions of any AI tool that is used.

Finally, authors must not list or cite AI Tools as an author or co-author on the manuscript since authorship implies responsibilities and tasks that can only be attributed to, and performed by, humans.

The use of AI Tools in the manuscript preparation process must be declared by adding a statement at the end of the manuscript when the paper is first submitted. The statement will appear in the published work and should be placed in a new section before the references list.

An example:

• Title of new section: Declaration of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the manuscript preparation process.

• Statement: During the preparation of this work the author(s) used [NAME OF TOOL / SERVICE] in order to [REASON]. After using this tool/service, the author(s) reviewed and edited the content as needed and take(s) full responsibility for the content of the published article.

The declaration does not apply to the use of basic tools, such as tools used to check grammar, spelling and references. If you have nothing to disclose, you do not need to add a statement.

Please read Elsevier’s author policy on the use of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies, which can be found in our generative AI policies for journals.

Please note: to protect authors’ rights and the confidentiality of their research, this journal does not currently allow the use of generative AI or AI-assisted technologies such as ChatGPT or similar services by reviewers or editors in the peer review and manuscript evaluation process, as is stated in our generative AI policies for journals. We are actively evaluating compliant AI Tools and may revise this policy in the future.

Preprint sharing

Inclusive language acknowledges diversity, conveys respect to all people, is sensitive to differences, and promotes equal opportunities. Authors should ensure their work uses inclusive language throughout and contains nothing which might imply one individual is superior to another on the grounds of:

• age

• gender

• race

• ethnicity

• culture

• sexual orientation

• disability or health condition

We recommend avoiding the use of descriptors about personal attributes unless they are relevant and valid. Write for gender neutrality with the use of plural nouns ("clinicians, patients/clients") as default. Wherever possible, avoid using "he, she," or "he/she."

No assumptions should be made about the beliefs of readers and writing should be free from bias, stereotypes, slang, reference to dominant culture and/or cultural assumptions.

These guidelines are meant as a point of reference to help you identify appropriate language but are by no means exhaustive or definitive.

There is no single, universally agreed-upon set of guidelines for defining sex and gender. We offer the following guidance:

• Sex and gender-based analyses (SGBA) should be integrated into research design when research involves or pertains to humans, animals or eukaryotic cells. This should be done in accordance with any requirements set by funders or sponsors and best practices within a field.

• Sex and/or gender dimensions of the research should be addressed within the article or declared as a limitation to the generalizability of the research.

• Definitions of sex and/or gender applied should be explicitly stated to enhance the precision, rigor and reproducibility of the research and to avoid ambiguity or conflation of terms and the constructs to which they refer.

We advise you to read the Sex and Gender Equity in Research (SAGER) guidelines and the SAGER checklist (PDF) on the EASE website, which offer systematic approaches to the use of sex and gender information in study design, data analysis, outcome reporting and research interpretation.

For further information we suggest reading the rationale behind and recommended use of the SAGER guidelines.

Definitions of sex and/or gender

We ask authors to define how sex and gender have been used in their research and publication. Some guidance:

• Sex generally refers to a set of biological attributes that are associated with physical and physiological features such as chromosomal genotype, hormonal levels, internal and external anatomy. A binary sex categorization (male/female) is usually designated at birth ("sex assigned at birth") and is in most cases based solely on the visible external anatomy of a newborn. In reality, sex categorizations include people who are intersex/have differences of sex development (DSD).

• Gender generally refers to socially constructed roles, behaviors and identities of women, men and gender-diverse people that occur in a historical and cultural context and may vary across societies and over time. Gender influences how people view themselves and each other, how they behave and interact and how power is distributed in society.

We accept that authors sometimes need to adjust images for clarity but any manipulation of images for the purpose of deception or fraud will be seen as scientific ethical abuse and will be dealt with accordingly.

Authors must adhere to this journal’s policy for graphical images:

• No specific feature within an image may be enhanced, obscured, moved, removed or introduced.

• Adjustments of brightness, contrast, or color balance are acceptable if, and only as long as, they do not obscure or eliminate any information present in the original image.

• Nonlinear adjustments such as changes to gamma settings must be disclosed in the figure legend.

• We do not permit the use of generative AI or AI-assisted tools to create or alter images in submitted manuscripts. Please read our policy on the use of generative AI and AI-assisted tools in figures, images and artwork, which can be found in Elsevier’s GenAI Policies for Journals.

To verify compliance with the above, this journal may send your images to a third-party service who screen for image irregularities. Our editors may ask you to provide original data or images if any questions arise as a result of the screening. The final decision as to whether images are acceptable will be taken by our editors.

Authors are encouraged to carefully check all images before submission and to connect all the data in any figures to the original, unprocessed data.

Elsevier respects the decisions taken by its authors as to how they choose to designate territories and identify their affiliations in their published content. Elsevier’s policy is to take a neutral position with respect to territorial disputes or jurisdictional claims, including, but not limited to, maps and institutional affiliations. For journals that Elsevier publishes on behalf of a third party owner, the owner may set its own policy on these issues.

• Maps: Readers should be able to locate any study areas shown within maps using common mapping platforms. Maps should only show the area actually studied and authors should not include a location map which displays a larger area than the bounding box of the study area. Authors should add a note clearly stating that "map lines delineate study areas and do not necessarily depict accepted national boundaries”.  During the review process, Elsevier’s editors may request authors to change maps if these guidelines are not followed.

• Institutional affiliations: Authors should use either the full, standard title of their institution or the standard abbreviation of the institutional name so that the institutional name can be independently verified for research integrity purposes.
  

Authors must follow ethical guidelines for studies carried out in humans.

Work which involves the use of human subjects should be carried out in accordance with the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki: Ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects.

Manuscripts should follow the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommendations for the conduct, reporting, editing and publication of scholarly work in medical journals and aim to be representative of human populations in terms of sex, age and ethnicity. Sex and gender terms should be used correctly, as outlined by WHO (World Health Organization).

Manuscripts must include a statement that all procedures were performed in compliance with relevant laws and institutional guidelines and have been approved by the appropriate institutional committee(s). The statement should contain the date and reference number of the ethical approval(s) obtained.

Manuscripts must also include a statement that the privacy rights of human subjects have been observed and that informed consent was obtained for experimentation with human subjects.

This journal will not accept manuscripts that contain data derived from unethically sourced organs or tissue, including from executed prisoners or prisoners of conscience, consistent with recommendations by Global Rights Compliance on Mitigating Human Rights Risks in Transplantation Medicine. For all studies that use human organs or tissues, sufficient evidence must be provided that these were procured in line with WHO Guiding Principles on Human Cell, Tissue and Organ Transplantation. For clinical studies, a statement of informed consent having been obtained from a patient or their nominated representative, paired with ethical approval for the study from a suitable institution, as required by the policies of the journal, may be considered sufficient evidence, but the journal reserves the right to request additional evidence in cases where it feels this is not sufficient. The source of the organs or tissues used in clinical research must be transparent and traceable. If your manuscript describes organ transplantation you must additionally declare within the manuscript that:

• autonomous consent free from coercion was obtained from the donor(s) or their next of kin.

• organs and/or tissues were not sourced from executed prisoners or prisoners of conscience.

We ask you to provide editable source files for your entire submission (including figures, tables and text graphics). Some guidelines:

• Save files in an editable format, using the extension .doc/.docx for Word files and .tex for LaTeX files. A PDF is not an acceptable source file.

• Format Word files in a single-column layout. Double-column formatting is only permitted for LaTeX submissions.

• Remove any strikethrough and underlined text from your manuscript, unless it has scientific significance related to your article.

• Use spell-check and grammar-check functions to avoid errors.

We advise you to read our Step-by-step guide to publishing with Elsevier.

You are required to include the following details in the title page information:

• Article title. Article titles should be concise and informative. Please avoid abbreviations and formulae, where possible, unless they are established and widely understood, e.g. DNA.

• Author names. Provide the given name(s) and family name(s) of each author. The order of authors should match the order in the submission system. Carefully check that all names are accurately spelled. If needed, you can add your name between parentheses in your own script after the English transliteration.

• Affiliations. Add affiliation addresses, referring to where the work was carried out, below the author names. Indicate affiliations using a lower-case superscript letter immediately after the author's name and in front of the corresponding address. Ensure that you provide the full postal address of each affiliation, including the country name and, if available, the email address of each author.

• Corresponding author. Clearly indicate who will handle correspondence for your article at all stages of the refereeing and publication process and also post-publication. This responsibility includes answering any future queries about your results, data, methodology and materials. It is important that the email address and contact details of your corresponding author are kept up to date during the submission and publication process.

• Present/permanent address. If an author has moved since the work described in your article was carried out, or the author was visiting during that time, a "present address" (or "permanent address") can be indicated by a footnote to the author's name. The address where the author carried out the work must be retained as their main affiliation address. Use superscript Arabic numerals for such footnotes.

You are required to provide a concise and factual abstract which does not exceed 200 words. The abstract should briefly state the purpose of your research, principal results and major conclusions. Some guidelines:

• Abstracts must be able to stand alone as abstracts are often presented separately from the article.

• Avoid references. If any are essential to include, ensure that you cite the author(s) and year(s).

• Avoid non-standard or uncommon abbreviations. If any are essential to include, ensure they are defined within your abstract at first mention.

You are required to provide 5 to 7 keywords for indexing purposes. Keywords should be written in English. Please try to avoid keywords consisting of multiple words (using "and" or "of").

We recommend that you only use abbreviations in keywords if they are firmly established in the field.

Tables must be submitted as editable text, not as images. Some guidelines:

• Place tables next to the relevant text or on a separate page(s) at the end of your article.

• Cite all tables in the manuscript text.

• Number tables consecutively according to their appearance in the text.

• Please provide captions along with the tables.

• Place any table notes below the table body.

• Avoid vertical rules and shading within table cells.

We recommend that you use tables sparingly, ensuring that any data presented in tables is not duplicating results described elsewhere in the article.

Figures, images, artwork, diagrams and other graphical media must be supplied as separate files along with the manuscript. We recommend that you read our detailed artwork and media instructions. Some excerpts:

When submitting artwork:

• Cite all images in the manuscript text.

• Number images according to the sequence they appear within your article.

• Submit each image as a separate file using a logical naming convention for your files (for example, Figure_1, Figure_2 etc).

• Please provide captions for all figures, images, and artwork.

• Text graphics may be embedded in the text at the appropriate position. If you are working with LaTeX, text graphics may also be embedded in the file.

Artwork formats

When your artwork is finalized, "save as" or convert your electronic artwork to the formats listed below taking into account the given resolution requirements for line drawings, halftones, and line/halftone combinations:

• Vector drawings: Save as EPS or PDF files embedding the font or saving the text as "graphics."

• Color or grayscale photographs (halftones): Save as TIFF, JPG or PNG files using a minimum of 300 dpi (for single column: min. 1063 pixels, full page width: 2244 pixels).

• Bitmapped line drawings: Save as TIFF, JPG or PNG files using a minimum of 1000 dpi (for single column: min. 3543 pixels, full page width: 7480 pixels).

• Combinations bitmapped line/halftones (color or grayscale): Save as TIFF, JPG or PNG files using a minimum of 500 dpi (for single column: min. 1772 pixels, full page width: 3740 pixels).

Please do not submit:

• files that are too low in resolution (for example, files optimized for screen use such as GIF, BMP, PICT or WPG files).

• disproportionally large images compared to font size, as text may become unreadable.

Figure captions

All images must have a caption. A caption should consist of a brief title (not displayed on the figure itself) and a description of the image. We advise you to keep the amount of text in any image to a minimum, though any symbols and abbreviations used should be explained.

Provide captions in a separate file.

Color artwork

If you submit usable color figures with your accepted article, we will ensure that they appear in color online.

Please ensure that color images are accessible to all, including those with impaired color vision. Learn more about color and web accessibility.

Please read our policy on the use of generative AI and AI-assisted tools in figures, images and artwork, which can be found in Elsevier’s GenAI Policies for Journals. This policy states:

• We do not permit the use of Generative AI or AI-assisted tools to create or alter images in submitted manuscripts.

• The only exception is if the use of AI or AI-assisted tools is part of the research design or methods (for example, in the field of biomedical imaging). If this is the case, such use must be described in a reproducible manner in the methods section, including the name of the model or tool, version and extension numbers, and manufacturer.

• The use of generative AI or AI-assisted tools in the production of artwork such as for graphical abstracts is not permitted. The use of generative AI in the production of cover art may in some cases be allowed, if the author obtains prior permission from the journal editor and publisher, can demonstrate that all necessary rights have been cleared for the use of the relevant material, and ensures that there is correct content attribution.

We encourage the use of supplementary materials such as applications, images and sound clips to enhance research. Some guidelines:

• Supplementary material should be accurate and relevant to the research.

• Cite all supplementary files in the manuscript text.

• Submit supplementary materials at the same time as your article. Be aware that all supplementary materials provided will appear online in the exact same file type as received. These files will not be formatted or typeset by the production team.

• Include a concise, descriptive caption for each supplementary file describing its content.

• Provide updated files if at any stage of the publication process you wish to make changes to submitted supplementary materials.

• Do not make annotations or corrections to a previous version of a supplementary file.

• Switch off the option to track changes in Microsoft Office files. If tracked changes are left on, they will appear in your published version.

This journal accepts video material and animation sequences to support and enhance your scientific research. We encourage you to include links to video or animation files within articles. Some guidelines:

• When including video or animation file links within your article, refer to the video or animation content by adding a note in your text where the file should be placed.

• Clearly label files ensuring the given file name is directly related to the file content.

• Provide files in one of our recommended file formats. Files should be within our preferred maximum file size of 150 MB per file, 1 GB in total.

• Provide "stills" for each of your files. These will be used as standard icons to personalize the link to your video data. You can choose any frame from your video or animation or make a separate image.

• Provide text (for both the electronic and the print version) to be placed in the portions of your article that refer to the video content. This is essential text, as video and animation files cannot be embedded in the print version of the journal.

We publish all video and animation files supplied in the electronic version of your article.

For more detailed instructions, we recommend that you read our guidelines on submitting video content to be included in the body of an article.

We are committed to supporting the storage of, access to and discovery of research data, and our research data policy sets out the principles guiding how we work with the research community to support a more efficient and transparent research process.

Research data refers to the results of observations or experimentation that validate research findings, which may also include software, code, models, algorithms, protocols, methods and other useful materials related to the project.

Please read our guidelines on sharing research data for more information on depositing, sharing and using research data and other relevant research materials.

Research data deposit, citation and linking

For this journal, Option B instructions from our research data guidelines apply. This means that you are encouraged to:

• Deposit your research data in a relevant data repository.

• Cite and link to this dataset in your article.

• If this is not possible, make a statement explaining why research data cannot be shared.

To foster transparency, you are encouraged to state the availability of any data at submission.

Ensuring data is available may be a requirement of your funding body or institution. If your data is unavailable to access or unsuitable to post, you can state the reason why (e.g., your research data includes sensitive or confidential information such as patient data) during the submission process. This statement will appear with your published article on ScienceDirect.

Read more about the importance and benefits of providing a data statement.

Linking to the data underlying your work increases your exposure and may lead to new collaborations. It also provides readers with a better understanding of the described research.

If your research data has been made available in a data repository there are a number of ways your article can be linked directly to the dataset:

• Provide a link to your dataset when prompted during the online submission process.

• For some data repositories, a repository banner will automatically appear next to your published article on ScienceDirect.

• You can also link relevant data or entities within the text of your article through the use of identifiers. Use the following format: Database: 12345 (e.g. TAIR: AT1G01020; CCDC: 734053; PDB: 1XFN).

Learn more about linking research data and research articles in ScienceDirect.

Title

The article title should be no more than 150 characters including spaces.

The use of comma in the title is not allowed unless approved by an editor.

The initial of the first word after the “:” should be lower case (if applicable).

Author list and affiliations

A complete affiliation, including the department(s), institution, city, province/state/region, postal code, and country, should be provided.

Authors may include the name(s) spelled with their native language after the name spelled with English. For example, San Zhang (张三).

Email addresses for all corresponding authors should be provided.

The affiliation should be labeled using “a, b, c…”. The co-first authors should be labeled using “1” and the corresponding author(s) should be labeled using “*”.

Affiliations containing Hong Kong, Macau/Macao, and Taiwan/Taipei should be written as “Hong Kong, China”, “Macau/Macao, China”, or “Taiwan/Taipei, China” (comma is required after the region name).

Please double check the author list including the author names, author affiliations, marks of co-first and co-corresponding authors. JGG does not allow any changes to the authorship once the paper is accepted.

Any changes to the authorship before acceptance should be requested by the corresponding author and contact the JGG editorial office (jgg@genetics.ac.cn).

For short papers (e.g., Research Communications), the number of authors should be no more than 10.

Introduction, Results, Discussion, and Materials and methods

The total word count of Research/Review articles and short papers should be under 10,000 and 2,000, respectively, including main figure legends but excluding Materials and methods, and References.

Gene nomenclature should conform to the standards set by HUGO, MGI, FlyBase, WormBase, SGI, and other organizations.

Equations should be created with MathType. We will also accept equations created using Microsoft Word's Equation Editor. However, MathType is preferable due to some of Equation Editor’s limitations around version compatibility and editing.

JGG does not allow “data not shown”, “unpublished data”, or similar statements in a published paper. Please provide data in the main text or supplementary data to support your conclusions or statements. Otherwise you should remove the related statements from your manuscript.

All figures, tables, supplementary figures, and supplementary tables should be cited in the order shown in the main text.

For in-text citation, groups of references should be listed first chronologically and then alphabetically. Example: (Tester and Davenport, 2003; Zhu, 2003; Rodríguez-Navarro et al., 2006).

Follow the examples to format the figure and table citations in the text. Example: (Fig. 1A), (Fig. 1A and 1B), (Fig. 1A–1D), (Fig. 1A, 1D, 1F), (Figs. 1A and 2B), (Figs. 1A–1C, 2B), (Figs. 1A, 1C, 2A), (Figs. 1A and S1A), (Figs. 1A, 1B, S1A), (Fig. 1A–1D; Table 1), (Fig. 1A–1D; Tables 1 and 2), (Fig. 1A–1D; Tables S1 and S2). Please use the en dash (­–) but not hyphen (-).

Remove wording that claims “novel”, “first time”, “new”, etc., from your paper to meet with a factual journal style of writing.

No “Abbreviation” section in JGG articles. Make sure all abbreviations are properly introduced when it first appears in Abstract, main text, figure legends of the manuscript, respectively, and are correctly used thereafter.

Ethics statement (if applicable)

All the ethics approval statements related to human and/or animal experiments should be included.

Consent to participants should be included.

For manuscripts related to ethnic groups, Human Genetic Resource Administration Filing is required.

For manuscripts related to websites in China, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) filing is required.

Data availability

“Data availability” should be included in your manuscript. All raw data should be deposited in appropriate databases. For studies funded by Chinese governmental agencies, all raw data should be deposited in Big Sub, China National Center for Bioinformation (https://www.cncb.ac.cn/) and released therein with specific accession numbers prior to the final acceptance. This requirement does not prevent you from depositing and releasing your data via other databases.

Code availability (if applicable)

All custom code should be deposited in a DOI-minting repository (e.g., GitHub, GitLab, Zenodo, Code Ocean). Repository link and permanent identifier (DOI/SWHID) should be included in the manuscript.

Figure legends

A short title is required for each Figure.

Clear and concise caption/legends should be presented for each panel in a figure.

Description of representations of the scale bar(s) should be placed to the end of panel caption/legends, followed by description of the abbreviations.

Example: Fig. 1. Whole genome duplication and evolution in selected taxa of Pontederiaceae. A: xxxxxxx. B: xxxxxxxx. C and D: xxxxxxx. E–G: xxxxxx. Scale bars, xx μm (A); xx μm (B, D, E); xx μm (F and G). WT, wild-type; SD, standard deviation.

Tables

Tables should be placed after “References” section and formatted as editable Microsoft Word files (in a three-line format).

Tables should include a descriptive title (mandatory), and the footnotes and/or legend (optional) should be concise.

Contents in tables should be aligned to top vertically and to left horizontally.

Citation of references in tables should follow the format of “Author (Year)”. Note that no full stop at the end. Example: Clark and Smith (1997); Suzaki et al. (2004); Bommert (2005).

Figures

The total number of display items (figures and tables) should be in principle no more than 6 in the main text of Research or Review Articles; Only 1 display item is allowed in the main text of short articles.

If a map is used in the manuscript, please double check and use a standard map that has been approved by a government agency. If you have questions concerning the map issue, please contact us at jgg@genetics.ac.cn.

Please draw all histograms, lines and dot plots in color. For bar or column charts, filled columns in different colors, but not open ones, should be used to display different samples. Black and white columns filled with patterns are not recommended.

Figures should be uploaded individually as high-resolution TIFF (at least 300 dpi), PDF (vector drawings, embed all used fonts), or other high-resolution files.

Each figure file should be no more than 20 MB.

Each figure should fit on a single 8.5 × 11 inch page. The standard figure sizes are 85 mm (single column) and 175 mm (double column), respectively.

Use Arial font for all words in figures.

Capital and non-bold letters (A, B, C, etc.) should be used for labeling panels of each figure. The size should be 10 pt.

Capitalize the first letter of individual words. For phrases or sentences, only capitalize the first letter of the first word, including the axis titles. No full stop.

Units should have a single space between the number and the unit, except for degrees Celsius (°C).

Space should be included before and after the symbol “=” (e.g., n = 6).

Use italics for gene names, the Latin names, and letters in statistics (e.g., F-test, Student’s t-test, and P-value).

Line weights or stroke widths should be in the 0.5–1.5 pt range. Lines of the same type should be of the same width.

A scale bar must be provided for any micrographs, rather than magnification factors.

For color figures, RGB is recommended as it best utilizes screen capabilities. Please note that red and green should not be used together.

Properly align panels in a figure to minimalize blank space between neighboring panels.

Supplementary materials

A PDF file should contain all supplemental methods and materials, high-resolution figures, and tables with concise and clear titles and legends.

The format of the supplemental figures should be consistent with that of the main document. The figure legends should be placed right below the related figures. Figures should be displayed 1 page each.

Supplementary tables exceeding 3 pages in length should instead be provided as Excel files.

Excel files or video files should be uploaded as “Supplementary materials”.

A list of supplementary references cited in the Supplementary materials should be included at the end of Supplementary text.

Article sections

Introduction

The introduction should clearly state the objectives of your work. We recommend that you provide an adequate background to your work but avoid writing a detailed literature overview or summary of your results.

Methods

The methods section should provide sufficient details about your materials and methods to allow your work to be reproduced by an independent researcher. Some guidelines:

• If the method you used has already been published, provide a summary and reference the originally published method.

• If you are quoting directly from a previously published method, use quotation marks and cite the source.

• Describe any modifications that you have made to existing methods.

Results

Results should be clear, concise and reproducible. We advise you to read the sections in this guide on supplying tables, artwork, supplementary material and sharing research data.

Discussion

The discussion section should explore the significance of your results but not repeat them. We recommend that you avoid the use of extensive citations and discussion of published literature in the discussion section.

Conclusion

The conclusion section should present the main conclusions of your study. You may have a stand-alone conclusions section or include your conclusions in a subsection of your discussion or results and discussion section.

Glossary

Acknowledgements

Author contributions: CRediT

Funding sources

Appendices

References within text

Reference style

Web references

Data references

Preprint references

Reference management software

Authors will be asked to complete a publishing agreement after acceptance. The corresponding author will receive a link to the online agreement by email. We advise you to read Elsevier's policies related to copyright to learn more about our copyright policies and your, and your employer’s/institution’s, additional rights for subscription and open access articles.

Authors will be offered open access user license options which will determine how you, and third parties, can reuse your open access article. We advise that you review these options and any funding body license requirements before selecting a license option.

Articles published under the subscription model involve a Page Charge of USD 2,200 (RMB 15,500) for full-length Original Research/Review/Method/Resource articles, and USD 1,000 (RMB 7,000) for correspondences or short communications. An invoice of the Page Charge will be sent to author(s) when the print version of the paper is published.

Please note that submissions published prior to December 31, 2025 are subject to Page Charge according to the following standards:

• 1. Full Length Articles (Original Research/Review/Method/Resource):

  • USD 120 (RMB 840) per page (based on final formatted page count).

  • Additional USD 120 (RMB 840) per color page (if applicable).

• 2. Correspondence or other short papers:

  • Flat fee of USD 1,000 (RMB 7,000) per article.

For invoice requests or payment confirmation, contact journal@genetics.ac.cn.

We refer you to our open access information page to learn about open access options for this journal.

If excerpts from other copyrighted works are included in your article, you must obtain written permission from the copyright owners and credit the source(s) within your article using Elsevier’s permission request and license form (Word).

To ensure a fast publication process we will ask you to provide proof corrections within two days.

Corresponding authors will be sent an email which includes a link to our online proofing system, allowing annotation and correction of proofs online. The environment is similar to Word. You can edit text, comment on figures and tables and answer questions raised by our copy editor. Our web-based proofing service ensures a faster and less error-prone process.

You can choose to annotate and upload your edits on the PDF version of your article, if preferred. We will provide you with proofing instructions and available alternative proofing methods in our email.

The purpose of the proof is to check the typesetting, editing, completeness and correctness of your article text, tables and figures. Significant changes to your article at the proofing stage will only be considered with approval of the journal editor.

A customized Share Link, providing 50 days free access to the final published version of your article on ScienceDirect, will be sent by email to the corresponding author. The Share Link can be used to share your article on any communication channel, such as by email or on social media.

A Share Link will not be provided if your article is published open access. The final published version of your open access article will be openly available on ScienceDirect and can be shared through the article DOI link.

We encourage you to share and promote your article to give additional visibility to your work, enabling your paper to contribute to scientific progress and foster the exchange of scientific developments within your field. Read more about how to responsibly share and promote your article.

We recommend that you write in American or British English but not a combination of both.

If you feel the English language in your manuscript requires editing to eliminate possible grammatical or spelling errors and to conform to correct scientific English, you may wish to use the English Language Editing service provided by Elsevier’s Author Services.

We recommend that you visit our Journal Article Publishing Support Center if you have questions about the editorial process or require technical support for your submission. Some popular FAQs:

• How can I track the status of my submitted article?

• When will my article be published?