As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.
Focus and scope
The Trends in Peptide and Protein Sciences is a peer-reviewed, print-online, scientific journal owned by Protein Technology Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, and documents all important aspects of research in peptides and proteins, focusing on analytics and impurities, bioinformatics, biopharmaceuticals and vaccines, biotechnology, chemical synthesis, conformational analysis, design and development of protein therapeutics, determination of structure, enzymology, folding and sequencing, formulation and stability, function, genetics, immunology, kinetics, modeling, molecular biology, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of therapeutic proteins and antibodies, pharmacology, protein engineering and development, protein-protein interaction, proteomics, purification/expression/production, simulation, thermodynamics and hydrodynamics, and protein biomarkers. This journal aims to publish high quality original research articles, reviews, short communications, and letters and to provide a medium for scientists and researchers to share their findings in the area of peptides and proteins.
Electronic submission of a manuscript
Manuscripts must be submitted online by the Corresponding Author to the Trends in Peptide and Protein Sciences at:
http://journals.sbmu.ac.ir/protein/about/submissions#onlineSubmissions.
First-time users are required to register at http://journals.sbmu.ac.ir/protein/user/register before submitting a manuscript. Straightforward login and registration procedures can be found on the website.
Note: you should mark "Author" as your role on "My Profile".
By submission, the author(s) confirms that the manuscript (or any parts of it) has not been published previously or is not under consideration for publication in another journal. The previous presentation in any congresses should be mentioned as a footnote in the Title page and also stated in the Covering Letter. Furthermore, any illustrations, structures, or tables that have been published elsewhere must be reported, and copyright permission for reproduction must be obtained.
Categories of articles
The Trends in Peptide and Protein Sciences publishes the articles in the following categories:
Covering letter
All manuscripts must be accompanied by a signed cover letter in the “Comments for the Editor” and submitted by the Corresponding Author during online submission. Other than any comments you would like to write to the editor, the following items must be addressed in this letter; the importance of the work and its relevance to the journal’s scope, name, address, telephone number, fax number, and e-mail address of the Corresponding Author. The author has to confirm in writing that the manuscript (or any parts of it) has not been published previously or is not under consideration for publication in another journal. The previous presentation in any congresses should be stated in the covering letter. You are also required to mention the names of at least two potential preferred referees that could be considered for reviewing your manuscript.
Highlights
Highlights are required for this journal. They consist of a short collection of bullet points that convey the core findings of the manuscript, including 3 to 5 bullet points (maximum 85 characters, including spaces, per bullet point), and should be submitted on a separate page following the Title page.
Graphical abstract
A colored graphic could be included with each manuscript. This must be presented on a separate page following the Abstract (preferred file types are TIFF, PNG, JPEG and Power Point, minimum 300 dpi). A graphical abstract, not exceeding 30 words along with the illustration, helps to summarize the contents of the manuscript in a concise pictorial form.
Preparation of manuscripts
General instructions
Manuscripts should be prepared according to the following mentioned stylistics. The Editors have the right to make editorial corrections and additional changes with the knowledge and approval of the Corresponding Author. The word processing format for the manuscript file must be Microsoft Word. The main manuscript should contain:
- Title Page
The title page should include:
The title of the article should be precise and brief. Authors should avoid the use of non-standard abbreviations. Use an initial capital letter for each title word. The authors will be required to provide their full names and institutional affiliations by numbers in superscripts. The Corresponding Author should be remarked with a superscripted asterisk. Authors are expected to consider carefully the list and order of authors before submitting their manuscript.
- Abstract
The abstract of an article should be a clear, concise and accurate summary of the work, having no more than 300 words. Use of abbreviations should be avoided and the references should not be cited in the abstract.
- Keywords
Authors should provide 4 to 6 keywords, which can be used for indexing purposes. They should be in alphabetic order and first capital letter, separated with semicolons.
- Abbreviations (if required)
The full term of each abbreviation should be written in the text before its first use. Standard and well-known abbreviations do not need explanation. All nomenclature, including gene names and symbols, should be used in a scientifically accurate manner following the nomenclature conventions adopted by the scientific community.
- Main text
When submitting a manuscript, ensure that the following sections are included separately; Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results and Discussion, Conclusion, Acknowledgements, Ethical Statement, Author’s Contribution, Funding, Competing Interests and References, Figure captions, Figures and Tables. The Introduction should be concise, without subheadings, indicating the purpose and the rationale of the study. Materials and Methods provide sufficient details to allow the work to be reproduced, with details of the suppliers and catalog number when appropriate. Methods already published should be indicated by a reference, only relevant modifications should be described. Discussion should explore the significance of the results of the work, not repeat them. It may contain subheadings in some sections. The detailed data should not be repeated in Conclusion. In the case of Short Communications, Results and Discussion and Conclusion could be merged.
- Acknowledgements
All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be covered in this section. Financial and material supports should also be acknowledged.
- Competing Interests
Author(s) warrants that any financial interest, direct or indirect, that exists or may be perceived to exist for individual contributors in connection with this manuscript has been disclosed in the Covering Letter and Manuscript.
- Ethical consideration
Author(s) herein confirms that all human and/or animal studies undertaken are in compliance with the regulations of their institution(s) and generally accepted guidelines governing such work. In any studies that involve experiments on human subjects, work must be conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. For the experiments on animal subjects, the compliance with National Institutes of Health Guidelines for the Human Use of Laboratory Animals should be declared in the text.
Authors warrants that this manuscript contains no violation of any existing copyright or other third party right or any materials of an obscene, indecent, libelous, or otherwise unlawful nature and that to the best of their knowledge, the manuscript does not infringe the rights of others.
- Authors’ contribution
All persons who are listed as authors must certify that they have participated sufficiently in the work and take public responsibility for the content of appropriate portions.
Example of authors’ contribution statement
A.B. and B.C. conceived of the presented idea. A.B. developed the theory and performed the computations. C.D. and D.E. verified the analytical methods. B.C. encouraged A.B. to investigate [a specific aspect] and supervised the findings of this work. All authors discussed the results and contributed to the final manuscript.
- Funding support
Financial and material support should be acknowledged, here.
- References
All references should be listed in accordance with the Harvard style. Harvard is an ²author/date² system, so your in-text citation consists of the author(s) and year of publication. In the end, the authors should be listed in alphabetical order. For more guides, use the online information at http://guides.is.uwa.edu.au/harvard.
If using EndNote, cite according to the Author-Date style.
For Harvard in-text citation, the last name of the author(s) and the year of publication appear in parenthesis beside any quotation or paraphrase of a source.
Number of authors In-text citation example
1 author (Davis, 2019)
2 authors (Davis and Barrett, 2019)
+3 authors (Davis et al., 2019)
When you need multiple citations to appear at the same point in your text – for example, when you refer to several sources with one phrase – you can present them in the same set of parenthesis, separated by semicolons. List them in order of publication date.
Example
(Gillner, et al., 2009; Uda and Creus, 2011; Greenfield and Harlow, 2014; Starus, et al., 2015).
If you cite multiple sources by the same author, which was published in the same year, it is important to distinguish between them in your citations. To do this, insert an ‘a’ after the year in the first one you reference, a ‘b’ in the second, and so on.
Example
…. (Woodhouse, 2018a) while …. (Woodhouse, 2018b) ...
When a source lacks an identified author, there is often an appropriate corporate source – the organization responsible for the source – whom you can credit as the author instead, as in the Google and Wikipedia examples above.
Example
(Collins English dictionary, 2012) or (WHO, 2020), (BP, 2018).
Galar et al. (2014) identified the risks of...SMART risk assessments...(Galar et al. 2014).
Note that all citations should have the DOI if available.
Bernocchi, B., Carpentier, R., Lantier, I., Ducournau, C., Dimier-Poisson, I. and D. Betbeder, (2016). ²Mechanisms allowing protein delivery in nasal mucosa using NPL nanoparticles.² Journal of Controlled Release, 232: 42–50. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jconrel.2016.04.014.
Bates, R. C., Stith, B. J. and K. E. Stevens, (2015). ²Increasing pro-survival factors within whole brain tissue of Sprague Dawley rats via intracerebral administration of modified valproic acid.² Journal of Pharmacological Sciences, 128(4): 193-201. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jphs.2015.07.003.
Narhi, L.O. (2013). ²Biophysics for therapeutic protein development.² Vol. 4, Springer Science & Business Media, CA, USA, pp. 119-159.
Silbey, R. J., Alberty, R. A. and M. G. Bawendi, (2005). ²Physical Chemistry.² 4th ed., John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New Jersey, pp. 74-101.
Chien, Y. W. (1991). ²Transdermal Route of Peptide and Protein Drug Delivery.² In: V. H. L. Lee (Ed.), Peptide and Protein Drug Delivery, Marcel Dekker, Inc., New York, pp. 667-689.
Pearlman, R. and T. H. Nguyen, (1991). ²Analysis of Protein Drugs.² In: V. H. L. Lee (Ed.), Peptide and Protein Drug Delivery, Marcel Dekker, Inc., New York, pp. 247-301.
Banerjee, P. S., Hosny, E. A. and J. R. Robinson, (1991). ²Parenteral Delivery of Peptide and Protein Drugs." In: V. H. L. Lee (Ed.), Peptide and Protein Drug Delivery, Marcel Dekker, Inc., New York, pp. 487-543.
Galar, D., Sandborn, P., Kumar, U. and C–A. Johansson, (2014). ²SMART: integrating human safety risk assessment with Asset Integrity.² In: G. Dalpiaz, R. Rubini, G. D'elia, M. Cocconcelli, F. Chaari, R. Zimroz, W. Bartelmus and M. Haddar, eds. Advances in condition monitoring of machinery in non–stationary operations, proceedings of the third international conference on condition monitoring of machinery in non–stationary operations, CMMNO, 2013, Ferrara, Italy. Berlin: Springer, pp. 37–59.
Redknap, M. (2004). ²Viking–age settlements in Wales and the evidence from Llanbedrgoch.² In: J. Hines, A. Lane and M. Redknap, eds. Land, sea and home, proceedings of a conference on Viking–period settlement, July 2001, Cardiff. Leeds: Manay Publishing, pp. 139–175.
Dalpiaz, G., Rubini, R., D'elia, G., Cocconcelli, M., Chaari, F., Zimroz, R., Bartelmus, W. and M. Haddar, eds., (2014). ²Advances in condition monitoring of machinery in non–stationary operations, proceedings of the third international conference on condition monitoring of machinery in non–stationary operations,² CMMNO, 2013, Ferrara, Italy. Berlin: Springer.
Orman, W. and M.J. Valleau, eds., (2014). ²Proceedings of the 38th annual Boston University Conference on language development,² 2013, Boston, Massachusetts. Somerville, MA; Cascadilla Press. Volume 2.
Liu, Z. (2012). ²Metabolic Engineering of Recombinant Protein Production by Saccharomyces cerevisiae.² Göteborg: Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden.
Cohen, N. (2009). DNA, RNA and protein formation: Track 1. Available at: http://www.open.edu/openlearn/science-maths-technology/science/biology/dna-rna-and-protein-formation (accessed 2016-09-12).
Name of inventor (if applicable) (Year patent granted). ²Title of patent.² Applicant of patent. Date patent granted (if applicable). Date of application. Official patent series Patent Serial Number.
Example
Hollis T. J. and F. Tan, (2017). ²Helical gradient coil for magnetic resonance imaging apparatus.² GE Medical Systems Global Technology Company LLC. 10 January. Appl: 20 August 2012. GB Patent GB2494259.
Use ²World Health Organization² as the author. Place the year next. Add the title of the report next. Place the website at the end.
Example
World Health Organization. (2020, September 22). ²Tobacco responsible for 20% of deaths from coronary heart disease.² Retrieved from https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/22-09-2020-tobacco-responsible-for-20-of-deaths-from-coronary-heart-disease
Government Agency OR Last name, First Initial., (Year published). Title of document or article. City published: Publisher, Page(s).
Example
Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, (2012). BicyclePA Routes. Harrisburg: PENNDOT, p.1.
Organisation Responsible for the Standard. Standard number - Name of standard [Internet]. Year [revision DD Mon YYYY; cited YYYY Mon DD]. Available from: URL
Example
Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code. Standard 1.2.5 - Date marking of packaged food [Internet]. 2012 [revised 11 Oct 2012; cited 2019 May 20]. Available from: http://www.comlaw.gov.au
Standards Australia. AS ISO 15189-2013 - Medical laboratories: requirements for quality and competence [Internet]. 2013 [cited 2019 Jan 15]. Available from: https://www.saiglobal.com
Title of work. Edition. Vol. #, volume name. Place of publication: Publisher; Year of publication. Entry title; Page/s of entry.
Example
British Pharmacopoeia. Vol. 1. London: Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency; 2018. Disodium hydrogen phosphate; p. 833-4.
The United States Pharmacopeia. National formulary. Vol. 1. Rockville (MD): United States Pharmacopeial Convention; 2017. Collodion; p. 1076
- Tables and Figures should be embedded at the end of the manuscript file. They must be cited in the text consecutively with Arabic numerals (Figure 1 or Table 1) and presented on separate pages. Accepted File formats for figures are TIFF, PNG and JPEG at 600 dpi or higher. Graphs and charts are considered equal to figures and accepted in the formats of TIFF, PNG and JPEG. Tables should be in Word Table format, not inserted as graphics. They should be self-explanatory and cited in the main text. Tables with their captions should be presented following the References on a separate page. A table caption should be a brief descriptive title and all other important information must be presented in the footnotes. Add Figures and Figures’ captions separately following the Tables. Equations must be presented by the equation tab of Word. Chemical structures and reactions are presented by schemes. Equations and Schemes should also be cited sequentially with Arabic numerals (Equation 1 or Scheme 1).
Publication Ethics
TPPS follows international regulations against scientific misconduct including fabrication, falsification, plagiarism, etc. Any cases of suspected misconduct will be assessed during the peer-review and publication process based on COPE Guidelines.
Plagiarism happens when someone presents works/ideas of others as his/her own, without full citation or acknowledgement. All submitted manuscripts have to be original and should have less than 20% similarity in text with other publications. Manuscripts will be checked by appropriate plagiarism checking software.
After submission, the authorship confirmation letters will be emailed to all authors. They should notify the Editorial Office if any misconduct has happened. The Editor-in-Chief or section Editors evaluate the submitted files before the peer-review process, and the manuscript will then be sent back to the author if do not have approval criteria or have plagiarism. In this step, authors can revise the manuscript and resubmit it. If they do not revise, the manuscript will be rejected.
If Editors discover any misconduct including fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism after publication, the manuscript will be withdrawn. Authors (at least the Corresponding Author) should have close collaboration and communication with the Editorial Office during the publication process and after, if needed.
Authorship
According to the ICMJE recommendation, authorship is based on the following four criteria:
Therefore, all authors should make substantial contributions to all of the followings: (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’ Agreement Form
It is mandatory that a signed Authors’ Agreement Form be sent along with the proofreading by the Corresponding Author. The authors acknowledge that the publisher has the legal right to take appropriate action against the authors for any violation of the terms and conditions as laid down in the Authors’ Agreement Form.
Authors’ responsibility
As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items. Submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.
Changes to authorship
Authors should consider carefully the list and order of authors before submitting their manuscript and provide the definitive list of authors at the time of the original submission. Any addition, deletion or rearrangement of author names in the authorship list can be made only before the manuscript has been accepted, only if the journal Editor approves. To request such a change, a letter from the corresponding author should be sent to the Editorial Office, containing: (a) the reason for the change in the author list, and (b) written confirmation (e-mail, letter) from all authors that they agree with the addition, removal or rearrangement. In the case of addition or removal of authors, this includes confirmation from the author being added or removed.
Only on exceptional occasions, the Editor will approve the addition, deletion, or rearranging authors’ list after the acceptance of the manuscript. The release of the manuscript will be suspended while the editor is reviewing the request. If the manuscript has already been published in an online issue, any request approved by the Editor will result in an erratum.
Page charges
There are no charges for publication in this Journal.
Copyright notice
Upon publication, the authors agree that the journal of Trends in Peptide and Protein Sciences (TPPS) is the copyright owner of the material published. All works published in the TPPS are open access and are available to anyone on the website of the journal without cost. The users are free to use the work, subject to proper attribution of authorship and ownership of the rights. Authors may use their material in presentations and subsequent publications they write or edit themselves, provided that the TPPS is referenced in writing and is acknowledged as the original publication.
Creative Common Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0)
This is an open access journal in which the articles are distributed under the terms of Creative Common Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Privacy Statement
The names and email addresses entered in the journal site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purposes or to any other parties.
Preprint policy
A preprint is considered an author’s version of a manuscript before the version is accepted for publication in a journal. Authors are allowed to deposit an initial draft of their manuscript anywhere. However, authors should disclose the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) once the manuscript is submitted to the journal or at any other point during the peer review process at TPPS. If the manuscript is accepted for publication, the preprint record should be updated with the DOI and a URL link to the published version of the article on the journal website. Please note that however, deposition of a preprint shall not be viewed as prior publication.
Ethical considerations of animals and human studies
Authors herein confirm that all human and/or animal studies undertaken are in compliance with the regulations of their institution(s) and generally accepted guidelines governing such work. In any studies that involve experiments on human subjects, work must be conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. For the experiments on animal subjects, the compliance with National Institutes of Health Guidelines for the Human Use of Laboratory Animals should be declared in the text.
Peer-review policy (ethics and competing interest)
Invited reviewers are expected to consider the competing interests to accept the reviewing process of the manuscript. Reviewers should have no financial conflicts of interest which means that they may profit or be negatively impacted financially by the submitted research. They also should have no personal relationship or competition with the authors, also, they have not recently worked at the same institution or organization as the authors and have no current collaboration with the authors. They have not published or held grants with the authors during the last 5 years.
Post-publication discussion and correction
If authors or audiences find errors in their published article, especially errors that could affect the interpretation of data or reliability of information presented, they should notify the Editorial office by email at tipps@sbmu.ac.ir.
If, after reading the guidance, authors/audiences believe a correction or retraction is necessary for their article, they should contact the journal by email at tipps@sbmu.ac.ir.
All major errors are accompanied by a separate Erratum that provides clear details of the error and the changes that have been made to the article. This Erratum is electronically linked back to the original version. Also, a footnote on the original article displays the electronic link to the Erratum. This correction will be notified in the online issue of the journal.
Minor errors will not be accompanied by a separate Erratum. The corrected file will be replaced instead of the original version and a footnote will be added to the article detailing to the audience that the article has been corrected. Minor errors do not impact the reliability of, or the reader’s understanding of, the scientific content.
Retraction will be considered if there is clear evidence that the findings are unreliable, either as a result of misconduct (e.g. data fabrication or image manipulation) or honest error (e.g. miscalculation or experimental error), or if the findings have previously been published elsewhere (redundant publication or duplicate publication). If any violation of Ethical consideration becomes evident by the Editorial office, the article will be retracted. In these situations, the “Retracted” watermark to the published version of the article will be added.
Allegation of misconduct
If the journal receives a letter raising concerns about any scientific misconduct, such as plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, copyright or intellectual property violation, break of research ethics, authorship disagreements, conflicts of interest, or any other problematic conduct that happens either pre- or post-publication, it will be discussed in the Editorial Board forum. If this misconduct is confirmed, the editor will communicate in writing with the authors stating the details of misconduct that have been claimed against the paper. The authors are given a specified period of time to respond in writing to the allegation.
If the corresponding author does not respond and/or provide sufficient rationale for the raised concern, or if established evidence is provided to the Editor that proves an ethical or scientific violation, regardless of its severity, several corrective actions according to the Editorial Board decision will make, such as publishing an erratum, expression of concern, or retraction of the article.
The authors will be notified of the Editorial Board’s decision and they may appeal the decision by sending an appeal letter to the Editorial office through tipps@sbmu.ac.ir.
Complaints and appeals
Authors or audiences can submit their complaints about the policies, procedures, or actions of the journal staff by sending an e-mail to tipps@sbmu.ac.ir.
All received complaints and appeals will be handled by the Editorial office, and the Editor-in-Chief will finalize whether any appropriate response or decision change should be made. Re-review of the manuscript may be done. The new decision made after the final considerations of the appeal will be informed to the respected individuals, applied, and announced in the online version of publications.
Checklist Items
Upon publication, author(s) agree that the journal of Trends in Peptide and Protein Sciences is the copyright owner of the material published. All works published in the TPPS are open access and are available to anyone on the web site of the journal without cost. The users are free to use the work, subject to proper attribution of authorship and ownership of the rights. Authors may use their material in presentations and subsequent publications they write or edit themselves, provided that the TPPS is referenced in writing and is acknowledged as the original publication.
Creative Common Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0)
This is an open access journals that articles distributed under the terms of Creative Common Attribution Non-Commercial 4.0 International License which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work properly cited.