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Molecular Omics publishes high-quality research in the -omics sciences. We welcome scientific research based on the application of any -omics technology and we encourage multi-omics approaches to solving important chemical or biological problems. This includes combining different types of omics platforms encompassing genomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics and other specialized areas such as glycomics and lipidomics, as well as innovative bioinformatics approaches.

Chair Robert Moritz headshot

Chair - Robert Moritz, Institute for Systems Biology, Seattle, USA

 

What would you like to know about this journal?

Molecular Omics is a Transformative Journal, and Plan S compliant

Impact factor: 2.9*

Time to first decision (all decisions): 11.0 days**

CiteScore: 4.9****

Time to first decision (peer reviewed only): 49.0 days***

Chair: Robert Moritz

Indexed in Web of Science, Scopus and MEDLINE

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Meet the team

A trusted editorial team

Our rigorous peer review process ensures transparency, fairness and balance

Open Access options

We can help you improve the visibility of your work and meet funder mandates

No cost to publish

We don't charge submission, page or colour charges - and we offer free electronic reprints

Pre-prints welcome

We accept submissions of manuscripts that have previously been posted as pre-prints

Copyright is yours

We believe the copyright of your work should always belong to you, so we only ask for a licence to publish it

A focus on community

Because the Royal Society of Chemistry re-invests all surplus back into the global scientific community, you can raise your profile and support international scientific progress at the same time

Scope

Molecular Omics publishes high-quality research from across the -omics sciences that provide significant new insight into important chemical or biological problems.

Molecular Omics articles report research that significantly increases understanding or demonstrates clear functional benefits, supported by experimental validation or a novel data analytic approach.
Topics include, but are not limited to:

• omics studies to gain mechanistic insight into biological processes – for example, determining the mode of action of a drug or the basis of a particular phenotype, such as drought tolerance.

• omics studies for clinical applications with experimental validation, such as finding biomarkers for diagnostics or potential new drug targets.

• omics studies looking at the sub-cellular make-up of cells – for example, the subcellular localisation of certain proteins or post-translational modifications or new imaging techniques.

• studies presenting new methods and tools to support omics studies, including new spectroscopic/chromatographic techniques, chip-based/array technologies and new classification/data analysis techniques. New methods should be proven and demonstrate an advance in the field.

The following are not within the scope of Molecular Omics:

• Research based on reanalysis of public datasets without experimental validation and significant omics datasets.
• Papers without significant biological justification or interpretation.
• Research that is only of interest to the specialist in the area.
• Papers reporting new results that could be routinely predicted.
• Papers that do not show a significant improvement over known research.

Meet the team

Find out who is on the editorial and advisory boards for the Molecular Omics journal.

Article types

Molecular Omics publishes:

  • Research articles
  • Reviews
  • Comments

Submitting a Review
If you are interested in submitting a review, please complete a Review proposal form and email the Editorial Office.

See more information about these article types

Research Article

All new research in Molecular Omics is published in the Research Article format. Research Articles have no page limits, although most articles fall between 4 and 10 journal pages (approximately 10–25 pages of double-spaced text).

Research findings should be presented in an informative way, emphasising the importance and potential impact of the research. Authors should limit experimental procedures and data in the main text to a maximum two journal pages (approximately 5 double-spaced pages), with all additional experimental information and data placed in the electronic supplementary information (ESI).

Authors are particularly encouraged to prepare a title and abstract which concisely summarise the key findings of their research and their importance, avoiding the use of non-standard abbreviations, acronyms and symbols, as this will enable potential readers to quickly understand the significance of the research. Authors should also consider using recognisable, searchable terms, as around 70% of our readers come directly via search engines. The table of contents graphic should give the reader a clear indication of the topic of the study, for example by showing key compounds.

Authors are encouraged to use the article template, available from our Author templates & services page, for preparing their submissions. However, the use of the template for Research Article submissions is not essential.

Additional guidance on the layout and formatting of the article and supplementary information can be found on our Prepare your article page.

Review Article

Molecular Omics reviews are a concise and critical appraisal of an important area in omics science or a related topic, typically 6–12 journal pages in length (approximately 15-30 pages of double-spaced text).

Reviews should focus on the key developments that have shaped the topic, rather than comprehensive reviews of the literature. Authors are encouraged to include their own perspective on developments, trends and future directions, particularly identifying areas where further developments are imminent or that are in urgent need of being addressed. Please note that Reviews should include balanced coverage of the field and not focus predominantly on the author’s own research. Reviews should not include new research results.

We welcome suggestions from authors for Reviews. If you are interested in writing a Review for the journal, please contact the editorial office.

Comments

Comments and Replies are a medium for the discussion and exchange of scientific opinions between authors and readers concerning material published in Molecular Omics.

For publication, a Comment should present an alternative analysis of and/or new insight into the previously published material. Any Reply should further the discussion presented in the original article and the Comment. Comments and Replies that contain any form of personal attack are not suitable for publication. 

Comments that are acceptable for publication will be forwarded to the authors of the work being discussed, and these authors will be given the opportunity to submit a Reply. The Comment and Reply will both be subject to rigorous peer review in consultation with the journal’s Editorial Board where appropriate. The Comment and Reply will be published together.

Journal specific guidelines

 

The following guidelines are journal specific. For general guidance on preparing an article please visit our Prepare your article and Resources for authors pages, the content of which is relevant to all of our journals.

Data requirements for submission

The Royal Society of Chemistry believes that, where possible, all data associated with the research in a manuscript should be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable (FAIR), enabling other researchers to replicate and build on that research. For submissions to be considered for peer review, Molecular Omics requires authors to deposit proteomic, metabolomic, genomic and sequencing data in publicly available repositories, and strongly encourages deposition of other data in appropriate public repositories where possible.

All data required to understand and verify the research in an article must be made available on submission, and should be made available in the following ways:

  • All original raw datasets essential for the results and conclusion of the manuscript, especially X-ray crystallographic, macromolecular structure, proteomic, metabolomic, genomic and sequence data, must be deposited in publicly available repositories (list of recommended databases in the respective sections below), and accession numbers must be provided in the manuscript.

  • Datasets without an appropriate or subject-specific public repository available should be deposited in a generalist repository or presented in the supplementary information in a machine-readable format (for example, spreadsheets instead of PDF).

  • All other required data, for example, small molecule characterisation data, should be submitted as supplementary information. See also our general RSC guidelines for experimental data for additional information.

  • Authors should state key aspects of experimental design, where appropriate, including operator blinding and sample randomisation. If sample preparation or data acquisition took place across multiple sample batches, authors should clearly state the number of samples per batch, how samples were assigned to each batch, and what quality controls were put in place to assess and account for potential batch effects.

Editors and reviewers must be granted access to data in repositories during the peer-review process in a way that facilitates anonymous peer review i.e. no identifying information is required to access the data. Public release should be coordinated with the earliest publication of the manuscript.

In order to maintain high standards of transparency, research reproducibility, and to promote the reuse of new findings, Molecular Omics requires authors to include a Data Availability Statement as part of the final published article. Further information on Data Availability Statements can be found below.

Manuscripts that do not meet the data requirements will not be considered for peer review; authors should contact the Editorial Office prior to submission to request an exemption if required, for consideration by the Editor on a case-by-case basis.

Data repository guidelines

It is recommended that data is stored on an established, subject-specific and community recognised repository. Generalist repositories (such as Dryad, Figshare, DataVerse) may be used where a subject-specific repository is not available.

Core criteria for data repositories:

  • Unique persistent identifiers e.g. DOI to facilitate discovery and reporting of data
  • Long-term plan and technical infrastructure to ensure persistence of data
  • Data security to prevent unauthorised data modification or access to sensitive data
  • Data should be publicly accessible for no charge and without required logins (exceptions may apply for human data)
  • Supports anonymous peer review. Access to embargoed datasets must be granted to reviewers upon manuscript submission
  • Supports open licences
  • Clear use guidelines
  • Provenance e.g. record of origin, custody and modifications
  • Metadata accompaniment to facilitate discovery, reuse and citation of data sets

On this page is a selection of recommended repositories for different data types. External resources such as the FAIRsharing registry, Registry of Research Data Repositories or DataCite’s Repository Finder may also be useful in finding an appropriate repository for your data.

Recommended repositories for common data types are suggested in the table below.

For experiments involving microorganisms sufficient detail should be provided to identify the species being used. Specific info on antibodies is essential. Commercial sources and if new antibodies are generated full experimental details such as immunogen/phage, species, protocols for mAb) should be given. We strongly recommend authors to use unique Resource Identifiers for model organisms, antibodies and tools and publish them with full descriptions.

For biomarker discovery and validation studies scatter plots of data, sensitivity and specificity values with confidence intervals and results of receiver operating characteristic curve analysis should be at least presented. If a marker is already routinely used for that disease, comparison with that marker should be included.

For genetically modified organisms and mutants appropriate repositories such as the UK Stem Cell Bank, the Maerican Type Culture Centre and the Jackson Laboratory should be used. Larger datasets might be given in the ESI instead.

a) Biological materials

DataRecommended databases
Cell lines, tissue biopsies, environmental isolates, Plasmids, DNA BioSample database, Addgene or PlasmID

b) Phylogenetic data

DataRecommended databases
Phylogenetic data (alignments, phylogenetic trees, or other relevant primary data) TreeBase, Dryad

Statistical methods should be presented with full information and their appropriateness for the test should be stated in manuscript.

Models of biochemical reaction networks are represented by a computer-readable format: the Systems Biology Markup Language (SBML). SBML is applicable to metabolic networks, cell-signalling pathways, regulatory networks, and many others. We encourage authors to prepare models of biochemical reaction networks using SBML and to deposit the model with the BioModels database. Authors may submit datasets in SBML formats, when they are available, for publication as electronic supplementary information.

All mathematical models should be submitted alongside all necessary parameters to program the model (reaction conditions and stoichiometrics, rate equations, etc).

Authors should make new software applications as well as custom codes available for testing by reviewers preserving their anonymity. A link should be provided to access to newest version online and the archived version should be referenced in the manuscript. Both should be archived in a suitable repository and unique identifiers should be given in the manuscript. The software should be directly available for non-commercial usage without restrictions.

Atomic coordinates fitted to EM maps should be deposited to an appropriate database (and released upon publication) and accession numbers should be included in the manuscript. Deposition of relevant information in appropriate databases is highly recommended (for example, the Worldwide Protein Data Bank, Protein Data Bank Japan, Protein Data Bank in Europe, the Electron Microscopy Data Bank or the EMDataBank).

a) Functional genomics data/deep sequencing data (such as microarray, RNA-seq or ChIP-seq data)

Functional genomics data (for example, microarray, RNA-seq or ChIP-seq data) should follow the standards proposed by the Functional Genomics Data Society.

Gene nomenclature should be standardised with human gene names and symbols from a gene nomenclature database.

For unpublished genomic data the guidelines of the Fort Lauderdale and Toronto agreements should be followed and the authors should contact the owner of the genomic data before starting their research.

Genomic data generated from HeLa cells: We highly recommend authors to comply with the NIH HeLa Genome Data Use Agreement.

Data Recommended databases
Expression, epigenetics, pheno- or genotypes, genomic variants (GWAS studies), human sequence data Database of Genotypes and Phenotypes (dbGaP)
Protein-protein, protein-DNA/RNA and molecular interactions The IntAct molecular interaction database (IntAct)
miRNA sequences and annotation miRBase
Human genomic data, genetic polymorphisms dbSNP, the Database of Genomic Variants Archive (DGVa), Database of Genomic Structural Variation (dbVAR)

b) Sequence variants

Mass spectrometry data should be provided in the mzML format following the HUPO Protein Standards Initiative guidelines; for peptide mass fingerprinting the total percentage of sequence coverage and number of peptides matching it should be given.

Mass spectrometric analysis and quantification of proteins and peptides: the authors should provide detailed information on how raw data was converted into a format for database searching (for example, peak list from raw MS or MS/MS data), the search engine used, the database(s), scoring function(s), false discovery rate (how calculated) and statistical methods employed.

For post-translational protein modifications results of fragmentation analysis and spectra should be provided. If no evidence for assigning a modification to a single amino acid is provided it should be reported as ambiguous.

Proteomics

To ensure reproducibility, please provide experimental details for (gel-based) proteomics data such as how the duplicates were performed and how the data was processed with what standard.

Data Recommended databases
Proteome ProteomeXchange members: PRIDE, PeptideAtlas, MassIVE, jPOST, iProX, Panorama
Protein interaction MEx consortium

If your work is part of the NIH Common Fund Metabolomics Program supported research projects, your data should also be compliant with their guidelines.

Data Recommended databases
Metabolomics MetaboLights, Metabolomics Data Repository

 

Microarray data should be MIAME compliant and deposited in an appropriate database (for example, GEO or ArrayExpress). Accession numbers should be given in the manuscript.

a) Macromolecular structures

 b) Chemical structures & assays

Structural data for small molecules should be presented in the manuscript ESI. However, we would encourage authors to publicly deposit as much data as possible that is related to the research in their article.

Data Recommended databases
Chemical structures PubChem Substance
Bioactivity assays PubChem BioAssay 
Nanomaterials and their composition and physico-chemical and in vitro characterisations caNanoLab
Flow cytometry data Flow Repository

For single molecule crystal data and NMR data please refer to the general RSC experimental data guidelines.

If no dedicated subject repository exists, authors may wish to use one of the following general repositories and workspaces to archive their data, and make them publicly available:

Dryad

Dataverse

FigShare (max file size 250MB)

Mendeley Data

Science Data Bank

Zenodo (especially recommended for code archiving)

Data availability statements

Data availability statements (DAS) provide information about where data, software or code supporting the results reported in a published article can be found. These should include, where applicable, links to datasets shared in an external data repository, which have been analysed or generated during the study. This section should list the database, accession number, DOI, URL or any other relevant details. Authors are also encouraged to formally cite associated datasets in the reference section of an article.

The DAS can provide information about the data presented in an article (e.g. in Figures or Tables). If supporting data or code have been included in the article’s supplementary information, this should also be stated here. If the data is not available to openly access on a public repository, for example identifiable human data, a reason should be provided in the data availability statement.

A Data Availability Statement must be included at the end of the article, after the Conclusions section. Examples of Data Availability Statements which can be used are shown below:

  1. The code for [description of] can be found at [URL] with [DOI].
  2. Data for this paper, including [description of data types] are available at [name of repository] at [URL – format https://doi.org/DOI].
  3. This study was carried out using publicly available data from [name of repository] at [URL] with [accession number].

The following statement is generally not acceptable “Data are available upon request from the authors".

Post-acquisition processing of data

All image acquisition and processing tools (including their settings) should be clearly stated in the manuscript. The amount of post-acquisition processing of data should be kept to a minimum. Any type of alteration such as image processing, cropping and groupings should be clearly stated in the figure caption and the ESI (clearly describing the process of alteration). Data manipulation (for example, normalisation or handling of missing values) should be given.

Image processing changes should be applied to the entire image as well as all other images it is compared to. Processed images should still represent all the original data (with no data missing) and touch-up tools should be avoided.

All Western blot and other electrophoresis data should be supported by the underlying raw images. The image of the full gel and blot, uncropped and unprocessed, should be provided in the supplementary information on submission. All samples and controls used for a comparative analysis should be run on the same gel or blot. For each blot and gel, all positive and negative controls and molecular size markers (for example, protein ladder) should be shown (if not in the main figure at least in the ESI). Only results of comparable experiments should be compared.

When illustrating the blot or gel result, any cropping or rearrangement of lanes within an image should be stated in the figure legend and with lane boundaries clearly delineated. Important bands should not be cropped in gels and cropped blots should retain at least six band widths above and below the band. Alterations should be kept to a minimum required for clarity.

Each blot or gel image should be appropriately labelled, with closest molecular mass markers and lanes labelled. All details must be visible, over or underexposed gels and blots are not acceptable; a grey background is highly encouraged. Authors should be able to provide raw data for all replicate experiments upon request.

Genuine and relevant signals in spectra must not be lost due to image enhancement.

Microscopy images of cells from multiple fields should not be compared but shown as single images (at least in the ESI).

Authors might be asked during peer review to provide the original unprocessed data to the editors/reviewers of the journal.

Guidelines on writing titles, abstracts & table of contents entry

The title, abstract and table of contents entry (graphical abstract) are the first parts of your manuscript that editors, referees and potential readers will see, and once published they play a major part in a researcher’s decision to read your article. Therefore it’s important that these clearly and concisely show the main findings of your research and why they are important.

More information on writing titles, abstracts & table of contents

Titles

The title should be short and straightforward to appeal to a general reader, but detailed enough to properly reflect the contents of your review article. 

  • Keep it relatively short – between 8 and 15 words is ideal.
  • Use easily recognisable words and phrases that can be read quickly.
  • Use general or well-known terms for compounds and procedures rather than very specialised terms or nomenclature.
  • Avoid using non-standard abbreviations and symbols.
  • Avoid using subjective terms such as “novel”.
  • Use keywords and familiar, searchable terms – these can increase the chances of your article appearing in search results. Around 70% of our readers come directly via search engines.

Abstracts

The abstract is a single paragraph which summarises the contents of your article. It will help readers to decide whether your article is of interest to them. 

  • The length can vary from 50 to 250 words (or 40 to 75 words for Communications), but it should always be concise and easy to read with recognisable words and phrases.
  • It should set out the objectives of the work, the key findings and why this research is important (compared to other research in its field).
  • It should emphasise (but not overstate) the significance and potential impact of the research in your article.
  • Avoid including detailed information on how the research was carried out. This should be described in the main part of the manuscript.
  • Like your title, make sure you use familiar, searchable terms and keywords.

Table of contents entry

A table of contents entry (graphical abstract) is required, which should be submitted at the revision stage. This should include an eye-catching graphic and 1-2 sentence(s) of text to summarise the key findings of the article to the reader. It will appear in the table of contents and feeds – for example, RSS feeds.

The graphic should:

  • Be simple, but informative.
  • Capture the reader’s attention (the use of colour is encouraged).
  • Include a structure, scheme, graph, drawing, photograph or combination that conveys the message of the article. Please note, complex schematics or spectra should be avoided.
  • Be original, unpublished artwork created by one of the co-authors. Preferably, the graphic should not be reused and appear again within the article.
  • Be suitable for, and uphold the standards of, a scholarly publication that has a global reach.
  • Not contain any elements that are offensive or inappropriate, in particular words or images that are discriminatory.
  • Not contain graphic images of animal or human testing or surgery.
  • Not contain large amounts of text. Text should be limited to the labelling of compounds, reaction arrows and diagrams, with long phrases or sentences being avoided. Any text should be clearly legible to a reader.
  • Not contain logos, trademarks or brands names.

The text should: 

  • Be concise and focus only on the key findings of the manuscript and their importance, not the processes used; think about what would grab the attention of the potential reader and would encourage them to read the full article.
  • Avoid repeating or paraphrasing the title or abstract.
  • Use easily recognisable words and phrases that can be read quickly.

Table of contents specifications:

  • The figure should be a maximum size of 8 cm wide x 4 cm high.
  • Figures should be supplied as TIFF files, with a resolution of 600 dpi or greater.
  • The text supplied should be 1-2 sentences long, using a maximum of 250 characters.

Open access publishing options

Molecular Omics is a hybrid (transformative) journal and gives authors the choice of publishing their research either via the traditional subscription-based model or instead by choosing our gold open access option. Find out more about our Transformative Journals. which are Plan S compliant.

Gold open access

For authors who want to publish their article gold open access, Molecular Omics charges an article processing charge (APC) of £2,750 (+ any applicable tax). Our APC is all-inclusive and makes your article freely available online immediately, permanently, and includes your choice of Creative Commons licence (CC BY or CC BY-NC) at no extra cost. It is not a submission charge, so you only pay if your article is accepted for publication.

Learn more about publishing open access.

Read & Publish

If your institution has a Read & Publish agreement in place with the Royal Society of Chemistry, APCs for gold open access publishing in Molecular Omics may already be covered.

Use our journal finder to check if your institution has an open access agreement with us.

Please use your official institutional email address to submit your manuscript and check you are assigned as the corresponding author; this helps us to identify if you are eligible for Read & Publish or other APC discounts.

Traditional subscription model

Authors can also publish in Molecular Omics via the traditional subscription model without needing to pay an APC. Articles published via this route are available to institutions and individuals who subscribe to the journal. Our standard licence allows you to make the accepted manuscript of your article freely available after a 12-month embargo period. This is known as the green route to open access.

Learn more about green open access.

Readership information

Researchers from industry and academia interested in molecular level research in proteomics, transcriptomics and metabolomics, genomics and other omics science.

Thus the journal will appeal to a wide variety of researchers, but particularly to the folllowing.

  • Chemical biologists
  • Biological chemists
  • Biochemists
  • Molecular and structural biologists
  • Drug discovery scientists
  • Protein chemists
  • Bio- and cheminformaticians
  • Organic and analytical chemists

Subscription information

Online only 2024: £1,544 / $2,722

*2022 Journal Citation Reports (Clarivate Analytics, 2023)

**The median time from submission to first decision including manuscripts rejected without peer review from the previous calendar year

***The median time from submission to first decision for peer-reviewed manuscripts from the previous calendar year

****CiteScore™ 2022 available at  www.scopus.com/sources

Journals, books & databases

Contact us

Pre submission queries
Email:
Katie Lim, Executive Editor

Post-submission queries
Email:
Sarah Anthony, Editorial Production Manager

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