PLOS

Prepare your manuscript for PLOS Genetics.

Review the checklist, choose your article type, and turn your draft into a cleaner submission package.

Checked 2026-07-15

Check readiness free Prepare this manuscript

Article types

Research Article

Review

Systematic Review

Clinical Trial

Methods Article

Readiness requirements

Review the key details below, or download the complete checklist with every stored source-backed requirement.

Abstract length

Provide an author-written abstract of no more than 300 words.
The Abstract should be succinct; it must not exceed 300 words.

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This text is subject to editorial change, should be written in the first-person voice, and should be distinct from the scientific abstract.
Authors should always state the organism(s) studied in the Abstract.
Systematic Review: Abstract Original research, systematic reviews, and meta-analyses require structured abstracts.
Funding sources should be listed separately after the abstract to facilitate proper display and indexing for search retrieval by MEDLINE.
Review / Systematic Review: Authors whose systematic review was prospectively registered (e.g., in a registry such as PROSPERO ) should also provide the registry number in their abstract.
The title provides a distilled description of the complete article and should include information that, along with the abstract, will make electronic retrieval of the article sensitive and specific.
The abstract should provide the context or background for the study and should state the study's purpose, basic procedures (selection of study participants, settings, measurements, analytical methods), main findings (giving specific effect sizes and their statistical and clinical significance, if possible), and principal conclusions.
If the data have been deposited in a public repository and/or are being used in a secondary analysis, authors should state at the end of the abstract the unique, persistent data set identifier, repository name and number.
While the Abstract is conceptually divided into three sections (Background, Methodology/Principal Findings, and Conclusions/Significance), do not apply these distinct headings to the Abstract within the article file.

Reference style

Articlo formats your supplied references to the journal's stored style and checks that citations match the reference list; source validity is not verified.
Match the label of your figure with the name of the file uploaded at submission (e.g. a figure citation of “Fig 1” must refer to a figure file named “Fig1.tif”).

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These articles should be no more than 2000 words in length, with a maximum of 3 figures and 100 references.
When preprints are cited, the citation should clearly indicate that the reference is a preprint (also see Section III.D.3).
References should follow the standards summarized in the NLM’s Sample References webpage and detailed in the NLM’s Citing Medicine, 2nd edition.
In-text citations We recommend that you cite supporting information in the manuscript text, but this is not a requirement.
If you cite supporting information in the text, citations do not need to be in numerical order.
Accession numbers or a citation to the DOI should also be provided when the data set is mentioned within the manuscript.
Cite only directly pertinent references, and do not include data or conclusions from the work being reported.
References for the design of the study and statistical methods should be to standard works when possible (with pages stated).
Authors should provide direct references to original research sources whenever possible.
References should be made to published articles rather than to abstracts whenever possible.
References should not be used by authors, editors, or peer reviewers to promote self-interests.
Published articles should reference the unique, persistent identifiers of the data sets employed.
Authors are responsible for citing references accurately and should be able to attest that the references cited support the associated statement.
To minimize bibliographic citation errors, references should be verified using either a bibliographic source, such as PubMed, or original sources.
References should be numbered consecutively in the order in which they are first mentioned in the text.
Do not include any citations.
Do not include citations in abstracts.
Do not provide a shortened DOI or the URL.
In some cases authors may not be able to obtain accession numbers of DOIs until the manuscript is accepted; in these cases, the authors must provide these numbers at acceptance.
References to papers accepted but not yet published should be designated as “in press” or “forthcoming.” Information from manuscripts submitted but not accepted should be cited in the text as “unpublished observations” with written permission from the source.
References cited only in tables or figure legends should be numbered in accordance with the sequence established by the first identification in the text of the particular table or figure.
If Mendelian randomization studies replicate previously published work, authors must provide a sound scientific rationale for the submitted work and clearly reference and discuss the existing literature.
In the Materials and Methods section, authors should include a section on statistical analysis that provides a detailed description of the statistical methods: List the name and version of any software package used, alongside any relevant references.
Do not cite the following sources in the reference list: Submitted research should not rely upon retracted research.
Do not cite the following sources in the reference list: Unavailable and unpublished work, including manuscripts that have been submitted but not yet accepted (e.g., “unpublished work,” “data not shown”).
Do not cite the following sources in the reference list: Personal communications (these should be supported by a letter from the relevant authors but not included in the reference list).
Review: Although references to review articles can be an efficient way to guide readers to a body of literature, review articles do not always reflect original work accurately.
Repositories may be subject-specific (e.g., GenBank for sequences and PDB for structures), general, or institutional, as long as DOIs or accession numbers are provided and the data are at least as open as CC BY.

Figure and table rules

Keep every figure and table numbered, captioned, and cited in the manuscript.
Figures presenting small sample size data (n≤9 independent observations per group) should show the full distribution of the data, as opposed to summary statistics.

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Tables require a label (e.g., “Table 1”) and brief descriptive title to be placed above the table.
The file number and name are required in a caption, and we highly recommend including a one-line title as well.
You may also include a legend in your caption, but it is not required.
Cite figures in ascending numeric order at first appearance in the manuscript file.
At a minimum, include the following in your figure captions: A figure label with Arabic numerals, and “Figure” abbreviated to “Fig” (e.g. Fig 1, Fig 2, Fig 3, etc).
Figure Captions, Tables, and Boxes should be inserted immediately after the first paragraph in which they are cited in the article file.
Some submission systems require specification of the number of figures and tables before uploading the relevant files.
Use graphs as an alternative to tables with many entries; do not duplicate data in graphs and tables.
Titles in tables should be short but self-explanatory, containing information that allows readers to understand the table's content without having to go back to the text.
Submit such tables for consideration with the paper so that they will be available to the peer reviewers.
Illustrations (Figures) Digital images of manuscript illustrations should be submitted in a suitable format for print publication.
For print submissions, figures should be either professionally drawn and photographed, or submitted as photographic-quality digital prints.
Figures should be made as self-explanatory as possible, since many will be used directly in slide presentations.
Figures should be numbered consecutively according to the order in which they have been cited in the text.
In the manuscript, legends for illustrations should be on a separate page, with Arabic numerals corresponding to the illustrations.
Do not submit captions in a separate file.
Do not submit your tables in separate files.
Letters, numbers, and symbols on figures should therefore be clear and consistent throughout, and large enough to remain legible when the figure is reduced for publication.
At a minimum, include the following in your figure captions: A concise, descriptive title.
Place each table in your manuscript file directly after the paragraph in which it is first cited (read order).
Place legends, footnotes, and other text below the table.
Upload a separate file with corresponding caption.
Do not repeat all the data in the tables or figures in the text; emphasize or summarize only the most important observations.
Restrict tables and figures to those needed to explain the argument of the paper and to assess supporting data.
Although some journals redraw figures, many do not.

Funding statement

Add or confirm the author-written Funding statement; Articlo flags it if author input is still needed.
Do not include funding sources in the Acknowledgments or anywhere else in the manuscript file.

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Financial Disclosure Statement This information should describe sources of funding that have supported the work.
The statement should include: URLs to sponsors’ websites.
Funding sources and affiliations that have not contributed to the work should not be listed as listing them would be misleading.
The funding statement should include only direct support of the work described.
General institutional support for an author's time on the work should be distinguished from direct overall funding of the work.
Funding information should only be entered in the financial disclosure section of the submission system.

Competing interests

Review: Add or confirm the author-written Competing interests statement; Articlo flags it if author input is still needed.

Data availability statement

Add or confirm the author-written Data availability statement; Articlo flags it if author input is still needed.
When submitting a manuscript online, authors must provide a Data Availability Statement describing compliance with PLOS's policy.

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All numerical values used to generate graphs must be provided as per the PLOS Data Availability policy.
Accession numbers (and version numbers, if appropriate) should be provided in the Data Availability Statement.

Ethics statement

Add or confirm the author-written Ethics statement; Articlo flags it if author input is still needed.
If data were anonymized and/or aggregated before access and analysis, informed consent is generally not required.

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Note that Terms of Use contracts do not qualify as informed consent, even if they address the use of personal data for research.
Ethical Oversight We uphold rigorous standards for research ethics and expect authors to report on any ethical approvals required for their study.
Animal research All research involving vertebrates or cephalopods must have approval from the authors' Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) or equivalent ethics committee(s), and must have been conducted according to applicable national and international guidelines.
Manuscripts reporting animal research must state in the Methods section: The full name of the relevant ethics committee that approved the work, and the associated permit number(s).
Manuscripts reporting animal research must state in the Methods section: Where ethical approval is not required, the manuscript should include a clear statement of this and the reason why.
If humane endpoints were not used, the manuscript should report: Whether the institutional animal ethics committee specifically reviewed and approved the anticipated mortality in the study design.
Observational and field studies Methods sections for submissions reporting on any type of field study must include ethics statements that specify: Permits and approvals obtained for the work, including the full name of the authority that approved the study; if none were required, authors should explain why.
Observational and field studies Methods sections for submissions reporting on any type of field study must include ethics statements that specify: Whether the land accessed is privately owned or protected.
Observational and field studies Methods sections for submissions reporting on any type of field study must include ethics statements that specify: Whether any protected species were sampled.
Observational and field studies Methods sections for submissions reporting on any type of field study must include ethics statements that specify: Full details of animal husbandry, experimentation, and care/welfare, where relevant.
In the Ethics Statement, authors should declare any potential risks to individuals or individual privacy, or affirm that in their assessment, the study posed no such risks.
For interventional studies, which impact participants’ experiences or data, the study design must have been prospectively approved by an Ethics Committee, and informed consent is required.
Review: The Methods section should include a statement indicating that the research was approved by an independent local, regional or national review body (e.g., ethics committee, institutional review board).
In addition, the following Ethics and Data Protection requirements must be met.
Additional requirements apply in the following circumstances: If information used could threaten personal privacy or damage the reputation of individuals whose data are used, an Ethics Committee should be consulted and informed consent obtained or specifically addressed.
Additional requirements apply in the following circumstances: If authors accessed any personal identifying information, an Ethics or Data Protection Committee should oversee data anonymization.

Blinded manuscript

Provide details of any blinding, methods of randomization, or inclusion/exclusion criteria (e.g., of subjects included at collection or of data points included in analysis).

Cover letter

Include your statement in the Financial Disclosure section of the initial submission form.
If you use data from another published or unpublished source, obtain permission and acknowledge that source fully.

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Personal data from third-party sources For all studies using personal data from internet-based and other third-party sources (e.g., social media, blogs, other internet sources, mobile phone companies), data must be collected and used according to company/website Terms and Conditions, with appropriate permissions.
Do not add it to the author list in the submission system.
The cover letter should address the following questions: Why is this manuscript suitable for publication in PLOS Genetics?
The cover letter should address the following questions: Why will your study inspire other members of your field, and how will it drive research forward?
Submit your striking image to the submission system using the file type “Striking Image”.

Author contributions

Add or confirm the author-written Author contributions statement; Articlo flags it if author input is still needed.
Use the CRediT taxonomy to describe each contribution.

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Author contributions Provide at minimum one contribution for each author in the submission system.

Supplementary files

Clinical Trial: Include every cited supplementary file and use matching labels in the manuscript.
Methods Article: Include every cited supplementary file and use matching labels in the manuscript.

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Research Article: Include every cited supplementary file and use matching labels in the manuscript.
Embed or attach the author-supplied supplementary material so Articlo can extract and label it for the package.
Review: Supplementary electronic-only material should be submitted and sent for peer review simultaneously with the primary manuscript.
Checklists or other documentation should be uploaded as supporting information at submission.
This checklist should be provided as supporting information alongside the submitted manuscript.
Include the full results of any regression analysis performed as a Supporting Information file.
Systematic Review: Systematic reviews and meta-analyses Reports of systematic reviews and meta-analyses must adhere to the PRISMA statement as a guide, and include a completed PRISMA checklist and flow diagram as supporting information.
Review / Systematic Review: Authors must also state in their Materials and Methods section whether a protocol exists for their systematic review, and if so, provide a copy of the protocol as a Supporting Information file.

Title page and author information

Provide the author, affiliation, and correspondence details for the separate title page; Articlo creates the editable companion file.
Each author on the list must have an affiliation.

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Include an email address for each corresponding author listed on the title page of the manuscript.
Title page The title, authors, and affiliations should all be included on a title page as the first page of the manuscript file.
If your corresponding author is affiliated with a participating institution, they must follow the instructions below to demonstrate eligibility.
Some journals require a short title, usually no more than 40 characters (including letters and spaces) on the title page or as a separate entry in an electronic submission system.
Most electronic submission systems require that authors provide full contact information, including land mail and e-mail addresses, but the title page should list the corresponding author's telephone number and e-mail address.
The corresponding author must provide an ORCID iD at the time of submission by entering it in the user profile in the submission system.
If your corresponding author is not from a participating institution and requires assistance paying publishing fees, please consider applying for a fee waiver at submission.

Article structure and word limits

All file types can be submitted, but files must be smaller than 20 MB in size.
The writing style should therefore be concise and accessible.

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Microsoft Word documents should not be locked or protected.
Layout and spacing Manuscript text should be double-spaced.
Use continuous line numbers (do not restart the numbering on each page).
Do not use MathType, Equation Editor, or the Insert→Equation function for only a portion of an equation.
Equations should not contain a mix of different equation tools.
If you do not use these exclusively, provide the SI value in parentheses after each value.
Use the recommended name by consulting the appropriate genetic nomenclature database (e.g., HUGO for human genes).
Gene prefixes such as those used for oncogenes or cellular localization should be shown in roman typeface (e.g., v-fes, c-MYC).
Obtaining this service is the responsibility of the author and should be done before initial submission.
Manuscript Organization Most manuscripts should be organized as follows.
Titles should be written in sentence case (only the first word of the text, proper nouns, and genus names are capitalized).
Systematic Review / Clinical Trial: For clinical trials, systematic reviews, or meta-analyses, the subtitle should include the study design.
Contributions will be published with the final article, and they should accurately reflect contributions to the work.
Review: Include a brief review of the key literature.
If there are relevant controversies or disagreements in the field, they should be mentioned so that a non-expert reader can delve into these issues further.
PLOS journals require authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception.
To ensure equitable recognition and avoid any appearance of partiality, do not include editors or peer reviewers—named or unnamed—in the Acknowledgments.
You should avoid citing retracted articles unless you need to discuss retracted work to provide historical context for your submitted research.
Paired or non-independent data should be presented to include information about whether changes are consistent across individuals.
Accession numbers All appropriate data sets, images, and information should be deposited in an appropriate public repository.
In all other cases, these numbers must be provided at full submission.
Identifiers should be provided in parentheses after the entity on first use.
All novel structures must have been deposited in a community endorsed database prior to submission (please see our list of recommended repositories ).
Striking images should not contain potentially identifying images of people.
The statement should include: Specific grant numbers.
The statement should include: Initials of authors who received each award.
If related work has been or will be submitted elsewhere or is in press elsewhere, then a copy must be uploaded with the article submitted to PLOS.
Review: When making these suggestions, please provide specific reasons why each person should not review your submission in each “Reason” box.
Approval must be received prior to beginning research.
Provide any relevant regulations under which the study is exempt from the requirement for approval.
Where the study may be confused as pertaining to clinical research, authors should also state the animal model in the title.
Collection Overviews should be concise, with suitable referencing, and provide the appropriate context for the publications in the Collection.
Formal Comments should be concise, coherent, well-argued, of timely relevance to the field and are subject to PLOS Genetics Criteria for Publication.
Each author's highest academic degrees should be listed, although some journals do not publish these.
The name of the department(s) and institution(s) or organizations where the work should be attributed should be specified.
It should emphasize new and important aspects of the study or observations, note important limitations, and not overinterpret findings.
If the study was done involving an exclusive population, for example in only one sex, authors should justify why.
Authors should define how they determined race or ethnicity and justify their relevance.
Authors should avoid citing articles in predatory or pseudo-journals.
The titles of journals should be abbreviated according to the style used for MEDLINE ( www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/nlmcatalog/journals ).
Authors should consult with the journal to which they plan to submit their work.
Symbols may vary from journal to journal (alphabet letter or such symbols as *, †, ‡, §), so check each journal's instructions for authors for required practice.
An appropriate statement should be added to the text to inform readers that this additional information is available and where it is located.
Before-and-after images should be taken with the same intensity, direction, and color of light.
Photomicrographs should have internal scale markers.
Symbols, arrows, or letters used in photomicrographs should contrast with the background.
Units of Measurement Measurements of length, height, weight, and volume should be reported in metric units (meter, kilogram, or liter) or their decimal multiples.
Blood pressures should be in millimeters of mercury, unless other units are specifically required by the journal.
Authors must consult the Information for Authors of the particular journal and should report laboratory information in both local and International System of Units (SI).
Drug concentrations may be reported in either SI or mass units, but the alternative should be provided in parentheses where appropriate.
Research submitted to PLOS must comply with internationally-accepted standards for research practice and reporting.
Researchers travelling to another country solely to use laboratory equipment will not normally be required to complete the questionnaire.
Cell lines Manuscripts reporting research using cell lines should include the species and strain, sex of origin, and genetic modification status.
We require adherence to many of the minimum requirements included in the Framework.
For plants, ecotype and cultivar should also be reported where relevant.
More specifically, authors should: Identify research design and independent variables as being between- or within-subjects.
More specifically, authors should: For pre-processed data: If data were transformed, provide a reason for doing so and a description of the transformation performed.
More specifically, authors should: Provide details of how outliers were treated and analysis, both with the full dataset and with the outliers removed.
More specifically, authors should: If relevant, describe how missing/excluded data were handled, including attrition effects.
More specifically, authors should: Define the threshold for significance (alpha).
More specifically, authors should: If appropriate, provide sample sizes, along with a description of how they were determined.
More specifically, authors should: For analyses of variance (ANOVAs), detail any post hoc tests that were performed.
More specifically, authors should: Include details of any corrections applied to account for multiple comparisons.
Include details of the type of t-test conducted (e.g. one sample, within-/between-subjects).
More specifically, authors should: For stepwise multiple regression analyses: Report the alpha level used.
More specifically, authors should: For stepwise multiple regression analyses: Discuss whether the variables were assessed for collinearity and interaction.
More specifically, authors should: For Bayesian analysis explain the choice of prior trial probabilities and how they were selected.
Markov chain Monte Carlo settings should be reported.
Include all estimated regression coefficients, their standard error, p-values, and confidence intervals, as well as measures of goodness of fit.
Effect sizes and confidence intervals should be reported where appropriate.
If percentages are provided, the numerator and denominator should also be given.
Territorial Descriptions Territorial descriptions in submitted manuscripts should follow international treaties and conventions.
Review: When you first submit to the journal, providing you include all the necessary information needed for editorial assessment and review, we will not ask you to make any formatting changes.
LaTeX manuscripts must be submitted as PDFs.
Allergens The systematic allergen nomenclature of the World Health Organization/International Union of Immunological Societies (WHO/IUIS) Allergen Nomenclature Sub-committee should be used for manuscripts that include the description or use of allergenic proteins.
For manuscripts describing new allergens, the systematic name of the allergen should be approved by the WHO/IUIS Allergen Nomenclature Sub-Committee prior to manuscript publication.
The current address should be listed in the byline and clearly labeled “current address.” At a minimum, the address must include the author’s current institution, city, and country.
If there is a particular reason that bar or line graphs are preferred, these must include inferential error bars: SD - standard deviation of the population, or CI - confidence intervals.
Data reporting All data and related metadata underlying the findings reported in a submitted manuscript should be deposited in an appropriate public repository, unless already provided as part of the submitted article.
Small and macromolecule crystal data Manuscripts reporting new and unpublished three-dimensional structures must include sufficient supporting data and detailed descriptions of the methodologies used to allow the reproduction and validation of the structures.
Small molecule single crystal data Authors reporting X-Ray crystallographic structures of small organic, metal-organic, and inorganic molecules must deposit their data with the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC), the Inorganic Crystal Structure Database (ICSD), or similar community databases providing a recognized validation functionality.
Macromolecular structures Authors reporting novel macromolecular structures must have deposited their data prior to submission with the Worldwide Protein Data Bank (wwPDB), the Biological Magnetic Resonance Data Bank (BMRB), the Electron Microscopy Data Bank (EMDB), or other community databases providing a recognized validation functionality.
Non-human primates Manuscripts describing research involving non-human primates must report details of husbandry and animal welfare in accordance with the recommendations of the Weatherall report, The use of non-human primates in research, including: Information about housing, feeding, and environmental enrichment.
Humane endpoints Manuscripts reporting studies in which death of a regulated animal (vertebrate, cephalopod) is a likely outcome or a planned experimental endpoint, must comprehensively report details of study design, rationale for the approach, and methodology, including consideration of humane endpoints.
Formal Comments must be coherent, concise, and well-argued, PLOS Genetics may consider a Formal Comment as: A response to scientific criticism or re-analysis by authors whose work is disputed in a PLOS Genetics publication.
Formal Comments must be coherent, concise, and well-argued, PLOS Genetics may consider a Formal Comment as: An article that offers an expert, broad and balanced perspective on a PLOS Genetics publication, or adds context on the potential editorial, societal or policy implications of the findings.
The article should include an overview of the existing literature that places the topic within a broader context, but it should also focus on the future: where is the field going and what exciting developments are expected?
Use of AI by Authors.
Use of AI by Reviewers.
Other types of articles, such as meta-analyses, may require different formats, while case reports, narrative reviews, and editorials may have less structured or unstructured formats.
Systematic Review: Reporting guidelines recommend and some journals require that information about the study design be a part of the title (particularly important for randomized trials and systematic reviews and meta-analyses).
Disclosure information for each author needs to be part of the manuscript; each journal should develop standards with regard to the form the information should take and where it will be posted.
The format required for structured abstracts differs from journal to journal, and some journals use more than one format; authors need to prepare their abstracts in the format specified by the journal they have chosen.
Because the relevance of such variables as age, sex, or ethnicity is not always known at the time of study design, researchers should aim for inclusion of representative populations into all study types and at a minimum provide descriptive data for these and other relevant demographic variables.
Separate reporting of data by demographic variables, such as age and sex, facilitate pooling of data for subgroups across studies and should be routine, unless there are compelling reasons not to stratify reporting, which should be explained.
Avoid citing a “personal communication” unless it provides essential information not available from a public source, in which case the name of the person and date of communication should be cited in parentheses in the text.
Temperatures should be in degrees Celsius.
Antibodies and other reagents Manuscripts reporting research using antibodies and other reagents should identify the commercial supplier or source laboratory, the catalog or clone number and, if known, the batch or lot number.
Authors should state when and where they obtained the cells, giving the date and the name of the researcher, cell line repository (with accession number), or commercial supplier (with catalog or clone number) that provided the cells, as appropriate.
Authors should check established cell lines using the ICLAC Database of Cross-contaminated or Misidentified Cell Lines to confirm that they are not contaminated or misidentified.
Review: Cell line authentication is strongly recommended – e.g., by karyotyping, isozyme analysis, or short tandem repeats (STR) analysis – and may be required during peer review.
For de novo (new) cell lines, including those given to the researchers as a gift, authors must follow PLOS policies for human subjects research and animal research, as appropriate.
Plants and microorganisms Manuscripts reporting research on plants or microorganisms should include the species, strain, source (including location for collected wild specimens), and accession number, if available.
More specifically, authors should: For stepwise multiple regression analyses: Describe the variable selection process by which the final model was developed (e.g., forward-stepwise; best subset).
It should be clear from the text which measures of variance (standard deviation, standard error of the mean, confidence intervals) and central tendency (mean, median) are being presented.
PLOS Genetics staff editors do not consider unsolicited Collection Overviews.
Formal Comments Formal Comments shall promote scientific discourse about PLOS Genetics articles.
Do not format text in multiple columns.
Such approaches are designed to leverage large datasets, multiple data types, and models, including but not limited to omics integration, predictive, computational modeling and holistic approaches to understand the complexity of genetic and genomic systems.
Because abstracts are the only substantive portion of the article indexed in many electronic databases, and the only portion many readers read, authors need to ensure that they accurately reflect the content of the article.
Keep up-to-date.

Reporting guidelines

Include or confirm the reporting guidelines required by the journal. Articlo checks this item and flags anything that still needs author input.

Statistical reporting

More specifically, authors should: Describe all options for statistical procedures.
Test statistics (F/t/r) and associated degrees of freedom should be provided.

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Authors should ensure that results are rigorously reported in accordance with community standards and that statistical methods employed are appropriate for the study design.
In the Materials and Methods section, authors should include a section on statistical analysis that provides a detailed description of the statistical methods: Describe technical details or procedures required to reproduce the analysis.
In the Materials and Methods section, authors should include a section on statistical analysis that provides a detailed description of the statistical methods: Provide a persistent identifier for any code used in the analysis (see our Code Sharing policy ).
More specifically, authors should: For pre-processed data: Justify the selection of statistical tests by describing any analysis confirming that the data meets the assumptions of the analysis performed (e.g., linearity, collinearity, normality of the distribution).

Preprints and prior publication

Include or confirm the preprints and prior publication required by the journal. Articlo checks this item and flags anything that still needs author input.

Artificial intelligence disclosure

Add or confirm the author-written Artificial intelligence statement; Articlo flags it if author input is still needed.
Use of Artificial Intelligence in Publishing.

Submission forms

Include or confirm the submission forms required by the journal. Articlo checks this item and flags anything that still needs author input.

Language and text style

Care should be taken to define abbreviations clearly and to use correct genetic and systematic nomenclature.
Language Manuscripts must be submitted in English.

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Do not use non-standard abbreviations unless they appear at least three times in the text.
Journal name abbreviations should be those found in the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) databases.
Authors should use neutral, precise, and respectful language to describe study participants and avoid the use of terminology that might stigmatize participants.
The spelled-out abbreviation followed by the abbreviation in parentheses should be used on first mention unless the abbreviation is a standard unit of measurement.
Authors are encouraged to decide how best to present their ideas, results, and conclusions, but all research should be presented in a form that is readable to those in the field, easily understood by scientists outside of the immediate discipline, and comprehensible to readers whose first language is not English.
Keep abbreviations to a minimum.

Authorship and originality

All authors must meet the criteria for authorship as outlined in the authorship policy.
If included, these individuals must qualify for authorship according to our criteria.

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Acknowledgments Those who contributed to the work but do not meet our authorship criteria should be listed in the Acknowledgments with a description of the contribution.
Permission is required irrespective of authorship or publisher except for documents in the public domain.
Authors performing research in other countries and communities should ensure the contribution of local collaborators is suitably acknowledged in the authorship list and/or Acknowledgements.
Those who contributed to the work but do not meet the criteria for authorship can be mentioned in the Acknowledgments.
When submitting a manuscript, all authors are asked to indicate that they do not have a related or duplicate manuscript under consideration (or accepted) for publication elsewhere.

Manuscript structure

Authors should mention the techniques used without going into methodological detail and should summarize the most important results.
Introduction The introduction should put the focus of the manuscript into a broader context.

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The Introduction should conclude with a brief statement of the overall aim of the experiments and a comment about whether that aim was achieved.
Results The Results section should provide details of all of the experiments that are required to support the conclusions of the paper.
The section should be written in the past tense.
Discussion The Discussion should spell out the major conclusions of the work along with some explanation or speculation on the significance of these conclusions.
The Discussion should be concise and tightly argued.
Materials and Methods The Materials and Methods should provide enough detail to reproduce the findings.
Submit detailed protocols for newer or less established methods.
Selecting a Section Authors are required to select a section upon submission to PLOS Genetics.
The methodological advance should be substantial and the new method should be important and likely to be adopted by many researchers.
Description of the method must be accompanied by its validation in controlled settings (e.g. simulations) and performance comparisons with existing relevant methods.
Application to an important genetics question and related biological discovery to prove the usefulness of the method is encouraged but not required.
Manuscripts reporting animal research must state in the Methods section: Relevant details of steps taken to ameliorate animal suffering.
Full details of humane endpoints use must be reported for a study to be reproducible and for the results to be accurately interpreted.
All data sources must be acknowledged clearly in the Materials and Methods section.
Methods The guiding principle of the Methods section should be clarity about how and why a study was done in a particular way.
The Methods section should aim to be sufficiently detailed such that others with access to the data would be able to reproduce the results.
Race and ethnicity are social and not biological constructs; authors should interpret results associated with race and ethnicity in that context.
Provide data on all primary and secondary outcomes identified in the Methods Section.
Authors should place explanatory matter in footnotes, not in the heading.
Results must be rigorously and appropriately reported, in keeping with community standards.
Non-human primates Manuscripts describing research involving non-human primates must report details of husbandry and animal welfare in accordance with the recommendations of the Weatherall report, The use of non-human primates in research, including: Steps taken to minimize suffering, including use of anesthesia and method of sacrifice, if appropriate.
If humane endpoints were not used, the manuscript should report: A scientific justification for the study design, including the reasons why humane endpoints could not be used, and discussion of alternatives that were considered.
In general, the section should include only information that was available at the time the plan or protocol for the study was being written; all information obtained during the study belongs in the Results section.
If an organization was paid or otherwise contracted to help conduct the research (examples include data collection and management), then this should be detailed in the methods.
Review: If doubt exists whether the research was conducted in accordance with the Helsinki Declaration, the authors must explain the rationale for their approach and demonstrate that the local, regional or national review body explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study. (See section II.E.).
Authors who used AI technology to conduct the study should describe its use in the methods section in sufficient detail to enable replication of the approach. including the tool used, version, and prompts where applicable.
For studies in which death of an animal is an outcome or a planned experimental endpoint, authors should include the following information in the Methods section of the manuscript: The specific criteria (i.e. humane endpoints) used to determine when animals should be euthanized.
For studies in which death of an animal is an outcome or a planned experimental endpoint, authors should include the following information in the Methods section of the manuscript: The duration of the experiment.
For studies in which death of an animal is an outcome or a planned experimental endpoint, authors should include the following information in the Methods section of the manuscript: The numbers of animals used, euthanized, and found dead (if any); the cause of death for all animals.
For studies in which death of an animal is an outcome or a planned experimental endpoint, authors should include the following information in the Methods section of the manuscript: How frequently animal health and behavior were monitored.
For studies in which death of an animal is an outcome or a planned experimental endpoint, authors should include the following information in the Methods section of the manuscript: All animal welfare considerations taken, including efforts to minimize suffering and distress, use of analgesics or anaesthetics, or special housing conditions.
Publication charges do not apply to the article types outlined in this section.
Do not repeat in detail data or other information given in other parts of the manuscript, such as in the Introduction or the Results section.

Article type and manuscript length

Authors must include the structure reference numbers within the main text and submit as Supplementary Information the official validation reports from these databases.
There is no specific word limit for this section, but details of experiments that are peripheral to the main thrust of the article and that detract from the focus of the article should not be included.

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Authors are also required to include the relevant structure reference numbers within the main text (e.g. the CCDC ID number), as well as the crystallographic information files (.cif format) as Supplementary Information, along with the checkCIF validation reports that can be obtained via the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr).

Study reporting guidelines

Clinical Trial: Clinical trial abstracts should include items that the CONSORT group has identified as essential.
Diagnostic studies Reports of studies of diagnostic accuracy should conform to the STARD requirements.

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Reports of Mendelian randomization studies must include a STROBE-MR checklist completed with page number and relevant text.
Observational studies in epidemiology For reports of epidemiological studies, authors should conform to the STROBE guidelines.
Authors should take care to maximize the accessibility and reusability of the data by selecting a file format from which data can be efficiently extracted (for example, spreadsheets or flat files should be provided rather than PDFs when providing tabulated data).
Clinical Trial: Clinical trials Clinical trial reports must adhere to the relevant reporting guidelines for their study design, such as CONSORT for randomized controlled trials, TREND for non-randomized trials, and other specialized guidelines as appropriate.
Mendelian randomization studies Manuscripts reporting a Mendelian randomization study must report results of value to the field and should be reported according to STROBE-MR (Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology using Mendelian Randomization) guidelines.

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What your package checks

Abstract: 300 words

Paper: 2,000 words

Title page: separate file

Declarations: Data availability, Funding, Ethics, Author contributions, Artificial intelligence

Format: double spacing

Source transparency

This preparation guide uses published journal-specific author requirements. Journal instructions can change, so authors should complete a final review before submission.

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