Instructions to Authors

Abstract

Write as continuous text structured into three sections, headed: Background & Aims, Approach & Results and Conclusions. Do not exceed 250 words. Acronyms and abbreviations must be defi ned in the abstract to allow the abstract to stand alone. Please refrain from using statements of priority (such as “This is the fi rst study to show...”). HEP_v74_i2_IFA.indd 1 8/13/2021 5:05:32 PM Introductory Statement Do not include a heading. Provide the minimum background information that will orient the general reader. Experimental Procedures Provide a level of detail such that another investigator could repeat the work; for methods that are used without signifi cant modifi cation, citation of the original work will suffi ce. • Human Subjects. For reports of research using human subjects, provide assurance that (a) informed consent in writing was obtained from each patient and (b) the study protocol conformed to the ethical guidelines of the 1975 Declaration of Helsinki as refl ected in a priori approval by the appropriate institutional review committee. This assurance must be included in the main text of the manuscript rather than supplementary material. Refer to individual patients by number, not by initials. HEPATOLOGY will only accept papers for review from liver transplant centers that explicitly state that no donor organs were obtained from executed prisoners or other institutionalized persons. Papers without such explicit statements will be returned without review. • Clinical Trials. HEPATOLOGY uses the defi nition of clinical trials promulgated by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE, http://www.icmje.org): Any research project that prospectively assigns people or a group of people to an intervention, with or without concurrent comparison or control groups, to study the relationship between a health-related intervention and a health outcome. Health-related interventions are those used to modify a biomedical or health-related outcome; examples include drugs, surgical procedures, devices, behavioral treatments, educational programs, dietary interventions, quality improvement interventions, and process-of-care changes. Health outcomes are any biomedical or health-related measures obtained in patients or participants, including pharmacokinetic measures and adverse events. • Randomized controlled trials should be presented according to the CONSORT guidelines http://www.consort-statement.org). Authors must provide the CONSORT checklist (found at http:// mc.manuscriptcentral.com/hep, under Instructions and Forms) with a diagram that illustrates the progress of patients through the trial, including recruitment, enrollment, randomization, withdrawal and completion, and a detailed description of the randomization procedure. Manuscripts that fail to comply with CONSORT guidelines or do not include the CONSORT checklist at the time of submission will not be reviewed for publication. Manuscripts describing randomized control trials should also include in the text of the manuscript the following information: The identity of those who designed the protocol and analyzed the data; A statement indicating that at least one author had access to all of the data and can vouch for the integrity of the data analyses; Disclosure of any funding sources and their role, if any, in the writing of the manuscript or the decision to submit it for publication; Statements of role, if any, of medical writer or editor. • Authors of manuscripts reporting clinical trials must submit a proof of institutional review board approval from all participating centers, the original approved protocol, patient information sheet and statistical analysis plan, and all subsequent amendments to either document. All these documents must be in English language. If the manuscript is accepted, the protocol and statistical analysis plan will be published as an online supplement. • HEPATOLOGY endorses the recommendations of the ICMJE regarding the registration of clinical trials. Trials must be registered in a registry that is a primary register of the World Health Organization International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (WHO ICTRP) or in ClinicalTrials.gov, which is a data provider to the WHO ICTRP. The trial registration number must be included on the title page of any manuscript reporting a registered clinical trial. Trials should be registered by the time of fi rst participant consent. • Systematic reviews and meta-analysis. HEPATOLOGY endorses the use of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) which can be found at http://www.prisma-statement.org/. • Animal Experimentation. In studies involving animal experimentation, provide assurance that all animals received humane care according to the criteria outlined in the “Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals.” This assurance must be included in the main text of the manuscript rather than supplementary material. Manuscripts that use mice and other in vivo experimental models should include the following information: • Sex and age of mice (or other in vivo experimental models) for all the experiments; • The genetic background(s) of the mice or other experimental in vivo models; • For transgenic or genetic mouse models, whether the controls were sibling littermates or were purchased separately (if purchased separately, were the animals cohoused to minimize potential microbiome effects); • Specifi cs of the animal diet composition; • Whether mice were fasted (and for how long) or not before a challenge or assessment is carried out; • Type of bedding, caging system, and enrichment used for housing the mice; and • If interventions were done, were they done during the light or dark cycle. • Nomenclature: follow standard gene and protein nomenclature. Mouse strains and cell lines should be italicized with fi rst letter in uppercase, and superscript if they are knockout or transgenic strains, e.g., ob/ob(KO), p53+/+, p53-/-. Human genes should be uppercase and italicized. Human and mouse proteins should be uppercase. The HUGO Gene Nomenclature Committee (https://www.genenames. org) and the mouse Guidelines for Nomencalture of Genes, Genetic Markers, Alleles, and Mutations in Mouse and Rat (https:www. informatics.jax.org) are useful resources.Statistical methods used should be outlined, in addition to if sex was considered a factor in the statistical analysis. • Elements of the ARRIVE Essential 10: Compliance Questionnaire should be reported (https://arriveguidelines.org/) • Data Deposition. HEPATOLOGY supports the use of databases to aggregate published data for the use of the wider scientifi c community, and endorses the policies fi rst adopted by the Science journals regarding data deposition (http://www.sciencemag.org/authors/science-journals-editorial-policies#data-deposition). Prior to publication, data sets (including microarray data, protein or DNA sequences) must be deposited in an approved database and an accession number or a specifi c access address must be included in the published paper. This information need not accompany the initially submitted manuscript but must be available for inclusion in the fi nal publication. Accession numbers appear as footnotes to the text or in the relevant fi gure legend. We encourage compliance with MIBBI guidelines (Minimum Information for Biological and Biomedical Investigations) and FAIR reporting guidelines (https://www.openaire.eu/how-to-make-your-data-fair). • DNA and protein sequences: Approved databases are GenBank or other members of the International Nucleotide Sequence Database Collaboration (EMBL or DDBJ) and SWISS-PROT. • Microarray data: Data should be presented in MIAME-compliant standard format. Approved databases are Gene Expression Omnibus and ArrayExpress. • It is understood that authors publishing in HEPATOLOGY will make cloned DNA, hybridomas, mutant animals, and other resources available to qualifi ed investigators. Raw data submitted with a manuscript may only be electronically published and available to HEPATOLOGY readers at the Journal’s Web site. • Cell Lines. Experiments utilizing cell lines should wherever possible be replicated in more than one cell line. When primary cell lines are utilized, at least three separate batches should be used. Whenever cell lines are used, authors should include the following information: • The source of the cells used: For established cell lines, this should include a reference to the published article that fi rst described the cell line, or the cell line repository or company the cell line was obtained from, the catalogue number, and whether the cell line was obtained directly from the repository/company or from another laboratory. • Cell line authentication is recommended – e.g., by karyotyping, isozyme analysis, or short tandem repeats (STR) analysis – and may be required during peer review or after publication. Where cell line authentication is carried out, this must be described in the methods section. Authors should be able to provide the test results upon request. Mycoplasma contamination testing status must also be reported. • In order to minimize the use of cross-contaminated or misidentifi ed cell lines, authors should check established cell lines using the ICLAC Database of Cross-contaminated or Misidentifi ed Cell Lines (https://iclac.org/databases/cross-contaminations/) • It has recently become clear that a number of commonly used HCC cell lines have become cross-contaminated with other cells, including HeLa, the oldest and most widely used human cell line, derived from a cervical carcinoma. For further details, please see the Editorial in the Journal of Hepatology (https://www.journal-of-hepatology.eu/ article/S0168-8278(17)32206-7/fulltext). For this reason, HEPATOLOGY will no longer consider BEL7402, SMMC7721, MHCC97L, BEL7404, QGY7701, QGY7703, QSG7701 and SKHEP1 as HCC cell lines, unless authors are authors are able to demonstrate