Rules for authors

Manuscripts submitted to the editors must be well-edited and carefully-worded. Text must be saved in .doc or .docx format, printed in one column, spacing 1.5, in 14 Times New Roman font. The upper and lower margins are 2 cm, the left one is 3 cm, the right one is 1.5 cm. The length of the article (including tables, figures, references and figure captions) must not exceed 20 pages for a review, 15 for an original experimental work, and 5 for a short report. The paper text file must be named after the surname of the first author. 

The following structural elements of a paper are mandatory:

  1. The title of paper (maximally specific and informative).
  2. Full list of authors (initials and surnames). The corresponding author must be specified.
  3. Place of work of authors. Full (without abbreviations) name of the organization, postal address with the indication of the city, country and postal code.
  4. The electronic address of the corresponding author (an alternative email address can be specified to be used in case of technical problems).
  5. The abstract of the paper (Abstract) must be presented in the Russian and English languages (including the title of the paper, authors, and places of their work). The abstract should contain at least 250 and no more than 350 words. It must be unstructured and must not contain references to other works.
  6. Keywords (mandatory) in Russian and English: not more than 5 words or short phrases that accurately convey the content of paper and give an idea of the laboratory animals used in the work.
  7. The manuscript (main text). It is necessary to observe the uniformity of terms, units of measurement (international SI system), nomenclatures, and avoid abbreviations if possible, except for commonly used ones.
  8. Authors contribution. This section should clarify how each author has contributed to the paper. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors recommends that authorship be based on the following criteria:
    - substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work;
    - drafting the work and/or revising it critically for important content;
    - final approval of the version to be published;
    - agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
    This information is duplicated in English.
  9. Acknowledgments. Authors should include here all sources of research funding, as well as acknowledgements for all those who were involved in the study but whose contribution did not qualify them for authorship. Such involvement may include: recommendations for improving the research, provision of facilities for research, provision of financial support, carrying out certain individual tests, provision of materials, equipment, reagents or animals for the research. This information is duplicated in English.


Original papers describing results of experiments should contain an introduction with a laconic statement of the purpose, essence and novelty of the considered issue as well as a brief data analysis of works of a similar kind. Subsequently, the following sub-headings must be presented: «Materials and Methods», «Results and Discussion» (or separately, «Results» and «Discussion»), «Conclusions», «References».

The section “Materials and methods” must clearly describe the research design and experimental procedures and give a full picture of the nuances of performing certain manipulations with experimental animals. Descriptions must allow to interpret and reproduce the results obtained, use the publication for systematic reviews and meta-analysis. Detailed description is required for original research methods, in other cases it is sufficient to specify the essence of the method and to give a reference to the source of borrowing. Taking into account the subject matter of the Journal, particular attention must be paid to the study object. 

It is recommended to include the following information in the subsection "Animals and housing conditions":
- species, breeding line /stock and genetic nomenclature;
- age, sex, weight (and in some cases, the stage of the life cycle);
- source of receipt (nursery or local colony),
- health status of experimental animals or a statement on the absence of such data/ evaluation. If the SPF status of animals is indicated, the editorial board has the right to request a micro-organism exclusion list.
- description of primary enclosures used to house animals (size or type of cages, manufacturer etc.), the number of animals placed together; type of litter material (material, trade name, manufacturer) and the frequency of its replacement; feeding and drinking regime of animals with the indication of the manufacturer of fodder and the method of water conditioning and purification used.
- description of the conditions maintained in the premises on which the animals are kept: temperature and humidity of air; the illumination intensity and the daily light cycle.
- description of preparation of animals for experiment: duration of quarantine and acclimation period, getting animals accustomed to being held and to procedures (injections, experiential installations etc.), surgical manipulations (with the indication of methods of anaesthesia and analgesia used), etc.
- description of the humane endpoints of the experiment (if required, depending on the severity of the research methods used) and the method of euthanasia, which must comply with the requirements of Directive 2010/63 / EU of the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union as of September 22, 2010, on the protection of animals used for scientific purposes.
When describing pharmacological agents used in the work, the chemical and/or trade name, lot, manufacturer (including city and country), as well as the administration route, volume, dose and time of administration must be specified. 

The sub-section "Statistical analysis" must provide a detailed description of the applied methods and statistical software packages. Particular attention must be paid to the use of a sufficient minimum number of animals (estimation of sample power).

In the section "Results and discussion" the data obtained are presented in text, tabular form or figures without duplicating graphical form and descriptions. When demonstrating effects with the use of relative measures, it is necessary to present the original absolute values. Discussing the results obtained, authors must briefly review the current status of the issue, emphasize the contribution of their research to its development, give their own interpretation of the essence and scientific significance of the conclusion report of the work taking into account the data from literature.
“Conclusions" section indicates the key meaning of the work performed, with an emphasis on the importance of data obtained for improving the quality of experimental studies and/o the welfare of laboratory animals.

“Acknowledgements” are an expression of personal gratitude, information about the eventual sponsors of the work, the subject matter of the state assignment within the framework of which it was carried out and so on.

“References” must adequately reflect the current status of the issue and must not be redundant. The references in the text must be given in square brackets [1, 2 ...], with the indication of sources in the list by citation order. For papers in the Reference list, please, indicate names of authors, initials, title of paper and journal title, year, volume, issue and pages. For books and other non-periodicals indicate names of all the authors, initials, a full title of the book, city, publishing house, year of publication, number of pages. If possible, please, specify identification indices (DOI).

Illustrative material

If there are illustrations (graphics, photographs), they should be placed at the end of the manuscript file (after the "References" section). If pictures are photographs, the electronic version must be presented in TIF, JPG format with a 300 dpi resolution. It is desirable to prepare charts and diagrams in vector graphics editors, they must have a resolution of at least 600 dpi. Thickness of lines must not be less than 0.5 pt. Vector illustrations must not contain dot shadings. In the on-line version of the Journal, colour illustrations may be published, so authors can optionally provide colour illustrations along with black and white drawings for a paper version of the Journal. Illustrations source files must necessarily be attached to the manuscript. The file name should contain the figure number and the first author's surname.
If a figure consists of several parts, they must be arranged sequentially and have a general caption, in which, in addition to the general name, it is necessary to explain all the notations and the results of statistical analysis (if necessary). Graphs must contain all the necessary notations of coordinate axes and other details. All the figure captions are placed in a text file after the References list. 

Rules for manuscript submitting, peer-reviewing and electronic proof-reading

Manuscript, illustrations files and accompanying documents:
- authors card specifying surnames, names, and patronymics of all authors, their positions, addresses, contact phone numbers and e-mail. This information ensures prompt contacts between editors and authors; (does it make sense to develop a form?)
- recommendation from the institution, signed by the administration representative. 

Within a week of the receipt of the manuscript the author (s) will be notified of a manuscript's acceptance. All manuscripts submitted for publication undergo closed (anonymous) peer-review(does it make sense to develop a form (kind of a questionnaire) for peer-review?). The manuscripts referred back must be corrected and returned within two months, while the cover letter from the authors must specify the corrections made and provide answers to the comments of the reviewer(s). Repeated and parallel peer-review is possible. The editors have the right not to enter into correspondence with an author as to the reasons for rejection of paper and reserves the right to edit papers.
When the paper is accepted for publication and the layout is made, the author receives proofs for making the necessary corrections, but is not allowed to make any significant changes to the text. Do not change the file names after editing. 

Articles are published in the order of precedence, but their subject matter and relevance are taken into account. The Journal does not accept for publication papers describing inhumane or unethical methods of work with laboratory animals. Priority publication is most likely for papers by authors who will attach to the cover letter the bioethical expert reports of carried out experimental research and the results of assessing the health status of experimental animals. These documents can be requested by editors of the Journal from the authors of papers describing the use of severe procedures.

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