How publishing works in this field
Deposition is a precondition, not a courtesy. Sequence data goes to GenBank, ENA or DDBJ; structures to the PDB; proteomics and microarray data to their own repositories. Journals ask for accession numbers at submission or acceptance, and a paper without them stops in production rather than in review.
Reporting standards are field-specific and enforced. Animal work follows the ARRIVE guidelines, with housing, randomisation and blinding reported explicitly; cell lines are expected to be authenticated and mycoplasma-tested; antibodies are expected to be identified precisely enough that someone else could buy the same one.
What slows papers down here
Image integrity screening catches more papers than authors expect, and not all of it is misconduct. Splicing lanes without marking the join, adjusting contrast non-uniformly, and reusing a loading control across figures all trigger queries. Keep unprocessed originals and state every adjustment made.
Statistics on small samples is the other recurring problem. Replicates have to be identified as biological or technical, the unit of analysis stated, and the test matched to the design — reviewers in this field read methods sections closely for exactly this.
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Questions we are asked in this field
Before the paper publishes, and often at submission. Most repositories allow a private deposit with release on publication, so the data can be registered and reviewed without becoming public early. Leaving it to production delays the paper.
The ARRIVE guidelines set out what an animal study must report — species, housing, group sizes, randomisation, blinding and outcome measures. Many journals require a completed checklist for any in-vivo work, and reviewers use it as a reference point.
Supply the unprocessed original and a plain statement of every adjustment applied. Most queries are resolved this way. Rebuilding a figure from a cropped export, or arguing without the original, converts a routine question into a serious one.