Biomolecules Submission Guide: MDPI Process (2026)

Biomolecules is not a stronger version of a society biochemistry journal, and it is not a weaker one. It is a different model. MDPI built it around speed and soundness-based review: the editorial question is whether the work is methodologically sound and within section scope, not whether it ranks among the most selective findings of the year. That model shapes everything about how you should prepare the package.

Two consequences matter most. First, the journal sits at the intersection of chemistry, biology, and molecular medicine, and it is organized into sections (Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, Enzymology, Molecular Biophysics, Molecular Medicine, Bioinformatics and Systems Biology, and more), so scope fit is assessed against a specific section rather than a vague "is this interesting" bar. Second, the pre-check is fast and partly template-driven, so completeness is rewarded and incompleteness is punished early.

A technically excellent manuscript with a missing data-availability statement can be returned before a reviewer ever sees it, while a competent, complete, in-section study moves quickly.

The unusual risk: because Biomolecules is one of several overlapping MDPI molecular titles, the most common way to fail the pre-check is not bad science but wrong address. A protein study with a disease readout can read as Biomolecules, IJMS, or Cells depending on where you put the emphasis, and the section editor has to decide whether the biomolecule itself is the protagonist. If it is not, the manuscript is redirected to a sister journal or returned.

The core fit for most submissions is the original research article. It works best when the biomolecule's structure-function link is central, the methods are reproducible from the text, and the declarations and data package are complete on first upload.

Ask these questions before you submit:

• is the biomolecule itself the subject of the paper, or is it a tool used to study something else (a pathway, a cell type, a disease)?
• does the study connect structure or composition to function, or does it stop at characterization?
• can a reader reproduce the methods from the manuscript and supplementary files alone, including constructs and conditions?
• is the data deposited, with accessions named in the data-availability statement, or is it still stub text?

If the answers are uncertain, the scope and completeness problems are usually more important than the science problem.

The pre-check editor is answering a short list of questions fast.

On scope, the editor asks whether the biomolecule is the actual subject and which section the manuscript belongs to. If the structure-function relevance is thin or the work is really general biology, the paper is redirected or returned. On soundness, the question is whether the methods are reproducible and the analysis appropriate. Biomolecules does not require the finding to be field-defining, but it does require the work to be done correctly and reported in full, with constructs, conditions, and controls visible.

On integrity, the editor checks whether ethics approvals, consent (where human or animal material is involved), image-integrity expectations, and data availability are all in order. MDPI runs integrity and plagiarism checks at pre-check, and gaps here trigger fast returns. On completeness, the editor looks for the declarations block. A manuscript missing Author Contributions, Funding, Data Availability, or Conflicts of Interest reads as not ready, even when the science is fine.

Manuscript structure: Biomolecules expects a defined section set: Abstract, Keywords, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions, plus the declarations block. The abstract runs to about 200 words and follows a structured style without headings, covering Background, Methods, Results, and Conclusion in a single paragraph, with 3 to 10 keywords after it. The abstract is the first thing the pre-check editor reads, so the biomolecule, its structure-function question, and the main result all need to be visible there.

Reporting and methods readiness: Provide full experimental detail so results can be reproduced. For structural work, deposit coordinates and report the relevant statistics; for biochemistry and enzymology, report buffer conditions, construct boundaries, and kinetic parameters; for computational work, name the software, force fields, and simulation lengths. The most common reviewer-stage friction point is a methods section that names a technique but omits the parameters a peer would need to repeat it.

Declarations and ethics: Draft the Author Contributions (by initials), Funding, Data Availability, and Conflicts of Interest sections before you upload, plus an Institutional Review Board statement and Informed Consent statement where human subjects or animal material are involved. These are not post-acceptance paperwork at MDPI; they are pre-check gates.

Figures, supplementary, and abstract assets: A graphical abstract is optional but commonly used; if supplied, it should be a high-resolution PNG, JPEG, or TIFF. Supplementary materials should carry the detail that would slow the main narrative, including extended methods, raw spectra, and additional structural figures. ORCID is expected for the submitting author, and the system will ask for suggested reviewers in the relevant section.

In our pre-submission review work with Biomolecules manuscripts, three failure patterns generate the most consistent pre-check returns and reviewer friction, and they are testable against your own manuscript before you upload. They are descriptive characterization with no structure-function link, scope drift into a sister MDPI journal, and an incomplete data-availability and declarations block.

Across our biochemistry and molecular biology pre-submission reviews, the pattern that surprises authors most is that the Biomolecules pre-check is not a quality filter in the JBC or FEBS Journal sense; it is a scope-and-completeness filter run section by section. The manuscripts that get returned fastest are rarely bad science. They are competent studies whose biomolecule angle, section fit, or declarations block is not ready for a fast, template-driven screen. Manuscripts coming through pre-submission review for Biomolecules split cleanly along these three lines.

Descriptive characterization with no structure-function link

The single most common pattern we see is a manuscript that characterizes a biomolecule (a sequence, a spectrum, a crystal structure, an expression level) and stops there, with no functional or mechanistic claim built on top of it. Biomolecules sits at the intersection of structure and function, so the section editor is looking for the connection: what does this structure or composition do, and how.

A paper that reports the purification and a single technique (one circular dichroism trace, one mass spectrum, one docking run) reads as preliminary, even when the data are clean. The testable version of this failure: read your own abstract and ask whether it states a function or mechanism, not just a property.

If the abstract ends at "we characterized X" without "and this explains how X does Y," the structure-function link is too thin for the pre-check, and the fix is to either add the functional experiment or reframe the paper as a focused communication around the one claim the data actually support.

Check whether your Biomolecules manuscript links structure to function →

Scope drift into a sister MDPI journal (IJMS, Cells, Antioxidants)

The second pattern is a manuscript that is genuinely good molecular science but addressed to the wrong MDPI journal. Because Biomolecules overlaps with IJMS, Cells, and Antioxidants, the section editor has to decide whether the biomolecule itself is the protagonist.

A study where the real subject is a signaling pathway or a cell phenotype belongs in Cells; a broad cross-disciplinary molecular study often belongs in IJMS; a redox-biology paper centered on antioxidant activity belongs in Antioxidants. We repeatedly see protein or RNA papers whose biomolecule is a tool rather than the subject, and those get redirected.

The testable version: name the one biomolecule your paper is about and ask whether removing it would collapse the study. If the paper survives without the specific biomolecule because the real story is the cell, the pathway, or the disease, you are aimed at the wrong title. The fix is to either rebuild the framing around the biomolecule's structure and function or submit to the sister journal that matches the actual subject.

Check whether your manuscript is aimed at Biomolecules or a sister MDPI journal →

Incomplete data-availability and declarations for deposited biomolecule data

The third pattern is a declarations block that is missing, generic, or left as stub text, which bites hardest in a field where data deposition is expected. MDPI treats the Data Availability Statement and the rest of the declarations block as pre-check gates, not as paperwork to finalize after acceptance.

We repeatedly see structural papers with no PDB or EMDB accession, sequence work with no GenBank deposit, NMR studies missing BMRB entries, and a Data Availability Statement that reads only "data available on request" with no repository or accession. Because the pre-check is fast, a single missing statement can return the manuscript before review.

The testable version: for every structure, sequence, spectrum, or dataset your paper relies on, confirm there is a corresponding accession in a public repository and that your Data Availability Statement names it; then confirm Author Contributions, Funding, and Conflicts of Interest are complete, not stubs.

Check whether your Biomolecules declarations block is complete for pre-check →

Each of these is something you can check against your own draft before you commit the submission. This guide tells you what Biomolecules editors look for; the review tells you whether YOUR paper passes the pre-check before you upload. We have reviewed manuscripts across biochemistry, structural biology, and molecular biology, including work weighing Biomolecules against its open-access peers. Paid Manusights reviews include a 60-day money-back guarantee, and we do not train models on submitted manuscripts.

Run a Biomolecules submission package check to see whether your structure-function framing, section fit, and declarations block will clear the MDPI pre-check.

Biomolecules reports a median first decision near 18 days and median acceptance-to-publication near 2.9 days. Treat these as planning ranges, not promises: structural and large mechanistic manuscripts often run longer because reviewer search takes time in specialized subfields.

• Day 0: Submission via SuSy. The portal accepts the package and routes it to the section editor for pre-check.

• Days 1 to 3: Editorial pre-check. The editor screens section-scope fit, declarations completeness, integrity and plagiarism checks, and basic soundness.

The fastest returns happen here, before any reviewer is invited.

• Days 3 to 7: Reviewer invitation. Manuscripts that pass pre-check enter single-blind reviewer search, typically targeting two or more reviewers in the relevant Biomolecules section.

• Days 7 to 18: Peer review and first decision. Reviewer reports return and the editor issues the first decision, with a median near 18 days from submission.

Major revision is the most common outcome for papers that clear pre-check.

• Days 18 to 35: Revision and acceptance. Revisions are usually requested on a short clock; resubmission and a second review cycle commonly land acceptance inside a few weeks for in-scope, complete packages.

• Days 35 to 40: Production and publication. Acceptance to publication runs near 2.9 days at median, so the slow part of the calendar is reviewer search and revision, not production.

• the biomolecule is a tool rather than the subject, and the real story is a pathway, a cell type, or a disease that would route the paper to Cells or IJMS
• the paper stops at characterization, with a single technique and no functional or mechanistic claim built on top of the data
• structures, sequences, or datasets are undeposited, with no PDB, BMRB, GenBank, or EMDB accession named in the data-availability statement
• you need a high-selectivity, mechanism-defining venue, in which case JBC, FEBS Journal, or a flagship molecular journal is the better target

This guide was researched and built from primary sources: the sources we checked include the Biomolecules Instructions for Authors, the journal's aims-and-scope, sections, and editorial-process pages, MDPI's research and publication ethics policy, and Manusights pre-submission review patterns from biochemistry and molecular biology manuscripts deciding between Biomolecules and peer open-access and society journals. We reviewed and compared current MDPI author guidance with recent Manusights work reviews from authors weighing Biomolecules, IJMS, Journal of Biological Chemistry, The FEBS Journal, and International Journal of Biological Macromolecules. Last reviewed by the Manusights molecular biology editorial team on 2026-06-07.

Source limitations: MDPI can update APC, article-format details, abstract caps, and editorial-process numbers after this review date, so verify final administrative details against the official Biomolecules author pages before upload. Median timelines are reported by the journal and vary by section. Use this guide for the decision the official instructions cannot answer: whether your structure-function framing, section fit, and declarations block are ready for the MDPI pre-check.

• Biomolecules journal profile
• Best biochemistry journals
• International Journal of Molecular Sciences submission guide
• Journal of Biological Chemistry submission guide
• International Journal of Biological Macromolecules submission guide
• Rejected from International Journal of Molecular Sciences, where next?

Before you upload, run your manuscript through a Biomolecules submission readiness check to catch the scope, section, and declarations gaps the MDPI pre-check filters for. The check is free to run (/ai-review) and takes a single upload.