The EMBO Journal Formatting Requirements: Complete Author Guide

The EMBO Journal uses short, unstructured abstracts.

• Word limit: 175 words maximum

• Structure: Single paragraph, no headings

• No citations allowed

• Content: Should describe all key novel findings of the study and be comprehensible before the paper is read

The 175-word abstract is shorter than most comparable journals. Nature allows 150 words, but most cell biology journals allow 200-250. You'll need to be concise. Focus on the main finding and its mechanistic significance. Don't list every experiment.

Write the abstract last, after the paper is finished. It's tempting to draft it early, but for a 175-word limit, you need to know exactly what your paper's strongest finding is before you try to compress it.

The guidelines say Research Articles usually include up to 10 main figures, with additional material provided as Expanded View items.

Figure requirements:

Figure supplements (Expanded View):

The EMBO Journal uses an "Expanded View" system. Authors select up to 5 supplementary figures to include in the article proper as Expanded View figures (EV figures). They are presented in an expandable format inline in the main text and are also appended to the PDF version of the article. Any extra figures go in a single Appendix PDF along with supplementary text and tables.

This is a distinctive EMBO feature. Instead of one long supplementary PDF, you promote a limited number of supplementary figures (typically 5) to EV figures. It's a better system for readers, but it requires more careful figure planning during manuscript preparation.

Table requirements:

• Editable tables in .docx or .xlsx format (no image files)

• Numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals

• No background shading or coloured font; use asterisks or similar symbols for highlighting

• Self-explanatory, with a brief descriptive title

• Footnotes marked by lower-case superscript letters, without extensive experimental detail

Source data requirements (critical):

The EMBO Journal requires you to upload the source data used to generate figures when you submit a revised manuscript:

• Western blots and gels: annotated images showing how the blot or gel was cropped or edited, with molecular weight ladder, lane names and protein names

• Graphs: numerical source data files (Excel or CSV), with individual data points for replicates

• Microscopy: the original high-resolution images used to generate the figures (TIFF recommended), with large imaging datasets deposited in the BioImage Archive

Source data files are submitted as zipped folders, one per figure with a subfolder per panel, together with the Source Data Checklist. After acceptance they are linked to the relevant figures and archived in BioStudies. Prepare these files as you generate the data, not when the revision request arrives.

The EMBO Journal uses an author-date (Harvard-type) reference style specific to EMBO publications.

In-text citations: Author and year, naming no more than two authors. Two authors: (Smith & Jones, 2025). Three or more: (Smith et al, 2025). Multiple citations are separated by semicolons: (Smith & Jones, 2003; Smith et al, 2000).

Reference list format (alphabetical):

Smith AB, Jones CD, Brown EF (2025) Mechanism of mitotic checkpoint silencing by the RZZ complex. *EMBO J* 44: 1234-1256

Note the EMBO author-date conventions that catch reference managers: surnames are followed by initials with no commas or periods ("Smith AB", not "Smith, A. B."), the journal title is italicized and abbreviated, "et al" carries no period, and there is no comma before the year. A generic Vancouver or APA output style gets all four wrong.

Key formatting rules:

• Author surnames followed by initials without periods (e.g., "Smith AB" not "Smith, A. B.")

• Year in parentheses after author names

• Article title in sentence case, no quotation marks

• Journal title in italics, abbreviated

• Volume number followed by colon and page range

• No "pp." before page numbers

• DOIs typically not included in the reference list (but check current requirements)

• "et al" without a period (EMBO style)

The EMBO reference style has specific quirks. The "et al" without a period catches many authors. There's no comma between the last author and the year. Journal abbreviations follow standard conventions but don't include periods. These details are small but noticeable in production.

EMBO reference style is different enough from standard Harvard that you shouldn't use a generic citation manager style. Both Zotero and EndNote have EMBO Journal-specific styles, but verify the output against a recently published paper.

Beyond Expanded View figures, The EMBO Journal supports additional supplementary datasets.

Supplementary dataset types:

• Source data files (required with the revised manuscript)

• Large datasets (RNA-seq, proteomics, metabolomics)

• Additional tables too large for the main text or EV

• Videos and animations

• Code repositories

Data deposition requirements:

• Genomic data: GEO or ArrayExpress

• Proteomics data: PRIDE or PeptideAtlas

• Structural data: PDB for protein structures, EMDB for electron microscopy maps

• Sequencing data: ENA or SRA

EMBO Press has been at the forefront of data transparency. The journal expects large-scale datasets, sequences, atomic coordinates and computational models to be deposited in appropriate public repositories with accession codes in the Data availability section. This isn't just a suggestion: EMBO Press will only review and publish manuscripts if the authors agree to make data that cannot be published in the journal itself freely available, where possible, in an appropriate public database.

Both are accepted.

Word submissions:

• The initial submission can be in any format, so you do not need to follow journal formatting for the first upload

• For a revised manuscript, the full text (including figure legends, tables and references) goes in as a single DOCX file

• Provide high-resolution individual figure files

• Methods follow the Discussion in the section order

LaTeX submissions:

• The guidelines accept a single LaTeX file for the full manuscript text and link to Springer Nature LaTeX author support. They do not describe a journal-specific LaTeX class; a third-party EMBO Journal Word and LaTeX template is available on SciSpace that pre-fills the layout and reference style

• At initial submission, a single PDF or LaTeX file with text and figures combined is accepted

The EMBO Journal's audience is primarily molecular and cell biologists, and Word dominates in this field. LaTeX makes sense if your paper includes heavy bioinformatics or computational modeling with extensive equations. Otherwise, Word is the safer choice.

The EMBO Journal has several practices that distinguish it from other molecular biology journals.

1. Transparent peer review. The EMBO Journal publishes a Review Process File alongside the accepted paper. It contains the correspondence between authors and the editorial office relevant to the decision, including reviewer comments and the authors' point-by-point responses, while reviewer anonymity is maintained. It's opt-out: authors can decline at any stage before publication. Keep this in mind when writing your response to reviewers; it'll be public.

2. Cross-referee review. Reviewers are routinely invited to comment on each other's reports, and may discuss issues under moderation of the editors, before the editors decide. This can lead to more coherent revision requests and affects how you should frame your response.

3. Source data mandate. As detailed above, EMBO requires the source data used to generate figures when you submit a revised manuscript, including annotated blot and gel images and numerical data for graphs.

4. The "scooping protection" policy. EMBO has a policy where if a competing paper is published while yours is under review, the editors won't reject your paper solely on that basis. They'll consider the papers independently. This is formally stated and gives some protection against the fear of being scooped during review.

5. Expanded View is not supplementary material. EV figures are part of the paper, not supplementary. Don't use EV as a dumping ground for weak data. Treat EV figures with the same rigor as main figures.

6. Cover letter content. The guidelines ask for a cover letter describing the significance of the work, related or competing papers in press or under consideration elsewhere, and whether the submission follows pre-discussion with an editor. The cover letter is not shared with reviewers.

7. Author contributions in CRediT format. The EMBO Journal expects author contributions listed using the CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) system. Each author's specific roles should be identified from the CRediT list.

The guidelines say you do not need to follow journal formatting for the initial submission, but manuscripts invited to resubmit must be formatted according to all journal guidelines, so a miss here costs time at revision. Reference managers like EndNote and Zotero default to Vancouver or generic Harvard output rather than EMBO's author-date style, and exceeding the 175-word abstract limit is a common auto-formatter failure. Based on frequent issues at The EMBO Journal:

• Missing source data for Western blots or gels

• Exceeding the 175-word abstract limit

• Using incorrect reference style (Vancouver instead of EMBO author-date)

• "et al." with a period (EMBO uses "et al" without)

• Treating Expanded View figures as low-priority supplementary material

• Not depositing genomic/proteomic data in public repositories

• Missing CRediT author contributions

For quick answers to the most common EMBO Journal formatting questions, see the FAQ section at the top of this page.

For manuscripts targeting The EMBO Journal, four patterns generate the most consistent desk-rejection outcomes.

Novelty framing does not meet the "conceptual advance" threshold. The EMBO Journal's editorial standard requires that every paper present a conceptual advance, not just new data. Papers that generate a comprehensive dataset (proteomics screen, CRISPR library, structural determination) without articulating a new principle or framework in molecular or cell biology are desk-rejected. The cover letter and abstract must explicitly state what new concept the paper establishes, not only what was measured.

Data reproducibility requirements for quantitative imaging not met. EMBO journals apply strict statistical standards: the guidelines ask authors to report the number (n) of independent experiments underlying each data point (not replicate measures of one sample), to state the number of technical and biological replicates, and to plot individual data points when n is below 5. Papers reporting n values that reflect fields of view or cells rather than independent biological experiments run against that guidance. The source data guide asks for the original high-resolution images used to generate figures, with large imaging datasets going to the BioImage Archive.

Mechanistic claim not supported by orthogonal evidence. EMBO Journal reviewers expect mechanistic conclusions to be supported by at least two independent experimental approaches. A genetic perturbation result must be corroborated by a pharmacological or biochemical approach, and vice versa. Papers that draw a mechanistic conclusion from a single experimental system without orthogonal validation are routinely sent back for "additional experiments required."

Scope is cell biology or biochemistry at the descriptive level. The EMBO Journal publishes mechanistic molecular and cell biology. Descriptive studies reporting where a protein is expressed, which conditions activate a pathway, or what the phenotype of a knockout is, without mechanistic insight into how the regulatory event occurs, are desk-rejected. The standard is understanding mechanism, not cataloguing observations.

A EMBO Journal submission readiness check evaluates manuscript scope, quantitative data standards, and mechanistic completeness against these desk-rejection patterns before you submit.