INSTRUCTIONS TO AUTHORS

(Updated September 12, 2025)

1. General Information

chemistry, microbiology, immunology, physiology, neurobiology, gerontology, biomedical sciences, etc.)

aimed to understanding molecular and cellular bases of biological processes. The journal also covers new

experimental techniques in the field of biochemistry, theoretical advances relevant to biochemistry,

reviews of modern biochemical research topics and mini-reviews. The journal does not consider purely

phenomenological works which describe changes in biochemical parameters or markers of biological

processes without connection with the mechanisms that caused these changes or are results of such

changes, as well as works on cloning and expression of individual genes (including those in transgenic

animals and plants) and materials analyzing genomic polymorphisms.

1.3. Finished original works presenting new experimental results are considered for publication, as well as

cover letter the authors have to justify necessity of accelerated publication of the material. Turnover time

is 1 month.

The journal publishes Reviews invited by the Editorial Board (or offered by the authors and

approved by the Board) on the most newsworthy problems of biochemistry and related sciences. The

review articles must meet the following requirements: 1) the authors must have their own works on the

subject of the review; 2) the list of references should include works published on this topic during the last

5 years; 3) the review should not be a retelling and, sometimes, a word for word quotation of the

fragments from the earlier published works, it should contain a critical analysis of the cited materials and

the suggested concept, the authors’ view on the problem that prompted them to write this review. The

Editors and reviewers are strictly vigilant about plagiarism; 4) reviews must not include previously

1.4. The journal is included in the Bibliographic Databases Web of Sciences, Biochemistry and

Biophysics Citation Index, Biological Abstracts, BIOSIS Database, Chemical Abstracts, Chemical Titles,

Current Contents/Life Science, Excerpta Medica, Index Internacional de Cardiologia, Index Medicus

(MEDLINE/PubMed), International Abstracts of Biological Sciences, The ISI Alerting Service, Science

Citation Index, Science Citation Index Expanded, SCOPUS, Compendx; RISC (Russian Index of

Scientific Citation). The journal is included in the list of peer-reviewed scientific publications of the

Higher Attestation Commission (Russia).

1.5. Rules for authors and information about the journal can be found on the journal websites

(http://protein.bio.msu.ru/biokhimiya and https://biochemistrymoscow.com), as well as at the portals of

the publishing houses Pleiades: http://pleiades.online/ru/journal/biochmsc/ and Springer:

https://link.springer.com/journal/10541. The journal website in English presents contents of all issues

starting from 1996, with abstracts of the articles, keywords, and addresses of the authors. Free access is

provided to the full texts in the special issues of the journal devoted to the most pressing problems of

biochemistry.

1.7. To enlarge the scope of the readers and increase citation of your work, there is a possibility to publish

an article in Biochemistry (Moscow) using the Open Access mode. All information about the Open Access

publication of the article can be found in the publisher’s website

(http://pleiades.online/en/authors/openaccess/) as well as by contacting the Editorial office.

2. Preparation of Manuscripts

2.1. The editorial board accepts manuscripts submitted for consideration via the Publisher’s Author Portal:

numbered. Positions of figures/tables should be indicated in the text.

2.3. On a separate page information about the authors is provided, including addresses, contact numbers,

and e-mail, and the author responsible for the editing is also indicated. When submitting a manuscript,

authors should send to the Editorial Board a cover letter in which it is necessary to indicate that (1) the

submitted material (or its part) has not been published anywhere else and is not under review for

publication in other editions; (2) the authors are familiar with the ethical norms on publication of scientific

articles required by international agreements and observe them; (3) the authors provided information on

the potential conflicts of interests; (4) the authors are familiar with the rules for conducting research

involving human and/or animals and observe them; (5) each co-author acknowledges his consent to the

3. Requirements for Manuscript Format

3.1. The submitted manuscript should be condensed to the utmost compatible with clarity and carefully

edited, but without compromising comprehension and possibility of reproduction of the results.

3.2. Our preferred format for text is Microsoft Word, with the style tags removed. The manuscript should

be arranged as follows: 1) title; 2) authors’ full names; 3) full names of the institutions, zip code, city, and

e-mail (affiliation); 4) abstract; 5) keywords; 6) short title of the manuscript (running title); 7) the

manuscript text including the list of references, tables, figure captions.

The title should be as short and informative as possible and should not contain abbreviations.

If the authors of the article are employees of different institutions, the institutions should be

numbered and superscript numbers indicating the authors’ affiliations should follow the authors’ last

names; the author responsible for correspondence with the Editors should be indicated by asterisk to the

right of the number. For each of the authors the complete name of the institution with the postal code, city,

A short Running title should be given on a separate line after the title.

When using non-standard abbreviations, the section Abbreviations should be added. The manuscript text

should be divided into sections: 1) Introduction; 2) Materials and Methods; 3) Results; 4) Discussion (if

discussion is short, the results and discussion may be combined); 5) Conclusions; 6) References.

The Introduction briefly describes background of the problem with imperative review of the works,

in which similar or relevant studies have already been conducted, and objective of the study is formulated.

The Materials and Methods section should be as short as possible, but adequate for reproduction of

the experiments; the section should also include materials, reagents and equipment used in the work with

indication of the company and manufacturer country, e.g., glycerol (Sigma-Aldrich, USA), a JEM 100C

electron microscope (JEOL, Japan) (if the company name is mentioned repeatedly in the body of the

[7]” are not allowed (the reference cannot be an independent member of a sentence).

The section Results should present the data in figures and tables; the experiments which do not

need documentation are described in the text. In this section, the results should not be discussed; the

authors can limit themselves by explaining causal relationships between the experiments described.

The section Discussion should contain interpretation of the results (but not their repetition) and

comparison with the previously published data. It is advisable to illustrate the major results with a simple

and visual scheme.

If necessary, the manuscript closes with the Conclusions section which is separate from the

Discussion section.

the study; Carl Broide – carried out experiments; Ivan P. Petrov – discussed the results of experiments

with input from all authors; Lui Jing and Haifeng Yong – wrote the manuscript, and Franklin

Parada – edited the manuscript.

2) If the work was supported by any organization, in the item “Funding” it should be

indicated what foundation and grant supported this study and each part of the work separately, if the

sources of funding are different. The full names of institutions and sponsoring organizations should be

given.

3) In the “Acknowledgments” item the authors can present information about any assistance

in conducting the work and preparing the article: about useful discussions, assistance of colleagues,

providers of materials, scientific data, computer equipment, devices; about conducting researches at

collective use centers; about assistance in the technical preparation of the text. Description of the role of

each author in preparation of the publication is preferred.

4) In the item “Conflict of Interests” the authors declare the presence or absence of conflict

of interests in financial or any other field. This item is obligatory.

5) The item “Compliance with Ethical Standards” is also obligatory. If studies were

Declaration of 1964 and its subsequent changes or with comparable ethics standards. Informed voluntary

consent was obtained from every participant of the study”.

If the manuscript does not contain descriptions of studies involving humans or using animals

which has been performed by any of the authors, the item “Compliance with Ethical Norms” states: “This

article does not contain descriptions of studies performed by the authors with participation of humans or

using animals as objects”.

The items “Conflict of Interests” and “Compliance with Ethical Standards” are merged in the

article in the “Ethics declarations” subsection.

6) If the manuscript contains identification information about participants of the study, the

following position should be included in the item “Informed Consent”: “From all participants whose

reference numbering in the text and their number in the bibliography. It is not allowed to include

references to websites in the list of references; it is necessary to refer to publications of the authors

offering these electronic resources (programs/databases). If such publications are absent, the reference is

given in the text in the same way as to other unpublished materials (for example, the Database of Bacterial

Carbohydrate Structures, csdb/glycoscience.ru/bacterial).

References to unpublished data are not permitted. Citation of personal communication should

provide the person’s full name and affiliation. Duplications should be avoided in the list of references, as

well as citation of retracted papers.

The list of References is printed as a separate section of the manuscript with the names and initials

of all the authors, title of the cited article, and output data. In addition, it is advisable to give doi of the

membrane receptor recognition, Chem. Sci., 10, 1807-1815, https://doi.org/10.1039/c8sc05035j.

3. Anisimov, V. N. (2008) Molecular and Physiological Mechanisms of Aging [in Russian], Nauka,

St. Petersburg.

4. Sambrook, J., and Russell, D. W. (2001) Molecular Cloning: A Laboratory Manual, Cold Spring Harbor,

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, N.Y.

5. Tanphaichitr, V. (2001) in Handbook of Vitamins (Rucker, R., and Suttie, J., eds.) Marcell Dekker, N.Y.,

pp. 275-316.

6. Gendrolis, A. A., Serebryannikov, N. B., and Gandel’, V. G. (1978) in Prostaglandins (Azhgikhin,

I. S., ed.) [in Russian], Meditsina, Moscow, pp. 332-347.

7. Gandelman, O. A. (1992) Kinetics and Mechanism of Bioluminescent Oxidation of Fire-Fly Luciferin:

Author’s abstract of Candidate’s (Doctoral) dissertation [in Russian], Moscow State University, Moscow.

8. Rosenkranz, A. A., Slastnikova, T. A., Durymanov, M. O., and Sobolev, A. S. (2013) Malignant

melanoma and melanocortin 1 receptor, Biochemistry (Moscow), 78, 1228-1237,

https://doi.org/10.1134/S0006297913110035.

of figures and tables should not exceed eight; short communications should not be more than 12 pages

(including no more than 4 figures and/or tables); mini-reviews should not exceed 16 pages (including no

more than 5 figures); reviews should not be more than 35 pages (including no more than 8 figures);

communications in the “Discussions” section can be up to 4 pages.

3.4. Text files should be submitted in Microsoft Word format (version 6.0 and later); Times New Roman

font of 12-point size should be used for the entire manuscript file. The text should be in one column, with

line spacing of one and a half intervals, with 3 cm left margin, left alignment, and without word

hyphenation. In the page, it should be no more than 30 lines.

In the text formatting the use of italics, bold, subscript and superscript indices, Greek and

Authors should not use such functions of the Word program as “Bookmark”, “Note”, “Footnote”,

“Endnote”, because the publishing program misinterprets them. If the text contains a footnote (or

endnote), then the authors should print “{Footnote}” immediately after the sentence or paragraph with its

number and then directly the footnote text.

If the “Review” function was used during manuscript preparation, then before saving the file the

“Review” function should be deactivated and the function “Accept all changes in the document” should be

used.

3.5. Tables should be provided in cases when the data cannot be presented in the text.

Each table is prepared on a separate page and has its own title. Column headings should be

3.6. Figures with corresponding legends should be included in the file of the manuscript, and each figure

should be located just after the paragraph, where it was mentioned for the first time.

In addition, figures should be presented as separate files meeting the following requirements:

– for schemes and graphs without half-tone inserts: files in the “tiff”, “jpg” or “pdf”

format, in Black-and-White mode (Line-art, Bitmap). Pixelized (raster) images are accepted only in the

“tiff” or “jpg” formats;

– for half-tone drawings or graphs with half-tone inserts: files in the “tiff”, “jpg” or “pdf”

format, in half-tone Black-and-White mode (Grayscale). Pixelized (raster) images are accepted only in the

“tiff” or “jpg” formats;

– for color drawings: files in the “tiff”, “jpg” or “pdf” format, in the color mode CMYK (for

color printing), RGB (for color drawings in the electronic version). Pixelized (raster) images are accepted

only in the “tiff” or “jpg” formats.

– independently of the figure type, it should have high real resolution: at least 300 “dpi”

for half-tone illustrations; no less than 600 “dpi” for line and mixed (half-tone/line) illustrations.

Pixelization of images in raster graphic formats should not be rough. Lines of figures must be of at least 3

– vector illustrations should not contain point fillings, such as “Noise”, “Black & white

noise”, “Top noise”. For vector drawing, all used fonts should be included in the file;

– fonts inside the figures should be selected from the “Arial” set with the size of 9 points;

– scanning images from books and other printed publications should be avoided, since such

files give a poor quality when printed and are unreasonably large.

General requirements for preparing plots, diagrams, and formulas:

– plots should contain designations of the coordinate axes (the parameter measured and the

unit of measurement), as well as of curves and other details. Inscriptions on the axes are made along them

in “Arial” font with a capital letter, the unit of measurement is separated with a comma and not with

lines. Background of the plot or diagram should be white, without coordinate grid lines (except the cases

when a different color of the background color or the grid are necessary for proper comprehension);

using the “Times” headset larger than the main text. These letters should be placed in the upper left

corners of the respective parts. In the figure caption an explanation should be given to each part of the

figure;

− “ChemWindows” software is used to type chemical equations in the text; long complex

mathematical expressions should be submitted as figures without legends in one of the adopted formats

(“pdf”, “tiff”, or “jpg”). Each equation is given as a separate file, the name of which corresponds to the

equation number in the manuscript. These files should be prepared using the guidelines for drawings given

above. The “Equation Editor” function should be used only for extended mathematical equations (for

both numbered and given in the text). Short expressions (designations) appearing directly in the text, such

as G, TS, K

“kerning” will be performed by the layout maker during the typesetting.

These requirements are essential,

because the publishing program misunderstands the data obtained using the “Equation Editor” function;

– mathematical expressions should not exceed 8.5 cm in width. Larger expressions should

be divided into several lines. Only Times New Roman and Symbol fonts should be used for mathematical

expressions. If equations are submitted as pixelized (raster) images, they should be in Black-and-White

(Line-art, Bitmap) mode. Such images should have very high real resolution (pixelization should not be

rough). Pixelized (raster) images should not be inserted into a Word document or converted to “pdf”,

because it can impair their graphic quality;

– presentation of amino acids, nucleotides, and other sequences often requires the exact vertical

positioning of the elements. To prevent errors and avoid tedious proofreading of large amounts of

information, the authors should submit such materials in a form suitable for reproduction.

− the inscriptions and symbols in the figures can be different in the Russian and English

versions when translated, therefore, for photographs and figures where the inscriptions are imposed onto a

– color illustrations are published free of charge to authors, if they are to be placed only in

the electronic version of the article and in the printed version of the journal they will be presented in

black-and-white. However, the authors should bear in mind that in the printed version with black-and-

white figures the captions will be the same as in the color electronic version, thus, color indications in the

figure captions should be avoided. Authors need to select colors preventing the loss of informativity at the

black-and-white printing. It is advisable to mark the colored lines of the plots with designations, numbers,

or special symbols, or to use different line styles for each color. It is desirable also to mark colored areas

in illustrations with different designations or special symbols, but not with the same symbols of different

colors. If the color separation of the areas is approximately in the same color tone, then it is desirable to

draw a thin line as a border between them. If there are many color areas in similar color tones, it is

the manuscript, they should request permission from the Copyright holders of these publications for

reprinting or using the materials.

Failure to follow these rules for preparing graphical material leads to sending it back to the

authors for modification and to delay in the manuscript publication.

3.7. Additional materials to articles. Supplementary materials (audio- and video files, presentations,

additional tables and figures, etc.) could be submitted provided the authors are primary copyright holders

of these materials and permission was not granted to any person/organization (except Publishers) for their

use, or the authors have documented permission to use these materials for publication and distribution in

the journal. Supplemental materials should be stand-alone items. Supplemental materials should not

in online version of the journal at https://www.springer.com.

3.8. We encourage posting of preprints of primary research manuscripts on preprint servers, authors’ or

institutional websites, and open communications between researchers whether on community preprint

servers or preprint commenting platforms. Authors should disclose details of preprint posting, including

doi and licensing terms, upon submission of the manuscript in Biochemistry (Moscow) journal. Once the

preprint is published, it is the author’s responsibility to ensure that the preprint record is updated with a

publication reference, including the doi and a URL link to the published version of the article on the

of units a forward slash should be used, e.g., mol/s (mol per second). In the more complex expressions

alongside with the forward slash brackets are used to prevent an ambiguity: a/(bc), but not a/b/c or a/bc;

(a/b)c, but not a/b · c. The relationships can also be represented as the product of symbols of the units

raised to a degree (positive and negative), e.g., mol · s

. Expression type mA/gel, µmol/min · mg

protein, etc. are not allowed. In such cases it should be written as follows: mA per 1 column of gel,

μmol/min per 1 mg protein, etc.

3.11. In preparing the article it is necessary to take into account the rules for the use of symbols,

abbreviations, conventional designations, etc. recommended by the Biochemical Nomenclature

Committee of the International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (https://iubmb.org). The

terms, particularly in equations, tables, and figures.

Names of simple substances may be replaced by their formulas, e.g., NaCl instead of

“sodium

chloride”, CH

3

COOH or AcOH instead of “acetic acid”. When abbreviations for

chemical compounds are

needed, maximum use should be made of standard chemical symbols (C, H, O, P, S, Na, Cl, etc.), trivial

names (folate, etc.) and symbols (Me, Pr, Ac for methyl, propyl, acetyl, respectively).

Cysteine

Cys

C

Glutamine

Gln

Q

10

giga

G

Aces

Ada

Bes

Incubation media such as Krebs–Ringer solution, Eagle’s medium, or Waymouth’s medium should

be defined by citing the reference or by giving their compositions.

Spectra and spectroscopy data. Full spectra should be published only if they demonstrate novel

or important information. The spectra for UV or visible absorption, fluorescence, circular dichroism, and

optical rotatory dispersion should have a wavelength scale (nm or µm). Where possible, molar terms

density of a solution, and this represents absorbance when scattering and reflection are negligible. If

scattering is taken into account, e.g., when density of a cell culture is estimated, the more general term

transmittance (T) should be used. Otherwise, the term absorbance should be used, but not extinction or

coefficient (liter · g

and its numerical value.

per 100 ml methanol). Data may be also presented as molar rotation:

[M] = [] · M

and [m] = [] · M

/100.

For biopolymers, optical rotatory dispersion ([m]

is reported for the mean residue ([m]

the dimension of [m] is deg · cm

· dmol

are absorption coefficients for the light polarized to the left and to the right) or as molar ellipticity [θ]

.

For biopolymers, molar concentrations in terms of the mean residue M

r

are often

used. Units of molar

absorption coefficient are liter/mol per 1 cm or M

; units of molar ellipticity are the same as for

optical rotation [m] calculated per the mean residue. The

relationship between ∆ε and [θ]

= 3300 · ∆ε

determine quantitative or statistical characteristics of a population, the basic information is adequately

given by: 1) the number of independent experiments (repeated measurements in one animal, results from

pooled tissues, etc. represent only one independent estimate); 2) the mean value; 3) the standard deviation;

the coefficient of variation of the standard error of the mean value estimation. It should be clearly

indicated whether the standard deviation or the standard error was used. A convenient form for including

these data into a table is, for example, 263 ± 2.5 (10), where the number in parentheses represents the

number of values used in calculating the mean.

If the results are claimed significant, a significance test should be performed, and probability

estimated. Normal distribution statistics is used unless otherwise is stated.

It is recommended to provide data that are impossible or impractical to include in the printed

number and the date of receipt is recorded, and the authors are informed by e-mail about it by the Editors

(or the ID number is created by the Pleiades Portal automatically). Manuscripts not written according to

the rules are returned to the authors without reviewing.

4.2. Reviewing. When submitting a manuscript, authors may indicate two-three potential reviewers

(name, e-mail address) from experts in the field of research, as well as those whose participation in the

reviewing is undesirable.

All manuscripts are reviewed by the Executive Editor-in-Chief and sent to the Handling Editor

knowledgeable in the relevant specific field of study; Handling Editor, in turn, indicates two or three

A manuscript may be rejected because of insufficiently high evaluations by the reviewers, because of

inconsistency with the profile or level of the journal publications.

A manuscript which received the highest score from two independent reviewers is published as

“Accelerated publication” (publication time 1 month).

If necessary, the manuscript is sent to the authors for revision according to the comments of the

reviewers and editors, after which it is re-reviewed, and the Editorial Board again decides on acceptability

of the manuscript for publication. At the beginning of the published article, the dates are given of the

initial receipt of the manuscript, the receipt after the revision, and of the acceptance for publication.

The revised manuscript should be returned to the Editor within two months after the authors

receiving the reviews.

very attentive to the e-mail address specified in the manuscript and should promptly report any changes

occurred.

4.4. Translation. Each issue of the journal is prepared simultaneously in Russian and English. Articles are

translated by a group of highly qualified translators specialized in biochemistry. During the work, the

editors and translators often need to contact the authors and eliminate inaccuracies in the text of the article.

Corrections agreed with the authors are introduced in both the Russian and English texts at the editing

stage.

4.5. Editing. All the articles are edited by the Scientific Editors of the journal, and the prepared text is sent

4.7. Online First mode. Papers accepted after accelerated editorial process can be published as “Online

first” on the Springer website (https://link.springer.com/journal/10541).

4.8. Upon the publication, the Editor sends pdf-file of the article to the authors.