About the Journal Mission Statement
The mission of the Journal of Laboratory Animal Science (JLAS) is to disseminate high-quality, peer-reviewed information that expands biomedical knowledge and promotes human and animal health through the study of laboratory animal diseases, disease diagnostic techniques, animal models of disease, basic biological mechanisms related to disease in humans and animals, and information on animal biology, technology, facility operations and management.
Guidelines for Authors
1. Aims and scope
The Journal of Laboratory Animal Science (JLAS) is the official journal of The Laboratory Animal Scientists’ Association (LASA) India, and published biannually in English. The journal publishes original articles, case reports, brief communications, letters to the editor, and review articles on all aspects of the use of animals in biomedical and veterinary research as well as in testing and evaluation of the toxicity of agrochemicals, pesticides and other compounds.
The JLAS publishes a diverse range of papers dealing with both use of animals and their management in any research, consistent with the aims of the Laboratory Animal Scientist’s Association. The journal considers manuscripts on facility design, environmental enrichment, laboratory animal care and nutrition, pain management, genetics, health monitoring and diagnostics, transgenic animals, new animal models of disease, novel methods of efficacy testing for vaccines, pharmaceuticals and delivery systems, regulations/guidelines pertaining to the husbandry and use of animals, education and training, personnel and facility management, and animal welfare for publication.
2. Editorial policy
Peer review
All contributions are reviewed by independent referees and the Editorial Board reserves the right to make the final decision on acceptance or rejection of a manuscript.
Ethical approval and other ethical considerations
All research articles submitted for publication must be approved by the Institutional Animal Ethics Committee (IAEC). Articles will only be published if the experimental procedures employed conform to the accepted principles of animal usage in biomedical research. Housing conditions shall be mentioned with standard management procedures and type of the facility used with environmental conditions. Wherever possible, mention the standard international nomenclature for laboratory rodents/ animals. Give a history on the source of animals, if purchased, or if in-house bred, mention whether in-bred or out-bred or the type of breeding followed.
A sentence mentioning the date of approval by the IAEC for small laboratory animals and by the Committee for the Purpose of Control and Supervision of Experiments on Animals (CPCSEA) in case of large animals should appear in each manuscript, and the corresponding author must make the approval certificate available if requested by the Editorial Board.
Permissions
All previously published material must be accompanied by the written consent to reproduction of the copyright holder. An acknowledgement of permission should be included at appropriate place in the manuscript, and a full reference to the original place of publication should be included in the reference list.
Copyright
The authors of the manuscripts accepted for publication will be required to assign copyright to JLAS and a form for this purpose will accompany the proofs.
Manuscript Review and Status
The Editor reviews all submissions and makes an initial determination regarding suitability for publication. Before being sent for peer review, newly submitted manuscripts are screened to ensure that the text, figures (charts, graphs, images), and tables comply with the criteria described in the Guidelines for Authors. All manuscripts undergo thorough peer review, typically by three reviewers with relevant experience. Selection of the panel of reviewers ultimately is the prerogative of the Editor.
3. Types of articles
Review Articles
Review Articles are generally invited by the Editorial board and the Editor may be contacted by prospective authors to verify the journal’s interest and suitability of the manuscript. These articles (should not exceed 5500 words, cited references to be limited to about 75 in number) are expected to appraise and discuss current developments in the relevant field. They should be well focused and organized.
Original Articles
An article describing original or substantially incremental research that falls within the Aims and Scope of the journal is considered for publication under this category. These articles should be up to 4500 words and must include an Abstract, Introduction, Material and Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgements and References.
Short Reports
Technical notes and preliminary communications with adequate methodological details and conclusions are accepted under this section. Case reports or case studies with significant and original observations will be considered for publication. These reports should be less than 1500 words, including an Abstract of less than 200 words, and no more than two figures or tables.
Letters to the Editor
Letters to the Editor will be considered for publication but only on issues related to the scientific or ethical content of the journal, and authors will be permitted the opportunity to publish a reply to any letters.
4. How to submit a manuscript
All submissions must be in English and of good grammatical standards. The manuscripts should be submitted as single word file via email to editor.jlas@gmail.com Manuscripts should be prepared in accordance with the guidelines below.
5. How to prepare a manuscript
Formatting
Manuscripts must be submitted using double line-spaced, unjustified, with headings and subheadings in bold case. Manuscripts must be prepared in a font and size suitable for reading at 100% zooming. Authors are recommended to use Times New Roman (font size: 12).
Title page
The first page should contain the full title of the manuscript, a short title, the initials and last names of all the authors and their affiliations, the department(s) and the institution(s) where the work was carried out, and the name, postal and email addresses and telephone and fax numbers of the author responsible for all communications about the manuscript and proofs.
The title should be concise, informative and must not be unnecessarily punctuated. The short title should be no more than six words long.
Abstract
An unstructured abstract of no more than 250 words (or no more than 200 words for Short Reports) that sequentially summarizes the background, rationale, methods, results and conclusions of the work and a list of up to five key words must accompany all Review Articles, Original Articles, and Short Reports. Letters to the Editor do not require an abstract.
Body
Use coded or nonproprietary language throughout the manuscript. Cite the proprietary, brand, or vendor name associated with an assay, instrument, machine, service, or compound only in Materials and Methods. Define all nonstandard abbreviations and acronyms at first use. Limit the number of novel abbreviations used. Refer to the list of Standard Abbreviations for abbreviations that can be used without definition.
- Introduction
- Provide the rationale and supporting background for the submitted article and its importance and relevance.
- Extensive reviews of the existing literature are inappropriate for research reports and case studies/reports.
- Materials and Methods
- Describe the animals, husbandry, tests, equipment, procedures, reagents, and services used in detail with citation of published references.
- Include statistical methods where relevant and attribute (name of software program used) or reference them appropriately. In addition, provide the ‘P’ value used to define statistical significance.
- Include a statement regarding Institutional Animal Ethics Committee approval (or equivalent) for procedures and protocols involving animals.
- Insert callouts (in parentheses) for all Figures and Tables, which are numbered in order of their mention in the text.
- Follow correct nomenclature for laboratory animals, genes, genetic markers, alleles, mutations, and microbes. Biological names of organisms and names of genes must be italicized.
- Wherever possible, use International System of Units base and derived units for numerical data.
- Results
- Accompany statements of differences between groups with appropriate statistics.
- Summarize selected data from Figures and Tables in the Results section; do not merely repeat all information presented in graphics.
- Save interpretation of data for the Discussion section.
- Discussion
- Begin the Discussion with a brief summary of the key findings.
- Limit discussion of study findings to those that have been presented in the Results.
- Address any limitations of the study and directions for potential future research.
Tables
Tables must be prepared using the Table feature of the word processor. Tables should not duplicate information given in the text, should be numbered in the order in which they are mentioned in the text, and should be given a brief title. Each Table should appear on a separate page at the end of the manuscript as part of the text file. Vertical rules and/or background shading should not be used. The legend of a table should be concise and enable the reader to understand the data without excessive reference to the text. The Table should be designed in such a way so as to convey the information without extensive footnotes. Authors are encouraged to convert Tables into Figures whenever possible and appropriate.
Figures
All figures should be numbered in the order in which they are mentioned in the text. All figures must be accompanied by a figure legend. If figures are supplied in separate files, the figure legends must all be listed at the end of the main text file.
Line drawings should be produced electronically and clearly labeled. Graphs may be supplied as Excel spreadsheets (one per sheet). Other line drawings should be supplied in a suitable vector graphic file format (e.g. .eps)
All photographic images should be submitted in camera-ready form (i.e. with all extraneous areas removed), and where necessary, magnification should be shown using a scale marker.
Digital figure guidelines
To ensure the highest quality reproduction in the journal, original digital figures are preferred. When creating and submitting digital files, please follow the guidelines below.
Formats
For publication, use TIFF, EPS or postscript (ps) files in PC or MacIntosh format, preferably from PhotoShop or Illustrator software. We do not accept Freehand, Canvas, PowerPoint, Corel DRAW or MacDrawPro files. These files must be converted to postscript (ps) format.
Resolution and figure quality
Figure files must be submitted at an appropriate resolution for print publication:
- Color, 300 d.p.i. minimum, convert all color files into CMYK mode.
- Grayscale, 600 d.p.i. minimum for black & white photographs.
- Line art, 1200 d.p.i. minimum for graphs and illustrations.
References
Only essential references should be included. Authors are responsible for verifying them against the original source material. Automatic numbering should be avoided. References should include the names and initials of up to six authors. If there are more than six authors, only the first three should be named, followed by et al. Publications for which no author is apparent may be attributed to the organization from which they originate. Simply omit the name of the author for anonymous journal articles and avoid using ’Anonymous’. Punctuation in references should be kept to a minimum, as shown in the following examples:
Some basic rules applicable to all formats indexed by author name(s):
- All citation entries are listed in alphabetical order based on the first author's last name
- If the same author(s) are cited for more than one paper having the same order of authors' names, the papers should be listed in chronological sequence by year of publication.
References in the text are given as the author(s) and year, i.e. (Evans, 1961; Smith and Jones, 1990) or Evans (1961). Papers with more than two authors are cited as et al. i.e Jones et al. (1989).
References in the text within the same parentheses are given in chronological order. The final list of references should be alphabetical.
The format in the reference list is as follows: author(s) name(s) and initials, year of publication in parentheses, full title of article, journal title italicized and as abbreviated in the World List of Scientific Periodicals, volume number and page numbers.
Bugjuice B, Timm T, Cratchet R (1990). The role of estrogen in mouse courtship behavior changes as mice age. J. Physiol. 62(6):1130-1142.
References by the same first author and published in the same year should be labeled a, b, c etc within the text (e.g. Smith, 1992a) and listed sequentially in the reference list. For example:
Bugjuice B (1970a). Physiological effects of estrogen on mouse courtship behavior. J. Physiol. 40(2):140-145.
Bugjuice B (1970b). Physiological effects of estrogen analogs: Insincere courtship behavior in female mice. J. Physiol. 40(8):1240-1247.
Journal Article: Single author
Bugjuice B (1970). Physiological effects of estrogen on mouse courtship behavior. J. Physiol. 40(2):140-145.
Journal: Two authors
Timm T, Bugjuice B (1989). The role of whisker length in mouse nose-twitch courtship behavior. J. Physiol. 61(3):113-118.
Journal: Multiple authors
Bugjuice B, Timm T, Cratchet R (1990). The role of estrogen in mouse courtship behavior changes as mice age. J. Physiol. 2(6):1130-1142.
References to book articles should be mentioned as follows: author(s) name(s) and initials, date of publication in parentheses, title of chapter or article, full title of book, edition, name(s) of editor(s) if relevant, publisher, place of publication and pages referred to: e.g. Robin C (1991). Calcium in plants eaten by horses. In: Dietary Calcium, 2nd edn., Ed: J. Chalk, Blackwell Scientific, London. pp 195-201.
It is the responsibility of the authors to ensure that all reference details are accurate.
Acknowledgments
Recognize (with their permission) and acknowledge people and institutions whose contributions of funding, technical assistance, reagents, data collection and analysis, and other services that do not meet the criteria for authorship.
Abbreviations
Symbols and abbreviations should be those currently in use. Authors should not create new abbreviations and acronyms. References to animal strains should be in accordance with current nomenclature. For reference, use The International Index of Laboratory Animals, 6th edn. (Festing M, 1993); the Mouse Genome database and the Rat Genome Database.
Units
All measurements should be expressed in SI units.
6. Proofs and e-prints
Proofs will be sent by email to the designated corresponding author as a PDF file attachment and should be corrected and returned promptly; corrections should be kept to a minimum. A PDF e-print of each published article will be supplied free of charge to the author for correspondence; hardcopy off-prints may be ordered from the publisher.