PLANT JOURNAL

The Plant Journal (TPJ) publishes four categories of papers: Original Research Articles The aim of TPJ is to publish exciting, high quality science that addresses fundamental questions in plant biology. Typically, the research will provide insight into an as yet unknown mechanism or poorly understood process, will constitute a highly significant contribution to our understanding of plants, and be of general interest to the plant science community. All areas of plant biology are welcome and the experimental approaches used can be wide-ranging and interdisciplinary. Many fully-sequenced genomes and related technologies are now available. TPJ welcomes functional genomics manuscripts when a scientific question, rather than the technology used, has driven the research. Technical Advances Technical Advance articles must be useful to a large proportion of the community and not be narrow in scope. Demonstration of how the Technical Advance has led to new insights into a biological mechanism must also be made. Manuscripts that describe significant advances in the use of an already existing technology will be considered, but variations on existing methods, or improvements on vectors, would not qualify for consideration. Resource Articles Resource articles will typically be data-rich and provide an important, novel reference source for the field. Such an article could encompass a careful comparative analysis of ecotypes or strains of a model or reference organism, but also large-scale reference datasets derived from transcriptomics, proteomics, or metabolomics that the community will likely continue to use for metadata analysis leading to novel biological insights. First time genome sequences of plant or algal species or specific ecotypes or strains of a reference organism, and the respective comparative genomic analysis, will be welcome under this category. Metabolic flux maps and their computational basis, or newly reconstructed metabolic networks for reference organisms or specific tissues, will also be considered. Resource articles covering large-scale datasets must have a concise conclusion highlighting examples of novel biological insights and/or how these data might lead to such insights in the future through continued metadata analysis. Special Issue articles TPJ aims to publish special issues on a regular basis, typically comprising specially commissioned review papers on an emerging topic identified by the Editorial Board. Unsolicited review articles will not be considered.