Research and Publication Ethics

Research Involving Human Subjects

When reporting research involving human subjects, human material, human tissues, or human data, authors must declare that the studies were conducted in compliance with the Declaration of Helsinki of 1975, revised in 2013 (https://www.wma.net/what-we-do/medical-ethics/declaration-of-helsinki/). According to point 23 of this declaration, approval from the local institutional review board (IRB) or another appropriate ethics committee must be obtained before starting the research to ensure it meets national and international guidelines. The article must include, at a minimum, a statement with the project identification code, date of approval, and the name of the ethics committee or IRB in the 'Institutional Review Board Statement' section.

Example ethical statement: "All subjects gave their informed consent for inclusion before they participated in the study. The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and the protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of XXX (Project identification code)."

For non-interventional studies (e.g., surveys, questionnaires, social media research), all participants must be fully informed about the purpose of the research, how their data will be used, and any potential risks, ensuring their anonymity is maintained if promised. Ethical approval from an appropriate ethics committee must be obtained prior to conducting the study. If ethical approval is not required, authors must provide an exemption from the ethics committee or cite local or national legislation indicating that ethics approval is not necessary for this type of study. If an exemption is granted, the name of the ethics committee and a full explanation of why ethical approval was not required should be included in the 'Institutional Review Board Statement'.

Written informed consent for publication must be obtained from participating patients. Data relating to individual participants should be described in detail, but personal identifiers should not be included unless they are relevant to the research (e.g., photographs of participants’ faces showing specific symptoms). Patients' initials or other identifiers must not appear in any images. For manuscripts that include case details, personal information, and/or images of patients, authors must obtain signed informed consent for publication from patients (or their relatives/guardians) before submission to an MDPI journal. Patient details must be anonymized as much as possible (e.g., do not mention specific age, ethnicity, or occupation unless relevant to the conclusions). A template permission form is available for download. A blank version of the form used to obtain permission (without patient names or signatures) must be uploaded with your submission. Editors reserve the right to reject submissions that do not meet these requirements.

Authors may refer to a sample form and provide an appropriate form after consulting with their affiliated institution. For MDPI journal publications, a consent, permission, or release form should include unlimited permission for publication in all formats (including print, electronic, and online), in sublicensed and reprinted versions (including translations and derived works), and in other works and products under open access license. To respect patients' and any individual's privacy, signed forms should not be sent unless requested by the journal.

If the study involves vulnerable groups, additional checks may be conducted. The editorial office may require documentary evidence (e.g., blank consent forms and related discussion documents from the ethics board). Additionally, when studies describe groups by race, ethnicity, gender, disability, disease, etc., a clear explanation of why such categorization was necessary must be included in the article.

Ethical Guidelines for the Use of Animals in Research

Editors will require that the potential benefits of any research causing harm to animals are significant compared to the costs endured by the animals, and that procedures are unlikely to cause offense to most readers. Authors must ensure their research complies with the commonly accepted '3Rs':

1. Replacement of animals with alternatives wherever possible.
2. Reduction in the number of animals used.
3. Refinement of experimental conditions and procedures to minimize harm to animals.

Authors must include details on housing, husbandry, and pain management in their manuscripts.

MDPI endorses the ARRIVE guidelines (arriveguidelines.org/) for reporting experiments involving live animals. Authors and reviewers must use the ARRIVE guidelines as a checklist, available at https://arriveguidelines.org/sites/arrive/files/documents/Author%20Checklist%20-%20Full.pdf. The journal Nutrients requires authors to submit the completed checklist at submission, which will be made available to reviewers. Editors reserve the right to reject submissions that do not adhere to these guidelines due to ethical or animal welfare concerns or if the procedure described does not appear justified by the value of the work presented.

For further guidance, authors should refer to the Code of Practice for the Housing and Care of Animals Used in Scientific Procedures, American Association for Laboratory Animal Science, or European Animal Research Association.

If national legislation requires it, studies involving vertebrates or higher invertebrates must be conducted only after obtaining approval from the appropriate ethics committee. At a minimum, the project identification code, date of approval, and the name of the ethics committee or IRB should be included in the 'Institutional Review Board Statement'. Research procedures must follow national and institutional regulations. Statements on animal welfare should confirm that the study complied with all relevant legislation. Clinical studies involving animals and interventions outside routine care require ethics committee oversight as per the American Veterinary Medical Association. If the study involved client-owned animals, informed client consent must be obtained and documented in the manuscript. Owners must be fully informed about any risks associated with the procedures and the intention to publish the research. High standards of veterinary care should be provided where available. Authors are responsible for the accuracy of statements provided in the manuscript.

If ethical approval is not required by national laws, authors must provide an exemption from the ethics committee if available. If an exemption is granted, the name of the ethics committee and a full explanation of why ethical approval was not required should be included in the 'Institutional Review Board Statement'.

If no animal ethics committee is available to review applications, authors should be aware that the ethics of their research will be evaluated by reviewers and editors. Authors should provide a statement justifying the work from an ethical perspective, using the same utilitarian framework used by ethics committees. Authors may be asked to provide this even if they have received ethical approval.

Research Involving Cell Lines

Methods sections for submissions reporting on research with cell lines should state the origin of any cell lines. For established cell lines, the provenance should be stated, and references must be provided either to a published paper or a commercial source. For previously unpublished de novo cell lines, including those gifted from another laboratory, details of IRB or ethics committee approval must be given, and confirmation of written informed consent must be provided if the line is of human origin.

Example Ethical Statements:

• The HCT116 cell line was obtained from XXXX.
• The MLH1+ cell line was provided by XXXXX, Ltd.
• The DLD-1 cell line was obtained from Dr. XXXX.
• The DR-GFP and SA-GFP reporter plasmids were obtained from Dr. XXX, and the Rad51K133A expression vector was obtained from Dr. XXXX.

Research Involving Plants

Experimental research on plants, whether cultivated or wild, including the collection of plant material, must comply with institutional, national, or international guidelines. Authors are recommended to comply with the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Convention on the Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

For each submitted manuscript, supporting genetic information and origin must be provided. For research involving rare and non-model plants (other than typical model plants like Arabidopsis thaliana, Nicotiana benthamiana, Oryza sativa), voucher specimens must be deposited in an accessible herbarium or museum. Vouchers may be requested for review by future investigators to verify the identity of the material used in the study. They should include details of the populations sampled, the collection site (GPS coordinates), the date of collection, and the part(s) used in the study where appropriate. For rare, threatened, or endangered species, this requirement can be waived but must be described in the cover letter.

Editors reserve the right to reject any submission that does not meet these requirements.

Example Ethical Statements:

• Torenia fournieri plants were used in this study. White-flowered Crown White (CrW) and violet-flowered Crown Violet (CrV) cultivars selected from ‘Crown Mix’ (XXX Company, City, Country) were kindly provided by Dr. XXX (XXX Institute, City, Country).
• Arabidopsis mutant lines (SALKxxxx, SAILxxxx,…) were kindly provided by Dr. XXX (XXX Institute, City, Country).

Clinical Trials Registration

MDPI follows the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) guidelines, which require and recommend the registration of clinical trials in a public trials registry at or before the time of first patient enrollment as a condition for publication consideration.

Purely observational studies do not require registration. A clinical trial includes studies that involve participant randomization and group classification in the context of the intervention under assessment, not just those taking place in hospitals or involving pharmaceuticals.

Authors are strongly encouraged to pre-register clinical trials with an international clinical trials register and cite a reference to the registration in the Methods section. Suitable databases include clinicaltrials.gov, the EU Clinical Trials Register, and those listed by the World Health Organization International Clinical Trials Registry Platform.

Approval to conduct a study from an independent local, regional, or national review body is not equivalent to prospective clinical trial registration. MDPI reserves the right to decline any paper without trial registration for further peer review. However, if the study protocol was published before enrollment, registration can be waived with the correct citation of the published protocol.

CONSORT Statement

MDPI requires a completed CONSORT 2010 checklist and flow diagram when reporting the results of a randomized trial. Templates can be found on the CONSORT website (http://www.consort-statement.org), which also describes several CONSORT checklist extensions for different designs and types of data beyond two-group parallel trials. At a minimum, your article should report the content addressed by each checklist item.

Dual Use Research of Concern

MDPI follows the practical framework defined in Guidance for Editors: Research, Audit and Service Evaluations introduced by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Research that could pose a significant threat, with broad potential consequences to public health or national security, should be clearly indicated in the manuscript, and potential dual-use research of concern should be explained in the cover letter upon submission. Potential areas of concern include, but are not limited to, biosecurity, nuclear and chemical threats, and research with a military purpose or application. For these manuscripts to be considered for peer review, the benefits to the general public or public health must outweigh the risks. Authors have a responsibility to comply with relevant national and international laws.

Sex and Gender in Research

We encourage authors to follow the 'Sex and Gender Equity in Research – SAGER – guidelines' and to include sex and gender considerations where relevant. Authors should use the terms sex (biological attribute) and gender (shaped by social and cultural circumstances) accurately to avoid confusion. Article titles and/or abstracts should clearly indicate which sex(es) the study applies to. Authors should describe in the background whether sex and/or gender differences are expected; report how sex and/or gender were accounted for in the study design; provide disaggregated data by sex and/or gender where appropriate; and discuss the respective results. If a sex and/or gender analysis was not conducted, the rationale should be given in the Discussion. Authors are encouraged to consult the full guidelines before submission.

Borders and Territories

Potential disputes over borders and territories may be relevant for authors in describing their research or in correspondence addresses. Content decisions are editorial matters, and where there is a potential or perceived dispute or complaint, the editorial team will attempt to find a resolution that satisfies the parties involved. MDPI remains neutral regarding jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Publication Ethics Statement

IJMS is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and fully adheres to its Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines.

The editors enforce a rigorous peer review process and strict ethical policies and standards to ensure high-quality scientific works are added to the field of scholarly publication. Cases of plagiarism, data falsification, image manipulation, inappropriate authorship credit, and similar issues are taken seriously, with a zero-tolerance policy.

Authors wishing to publish in IJMS must adhere to the following:

• Disclose any potential conflicts of interest in the paper before submission.
• Accurately present research findings and include an objective discussion of their significance.
• Provide sufficient detail on data and methods to allow replication of the work by other researchers.
• Preferably publicly deposit raw data before submission, or at least have it available for presentation to referees and editors upon request. Ensure raw data is retained for a reasonable time after publication.
• Do not submit manuscripts simultaneously to more than one journal.
• Exact translations of previously published work are accepted if they conform to the policies on translations.
• Promptly communicate any errors or inaccuracies found after publication to the editors to take appropriate action. Refer to the policy regarding Updating Published Papers.
• Do not include any already published information without permission from the copyright holder to publish under the CC-BY license. Refer to the Rights and Permissions page for further information.
• Plagiarism, data fabrication, and image manipulation are not tolerated.
• Reuse of text from other sources must be quoted and cited properly, even if the source is the author's own work.
• All MDPI submissions are checked for plagiarism using iThenticate. Manuscripts may be rejected if plagiarism is detected during peer review, and an investigation will be conducted if detected after publication.

Image files must not be manipulated or adjusted in ways that could mislead. Irregular manipulation includes:

1. Introducing, enhancing, moving, or removing features from the original image.
2. Grouping images that should be presented separately.
3. Modifying contrast, brightness, or color balance to obscure, eliminate, or enhance information.

Irregular image manipulation identified and confirmed during peer review may lead to manuscript rejection. If detected after publication, the paper may be corrected or retracted.

In-house editors will investigate allegations of publication misconduct and may contact authors' institutions or funders if necessary. Appropriate action will be taken to correct or retract the publication if evidence of misconduct is found. Authors are expected to comply with the best ethical publication practices when publishing with MDPI.

Citation Policy

Authors must ensure that material taken from other sources (including their own published work) is clearly cited, and permissions are obtained where appropriate.

• Avoid excessive self-citation.
• Do not copy references from other publications without reading the cited work.
• Avoid preferentially citing your own or colleagues' publications.
• Do not cite advertisements or advertorial material.

In line with COPE guidelines, "original wording taken directly from publications by other researchers should appear in quotation marks with the appropriate citations," which also applies to the author's own work. COPE has issued recommendations on citation manipulation, which should be followed.