Availability of data and materials
The policy outlined on this page applies to Nature journals (those with the word "Nature" in their title). NPG publishes many other journals, each of which has separate publication policies described on its website. A current list of these journals, with links to each journal's homepage is available.
Availability of data and materials
An inherent principle of publication is that others should be able to replicate and build upon the authors' published claims. Therefore, a condition of publication in a Nature journal is that authors are required to make materials, data and associated protocols available in a publicly accessible database (as detailed in the sections below on this page) or, where one does not exist, to readers promptly on request. Any restrictions on the availability of materials or information must be disclosed at the time of submission of the manuscript, and the methods section of the manuscript itself should include details of how materials and information may be obtained, including any restrictions that may apply. One preferred form of disclosure is a link from the methods section to a copy of the relevant Material Transfer Agreement (MTA) form, which is hosted as Supplementary Information on the journal's web site. Authors may charge a reasonable fee to cover the costs of producing and distributing materials. If materials are to be distributed by a for-profit company, this should be stated in the paper.
Nature journal editorials providing more detail for these policies:
Nature Cell Biology: Policy update (sharing materials)
Nature Chemical Biology: Molecular cross-fertilization
Nature Cell Biology: Sharing science
Nature: Illuminating the black box
Nature Cell Biology: Nothing to hide (data not shown)
Nature Genetics: Access to materials
Nature: Methods in full (comments on this methods format are welcome at Nautilus, the author blog).
Nature Methods: Social software (comments on this Nature Methods policy are welcome at Methagora, the Nature Methods blog).
Nature Chemical Biology: A new look for chemical information (comments are welcome at Nautilus, the author blog).
Nature Neuroscience: Got data? (comments welcome at this Nautilus post).
Nature Genetics: Compete, collaborate, compel (comments welcome at this Nautilus post).
Mutant strains and cell lines
For materials such as mutant strains and cell lines, authors are expected to use established public repositories and provide relevant accession numbers (for example, Jackson Laboratory, Mutant Mouse Regional Resource Centers, American Type Culture Collection, UK Stem Cell Bank, and so on) wherever possible.
Peer-reviewers may be asked to comment on the terms of access to materials, methods and/or datasets; Nature journals reserve the right to refuse publication in cases where authors are unable to provide adequate assurances that essential resources will be made freely available to the community.
Relevant editorials in Nature journals:
Nature Genetics: How to discuss ancestry and ethnicity
Nature Genetics: Criteria for association
Sequences, structures and 'omics'
Papers reporting protein or DNA sequences and molecular structures will not be accepted without an accession number to Genbank/EMBL/DDBJ, Protein DataBank, SWISS-PROT or other appropriate, identified, publicly available database in general use in the field that gives free access to researchers from the date of publication, as described in the Nature editorials listed below. The published paper must state the accession codes, and all such material must be freely available on and after the publication date. Please note that this policy includes even short stretches of novel sequence information such as epitopes, functional domains, genetic markers, or haplotypes. Short novel sequences must include surrounding sequence information to provide context. The sequences of all RNAi, antisense and morpholino probes must be included in the paper or deposited in a public database, with the accession number quoted. When an unpublished library is included in the paper, at minimum the sequences of the probes central to the conclusions of the paper must be presented.
Authors of papers describing structures of biological macromolecules must provide atomic coordinates and related experimental data (structure factor amplitudes/intensities for crystal structures, or restraints for NMR structures) upon request of editors for the purposes of evaluating the manuscript, if they are not already freely accessible in a publicly available and recognized database (for example, Protein DataBank, Nucleic Acids Database or Biological Magnetic Resonance Databank). Five separate copies of these data should be provided to the editors in an appropriate format (for example, CD or DVD) for the purposes of peer-review.
Accessibility must be designated "for immediate release on publication". In practice, this means the author should authorize Protein DataBank (PDB) release on the Wednesday of (or before) online or print publication. (The journal office informs authors of the publication date as soon as articles are scheduled, and also informs the PDB directly.)
Proteomics databases recommended by Nature journals include the International Molecular Exchange consortium; PRIDE; IntAct; PeptideAtlas; Tranche; and the Global Proteome Machine Organization.
Nature journal editorials providing more detail for these policies:
Nature: New policy for structural data
Nature: Rules of genome access
Nature Medicine: Structural Integrity
Nature: Crystal Clear
Nature Cell Biology: Whither RNAi?
Nature Biotechnology: Democratizing proteomics data (Feedback and comments on this March 2007 Nature Biotechnology policy are welcome at Nautilus, the author blog.) Also Time for leadership, providing an update (August 2007) to the proposals in the previous editorial (comments from authors and other scientists in the field are welcome at this Nautilus post).
Nature Structural & Molecular Biology: Name that gene! (Comments welcome on Nautilus.)
Nature: Shared genomes, describing the Nature journals' Creative Commons licence for genome sequences (6 December 2007.) Comments welcome on Nautilus.
Nature Methods: Thou shalt share your data (March 2008). Please visit Methagora, the Nature Methods blog, to comment on this Editorial and its recommendations.
Microarrays
Please see the MGED open letter specifying microarray standards. Authors submitting manuscripts containing microarray data must either provide accession number and URL or supply the data as Supplementary Information on CD at time of submission. The data must be MIAME-compliant and supplied in a form that is widely accessible, with the completed checklist also placed on the CD. If data are provided via CD at submission rather than as links to database entries, five copies are required so that they can be sent to peer-reviewers.
Nature journals require submission of microarray data to the GEO or ArrayExpress databases, with accession numbers at or before acceptance of the paper for publication.
Nature journal editorials providing more detail for these policies:
Nature: Microarray standards at last
Nature Immunology: Microarray policy
Nature Cell Biology: Microarray data standards (the third editorial on this web page)
Other supporting data
Any supporting data sets for which there is no public repository must be made available to referees at submission and any interested reader on and after the publication date from the authors directly, the author providing a URL to be used in the paper on publication.
Such material must be hosted on an accredited independent site (URL and accession numbers to be provided by the author), or sent to the Nature journal at submission, either uploaded via the journal's online submission service, or if the files are too large or in an unsuitable format for this purpose, on CD/DVD (five copies). Such material cannot solely be hosted on an author's personal or institutional web site.
After publication, readers who encounter a persistent refusal by the authors to comply with these guidelines should contact the chief editor of the Nature journal concerned, with "materials complaint" and publication reference of the article as part of the subject line. In cases where editors are unable to resolve a complaint, the journal reserves the right to refer the correspondence to the author's funding institution and/or to publish a statement of formal correction, linked to the publication, that readers have been unable to obtain necessary materials or reagents to replicate the findings.
The entire guide for Editorial Policies is available in PDF format.