About CSF

Cell Structure and Function was launched in 1975 to serve the international molecular and cell biology communities. The journal is fully Open Access, and authors benefit from rapid peer review and a large global audience. Please see our comprehensive brochure.

The journal offers:

  • Expert, personalized peer review and editorial advice
  • Rapid peer review and online publication
  • Enhanced discoverability on the re-developed J-STAGE platform
  • International reach
  • Free article alerts
  • Open Access, with authors retaining copyright
  • Affordable charges
  • Compliance with funding requirements

See more at the Benefits to authors.

Aims and Scope

Cell Structure and Function publishes important, original contributions in all areas of molecular and cell biology. The journal welcomes the submission of manuscripts on research areas such as the cell nucleus, chromosomes, and gene expression; the cytoskeleton and cell motility; cell adhesion and the extracellular matrix; cell growth, differentiation and death; signal transduction; the protein life cycle; membrane traffic; and organelles.

The journal publishes five article types: Full Articles, Short Communications, Mini-Reviews and Reviews, Technical Notes and Perspectives. Full Articles and Short Communications report original research not published elsewhere. The remaining article types can be summaries of previous research, but must add important insight or a fresh perspective.

The audience of Cell Structure and Function includes research scientists in academia or industry who work on cell biology or related life sciences, individuals working on the application of research in these fields, clinicians, students and other interested individuals. The journal strives to be an important outlet for the publication of excellent research and an essential part of communication in molecular and cell biology.

English standard

Manuscripts should be written in clear, grammatically correct English. Author(s) whose native language is not English are strongly encouraged to have their manuscript checked by a native English speaker or by services such as those at INLEXIO prior to submission. If a manuscript is not clear due to poor English, it may be rejected without undergoing peer review.

Journal data

Volume 49 (2024); Two issues per year
ISSN (Print): 0386-7196
ISSN (Online): 1347-3700
Published online at J-STAGE

Editor-in-Chief and Editorial Board

The Editorial Board comprises an Editor-in-Chief and an Editorial Board of experts in cell and molecular biology from around the world. The Editor-in-Chief is Michiyuki Matsuda, who is Professor at Kyoto University, Japan.

Editorial and peer review process

The Editor-in-Chief allocates submitted manuscripts to an Associate Editor, who acts as the Monitoring Editor in charge of peer review. The Monitoring Editor selects two appropriate reviewers to provide their assessment of the manuscript. Once their reviews have been received, the Monitoring Editor decides whether the manuscript requires revision. Authors who are asked to revise their manuscript must do so within two months, otherwise it will be treated as a new submission. The Editor-in-Chief makes the final decision on each manuscript based on the Monitoring Editor’s recommendation.

Journal databases and Journal Impact Factor

Cell Structure and Function is fully indexed in MEDLINE and PubMed; Chemport (CAS); Clarivate Analytics products such as Science Citation Index Expanded, Web of Science and Journal Citation Reports; Elsevier’s Scopus; SCImago; Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ); Biological Abstracts; BIOSIS Previews; Current Contents Life Sciences; Essential Science Indicators; Zoological Record and other relevant databases.

The 2022 Journal Impact Factor of Cell Structure and Function is 1.5, placing it 181st of 191 journals in the ‘Cell Biology’ category (Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE), Clarivate Analytics, © 2023).

The 2022 Scopus CiteScore of Cell Structure and Function is 4.0, placing it 200th of 274 journals in the ‘Cell Biology’ Category.

Further bibliometric information is available at the Metrics page.

Scientific and publication ethics

Cell Structure and Function has a range of journal policies on authorship, confidentiality, conflicts of interest, experimentation, image integrity, unoriginal material and more, which are detailed in the Instructions to Authors. The journal follows the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines to manage cases of potential ethical concern.

Publication fee

To support the Open Access publication of Cell Structure and Function, the journal charges a modest publication fee (Article Processing Charge) of ¥100,000 for all article types except commissioned Reviews and Mini-reviews, which are free to publish.

Submission

Cell Structure and Function uses ScholarOne to handle manuscript submission and peer review. Please ensure your manuscript adheres to the journal’s Instructions to Authors before submitting via the journal’s ScholarOne site.