Journal profile · Immunology and Microbiology-Microbiology
mLife
ISSN 2770-100X · Wiley · Australia
mLife: CAS Zone 2 · Biology (2025 upgraded edition); impact factor 6.7 (journal website); fully open access; APC about USD 2,500; median 155 days to acceptance (83 articles, last 24 months); acceptance rate 24% (journal website); 76 articles in 2025; indexed in ESCI and Scopus.
Scope
Aims, scope and focus
mLife is published by Wiley and is in Zone 2 of Biology in the CAS Journal Ranking (2025 upgraded edition). By OpenAlex counts of its recent articles, its largest topics are Microbial Community Ecology and Physiology, Bacterial Genetics and Biotechnology and Bacteriophages and microbial interactions, together about 26.9% of its articles. Its main subfields are Molecular Biology. (generated from OpenAlex topic counts and CAS ranking data)
Open access publishing assures your research maximizes downloads, citations, and impact. Discoverability. We are widely indexed by DOAJ, Scopus, CAS, CSCD, ESCI, and more. Support. Our world class editorial board is dedicated to helping your research achieve its potential. Co-published by the leading microbiology institution in China, the Institute of Microbiology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Read the author guidelines.
From the journal's Aims & Scope
Research area (LetPub): Immunology and Microbiology-Microbiology
Editor-in-chief Wei QianPublisher website
Editorial board by country: 57 in mainland China (about 68%); most named Mainland China 57, United States 16, France 2, Australia 2, United Kingdom 1 (84 members with a country) Editorial board ↗Publisher website ·
Main research topics OpenAlex counts of recent articles; shares are approximate
- Microbial Community Ecology and PhysiologyEnvironmental Science12.1%
- Bacterial Genetics and BiotechnologyBiochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology7.9%
- Bacteriophages and microbial interactionsEnvironmental Science6.9%
- Antibiotic Resistance in BacteriaBiochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology6.2%
- Bacterial biofilms and quorum sensingBiochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology5.5%
- Educational Robotics and EngineeringComputer Science5.5%
- Diverse Scientific and Economic StudiesEconomics, Econometrics and Finance5.2%
- Human auditory perception and evaluationEngineering5.2%
Rankings & indexing
CAS ranking and database indexing
CAS Journal Ranking
CAS Journal Ranking, upgraded edition (March 2025)Biology Zone 2
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Biology | Zone 2 |
| Minor | Microbiology | Zone 2 |
Top journal: noReview journal: no
CAS Xinrui Journal Ranking (March 2026)Biology Zone 2
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Biology | Zone 2 |
| Minor | Microbiology | Zone 3 |
Top journal: noReview journal: not marked
CAS Journal Ranking, previous upgraded edition (December 2023)Not covered
Not covered by this edition.
Database indexing
ESCIScopusDOAJLetPub
International journal early-warning lists: not listed in any editionLetPub
Indexing the journal's website claims
Web of SciencePubMedCASPublisher website
Other: Biological Abstracts (Clarivate Analytics), BIOSIS Previews (Clarivate Analytics), Food Science & Technology Abstracts™ (IFIS)
As the journal's website lists them, not checked against each database; for Web of Science editions the records above apply.
Editions, and major and minor categories, are shown separately and never merged into one zone; check which edition your institution uses before you submit or report.
Metrics
Impact metrics and publication volume
Impact
- Impact factor (publisher)
- 6.7Publisher website ·
- Impact factor (publisher) 2025
- 6.7Publisher website ·
- CiteScore 2026-06
- 7.2LetPub ·
- CiteScore (publisher)
- 7.2Publisher website ·
- CiteScore (publisher) 2025
- 7.2Publisher website ·
- SJR 2026-06
- 1.59LetPub ·
- SNIP 2026-06
- 1.2LetPub ·
- h-index
- 26OpenAlex ·
- i10-index
- 86OpenAlex ·
- 2-year mean citedness
- 4.81OpenAlex ·
- Self-citation rate
- 1.5%LetPub ·
- Share of gold OA articles
- 100%LetPub ·
Volume
- Articles per year
- 45LetPub ·
- Articles per year (publisher)
- 2Publisher website ·
- Articles per year (publisher) 2025
- 59Publisher website ·
- Downloads per year (publisher) 2025
- 151,600Publisher website ·
Articles by year OpenAlex count · 293 in total · the current year is incomplete
| Year | Articles | Open access | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 56 | 56 | 17 |
| 2025 | 76 | 76 | 197 |
| 2024 | 58 | 58 | 699 |
| 2023 | 53 | 53 | 636 |
| 2022 | 50 | 50 | 988 |
Sources count differently and were observed at different times, so each source's own value is kept; "publisher" marks figures from the journal's website.
Review & acceptance
Review time and acceptance
Review time from article dates manuscript dates registered with Crossref · to
155 daysMedian, submission to acceptance · P25–P75 115 days – 194 days
- Acceptance to online
- median 119 days (85 articles)
- Submission to online
- median 276 days
- Sample
- 83 articles with submission and acceptance dates (131 in the window); the latest was accepted on
Only articles that were accepted and published are counted, not the time spent on rejected manuscripts, so this usually runs longer than a publisher's "time to first decision".
Other sources
- Average review time (community reports)
- about 7 weeksLetPub ·
- Acceptance rate (publisher)
- 24%Publisher website ·
- Acceptance rate (publisher) 2025
- 24%Publisher website ·
- Submission to first decision
- 10 daysPublisher website ·
- Submission to first decision 2025
- 10 daysPublisher website ·
- Submission to acceptance 2025
- 158 daysPublisher website ·
- Acceptance to publication 2025
- 96 daysPublisher website ·
- Submission to publication (journal-reported)
- about 7 weeksDOAJ ·
- Peer review
- Single anonymous peer reviewDOAJ
Community reports come from authors' own submissions (confidence 0.5) and are not a promise from the journal; for publisher figures, the journal's own definitions apply.
Fees & open access
APC and open-access policy
Fully open accessDOAJ
Every article is open access; authors usually pay an article processing charge (APC).
| Source | APC | Fee waiver | License | Observed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DOAJ | USD 2,500 / GBP 2,080 / EUR 2,400 | Yes | CC BY | |
| OpenAlex | USD 0 | — | — | |
| LetPub | USD 5,000 / GBP 2,678 / EUR 4,335 | Yes | — |
Other charges and waivers (author guidelines)
- Colour charges
- No colour charges
- Page charges
- No page charges
- Submission fee
- No submission fee
The journal's website is authoritative for fees; sources were observed at different times and each keeps its own value, without averaging.
Submission
Article types and submission policies (journal website)
What to prepare3 items from the author guidelines
- Reference style
- Author–date
- First submission
- Free format: the journal's layout is not required
- Not considered
- Editorial
Article types accepted7, with length limits
- correspondencemLife welcomes submissions in the following article types: Original Research, Review, Method, Correspondence, Editorial, Perspective, News and Views, Tools and …main text ≤ 150 words · abstract ≤ 150 words
- editorialmLife welcomes submissions in the following article types: Original Research, Review, Method, Correspondence, Editorial, Perspective, News and Views, Tools and …Length not stated
- hypothesismLife welcomes submissions in the following article types: Original Research, Review, Method, Correspondence, Editorial, Perspective, News and Views, Tools and …Length not stated
- original researchmLife welcomes submissions in the following article types: Original Research, Review, Method, Correspondence, Editorial, Perspective, News and Views, Tools and …Length not stated
- perspectivemLife welcomes submissions in the following article types: Original Research, Review, Method, Correspondence, Editorial, Perspective, News and Views, Tools and …main text ≤ 3,000 words
- reviewmLife welcomes submissions in the following article types: Original Research, Review, Method, Correspondence, Editorial, Perspective, News and Views, Tools and …Length not stated
- review articlee and/or onetable should be provided. A review article should preferably be 5,000-10,000 words in length. The total number of references should not exceedmain text ≤ 10,000 words
Policy excerpts from the journal's websiteAuthorship, License & copyright, Open access, Peer review, Self-archiving
- Authorship Author Contributions
For all Original Research, Method, Resources, Correspondence and Application Note, the journal mandates the CRediT (Contribution Roles Taxonomy)—more information is available on our Author Services site.
Source ↗Publisher website ·- License & copyright Copyright & Licensing
mLife is an Open Access journal: accepted papers are published under a CC-BY Creative Commons license. Note that certain funders mandate a particular type of CC license be used.
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Open access Understanding open access
mLife is open access. All content is freely available to read, download and share immediately upon publication.
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Peer review 2. Submission and Peer Review Process
Once the submission materials have been prepared in accordance with the Author Guidelines, manuscripts should be submitted online at https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/mlife. For help with submissions, please contact: mlife@im.ac.cn. This journal does not charge submission fees.
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Self-archiving
Deposits all articles in PMC (PubMed Central) Model summary
mLife deposits all articles in PMC (PubMed Central)
Source ↗Publisher website ·
Excerpts are quoted from the journal's website; "model summary" lines are written by Workers AI and checked against the text. The journal's website is authoritative.
Profile
Publication details and official links
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Country or region
- Australia
- Language
- English
- ISSN
- 2770-100X
- Print ISSN
- 2097-1699
- Latest issue on the website
- Volume 5, Issue 4 (August 2026)
- Official links
- Journal homepage ↗LetPub
- Submission system ↗Publisher website
- Author guidelines ↗LetPub
- Aims & Scope ↗LetPub
- Special issues ↗Publisher website
- APC information ↗DOAJ
- Fee waivers ↗DOAJ
- Open access statement ↗DOAJ
- License & copyright ↗DOAJ
- Peer review process ↗DOAJ
- Editorial board ↗LetPub
- Plagiarism policy ↗DOAJ
FAQ
Frequently asked questions about mLife
What CAS zone is mLife in?
In the 2025 upgraded edition of the CAS Journal Ranking, mLife is in Zone 2 of Biology, and in Zone 2 of the minor category Microbiology. In the 2026 Xinrui edition it is in Zone 2 of Biology. Zones from different editions, and from major and minor categories, are not interchangeable.
What is the impact factor of mLife?
The journal's website gives an impact factor of 6.7 (2025); this is the journal's own figure, as LetPub lists none for it; CiteScore 7.2, h-index 26.
How long does peer review take at mLife?
Based on the dates recorded on 83 articles published between October 2024 and October 2026 (the last 24 months), the median time from submission to acceptance is 155 days (interquartile range 115–194 days); authors report an average review time of about 7 weeks; the journal's website gives an acceptance rate of 24% (2025). Article statistics cover accepted papers only, publisher figures follow the journal's own definitions, and community reports come from authors' own submissions; none is a promise from the journal.
What are the manuscript requirements of mLife?
According to the journal's author guidelines: Reference style: Author–date; First submission: Free format: the journal's layout is not required. A model extracted these from the author guidelines and each was checked against the text; check the latest version on the journal's website before submitting.
Where are the editorial board members of mLife based?
Of the 84 board members whose country the journal's board page names, 57 (about 68%) are in mainland China; the countries named most often are Mainland China (57), United States (16) and France (2). Counted from the institutions listed on the board page; for reference only.
Which databases index mLife?
According to LetPub and DOAJ records, mLife is indexed in ESCI, Scopus and DOAJ. The journal's website also lists Web of Science, PubMed and CAS; that list has not been checked against each database.
Is mLife open access, and what is the APC?
mLife is a fully open-access journal. APC about USD 2,500.
Sources and updates
The facts on this page come from LetPub, Publisher website, OpenAlex, DOAJ; every figure is tagged with its source and the date it was observed, and conflicting values are kept per source. LetPub source page: view ↗ (archived 2026-08-26). Last updated: .