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Before you upload, use PACE to check that the figures meet our requirements.

PLOS offers an option to have your submission automatically posted as a preprint on medRxiv. You will have a chance to opt in on the Additional Information screen.

If you plan to participate, you may upload a preprint PDF now, using the Preprint PDF item type. Alternatively, PLOS Computational Biology can automatically compile a preprint PDF suitable for bioRxiv from the manuscript and figure files included in your submission. 

Select one section that most closely defines the research area discussed in the manuscript.

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Identify 4 or more potential reviewers that are free of competing interests.

Check the boxes to indicate that you have read and agree with the 5 required statements regarding PLOS Editorial and Publishing Policies: 

• Reporting requirements, data and code availability
• Consideration of related manuscripts
• Contributors named in the Acknowledgments
• Authorship

If your article is accepted, choose whether you would like to publish an early version that consists of the author proof. If you choose yes at submission and change your mind, you can opt out before publication.

Describe the sources of funding that supported the work, if any, and indicate whether they played a role at any point in the research or publication process. To draft the statement, consult the disclosure of funding sources policy and follow the in-system instructions.

This information will appear in the published article, if accepted. Ensure it is detailed and accurate.

Declare any author affiliations or relationships that could be viewed as potential competing interests. To draft the statement, consult the competing interests policy and follow the in-system instructions.

This information will appear in the published article, if accepted. Ensure it is detailed and accurate.

If the study made use of human or animal subjects and/or tissue, you must provide an ethics statement. Make sure this information exactly matches the ethics statement included in the manuscript and that it fulfills our reporting requirements for human subjects research and animal research. 

We will evaluate your ethics statement to ensure that it meets our standards. Include as much information as possible.

Confirm that the figures comply with our image preparation guidelines, including those on image manipulation.

Use the following guidelines to construct your Data Availability statement. This information will appear in the article if accepted. 

• Confirm whether all data reported in the manuscript are publicly available. PLOS requires that authors deposit all reported data and related metadata underlying the study findings in an appropriate public repository unless already provided in the submission. See the data reporting guidelines.

In full sentences, describe where your data and/or code may be found. If you are copying our sample text, replace any instances of XXX with the appropriate details.

• If the dataset or code is held or will be held in a public repository, include URLs, accession numbers or DOIs. If this information will only be available after acceptance, please indicate this in your statement. 

For example: All XXX data files are available from the XXX database (accession number(s) XXX, XXX.). All code files are available from XXX repository at DOI: XXX.

• If the data and/or code are all contained within your manuscript and/or Supporting Information files, submit the following as your Data Availability Statement: 

All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting Information files.

• If neither of these applies but you are able to provide details of access elsewhere, with or without limitations, please do so. For example:
  • Data cannot be shared publicly because of [XXX]. Data are available from the XXX Institutional Data Access / Ethics Committee (contact via XXX) for researchers who meet the criteria for access to confidential data.
  • The code/data underlying the results presented in the study are available from (include the name of the third party and contact information or URL).

Specify whether your manuscript is currently posted on a preprint server. If so, provide the DOI or identifier.

Enter each author’s name, email address, institutional affiliation, and contributions. Ensure authors are listed in the same order as in the manuscript.

Do not list group authors here. Provide the names of group authors and consortia in the manuscript and in the group author question on the Additional Information screen.