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Topics Covered

Infection and Immunity (IAI) is devoted to the advancement and dissemination of fundamental knowledge concerning (i) the molecular basis of infections caused by pathogenic bacteria, fungi, and parasites; (ii) mechanisms of pathogenicity, including identification and characterization of virulence factors such as toxins, adhesins, invasins, and type III secretion effector molecules and other microbial products that are or may be related to pathogenesis; (iii) how these virulence factors interact with the host cell to alter cellular processes; (iv) factors involved in host resistance and susceptibility to infection; (v) immunity to pathogenic microorganisms, including the functions of phagocytes, lymphocytes, immunoglobulins, and other factors; (vi) experimental models of infection and the pathological consequences of infection; and (vii) development and evaluation of vaccines against pathogens.

IAI will not consider papers that are either preliminary, purely descriptive, or correlative or are case studies. Papers describing methodology are not encouraged; only under unusual circumstances will they be considered for publication.

IAI will consider manuscripts dealing with certain aspects of genomics. They should address comparative genomics of pathogenic and nonpathogenic organisms used to develop new insights into the mechanisms of infection, vaccine development, evolution, and host response, and they should include the observations that lead to such insights. References used for the analysis may include URLs (http and ftp) from major sites (e.g., GenBank and Swiss-Prot). IAI will not consider reports that emphasize nucleotide sequence data alone (without experimental documentation of the functional and evolutionary significance of the sequence).

Studies of clinical immunology are more appropriate for Clinical and Vaccine Immunology (formerly Clinical and Diagnostic Laboratory Immunology).

Papers describing microbial products or activities that are related to diagnosis or laboratory diagnostics should be submitted to either the Journal of Clinical Microbiology or Clinical and Vaccine Immunology.

Clinical descriptions and papers concerning the microbiology of hospital environments or the epidemiology of infectious diseases should be submitted to the Journal of Clinical Microbiology.

Descriptions of newly recognized organisms should be submitted to the appropriate taxonomic journal.

Papers concerned with environmental ecology should be submitted to Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

Papers concerned with antimicrobial agents should be submitted to Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy.

Papers concerned with viral infections should be submitted to the Journal of Virology.

Studies that focus on establishing a proof of principle for nonviral microbial antigens as vaccine immunogens or that describe the construction and initial evaluation of novel bacterial vectors are suitable for IAI; investigations that concern all other aspects of vaccine evaluation and design should be submitted to Clinical and Vaccine Immunology.

Papers concerned primarily with the cell biology, biochemistry, or genetics of eukaryotic pathogens should be submitted to Eukaryotic Cell.

Papers that utilize conserved microbial constituents (e.g., lipopolysaccharide, peptidoglycan) to stimulate innate immune responses, unless accompanied by experiments demonstrating relevance to the interaction between intact microbes and hosts or host cells, should be submitted to Clinical and Vaccine Immunology.

Questions about these guidelines may be directed to the editor in chief of the journal being considered.

If transfer to another ASM journal is recommended by an editor, the corresponding author will be contacted.

Note that a manuscript rejected by one ASM journal on scientific grounds or on the basis of its general suitability for publication is considered rejected by all other ASM journals.

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