Introduction

Aims and Scopes: The  Iranian Journal of Immunology (IJI) is an internationally-disseminated peer-reviewed quaternary publication that publishes a broad range of experimental and theoretical studies concerned with all aspects of immunology, including: 

  • Innate and adaptive immunity,
  • Lymphocytes: B, T, and NK cells biology and functions,
  • Macrophage and Dendritic Cell Biology,
  • Cytokines and Chemokines,
  • Cancer Immunology,
  • Immunogenetics,
  • Transplantation Immunology,
  • Immunopathology of infectious, allergic, and autoimmune diseases,
  • Immunotherapy,
  • Clinical Immunology

Types of papers accepted: Original research papers which reveal novel findings of interest to a wide range of immunologists will make up the main part of each issue. These papers must outline important and unique observations that may be critically investigated and repeated if necessary. The journal will publish review articles that thoughtfully and professionally address particular subject areas. Priority will be given to topics that are advancing rapidly or that call for a novel conceptual perspective. The journal will also consider short communications, case reports, and letters to the Editor.

Editorial independence: The editors evaluate and accept articles based only on significance, originality, validity, and adherence to the aims and scope of the journal. Our editorial policy is consistent with the principles of editorial independence presented by the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME).

Page charges: IJI has no article submission charges. Starting from January 2023, all accepted papers are subject to a publication processing fee. For inside the country, the publication fee is 25,000,000 Rials for handling and English editing of the papers. The payment should be deposited to the current account no. 16336847 or card no. "5894-6318-0080-1037" in Bank Refah Kargaran branch: Karimkhan Zand, Shiraz, Iran before receiving the proof of the accepted article (The SHEBA code is 610130100000000016336847). International authors will be informed about the APC and the payment method by email. Our qualified peer reviewers will receive at least a 25% discount.

Submission checklist: Before sending your work to the journal for evaluation, you can use this list to perform one last review. Make sure that the following items are completely provided:

  • A “Title Page” including the following sections: Title, Running title, Author names and Affiliations, the e-mail addresses and ORCID IDs of all authors, indicated Corresponding author(s), Declaration of interest, Grant(s), and Funding(s).
  • A “Manuscript Main File” including the following sections: Abstract (A Research article should have a structured abstract containing Background, Objective, Methods, Results, Conclusion, and Keywords up to a maximum of 250 words), Introduction, Material and methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions, Acknowledgements, References, Tables and Figure legends.
  • Figures: They should be submitted separately from the text (in the tiff or jpeg format).
  • Supplementary material
  • Cover letter
  • The Copyright Agreement Form

 

Ethics in publishing

Human and animal studies: Ethics-related issues need to be covered in the “Materials and Methods” section.

  • The author should ensure that the work has been conducted in accordance with the Code of Ethics of the World Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) if the research involves the use of human subjects. Please state that informed consent was obtained from all human adult participants and the parents or legal guardians of minors. Include the name of the appropriate institutional review board as well as the approved ethical code of the project. Human subjects' privacy rights must always be respected.
  • The person, or in the case of children, the child's parent or legal guardian, must give their agreement for publication if your work contains any individual's data in any form (including any individual details, photographs, or videos). Case studies in particular can benefit from this. The manuscript should contain a statement indicating that permission to publish has been obtained from each participant.
  • The National Institute of Health guidelines or the National Research Council's Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals should be followed in all animal research, and the authors should make it explicit in their manuscripts that they did so. The sex of the animals must be noted, as well as any influence (or association) that sex may have had on the study's findings.

Submission declaration and verification: Submission of an article implies that the work described has never been published before (except as an abstract, a published lecture, a preprint version, or an academic thesis), that it has not been accepted for publication elsewhere, that it has been approved for publication by all authors and, implicitly or explicitly, by the responsible authorities where the work was done, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or another language, including electronically without the written consent of the copyright holder. Please keep in mind that posting your preprints online, for example, on a preprint server, does not imply prior publication.

Author contributions: We invite authors to provide an author statement file detailing their unique contributions to the paper using the appropriate CRediT roles: conceptualization, data management, formal analysis, funding acquisition, research, methodology, project management, resources, software, supervision, validation, and visualization; Writing: original draft; writing: editing and review. Please write the authors' names and the CRediT role(s) in authorship declarations.

Authorship criteria: Iran J Immunol follows the Uniform Guidelines for Biomedical Journals Requirements of the ICMJE (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors) for determining authorship (http://www.icmje.org). The right to authorship is determined based on the direct contribution of an individual to the conception, design, data (or sample) collection, performing experiments, analysis or interpretation of data, and writing the article. It is a requirement that all authors have appropriate approval upon submission of the manuscript. Contributors who do not qualify as authors should be mentioned in the acknowledgments section. According to the ICMJE's Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, a person who simultaneously meets the following criteria is commonly referred to as an "Author":

1- Significant contributions to the work's conception or design; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND

2- Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND

3- Final approval of the version to be published; AND

4- Consent to take responsibility for all aspects of the work in order to guarantee that any concerns about the accuracy or integrity of any part of the project are properly investigated and addressed.

Changes to authorship: Before submitting their work, authors are asked to carefully evaluate the order of the authors and to include the final author list at the time of the original submission. Before the manuscript has been accepted and only with the journal editor's permission, author names in the authorship list may be added, deleted, or rearranged. The Editor must get the following information from the corresponding author in order to request such a change: the rationale behind the change in the author list, and (b) documented confirmation (e.g., a letter or email) from all authors confirming their agreement with the addition, deletion, or reorganization. This involves consent from the author who is being added to or removed from the list of authors. The Editor will only take into account changing the order of authors after the paper has been accepted in exceptional cases. The manuscript won't be published while the Editor evaluates the request.

Copyright: At the time of sending the manuscript, the authors are requested to download the “Copyright Agreement Form” available at the IJI website and send its signed proof by ALL authors, along with a covering letter from the corresponding author indicating their agreements upon submission to and the right to reproduce and distribute the article for IJI. Upon receiving the signed proof of the copyright agreement, the editorial board of IJI reserves the right to accept or reject the article at any stage and any time or delete a part of the text, tables, or figures, if necessary.

Role of the funding source: You must state who provided funding for the study's execution and/or the preparation of the article, and you must briefly outline any sponsors' contributions to the study's design, data collection, analysis, and interpretation, report writing, and the decision to submit the article for publication if any. It is advised to note if the funding source(s) had no such role.

Open access policy: This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

Peer review: This journal operates a double-blinded peer review process. All contributions will be initially assessed by the editor for suitability for the journal. Papers deemed suitable are then typically sent to at least one in-office and two out-of-office referees for review to assess the scientific quality of the paper. The corresponding author will then be informed of the referees’ remarks. The Editor is in charge of making the final decision regarding whether or not an article will be accepted.

Plagiarism: All submitted manuscripts will be checked for possible similarity in any part of the work by at least two software. Those with more than 20% similarity to published papers or online materials will, at the editor's discretion, be rejected or returned to authors for rewriting followed by re-review before a final decision is made. To avoid the consequences of plagiarism in the submitted work, please consult with the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) website (publicationethics.org).

Referees: Please submit at least three qualified reviewers' names, e-mail addresses, and affiliations with the manuscript. It should be noted that the editor retains the sole authority to choose whether or not to use the recommended reviewers.

License: The Iranian Journal of Immunology (IJI) employs the CC-by-ND copyright agreement license.

 

Manuscript Preparation

New submissions: Submission to this journal proceeds entirely online and you will be guided stepwise through the creation and uploading of your files. Submit a copy of your manuscript typed in Microsoft Word in .docx format (PDF is not acceptable).

Structure of Articles: IJI requires that depending on the type of articles, the submitted manuscripts should be divided into the following sections:

  • Research Articles: Title page, Abstract, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions, Acknowledgments, Conflict of Interest, References, Tables, and Legends. The length of these articles should not exceed 4500 words, not including the abstract, tables, figure legends, and references. 
  • Review Articles: Title page, Abstract, Introduction, Primary and secondary topic headings (as many as required), Conclusion, Acknowledgements, Conflict of Interest, References, Tables, and Legends. The IJI policy for accepting review articles is based on an invitation to those potential authors with acceptable tracks record of publication (at least 5 published related research articles).
  • Short Papers and Short Communications: Title page, Abstract, Introduction, Materials and Methods, Results and Discussion (combined), Acknowledgements, Conflict of Interest, References, Tables, and Legends. The length of these articles should not exceed 2500 words.
  • Case Reports: Title page, Abstract, Introduction, The case, Discussion, Acknowledgements, Conflict of Interest, References, Tables, and Legends. The length of such articles should not exceed 2000 words.
  • Letters to the Editor: Title page, Letter, Acknowledgements, Conflict of Interest, References. The length of such letters should not exceed 1500 words.

Preparation of Manuscripts: All manuscripts should be typewritten in English with double spacing throughout (including figure legends and references) and with 2.5 cm (1 in.) margins. All pages should be numbered sequentially, including the Title page, Tables, and References. If your article includes any supplementary material, this should be included in your initial submission for peer review purposes. Divide the article into clearly defined sections. Abbreviations should be defined at first mention and used consistently thereafter.

1- Title Page: A title page should have the following sections and it should be uploaded as a separate file.

  • Title: Concise and informative. The use of abbreviations and formulae should be minimized. It should be as short as possible, containing adequate information regarding the content.
  • Running title: Not over 8 words.
  • Author(s) names and affiliations: Please clearly indicate the given name(s) and family name(s) of each author and check that all names are accurately spelled. Present the authors' affiliation addresses (where the actual work was done) below the names. Indicate all affiliations with a lower-case superscript letter immediately after the author's name and in front of the appropriate address. Provide the e-mail addresses and ORCID IDs of ALL authors as well as the fax/telephone numbers of the corresponding author.
  • Corresponding author: Clearly state who will be in charge of correspondence throughout the refereeing, publication, and post-publication processes. This duty includes responding to any subsequent questions regarding the Methodology and Materials. Ensure that the e-mail address is given and that contact details are kept up to date by the corresponding author. The Chinese authors are requested to provide one of the Gmail, Yahoo, or Hotmail in addition to their academic email addresses.
  • Declaration of interest: Authors must acknowledge and declare all sources of funding and potential conflicting interest. Examples of potential competing interests include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other funding. Any interests should be disclosed in summary as a statement on the title page. If there are no interests to declare then please state this: “Declarations of interest: None declared”. 
  • Funding: In the title page, please list any funding sources that the work may have received. The declaration should detail any grants acquired (please give the name of the funding agency and grant number).

2- Main Manuscript: This file must include the following sections:

  • Abstract: A concise and factual abstract is required. The abstract should be at the beginning of the manuscript main file. A Research article should have a structured abstract precisely according to the following organization: Background: describing the motivations of the study; Objective: explaining the aim of the current work; Methods: clarifying how the work was carried out; Results: revealing the main findings and their significance; Conclusion: disclosing the main message of the article; Keywords: three to six words in alphabetic order according to the terms recommended in the last version of the Medical Subject Headings (MeSH). Avoid using general or plural keywords as well as various concepts (avoid using words like "and" or "of"). Use abbreviations wisely; only those that are well-known in the field may be acceptable.  These keywords will be used for indexing purposes. The abstract should not exceed 250 words in length. Do not use reference citations in the Abstract. Also, non-standard or uncommon abbreviations should be avoided, but if essential they must be defined at their first mention in the abstract itself. Short papers and Short communications should have the same structure as the abstract as a research article but with no more than 150 words. The abstracts of case reports should be unstructured and do not exceed 100 words. Letters to the editor do not require abstracts. A review article may have an unstructured abstract with one paragraph, not more than 300 words.
  • Introduction: Avoid a thorough literature review or a summary of the findings; instead, state the work's aims and provide an acceptable background.
  • Material and methods: Give enough information so that a different researcher can repeat the work. Methods that have been previously published should be summarized and referenced. Use quotation marks and include the source if you are directly quoting from a previously published procedure. It is also necessary to indicate any adjustments made to current techniques.
  • Results: Clear and precise results are preferred.
  • Discussion: Instead of repeating the findings of the work, this should discuss their significance.
  • Conclusions: A brief Conclusions section should include the study's principal findings.
  • Acknowledgments: The “Acknowledgments” should be placed in a separate section before the "Conflict of Interest" at the end of the article. All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be covered in the acknowledgment section (e.g., providing technical help, writing assistance, or proofreading the article, the departmental head when providing only general support, etc.). Financial and material support should also be acknowledged by citing Grant No.
  • References: should be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals in parentheses as they appear in the text according to the Vancouver Style. A number must be used if the authors are named in the sentence/text.

- Bibliographies cited in tables and figures should be numbered according to the site where the corresponding table or figure is first referenced.

- When multiple references are cited at a given place in the text, use a hyphen to join the first and last numbers that are inclusive. Use commas (without spaces) to separate non-inclusive numbers in multiple citations e.g. 2,3,4,5,7,10 is abbreviated to (2-5,7,10). Do not use a hyphen if there are no numbers cited between the numbers used (e.g. 1-2).

- Periodicals should be abbreviated according to the Index Medicus (Vancouver Style).

- Include the name of all authors, if there are six or fewer authors. Print the names of the first six authors followed by “et al.” when there are more than six authors.

- References to books should include Author(s), Title, Edition, Place of publication, Publisher, and Year of publication. Chapters in a book should appear as Author(s), Title of chapter, Editor(s), Name of the book, Place of publication, Publisher, Year of publication, and Pages.

- Inclusive page numbers should be given for all references. Articles in the press might appear in the reference list, however, unpublished material and personal communications should not be cited in the reference list, though they could be mentioned in parentheses in the text.

- References to electronic journals should include Author(s), Title of article, Abbreviated title of the electronic journal, [serial online], Publication year, month(s), [cited year month (abbreviated) day], Volume number, Issue number, Page numbers or the number of screens, available from, URL address underlined:

  1. Doroudchi M, Dehaghani AS, Ghaderi A. Preferential placental transfer of Helicobacter pylori specific IgG. J Matern Fetal Neonatal Med. 2004; 16:297-301.
  2. Lodish H, Baltimore D, Berk A, Zipursky SL, Matsudaira P, Darnell J. Molecular cell biology. 3rd ed. New York: Scientific American; 1995.
  3. Porter RJ, Meldrum BS. Antiepileptic drugs. In: Katzung BG, (Editor). Basic and clinical pharmacology. 6th ed. Norwalk (CN): Appleton and Lange; 1995. p. 361-80.
  4. Morse SS. Factors in the emergence of infectious disease. Emerg Infect Dis [serial online] 1995 Jan-Mar [cited 1999 Dec 25]; 1(1):[24 screens]. Available from: URL: http://www/cdc/gov/ncidoc/EID/eid.htm

3- Tables: The tables should be self-explanatory, clearly designed, and not duplicate text. Please submit tables as editable text and not as images. Tables should be numbered with Arabic numerals and appear after References or they could be uploaded as separate files (in .xlsx or .docx format). Tables should be numbered consecutively according to where they appear in the text, and any table notes should be positioned below the table content. Table footnotes should be presented below the table body and identified by superscript lowercase letters (or an asterisk for significance values and other statistical data). Vertical rules and shading should not be used in table cells.

4- Figure legends: A caption should be included with each illustration. A caption should include the illustration's description and a concise title that is not on the figure itself. Reduce the amount of text in the drawings themselves but be sure to define all symbols and abbreviations. The references must be followed by the figure legends.

5- Figures: Should be submitted separately from the text in TIFF or JPEG format and should have a resolution of at least 300 dpi. Manuscripts that do not conform to these specifications may not be accepted at the editor's discretion. Graphs should be submitted as separate files.

  • Make sure that all of the lines and letters inside the figures are readable at the final size and avoid using thin lines and/or lettering.
  • Vector graphics containing fonts must have the fonts embedded in the files.
  • Use scale bars within the figures themselves to indicate any magnification that was applied to the pictures.
  • All figures are to be numbered using Arabic numerals.
  • Figure parts should be denoted by lowercase letters (a, b, c, etc.).

6- Supplementary material: To improve your work, you can post supplementary materials such as more technique descriptions, supplemental figures, or tables. Submitted supplementary items should be according to the IJI format as previously mentioned. Please submit your material together with the article and supply a brief, informative caption for each supplementary file. Tables and figures must be labeled with an S, as in “Table S1” and “Figure S1.” Please be sure to provide an updated version if you decide to make modifications to the supplementary material at any point in the process. Supporting data will be published exactly as it is submitted; it will not be edited or reviewed for accuracy or functionality. The authors are indeed responsible for the scientific validity and file functionality. Supporting data should always be submitted in its final form since it won't be copyedited or altered.

7- Cover letter: A covering letter to the Editor-in-Chief, containing the title and the authors' names which states that the manuscript has not been published or submitted for publication elsewhere. In the cover letter, clearly indicate the exact contribution of everyone who is listed as an author.

Important Note: All the guides above should be followed in case of any revisions, but authors must include two copies of their manuscript. One copy should be clean, and the other should show all the edits made. These should be uploaded using the correct file designation in the system. Additionally, they must provide a “Response to Reviewers” file that provides a point-by-point response to the reviewer’s/editor’s comments.

 

After Acceptance

Upon acceptance, your article must be exported to the production department of the journal to undergo English editing and typesetting. To start this process, you will receive an email asking you to pay for the processing costs. Once you have completed this, your article will be processed and you will receive the proofs.

 Proofreading: The proof's objective is to check the text, tables, and figures for completeness and accuracy as well as any typesetting or conversion mistakes. Significant material modifications, such as new findings, corrected values, title, and author changes are not permitted without the Editor's approval.

English editing services: Presenting your work in well-written English gives it a better chance for editors and reviewers to understand it and evaluate it fairly. Therefore, all accepted manuscripts will undergo a process of English editing by a native English editor.

 Disposal of Material: Once published, all copies of the manuscript, the correspondence, and the artwork will be held for 6 months before disposal.

Authors should be ready to provide supporting information or data upon request in order to confirm the accuracy of the results reported. This could appear in the form of unprocessed data, documents, etc. Sensitive data that is confidential or proprietary is not included.