Immune Response Regulation in Animals

Dear Colleagues,

(1) outline the overall a. focus, b. scope and c. purpose of the special issue

Immune response regulation is  increasingly important, not only for vaccinating animals but also for infectious diseases which do not currently have a vaccine. Newly emerging pathogens and immunosuppression complications continue to threaten the health of human beings and animals around the world. Therefore, there is an urgent need to explore and develop safer and more effective immunomodulators, enhancing animals’ immunity and resistance to diseases.

Besides adjuvants,  immunomodulator innovation is also popular for some infectious diseases that can not be prevented via vaccine. Generally, immunomodulator could enhance the magnitude, breadth, and durability of animals’ immune response to different antigens or pathogens. Recent basic advances indicate that tissue damage, different forms of cell death, and metabolic and nutrient sensors could be employed to modulate the innate immune system to activate adaptive immunity. Moreover, novel conceptual discoveries in systems biology highlight the molecular networks driving immune response to vaccines, providing mechanistic insights and guidance to speed up the immunomodulator discovery and development process. This will satisfy the urgent need to control new emerging infectious diseases, such as COVID-19 and tuberculosis.

(2) suggest how the issue will usefully supplement (relate to) existing literature

The goal of this Research Topic on immune-response regulation is to provide a forum to promote the academic exchange of research on the regulation of activation of innate immunity, adaptive immune response process, immune memory, and immunoprotection of animals and humans to vaccination or infection by different molecules. It focuses on revealing how to explore the novel immunomodulators, discussing their potential effects on vaccinations and infections, and highlighting how to develop safer and more competent immunomodulators to control infectious diseases in a better, more cost-effective way.  Based on the latest immunology advances and system vaccinology, we welcome manuscripts related to the following subtopics:

1. Stimulation of immune cells by new molecules from the Danger model and their derivatives, including agonists of PRRs, damage-associated molecular patterns (DAMPs), and cell death via necroptosis or pyroptosis, as well as other stress signals such as amino acid starvation (via ancient stress and nutrient-sensing pathways).
2. The possible synergic effects among these stimuli on Toll-like receptors (TLRs), innate PRRs (such as retinoic acid-inducible gene I (RIG-I), and other RNA sensors), DNA sensors (such as stimulator of interferon genes (STING) protein), C-type lectins, nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain (NOD)-like receptors (NLRs) and cytosolic receptors such as NLRP3.
3. Approaches of targeting DCs/APCs to promote uptake of antigens, activation of adaptive competent immune cells via different routes or molecules, such as FcR and mannose receptors, etc.
4. Use of the molecular networks and insights from systems vaccinology acquire more accurate and comprehensive regulation of innate and adaptive immune responses to result in stronger immunity and longer protection duration, such as cytokines, designing novel metabolites, small molecules immune potentiators (SMIPs) and synthetic ligands allowing targeting subsets of adaptive competent immune cells and precision modulation and orchestrating continuous education to B and T cells, which lead to better proliferation, differentiation, and maturation of immune memory and effectors to induce sustained protective immunity.

In summation, we hope that more immunomodulators will be discovered and invented to regulate the immunity of animals, facilitating the prevention and control of various diseases in the future and helping people to eliminate pathogenic challenges.

Prof. Dr. Rong Gao
Prof. Dr. Hua-Ji Qiu
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Biology is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• immunoregulation of animals
• vaccination
• immunomodulators
• immune memory
• cytokine
• biotechnology
• immune response
• molecular networks