--- name: immunity description: Use when targeting Immunity or deciding whether an immunology manuscript fits this venue. Encodes the journal's fit, framing, method-and-evidence bar, house style, official-submission re-check, and desk-reject heuristics. --- # Immunity (immunity) ## Journal positioning Immunity is Cell Press's flagship immunology journal, publishing mechanistic studies that define how immune cells develop, are activated, regulated, and mediate host defense or inflammatory disease — grounded in in vivo biology. The readership is the global immunology community: basic immunologists, immunopathologists, and translational researchers studying autoimmunity, infection, cancer immunology, and immune-mediated disease. Papers must reveal a mechanistic principle that reshapes how the field understands an immune process; descriptive immunophenotyping or cataloguing without mechanism does not reach the bar. This skill is a **fit / venue-selection / re-framing** tool. It does not replace the journal's current official submission guidelines. Before submitting, re-check the live author instructions on the Cell Press site or submission system. ## When to trigger - The author names Immunity as the target venue. - A mechanistic immunology study is choosing between Immunity, Nature Immunology, Science Immunology, or Journal of Experimental Medicine. - A manuscript in cancer immunology or infection immunology needs to assess whether the immunological mechanism — rather than the cancer or pathogen biology — is the primary advance. - The author needs Immunity's specific desk-reject triggers and a ranked alternative list. ## Scope & topic fit - T cell biology: differentiation, exhaustion, memory, effector programs, regulatory circuits — mechanistically driven by in vivo models or human translational data. - Innate immunity: pattern recognition, inflammasome biology, innate cell lineage specification and activation, trained innate immunity mechanisms. - B cell biology, antibody responses, germinal center reactions, and humoral memory — at the mechanistic level. - Cytokine and co-stimulatory signaling: receptor proximal signaling cascades, transcriptional regulators, epigenetic control of immune-cell identity. - Cancer immunology when the immune-cell mechanism is the central advance, not the tumor biology. - Autoimmunity and inflammatory disease mechanisms: tolerance breakdown, tissue-resident immune cell function, regulatory T cell failure modes. ## Method & evidence bar - In vivo validation is essentially mandatory: genetic mouse models (conditional knockouts, fate mapping, bone-marrow chimeras), adoptive transfer, or infection models are the standard. - Mechanistic depth expected: identify the pathway, the transcription factor, the epigenetic modification, or the receptor-ligand pair, and validate with epistasis or rescue. - Single-cell genomics (scRNA-seq, ATAC-seq) and multi-omic data are expected to be hypothesis-generating inputs, not standalone deliverables; functional validation in vivo is required. - Human translational data — patient cohorts, ex vivo stimulation, or clinical specimens — substantially strengthens papers and is expected for disease-relevant studies. - STAR Methods required; data deposited to GEO, Sequence Read Archive, or equivalent; flow-cytometry data deposited per community standards (MIFlowCyt). - Statistical rigor: replicates (biological not technical) specified, appropriate multiple-comparison correction, and experimental group sizes justified. ## Structure & house style - STAR Methods mandatory; key resources table covering antibodies, mouse strains, cell lines, oligonucleotides, and software. - Declarative, mechanism-first title; structured abstract with "in brief" / highlights summarizing the immunological advance. - Figures build from genetic and cellular phenotype through mechanistic dissection to in vivo disease relevance; the narrative arc should be complete within the main figures. - Graphical abstract required (Cell Press standard); source data for all quantitative plots. - The introduction situates the study within the mechanistic immunology literature — not epidemiology of disease burden — and closes with a clear statement of the advance. - Data/code availability statement; any custom analysis code should be deposited in a public repository. ## Official-submission checklist - Before giving submission-ready advice, read `../../resources/source-basis.md` and `../../resources/official-source-map.md`; start from the official source anchors for this journal family, then cite the current journal-specific page you checked. - Search "Immunity author information" on the Cell Press site and follow the current version. - Re-check article types (Article vs. Short Article), length and figure limits, and supplemental policy. - Confirm STAR Methods and key resources table requirements. - Re-check animal ethics (IACUC/equivalent) and human-subjects approvals, consent, and institutional review documentation. - Verify flow-cytometry data deposition requirements and sequencing data deposition. - Re-check competing-interests, funding, author-contributions, and AI-use disclosure requirements. - Confirm preprint policy and open-access/license options. - If the live official instructions conflict with this skill, the official instructions win. ## Pre-submission self-check - [ ] One sentence stating which mechanistic immunological principle is established by this paper. - [ ] The advance is a mechanistic insight into an immune process, not a phenotype catalogue or disease association. - [ ] In vivo evidence is central; the genetic perturbation is validated with at least one orthogonal approach. - [ ] Human translational data or patient-cohort validation is included or its absence is justified. - [ ] STAR Methods, key resources table, flow-cytometry and sequencing data deposition are prepared. - [ ] The framing positions the advance against the current mechanistic canon in this immune process. ## Common desk-reject triggers - Immunophenotyping study — detailed flow-cytometry characterization of an immune compartment — without a mechanistic molecular explanation. - Single-cell atlas or transcriptomics data without functional validation; the data is interesting but the biology is not resolved. - In vivo work entirely in cell culture with immunological readouts but no model organism validation for the mechanistic claim. - Cancer immunology paper where the tumor biology, not the immune mechanism, is the primary advance — better suited to `cancer-cell`. - Descriptive correlation between an immune parameter and a clinical outcome without mechanistic insight. ## Re-routing decision - Equivalent mechanistic depth with stronger translational/clinical story → `nature-immunology` (often favors highest-profile mechanism + translational impact) or `science-immunology` (AAAS, broad-significance immunology). - Classical mechanistic immunology at slightly lower overall significance → `journal-of-experimental-medicine` (Rockefeller; rigorous in vivo immunology). - Mechanistic immunology in infectious context → `cell-host-and-microbe` if the host-pathogen interaction is the primary frame. - Solid mechanistic work below Immunity significance → `elife`, `plos-biology`, or Journal of Immunology / European Journal of Immunology. ## Output format ```text [Fit] High / Medium / Low (one-line reason) [Target] Immunity [Topic tags] <2–3 closest topics> [Method/evidence] [Top risk] [Official items to re-check]
[Re-route suggestion] ```