Dear Colleagues,

A wealth of data over the years has led researchers to suspect that autoimmune diseases could be triggered or caused by infectious agents. This has led authorities in the filed such as Yehuda Shoenfeld and Noel Rose to suggest that ‘autoimmune diseases are infectious until proven otherwise’. Infections, in particular viruses, but also bacteria and other infectious pathogens, can cause autoimmunity through different mechanisms including direct tissue damage and exposure to self-cryptic antigens; ‘bystander activation’, molecular mimicry, and epitope spreading are few of the various mechanisms an infectious agent can adopt or use to induce infection.

Epidemiological evidence in support of a causal link between particular infections and specific autoimmune diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus, autoimmune rheumatic diseases, autoimmune liver disorders, and others has been provided. Immunological studies showing that antibodies or cellular responses against foreign pathogens may elicit autoimmune responses manifested as autoantibody or T-cell responses against disease-specific autoantigens have been provided in human and animal studies. Furthermore, several animal models of autoimmune diseases have replicated data, which document the induction of autoimmune diseases following infection with specific pathogens, especially in susceptible animals. In recent years, a lot of attention has been given to the decisive role played by the microbiome in shaping a state of dysbiosis, which is imperative for the loss of immunological breakdown and the development of autoimmune diseases.

This Special Issue is open to articles that discuss all aspects related to the link between infection and autoimmunity.

Prof. Dr. Dimitrios P. Bogdanos
Guest Editor

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. International Journal of Molecular Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. There is an Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal. For details about the APC please see here. 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.

• autoimmunity
• autoimmune disease
• virus
• infection
• molecular mimicry
• microbiome