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Immunobiology of the mucosal system

Topical Collection for Immunity & Ageing: Immunobiology of the mucosal system, Guest Edited by Anshu Agrawal, PhD.

Dr. Agrawal is a Professor in the Division of Basic and Clinical Immunology, Department of Medicine and is a member of Institute of Immunology at the UC Irvine School of Medicine. She did her Ph.D. from India. In recognition for her efforts there, she won a scholarship to work in Paris, France. Subsequently, she focused her research in innate immunity and dendritic cells and did another postdoc at Emory Vaccine center to hone her skills. At UCI, she developed an independent research program focused on innate immunity specifically as it relates to aging and associated diseases. This includes immune changes that lead to increase in respiratory.

Immunobiology of mucosal system and aging is thematic series of the journal Immunity & Ageing. Mucosal immunology is the study of immune responses of the oral, lung, intestine and urogenital areas of the body. The mucosal environment as well the microbiome interacts with the immune system to have a profound effect. Advancing age is characterized by susceptibility to infections and other diseases of the mucosa. An example is the recent COVID-19 pandemic. We seek articles on all aspects of mucosal immunology and aging including increase incidence in infectious diseases, changes in the microbiome, mucosal vaccines and delivery systems, age-related changes in regeneration and repair mechanisms as well as clinical articles. Articles may be commentaries or original research.

This collection of articles has not been sponsored and articles have undergone the journal’s standard peer-review process.

Please find out more about our journal and its policies here. Submission guidelines can be found here.

This collection is no longer accepting submissions.


  1. Advancing age is a major risk factor for respiratory viral infections. The infections are often prolonged and difficult to resolve resulting hospitalizations and mortality. The recent COVID-19 pandemic has hig...

    Authors: Sudhanshu Agrawal, Michelle Thu Tran, Tara Sinta Kartika Jennings, Marlaine Maged Hosny Soliman, Sally Heo, Bobby Sasson, Farah Rahmatpanah and Anshu Agrawal
    Citation: Immunity & Ageing 2024 21:21
  2. Immune function in the genital mucosa balances reproduction with protection against pathogens. As women age, genital infections, and gynecological cancer risk increase, however, the mechanisms that regulate ce...

    Authors: Siddharth Parthasarathy, Zheng Shen, Francisco J. Carrillo-Salinas, Vidya Iyer, Alison Vogell, Diego Illanes, Charles R. Wira and Marta Rodriguez-Garcia
    Citation: Immunity & Ageing 2023 20:34
  3. Age-associated impairments of immune response and inflammaging likely contribute to poor vaccine efficacy. An appropriate balance between activation of immune memory and inflammatory response may be more effec...

    Authors: Kathleen A. Ross, April M. Tingle, Sujata Senapati, Kaitlyn G. Holden, Michael J. Wannemuehler, Surya K. Mallapragada, Balaji Narasimhan and Marian L. Kohut
    Citation: Immunity & Ageing 2023 20:28
  4. Morphological and functional alterations in aging reproductive organs result in decreased male fertility. The epididymis functions as the transition region for post-testicular sperm maturation. And we have pre...

    Authors: Jintao Zhuang, Xiangping Li, Jiahui Yao, Xiangzhou Sun, Jiumin Liu, Hua Nie, Yang Hu, Xiangan Tu, Huang Liu, Weibing Qin and Yun Xie
    Citation: Immunity & Ageing 2023 20:21
  5. Current influenza vaccines deliver satisfactory results in young people but are less effective in the elderly. Development of vaccines for an ever-increasing aging population has been an arduous challenge due ...

    Authors: Bo Ryoung Park, Ramireddy Bommireddy, David Hyunjung Chung, Ki-Hye Kim, Jeeva Subbiah, Yu-Jin Jung, Noopur Bhatnagar, Christopher D. Pack, Sampath Ramachandiran, Shaker J.C. Reddy, Periasamy Selvaraj and Sang-Moo Kang
    Citation: Immunity & Ageing 2023 20:20
  6. The loss in age-related immunological markers, known as immunosenescence, is caused by a combination of factors, one of which is inflammaging. Inflammaging is associated with the continuous basal generation of...

    Authors: Ananya Ananya, Kaitlyn G. Holden, Zhiling Gu, Dan Nettleton, Surya K. Mallapragada, Michael J. Wannemuehler, Marian L. Kohut and Balaji Narasimhan
    Citation: Immunity & Ageing 2023 20:10
  7. Obesity is characterized by an elevated amount of fat and energy storage in the adipose tissue (AT) and is believed to be the root cause of many metabolic diseases (MDs). Obesity is associated with low-grade c...

    Authors: Ahmed Rakib, Sonia Kiran, Mousumi Mandal and Udai P. Singh
    Citation: Immunity & Ageing 2022 19:64
  8. Regulation of endometrial (EM) CD8+ T cells, which provide protection through cell-mediated cytotoxicity, is essential for successful reproduction, and protection against sexually transmitted infections and po...

    Authors: Zheng Shen, Mickey V. Patel, Marta Rodriguez-Garcia and Charles R. Wira
    Citation: Immunity & Ageing 2022 19:55