Frontiers in Immunology Formatting Requirements: Complete Author Guide

Frontiers asks for a structured abstract, which is different from many high-impact journals that use unstructured single-paragraph abstracts.

Structured abstract (for example, IMRAD):

• Introduction (or Background)

• Methods

• Results

• Discussion (or Conclusion)

Abstract specifications:

Because Frontiers publishes no abstract word limit, keep the abstract to one focused paragraph. Use the Methods part of the abstract to include key design details (sample size, main assays, statistical approach). Use the Results part to include actual numbers, not just qualitative statements.

Common mistake: Citing references, figures or tables in the abstract, or leaving it as an unstructured block. Frontiers asks you to minimize abbreviations and not to cite references, figures or tables in the abstract.

Frontiers does not publish a figure or table limit for Original Research or Review articles, which is a real advantage for data-heavy immunology papers that typically involve flow cytometry panels, microscopy images, and multi-condition experiments.

Figure specifications:

Table requirements:

• Tables should be created in Word or LaTeX, not as images

• For article types with a limit, figures and tables are counted together (for example, no more than 2 figures/tables for a Mini Review)

• Frontiers publishes no separate table limit for Original Research or Reviews, but keep it reasonable

• Large tables covering several pages cannot be included in the final PDF, so Frontiers publishes them as supplementary material

Frontiers-specific figure rules:

• Figures must be cited in the text in numerical order (Figure 1 before Figure 2)

• Multi-panel figures are allowed; label the panels (A), (B), (C), (D)

• Each figure needs a caption preceded by its label (for example, Figure 1.), placed at the end of the manuscript

• Write figure legends so a reader can understand the figure without reading the main text, and state the number of independent samples and the deviation parameters in the Methods or the figure legends, as Frontiers asks

Image manipulation policy: Frontiers runs automated image integrity checks on all submitted figures. Adjustments to brightness and contrast are allowed if applied uniformly. Selective manipulation (cropping specific bands, adjusting individual lanes) will be flagged and may lead to rejection.

Frontiers lists Frontiers in Immunology among the journals that use the Vancouver (numbered) reference style, with the Frontiers-specific formatting below.

In-text citations:

• Numbered consecutively in order of appearance in the text, using Arabic numerals in parentheses, for example (1)

• Do not write "Ref." before the number: write (1), not Ref. (1)

• Comparisons keep the number format, for example [cf. (1)] or [see (46)]

• References are numbered and listed in the order they appear in the text

Reference list format (worked example from the Frontiers examples for numbered journals):

Tahimic CGT, Wang Y, Bikle DD. Anabolic effects of IGF-1 signaling on the skeleton. Front Endocrinol (2013) 4:6. doi: 10.3389/fendo.2013.00006

Key formatting details:

• Reference list is numbered in order of citation, not alphabetical

• Author names: last name and initials without periods (for example, "Smith AB")

• List the names of the first six authors followed by et al.

• Year in parentheses after the abbreviated journal name

• Journal names abbreviated

• The DOI should be provided when available

• Include volume and page range or article number

Frontiers self-citation: When citing Frontiers in Immunology, follow the Frontiers example pattern, which abbreviates the journal as in "Front Endocrinol (2013) 4:6", so Frontiers in Immunology becomes "Front Immunol".

Frontiers publishes no reference count limit for any article type. It says the length of the reference list should be appropriate to the article type, covering the relevant literature through sufficient referencing.

Common formatting error: Leaving the reference manager on an author-date output style. If you're switching from an author-date journal, set the output style to the Frontiers Vancouver (numbered) style before you submit.

Frontiers calls supplementary content "Supplementary Material" and publishes it alongside the article.

Supplementary Material types:

• Supplementary Figures (Supplementary Figure S1, etc.)

• Supplementary Tables (Supplementary Table S1, etc.)

• Supplementary Data Sheets (for large datasets)

• Supplementary Videos

• Supplementary Presentations (PowerPoint files)

Formatting rules:

• Supplementary material is not typeset, so present all information clearly, without tracked changes, highlighted text or line numbers

• Include the appropriate caption in each file

• Do not add the title, author list, affiliations or correspondence to supplementary files

• Frontiers deposits all supplementary files in figshare for permanent storage, and each receives a DOI

Data deposition: Frontiers requires that mandatory data types be deposited in public, community-supported repositories before publication. Provide accession numbers or links in the manuscript. For gene expression data, Frontiers lists ArrayExpress and Gene Expression Omnibus (GEO). For proteomics, it lists PRIDE. For structural data, it lists wwPDB (Protein DataBank).

Title page: Frontiers asks for these items in the manuscript and in the submission system:

• Full title

• Author names and affiliations (keyed to the authors with superscript numbers)

• Corresponding author email, in a separate correspondence section

• Keywords (5-8 required)

Keywords: Frontiers requires a minimum of five and a maximum of eight keywords for all article types. It advises mixing generic and more specific terms. Choose specific terms rather than broad categories. "CD8+ T cell exhaustion" is better than "immunology."

Cover letter: Frontiers does not accept a traditional cover letter. At submission you instead write a 200-word statement of the manuscript's scope and its relevance to the journal and specialty section (the author guidelines call it the scope statement, and the submission checklist describes a 200-word contribution to the field for a non-expert reader). Frontiers uses an impact-neutral review model (it does not reject on perceived potential impact), so arguing for novelty isn't necessary.

Keywords are mandatory. Unlike many journals where keywords are optional or handled by indexers, Frontiers requires 5-8 author-supplied keywords at submission. They appear on the published article.

Single anonymized, interactive peer review. Frontiers uses a single anonymized model: reviewers know who the authors are, but authors do not see reviewer identities during review. The names of the reviewers who endorse publication appear on the published article, and names of reviewers who recommend rejection or withdraw are not published. Authors and reviewers discuss the manuscript in an interactive forum, which makes the process more collaborative than adversarial.

Author information for every author. During submission, the submitting author provides the names, emails and affiliations of all authors and an author contribution statement, and gives information and consent on behalf of all authors. Corresponding and submitting authors must register with Frontiers before submitting.

Conflict of interest statement. Mandatory. All authors must disclose actual and potential conflicts of interest at submission, and Frontiers generates the conflict of interest statement from the submission form.

Ethics statements. Required for all studies involving human or animal subjects. Frontiers asks for the ethics committee information in the submission system and generates the ethics statement from it, and the author guidelines also say an ethics approval statement should be included in the Materials and methods section, so keep the two consistent.

Data Availability Statement. Mandatory. Frontiers generates the statement from your answers in the submission form, so you do not need to include a data statement in your source file.

Author contributions. Required. The submitting author chooses each co-author's roles from the 14 CRediT roles, and Frontiers generates the contributions statement.

Structured manuscript sections. Frontiers recommends the following sections for Original Research: Introduction (succinct, no subheadings), Materials and methods, Results, Discussion.

Abbreviations section. Frontiers encourages (but doesn't always require) an abbreviations list at the end of the manuscript for papers that use many field-specific acronyms.

Frontiers in Immunology is fully open access, and Frontiers publishes its articles under the Creative Commons CC-BY license (the current version is CC-BY 4.0). Accepted articles carry an article processing charge unless they are C-type articles such as corrections and editorials, and Frontiers does not charge rejected articles.

Frontiers lists the APC for Frontiers in Immunology at CHF 3,150 for A-type articles such as Original Research and CHF 2,500 for B-type articles such as Mini Reviews and Brief Research Reports. Frontiers charges APCs in Swiss francs, and VAT or local taxes are added where applicable. Institutional partnerships may provide full or partial support, and authors in countries classified by the World Bank as low or lower-middle income may be eligible for discounts.

For manuscripts targeting Frontiers in Immunology, four patterns generate the most consistent desk-rejection outcomes.

Article type does not match the study design. Frontiers in Immunology distinguishes between Original Research (primary data, new experimental findings), Review (comprehensive literature synthesis), Mini Review (focused shorter synthesis), and Systematic Review with specific PRISMA requirements. Papers submitted under the wrong article type, particularly Original Research papers with insufficient primary data or Reviews that read as Mini Reviews in scope, are flagged at editorial assessment and asked to reclassify or expand.

Specialty section mismatch causing editorial routing failure. Frontiers journals are organized into specialty sections, each with its own academic editors. Choosing the wrong specialty section leads to delayed triage, rejection for poor fit, or reassignment with significant delay. A paper on innate immunity mechanisms submitted to a clinical immunology section, or a T-cell biology paper routed to a mucosal immunology section, will typically be transferred or desk-rejected for section fit.

Ethics and consent statements absent or incomplete. Frontiers requires ethics committee approval and informed consent for studies involving human subjects, and ethics review for studies involving animals, and it generates the ethics statement from the committee information you enter at submission (for human studies, the full name and affiliation of the ethics committee). A vague line such as "all procedures were approved by the institutional review board" does not give the committee name and affiliation that the generated ethics statement needs.

Data availability statement missing or insufficient. Frontiers requires that the minimal data set underlying the findings be available to qualified researchers, and that mandatory data types be deposited in public, community-supported repositories (for example, Gene Expression Omnibus for gene expression data) before publication. A blanket "data available on request" statement is not enough unless ethical, legal or privacy restrictions apply and are explained in the data availability statement.

Papers missing a repository link cause delays at the acceptance stage, and in our review work the data-availability statement and the methods are checked together, because a repository accession that does not match the figures or the analysis described in the methods is treated as an incomplete deposit rather than a present one.

A Frontiers in Immunology submission readiness check evaluates manuscript scope, article type fit, and data availability compliance against these desk-rejection patterns.