Molecular Mechanisms of Skin Autoimmunity and Hypersensitivity

Dear Colleagues,

Our skin is the largest organ of the body and first defensive barrier against the external environment. It is also regarded as an important immune organ, with resident immune cells of the skin responsible for immune surveillance and homeostasis – balancing tolerance with autoimmunity or hypersensitivity. Therefore, the failure or breakdown of such critical processes plays an important role in the pathogenesis of many autoimmune and hypersensitivity disorders. Predominantly, cutaneous diseases such as chronic spontaneous urticaria, pemphigus and psoriasis contributed greatly to our understanding of skin autoimmunity, while many hypersensitivity disorders are shown to result from the breakdown of the immune tolerance of skin.

This Special Issue will focus on the pathomechanisms, epidemiology, diagnostics, clinical consequences and management of various immune dysfunctions affecting the skin. Both autoimmune/hypersensitivity skin conditions, as well as systemic autoimmune conditions with skin manifestations, will be included. We welcome both original research manuscripts as well as insightful review articles. Topics include, but are not limited to:

• Atopic dermatitis
• Chronic spontaneous urticaria
• Dermatomyositis
• Drug-related hypersensitivity
• Pemiphoid
• Pemphigus
• Psoriasis
• Scleroderma
• Systemic lupus erythematosus
• Vasculitis

Prof. Dr. Chak-Sing Lau
Dr. Philip Hei Li
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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

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.