Rheumatic diseases include a wide spectrum of diseases involving musculoskeletal and immune system. Spinal disorders, whether mechanical or inflammatory, are main manifestations in daily clinical practice of rheumatologists, neurologists, orthopaedics, and general physicians. Spondyloarthritis, typically ankylosing spondylitis is one of major rheumatic spinal disorder. The pathogenesis of rheumatic diseases involved many interaction domains including genes, immunity, mechanical stress, infection, and other environmental factors.

We invite authors to submit original research, and review articles that seek to define the interaction of immune system with genes and environmental factors, such as microbials and physical factors in spine and rheumatic diseases. We are interested in articles that explore all basic and clinical aspects of spine and rheumatic diseases.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Clinical and basic studies on spinal disorder or rheumatic diseases
• Genes and anatomy in spine and rheumatic diseases
• Immune response in spine or rheumatic diseases, for example, receptors, cytokines, chemokines, and intracellular signaling pathways
• Pathogenesis of specific spine or rheumatic diseases, for example, spondyloarthritis
• Treatment of spine or rheumatic diseases, including traditional and experimental therapies, for example, biological agents, small molecules target therapy, cell therapy, gene therapy, and surgery