Journal profile · Virology
Retrovirology
ISSN 1742-4690 · BioMed Central · ENGLAND · Monthly · Founded 2004
Retrovirology: CAS Zone 4 · Medicine (2025 upgraded edition); impact factor 4.06; fully open access; APC about USD 2,990; median 140 days to acceptance (31 articles, last 24 months); community-reported acceptance: about 50%; 15 articles in 2025; indexed in SCIE and Scopus.
Scope
Aims, scope and focus
Retrovirology is published by BioMed Central and is in Zone 4 of Medicine in the CAS Journal Ranking (2025 upgraded edition). By OpenAlex counts of its recent articles, its largest topics are HIV Research and Treatment, HIV/AIDS drug development and treatment and T-cell and Retrovirus Studies, together about 45.1% of its articles. Its main subfields are Immunology. (generated from OpenAlex topic counts and CAS ranking data)
Retrovirology is an open access, online journal that publishes stringently peer-reviewed, high-impact articles on host-pathogen interactions, fundamental mechanisms of replication, immune defences, animal models, and clinical science relating to retroviruses and retrovirus-related diseases. Retroviruses are pleiotropically found in animals. Well-described examples include avian, murine and primate retroviruses. Two human retroviruses are especially important pathogens. These are the human immunodeficiency virus, HIV, and the human T-cell leukemia virus, HTLV. HIV causes AIDS while HTLV-1 is the etiological agent for adult T-cell leukemia and HTLV-1-associated myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis. Retrovirology aims to cover comprehensively all aspects of human and animal retroviral research.
From the journal's Aims & Scope
Research area (LetPub): Virology
Editor-in-chief Johnson MakPublisher website
Editorial board by country: 1 in mainland China (about 2%); most named United States 28, United Kingdom 6, France 6, Japan 3, Germany 3 (61 members with a country) Editorial board ↗Publisher website ·
Main research topics OpenAlex counts of recent articles; shares are approximate
- HIV Research and TreatmentImmunology and Microbiology26.4%
- HIV/AIDS drug development and treatmentMedicine9.7%
- T-cell and Retrovirus StudiesImmunology and Microbiology9%
- Immune Cell Function and InteractionImmunology and Microbiology5.6%
- HIV/AIDS Research and InterventionsMedicine5.5%
- Animal Disease Management and EpidemiologyAgricultural and Biological Sciences4.8%
- Vector-Borne Animal DiseasesAgricultural and Biological Sciences4.4%
- Immunotherapy and Immune ResponsesImmunology and Microbiology3.3%
Rankings & indexing
CAS ranking and database indexing
CAS Journal Ranking
CAS Journal Ranking, upgraded edition (March 2025)Medicine Zone 4
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Medicine | Zone 4 |
| Minor | Virology | Zone 4 |
Top journal: noReview journal: no
CAS Xinrui Journal Ranking (March 2026)Medicine Zone 3
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Medicine | Zone 3 |
| Minor | Virology | Zone 3 |
Top journal: noReview journal: not marked
CAS Journal Ranking, previous upgraded edition (December 2023)Medicine Zone 3
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Medicine | Zone 3 |
| Minor | Virology | Zone 3 |
Top journal: noReview journal: no
Database indexing
SCIEScopusDOAJLetPub
International journal early-warning lists: not listed in any editionLetPub
Indexing the journal's website claims
MEDLINEEmbaseCASCAB AbstractsPublisher website
Other: Google Scholar, ProQuest, Dimensions, CNKI, Baidu, Naver, OCLC, Portico, CLOCKSS
As the journal's website lists them, not checked against each database; for Web of Science editions the records above apply.
Editions, and major and minor categories, are shown separately and never merged into one zone; check which edition your institution uses before you submit or report.
Metrics
Impact metrics and publication volume
Impact
- Impact factor
- 4.06LetPub ·
- Impact factor (publisher) 2025
- 4.1Publisher website ·
- 5-year impact factor (publisher) 2025
- 3.7Publisher website ·
- CiteScore 2026-06
- 7.9LetPub ·
- SJR 2026-06
- 1.36LetPub ·
- SNIP 2026-06
- 1.21LetPub ·
- h-index
- 79LetPub ·
- h-index
- 120OpenAlex ·
- i10-index
- 1,425OpenAlex ·
- 2-year mean citedness
- 4.87OpenAlex ·
- Self-citation rate
- 2.4%LetPub ·
- Share of gold OA articles
- 100%LetPub ·
Volume
- Articles per year
- 12LetPub ·
- Downloads per year (publisher) 2025
- 1,800,000Publisher website ·
Articles by year OpenAlex count · 4,749 in total · the current year is incomplete
| Year | Articles | Open access | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 15 | 15 | 2 |
| 2025 | 15 | 15 | 29 |
| 2024 | 22 | 22 | 222 |
| 2023 | 17 | 17 | 180 |
| 2022 | 30 | 30 | 455 |
| 2021 | 41 | 41 | 725 |
Sources count differently and were observed at different times, so each source's own value is kept; "publisher" marks figures from the journal's website.
Review & acceptance
Review time and acceptance
Review time from article dates manuscript dates registered with Crossref · to
140 daysMedian, submission to acceptance · P25–P75 92 days – 193 days
- Acceptance to online
- median 20 days (31 articles)
- Submission to online
- median 157 days
- Sample
- 31 articles with submission and acceptance dates (38 in the window); the latest was accepted on
Only articles that were accepted and published are counted, not the time spent on rejected manuscripts, so this usually runs longer than a publisher's "time to first decision".
Other sources
- Average review time (community reports)
- over 0 weeksLetPub ·
- Average acceptance (community reports)
- 50%LetPub ·
- Submission to first decision
- 5 daysPublisher website ·
- Submission to publication (journal-reported)
- about 11 weeksDOAJ ·
- Peer review
- Single anonymous peer reviewDOAJ
Community reports come from authors' own submissions (confidence 0.5) and are not a promise from the journal; for publisher figures, the journal's own definitions apply.
Fees & open access
APC and open-access policy
Fully open accessDOAJ
Every article is open access; authors usually pay an article processing charge (APC).
| Source | APC | Fee waiver | License | Observed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DOAJ | EUR 2,490 / USD 2,990 / GBP 2,090 | Yes | CC BY, CC BY-NC-ND | |
| OpenAlex | USD 2,890 / EUR 2,390 / GBP 1,990 | — | — | |
| LetPub | GBP 1,890 / USD 2,790 / EUR 2,290 | Yes | — | |
| Publisher website | GBP 2,090 / USD 2,990 / EUR 2,490 | — | — |
The journal's website is authoritative for fees; sources were observed at different times and each keeps its own value, without averaging.
Submission
Article types and submission policies (journal website)
Open calls for papers1, by deadline
Publisher websiteWhat to prepare1 items from the author guidelines
- Suggested reviewers
- Optional
Article types accepted5
- brief reportResearch Comment Correspondence Review Brief ReportLength not stated
- commentResearch Comment Correspondence Review Brief ReportLength not stated
- correspondenceResearch Comment Correspondence Review Brief ReportLength not stated
- researchResearch Comment Correspondence Review Brief ReportLength not stated
- reviewResearch Comment Correspondence Review Brief ReportLength not stated
Policy excerpts from the journal's websiteData availability, License & copyright, Open access, Peer review
- Data availability Formatting the 'Availability of data and materials' section of your manuscript
The following format for the 'Availability of data and materials section of your manuscript should be used:
Source ↗Publisher website ·- License & copyright Licensing and copyright
Creative Commons licences Open access articles in Springer Nature journals are published under Creative Commons licences. These provide an industry-standard framework to support easy re-use of open access material. Under Creative Commons licences, authors retain copyright of their articles. Retrovirology articles are published open access under a CC BY-NC-ND (Creative Commons Attribution Non-Comme…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Open access Benefits of open access
Publishing open access (OA) offers a number of benefits, including greater reach and readership for your work: Cited more 1.6x more citations of OA articles than non-OA articles across all subjects Downloaded more 4x more downloads of OA articles than non-OA articles Greater impact 2.5x more Altmetric attention. OA articles attracted 1.9x more news mentions and 1.2x more policy mentions Open acces…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Peer review Peer review policy
Peer review is the process used to evaluate the quality of a manuscript before publication. Independent researchers in the relevant field assess submitted manuscripts to check their validity and robustness. Their feedback guides editors in making publication decisions. Typically, two or more experts evaluate each manuscript based on three main criteria: scientific robustness: is the research metho…
Source ↗Publisher website ·
Excerpts are quoted from the journal's website; "model summary" lines are written by Workers AI and checked against the text. The journal's website is authoritative.
Profile
Publication details and official links
- Publisher
- BioMed Central
- Country or region
- ENGLAND
- Language
- English
- Frequency
- Monthly
- Founded
- 2004
- ISSN
- 1742-4690
- Official links
- Journal homepage ↗DOAJ
- Submission system ↗LetPub
- Author guidelines ↗DOAJ
- Aims & Scope ↗DOAJ
- Special issues ↗Publisher website
- APC information ↗DOAJ
- Fee waivers ↗DOAJ
- Open access statement ↗DOAJ
- License & copyright ↗DOAJ
- Peer review process ↗DOAJ
- Editorial board ↗DOAJ
- Plagiarism policy ↗DOAJ
FAQ
Frequently asked questions about Retrovirology
What CAS zone is Retrovirology in?
In the 2025 upgraded edition of the CAS Journal Ranking, Retrovirology is in Zone 4 of Medicine, and in Zone 4 of the minor category Virology. In the 2026 Xinrui edition it is in Zone 3 of Medicine. Zones from different editions, and from major and minor categories, are not interchangeable.
What is the impact factor of Retrovirology?
The latest impact factor listed by LetPub is 4.06; CiteScore 7.9, h-index 120.
How long does peer review take at Retrovirology?
Based on the dates recorded on 31 articles published between October 2024 and October 2026 (the last 24 months), the median time from submission to acceptance is 140 days (interquartile range 92–193 days); authors report an average review time of over 0 weeks; the community-reported acceptance is “about 50%”. Article statistics cover accepted papers only, publisher figures follow the journal's own definitions, and community reports come from authors' own submissions; none is a promise from the journal.
Where are the editorial board members of Retrovirology based?
Of the 61 board members whose country the journal's board page names, 1 (about 2%) are in mainland China; the countries named most often are United States (28), United Kingdom (6) and France (6). Counted from the institutions listed on the board page; for reference only.
Which databases index Retrovirology?
According to LetPub and DOAJ records, Retrovirology is indexed in SCIE, Scopus and DOAJ. The journal's website also lists MEDLINE, Embase, CAS and CAB Abstracts; that list has not been checked against each database.
Is Retrovirology open access, and what is the APC?
Retrovirology is a fully open-access journal. APC about USD 2,990.
Sources and updates
The facts on this page come from LetPub, OpenAlex, DOAJ, Publisher website; every figure is tagged with its source and the date it was observed, and conflicting values are kept per source. LetPub source page: view ↗ (archived 2026-08-26). Last updated: .