American Journal of Physiology-Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology

About American Journal of Physiology-Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology

About the American Journal of Physiology-Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology

The American Journal of Physiology-Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology, widely cited as AJP-Lung and abbreviated Am J Physiol Lung Cell Mol Physiol, is a peer-reviewed biomedical journal published by the American Physiological Society (APS) in the United States. It is the lung-focused section of the long-running American Journal of Physiology family, and it exists for one clearly defined purpose: to publish original research on the molecular, cellular and integrative physiology of the respiratory system, in health and in disease. Where a general respiratory-medicine journal might centre on clinical trials, diagnosis and patient management, AJP-Lung centres on mechanism — how lung cells work, how they signal, how they interact with their matrix and with each other, how the pulmonary circulation responds, and how those cellular processes explain normal breathing and diseases of the airways and lungs.

That positioning matters for authors deciding where to submit. A manuscript that reports a new observation about airway epithelial ion transport, alveolar macrophage function, pulmonary endothelial signalling, surfactant biology or the control of breathing is squarely inside this journal's remit. A purely clinical outcomes study with no cellular or molecular mechanism is much less likely to fit, however strong it may be, because the journal's readership — cell biologists, molecular biologists, physiologists, pulmonologists and respiratory researchers, as summarised in publisher-facing journal listings — comes to AJP-Lung precisely for mechanistic lung science. Understanding that distinction at the outset saves authors a desk rejection and helps readers interpret what the journal's citation record actually represents.

This profile is anchored to the journal's verified identifiers. The print ISSN is 1040-0605 and the online ISSN is 1522-1504. Those two numbers, together with the publisher name American Physiological Society, are the safest way to confirm that any listing, catalogue record or submission portal is describing this journal and not one of its sister sections. The American Journal of Physiology family contains several sections with very similar names — Cell Physiology, Endocrinology and Metabolism, Heart and Circulatory Physiology, Renal Physiology, Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology, Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology, and Advances in Physiology Education among them — and confusing one section with another is a common bibliographic error. The ISSN pair above belongs to the Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology section specifically.

Quick Facts

A Note on the Publisher Record

Some directory records for this journal have listed the publisher incorrectly — for example as the American Physical Society, an entirely different organisation concerned with physics, or as a garbled numeric value. Both forms are wrong for this title. The verified publisher, confirmed by the journal's own home at journals.physiology.org, and by Scopus-derived listings, is the American Physiological Society. The similarity between the two society names — Physiological and Physical — is the likely source of the confusion, and it is worth checking whenever a catalogue entry is used for a tenure file, a library order or a submission decision. The APS is the society of physiologists; the journal is a physiology journal; and its editorial home is the APS journals platform, not any physics publisher.

History and Place in the American Journal of Physiology Family

The American Journal of Physiology is one of the oldest continuously published physiology journals in the United States, founded in the late nineteenth century as the flagship journal of the American Physiological Society. Over the twentieth century, physiology itself subdivided: what one general journal could once cover became several distinct research communities, each with its own methods, vocabulary and conferences. The APS responded by organising its flagship into named sections, each with its own editorial team and scope, while retaining the shared American Journal of Physiology brand and a common publishing platform.

AJP-Lung is the section that emerged from that process for respiratory cell and molecular science. Secondary listings based on Scopus data give its coverage as beginning in 1989 and continuing to the present, which aligns with the period in which lung research was being transformed by cell culture, molecular cloning, patch-clamp electrophysiology and, later, genomics. The journal therefore grew up alongside modern lung cell biology rather than predating it: its archive is a record of how the field moved from whole-organ physiology toward the cell and the molecule, and then back outward toward integrative and translational questions armed with molecular tools.

That history explains two features of the journal today. First, its scope statement deliberately spans levels of organisation — molecule, cell, tissue, organ and integrative function — rather than restricting itself to one technique. Second, it explicitly welcomes translational physiology: work that carries a clinical observation into the laboratory as a testable hypothesis, and work that carries a laboratory mechanism toward human pathophysiology and better prevention or treatment. The section is not a clinical journal, but it is not sealed off from clinical relevance either; the bridge between basic lung science and patient care is part of its stated mission.

Scope: What AJP-Lung Publishes

The journal's own scope, as summarised in publisher listings, covers the molecular, cellular and integrative aspects of normal and abnormal function of cells and components of the respiratory system. The anatomical and cellular territory named in that scope is unusually specific, and authors should read it literally: the airways; the pulmonary circulation; lung endothelial and epithelial cells; the pleura; neuroendocrine and immunologic cells in the lung; neural cells involved in the control of breathing; and cells of the diaphragm and the thoracic muscles.

The processes covered are equally specific. They include gas exchange; metabolic control at the cellular level; intracellular signalling; gene expression and genomics; macromolecules and their turnover; cell–cell and cell–matrix interactions; cell motility; secretory mechanisms; membrane function; surfactant; matrix components; mucus and lining materials; lung defences and macrophage function; transport of salt, water and protein; development and differentiation of the respiratory system; and the lung's response to its environment. A paper does not need to touch all of these — most touch one or two deeply — but a paper that touches none of them is unlikely to be in scope, whatever its quality.

Methodologically, the journal welcomes innovative approaches in cell and organ physiology, molecular and cellular biology, molecular genetics and genomics, including animal models of integrative function, as well as biochemistry, biophysics and morphology. In practice that means the archive contains electrophysiology of airway epithelia next to transcriptomic studies of injured alveoli, isolated pulmonary artery work next to whole-animal studies of breathing control, and cell-culture mechanistic experiments next to morphology of the developing lung. The common thread is not a technique; it is a question about how the respiratory system works at the cellular and molecular level.

Current editorial interests are visible in the journal's calls for papers. One recent APS call, for example, invites work on artificial intelligence and machine learning approaches in respiratory research — including novel methods for analysing mitochondrial morphology, cell counting, branching networks, cell motility, angiogenesis and respiratory function; computational models of lung mechanics and airflow; computer vision for movement analysis; drug-discovery applications; and systems-biology approaches that integrate several data types — with a submission deadline of 15 January 2027 stated in the call. Calls of this kind are a useful signal: they show where the editors believe the field is moving, and they often provide a faster, themed route for well-fitting manuscripts, although they never replace the journal's normal peer-review standards.

Topics Readers Will Find in the Archive

Research-topic analyses of the journal's archive, such as those published by Research.com, consistently show internal medicine, lung biology, endocrinology, immunology and cell biology among its most frequent themes, with pulmonary hypertension, hypoxia, receptor signalling, nitric oxide and pulmonary artery research prominent inside the internal-medicine cluster, and fibrosis, bronchoalveolar lavage, epithelial biology and endothelial biology recurring across the archive. That mix is a fair map of the community the journal serves: basic lung scientists whose work frequently touches vascular biology, inflammation and injury, and whose findings are read by clinicians working on acute lung injury, pulmonary hypertension, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and fibrosis.

Among the journal's most-cited papers, as listed by Research.com, are a widely cited review on reactive oxygen species in cell signalling, a paper on the chemistry of peroxynitrite — the product of nitric oxide reacting with superoxide — and a methods-and-models paper on animal models of acute lung injury. Those three examples are instructive. They show that AJP-Lung's influence does not rest only on narrow primary reports: synthesis papers that clarify a signalling field, chemistry papers that give biologists a firmer grip on a reactive molecule, and model papers that help a whole community design better experiments can each become reference points for thousands of later studies. Authors preparing a review or a methods paper for this journal should study those examples carefully, because they demonstrate the level of generality and rigour the journal's most durable contributions achieve.

More recent highly noticed work has included studies of healing after COVID-19 and the risk of pulmonary fibrosis, of how SARS-CoV-2 may interfere with signalling pathways that regulate lung ion and fluid transport, and of deregulated microRNA expression in lung tissue from patients who died of COVID-19. Those papers illustrate the translational bridge in action: a new clinical catastrophe produced mechanistic questions about fluid transport, endothelial dysfunction and fibrotic repair, and a lung cell-and-molecular journal was a natural home for answering them.

Metrics and Standing — Reported, Attributed, and Dated

Journal metrics change every year and differ by provider, so the figures below are reported with their sources rather than presented as permanent facts. Readers who need a figure for a formal evaluation should always re-check it in the provider's own database for the relevant year.

SciJournal, computing from Journal Citation Reports and SCImago data, reported for 2025 an impact factor of 3.710 for AJP-Lung, up from 3.280 in 2024, a SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) of 1.407, up from 1.240 in 2024, and an h-index of 190. The same source placed that impact factor higher than roughly 83 percent of all journals it tracks with a 2025 impact factor. A separate listing on journalsearches.com reported a Scopus CiteScore of 6.4, an h-index of 190, and quartile rankings of Q1 in Physiology, Q1 in Physiology (medical), Q1 in Pulmonary and Respiratory Medicine, and Q2 in Cell Biology, with overall standing described as Q1. Research.com reported a SCImago h-index of 186 and an SJR of 1.24 for its data year — close to, but not identical with, the SciJournal figures, which is normal when providers snapshot different years. The consistent picture across providers is of a firmly first-quartile specialist journal with a very large cumulative citation footprint.

OpenAlex, the open bibliographic database, tells the same story at archive scale: it records several thousand works for this source and a cumulative cited-by count in the hundreds of thousands. Numbers of that size reflect longevity as much as current performance — a journal publishing since 1989 accumulates citations a new journal cannot match — and they should be read that way. For a submission decision, the more useful questions are narrower: does the journal reach the exact community that should cite this particular paper, is its recent quartile standing strong in the paper's own category, and do its recent articles on similar topics get read and used? On each of those questions, AJP-Lung performs as a leading society journal in lung cell and molecular physiology.

No acceptance rate, median review time or article processing charge is quoted in this profile, because none was published in the official sources checked for it. Where a figure of that kind is not publicly disclosed by the publisher, inventing a plausible-looking number would mislead authors; the APS journals site and the journal's own instructions for authors are the only authoritative places to confirm current charges and timelines before submitting.

Indexing and Discoverability

Secondary listings report AJP-Lung as indexed in Scopus, PubMed, and Embase, and the journal participates in the Web of Science ecosystem described by those listings. Its articles carry DOIs, are deposited in the APS platform at journals.physiology.org, and surface through PubMed — the discovery route most biomedical researchers actually use. For a lung cell biologist, that combination is what matters in practice: a paper in AJP-Lung will be found by a PubMed search, counted by Scopus, and read by the society community that follows the journal's table of contents and calls for papers.

Authors should nonetheless verify indexing in the specific database their institution or funder cares about, in the year of publication, rather than relying on any directory profile — including this one. Indexing lists change, coverage can be selective, and a journal-level statement is never a guarantee about an individual article type.

Publishing in AJP-Lung: Guidance for Authors

Submissions are handled through the American Physiological Society's journals system, reached from journals.physiology.org. Before submitting, authors should do four things. First, test the manuscript honestly against the scope described above: name the lung cell, tissue or process at the centre of the paper, and confirm it is one the journal claims. Second, frame the introduction around a physiological mechanism, not only around a disease label; editors and reviewers for this section expect the cellular or molecular question to be explicit. Third, follow the journal's current instructions for authors exactly — article-type definitions, formatting, reference style, figure requirements, data and materials statements, and any requirements on animal or human research reporting — because non-compliant manuscripts can be returned without review. Fourth, check the journal's open calls for papers; if the work fits a live call, saying so in the cover letter places it in front of the editors already thinking about that theme.

Review and research articles both appear in the journal, and its citation history shows that a genuinely field-clarifying review can become one of its most influential items. Prospective review authors should nevertheless check the journal's current policy on unsolicited reviews rather than assuming an invitation is unnecessary, as that policy is not published in the sources used for this profile and may change. Similarly, any fee connected with publication, colour figures, open-access options or page charges should be confirmed in the current APS author instructions; those amounts are not publicly disclosed in the secondary listings consulted here, and quoting a figure from memory or from another APS section would risk being wrong, because sections and article types can differ.

Ethical expectations follow the norms of APS publishing: originality, accurate reporting of methods, appropriate authorship, disclosure of competing interests, and compliance with institutional approvals for animal and human work. Because so much of the journal's content depends on animal models of lung injury, infection and development, reviewers scrutinise model choice, controls and humane endpoints; the journal's own most-cited animal-models paper exists precisely because the community treats those choices as scientific decisions, not administrative details.

How AJP-Lung Differs from Neighbouring Journals

Authors often weigh AJP-Lung against three neighbours. Against the American Journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology — a different journal, associated with the American Thoracic Society and published by Oxford Academic — AJP-Lung is the physiology-society option, with a scope that leans more explicitly toward integrative physiology, pulmonary circulation and control of breathing alongside cell biology. Against its own sister section AJP-Cell Physiology, the difference is the organ: Cell Physiology takes cellular mechanism from any system, while AJP-Lung requires the respiratory connection. Against clinical respiratory journals, the difference is mechanism versus management: AJP-Lung will ask what a finding reveals about lung cells and molecules, where a clinical journal will ask what it changes for patients. None of these is a hierarchy of quality; they are different contracts with different readers, and choosing the right contract is the single biggest factor in whether a good paper is reviewed by people equipped to appreciate it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is AJP-Lung the same journal as the American Journal of Physiology? It is a named section of the American Journal of Physiology family, published by the American Physiological Society, with its own scope, editorial identity and ISSN pair (print 1040-0605; online 1522-1504). Cite it by its full section title and abbreviation, Am J Physiol Lung Cell Mol Physiol.

Who publishes AJP-Lung? The American Physiological Society in the United States. Listings that name the American Physical Society, or that give a number instead of a publisher, are in error.

Is the journal still active? Yes. Scopus-derived listings show coverage from 1989 to the present, APS continues to issue calls for papers for the journal, and new content appears on the APS journals platform.

What is its impact factor? SciJournal reported 3.710 for 2025, up from 3.280 in 2024, computed from Journal Citation Reports data. Impact factors are year-specific; check the current Journal Citation Reports for the figure that applies to your evaluation.

What quartile is it? Secondary listings report Q1 in Physiology, in Physiology (medical) and in Pulmonary and Respiratory Medicine, and Q2 in Cell Biology, with a Scopus CiteScore of 6.4 reported by journalsearches.com. Quartiles vary by category and year.

Does it publish reviews and methods papers? Yes — some of its most-cited items are a signalling review and an animal-models paper. Check current author instructions for article-type rules and any invitation policy for reviews, which could not be verified from the sources consulted here.

Does it charge to publish? Any current charges, and any open-access charges, should be confirmed in the APS instructions for authors for this journal; they are not publicly disclosed in the secondary sources used for this profile, so no figure is quoted here.

Conclusion

The American Journal of Physiology-Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology is a mature, first-quartile society journal that owns a precise niche: the cellular and molecular physiology of the respiratory system, from airway epithelium and pulmonary endothelium to surfactant, macrophage defence, breathing control and fibrotic repair. Its verified identifiers — print ISSN 1040-0605 and online ISSN 1522-1504, publisher American Physiological Society — distinguish it from its sister sections and from similarly named journals, and its record since 1989, reflected in an h-index reported at 190 and in hundreds of thousands of cumulative citations in OpenAlex, shows a community that has used it continuously through the molecular transformation of lung science. For a mechanistic lung paper, it remains one of the most natural homes in the field; for anything else, its very clarity of scope is the warning to look elsewhere.