Cardiac Microenvironment Signaling: Immune–Cardiomyocyte Crosstalk in Injury and Remodeling

The heart is shaped by continuous communication between cardiomyocytes and the surrounding immune, stromal, vascular, and extracellular matrix compartments. Following injury or stress, these interactions determine whether inflammation resolves and tissue function is restored, or whether maladaptive remodeling progresses toward fibrosis and heart failure. Although macrophages are central regulators of cardiac repair, they do not act alone: cardiomyocytes can initiate, amplify, and restrain inflammatory responses through cytokines, chemokines, danger-associated signals, extracellular vesicles, metabolic cues, and direct cell–cell communication.This Research Topic will examine the reciprocal signaling mechanisms that connect cardiomyocytes with the cardiac microenvironment during homeostasis, injury, repair, and disease. Particular emphasis will be placed on macrophage-driven remodeling and on the active role of cardiomyocytes in regulating inflammation. The collection will also consider how fibroblasts, endothelial cells, pericytes, other immune populations, and the extracellular matrix shape these interactions.We welcome mechanistic and translational studies that clarify how local signals influence immune-cell recruitment and activation, cardiomyocyte survival and function, extracellular matrix turnover, angiogenesis, fibrosis, and tissue regeneration. Relevant disease settings may include myocardial infarction, myocarditis, cardiomyopathy, and heart failure, where studies address a clear microenvironmental signaling question.Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:• Macrophage recruitment, activation, heterogeneity, and plasticity during cardiac injury and repair• Macrophage-derived signals that regulate cardiomyocyte function, survival, hypertrophy, or regeneration• Cardiomyocyte-derived cytokines, chemokines, danger signals, metabolites, and extracellular vesicles that shape inflammation• Reciprocal signaling among cardiomyocytes, macrophages, fibroblasts, endothelial cells, and other resident or recruited cell populations• Extracellular matrix, mechanical, hypoxic, and metabolic cues that influence inflammatory and remodeling responses• Mechanisms that promote the resolution of inflammation or drive persistent fibrosis and adverse remodeling• Age-, sex-, developmental-stage-, or disease-dependent differences in cardiac microenvironment signaling• Spatial, single-cell, organoid, engineered-tissue, and in vivo approaches that reveal functional cell–cell communication• Therapeutic strategies that target local signaling networks while preserving protective immune and repair responsesWe invite Original Research, Reviews, Mini Reviews, Perspectives, and Methods articles. By bringing together work on immune regulation, cardiomyocyte biology, stromal and vascular responses, and extracellular matrix remodeling, this Research Topic aims to define shared mechanisms that could support more precise approaches to cardiac repair and regeneration. Topic editors: Harikrishnan Venugopal, Dhanya Krishnan, Vinay Kumar Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/86232/cardiac-microenvironment-signaling-immune-cardiomyocyte-crosstalk-in-injury-and-remodeling