Early-life innate immune activation in the respiratory tract: shaping responses to infection, allergy, and vaccination

The respiratory tract is a primary site of first contact with pathogens, allergens, and vaccine antigens, and innate immune activation after birth influences later protection, tolerance, and disease. In early life, across neonatal, infant, and pediatric populations, epithelial cells, macrophages, dendritic cells, monocytes, neutrophils, and innate lymphoid cells interact with a developing airway barrier. How this barrier integrates signals from maternal factors, diet, the microbiota, prior infections, and neuro-immune cues to balance protection against immunopathology is still poorly understood.This question has gained urgency with the recent introduction of long-acting monoclonal antibodies and maternal vaccination against respiratory syncytial virus, which change how infants are protected and how their innate immune system is first exposed to respiratory pathogens.This Research Topic brings together basic, translational, and clinical work, including human pediatric cohorts and preclinical or large-animal models, on how innate immune responses in the postnatal respiratory tract are established, what shapes them, and how they can be harnessed for protection. We welcome the submission of Original Research, Review, Mini Review, Perspective, and Hypothesis and Theory articles that:• Examine how the developing airway epithelium, including its mucus layer and innate sensing pathways, responds to common early-life respiratory viruses, bacterial infection, and co-infection.• Define the roles of macrophages, monocytes, neutrophils, and innate lymphoid cells in protection, immunopathology, and barrier integrity in early life.• Characterize the development, maturation, and function of respiratory dendritic cells, including how environmental, dietary, and microbial signals imprint them.• Investigate how maternal, microbiota, dietary, and environmental factors shape early-life respiratory innate responses, including through the gut-lung axis.• Link early-life innate activation to the development of allergy and asthma.• Explore how mucosal and intranasal vaccines engage innate immunity in early life, including dendritic cell targeting and the effects of neonatal immune tolerance and maternal antibody blunting.Together, these contributions aim to inform strategies for preventing respiratory disease in infants and children and for supporting healthy respiratory immune development.Submissions that do not center on innate immune mechanisms in the early-life respiratory tract are out of scope, including studies of adaptive responses alone, adult-only cohorts, and other tissues without a clear respiratory link. Topic editors: Aarón Silva-Sánchez, Allison Marie Wahl Malloy Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/87255/early-life-innate-immune-activation-in-the-respiratory-tract-shaping-responses-to-infection-allergy-and-vaccination