Immune signatures of the exposome: Mechanisms, biomarkers, and clinical implications

The exposome—the totality of environmental exposures experienced throughout life—provides a framework for understanding how non-genetic factors influence health and disease. Exposures such as air pollution, diet, infections, psychosocial stress, occupational hazards, climate-related factors, and emerging contaminants interact dynamically with biological systems. The immune system is a key mediator of these effects, translating environmental signals into changes in inflammation, immune regulation, epigenetic programming, metabolism, microbiome composition, and immune aging. Recent advances in exposomics, immunomics, multi-omics, single-cell and spatial technologies, and systems biology are providing new opportunities to characterize exposome–immune crosstalk. However, the mechanisms linking cumulative, time-varying exposures to immune dysfunction and disease susceptibility remain incompletely understood. Robust biomarkers of exposure-associated immune dysfunction, disease risk, and treatment response are also still needed.This Research Topic examines how environmental exposures shape immune function across the life course and contribute to inflammation, impaired host defense, immune-mediated disease, and therapeutic responses. We welcome multidisciplinary studies that link robust exposure assessment with immune phenotypes and clinically relevant outcomes.We particularly encourage integrated approaches combining exposomics with immune-cell phenotyping, inflammatory, epigenetic, transcriptomic, metabolomic, microbiome, and functional immune data. Studies using longitudinal designs, causal inference, artificial intelligence, or systems biology to identify reproducible immune signatures, biomarkers, and targets for prevention or intervention are also welcome.By integrating basic, translational, clinical, computational, and population-based research, this Research Topic aims to support precision prevention and improved management across autoimmune, allergic, cardiometabolic, neurodegenerative, infectious, and malignant diseases. Contributions addressing unequal exposure burdens, susceptible populations, and environmental justice are particularly encouraged.Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:• Environmental exposures and immune regulation or dysregulation• Exposome-associated epigenetic, metabolic, and transcriptional reprogramming• Microbiome–immune–environment interactions• Early-life exposures, developmental programming, and lifelong disease risk• Immunosenescence, cumulative exposure burden, and healthy aging• Immune mechanisms in autoimmune, allergic, cardiometabolic, neurodegenerative, infectious, and malignant diseases• Exposomics, immunomics, single-cell, spatial, and multi-omics technologies• Artificial intelligence and systems biology for exposome research• Biomarkers of exposure, immune dysfunction, disease risk, and treatment response• Precision prevention, environmental justice, and public health applicationsWe welcome Original Research, Reviews, Systematic Reviews, Meta-Analyses, Mini Reviews, Perspectives, Methods, and Brief Research Reports. Interdisciplinary studies bridging environmental health sciences and immunology are particularly encouraged. Topic editors: Nabiha Yusuf, Thomas Haarmann-Stemmann Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/86204/immune-signatures-of-the-exposome-mechanisms-biomarkers-and-clinical-implications