Single-cell insights in immunology: mechanisms, modeling, and translational advances

Immunology is a dynamic field defined by the intricate communication and decision-making of diverse cellular populations. Recent breakthroughs have shown that immune and stromal cells differ profoundly in their lineage, state, spatial arrangement, and developmental origin—features that orchestrate both protective immunity and pathological processes. Traditional bulk approaches have offered invaluable insights into tissue-level behavior, yet they often mask the diversity and complexity inherent at the single-cell level. Advances in single-cell profiling, encompassing multi-omics, high-throughput phenotyping, and spatial analysis, have revolutionized our understanding of immune cell composition, states, and interactions. These innovations have redefined cellular taxonomies, uncovered rare and short-lived states, mapped trajectories spanning differentiation to exhaustion, and revealed how microenvironmental cues shape immune function. However, significant challenges persist, including technical artifacts, barriers to longitudinal tracking of cells within tissues, and the ongoing need to translate high-dimensional cellular observations into actionable biological principles.This Research Topic aims to foster rigorous and innovative studies that harness single-cell technologies to unravel immune system mechanisms and enable translational breakthroughs. The primary goals are to highlight new experimental and analytical strategies, deepen understanding of immune cell dynamics in health and disease, and bridge the gap between cellular resolution and organismal responses. Key objectives include promoting the design and application of next-generation single-cell assays, encouraging analytical innovations for interpreting complex data, and facilitating the translation of single-cell insights into immunological frameworks relevant to infection, inflammation, autoimmunity, allergy, vaccination, immunodeficiency, and other immune-mediated conditions.The Research Topic focuses on innovations and applications of single-cell technologies to resolve mechanistic questions and translational challenges within the immune system, without limitations on disease context or species. It encourages multidisciplinary approaches that integrate technology development, data analysis, and experimental immunology for both basic research and clinical application. To gather further insights into decoding immune complexity at the single-cell level, we welcome articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:o Novel experimental platforms for dissecting immune activation, signaling thresholds, and cell fate decisions via controlled stimulation or dynamic microenvironmentso Development of droplet-based or microfluidic platforms for high-throughput secretomics and multi-omics at single-cell resolutiono Use of organ-on-chip and tissue-on-chip models paired with single-cell profiling to probe immune functiono Advanced live-cell imaging capturing immune cell migration within tissues, organoids, or ex vivo systemso Quantitative and computational analyses of immune signaling dynamics (e.g., NF-κB, STAT, IFN pathways) using single-cell measurementso Time-resolved single-cell mapping of immune differentiation across hematopoiesis, lineage maturation, and immune activationo Integrative spatial and multi-omic approaches to characterize tissue-resident immune populations and immune–stromal interactions in health and disease Topic editors: Minjun Son, José Antonio Cañas, Myong-Hee Sung Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/80979/single-cell-insights-in-immunology-mechanisms-modeling-and-translational-advances