The Tumor Immune Microenvironment in Pediatric Cancers

The past two decades have greatly advanced our understanding of the crosstalk between tumor cells and their microenvironment, and the contribution of local and systemic immune responses to this dialogue. This progress has led to a shift in our view of cancer from a tumor-centric perspective to one that acknowledges the local and systemic interactions that shape the development and progression of cancer. Importantly, fundamental discoveries regarding cancer-immune system interactions have led to the development of a variety of novel and effective immunotherapies that have dramatically changed the outcome of certain adult cancers. However, few of these breakthroughs, with the notable exception of chimeric antigen receptor therapies, have translated to pediatric cancers in general and pediatric solid tumors in particular. This is due to the paucity of mutations and thus neoantigens in pediatric cancers which are instead often driven by translocations. Moreover, a thorough characterization of the tumor microenvironment and the barrier it poses to anti-tumor immune responses in pediatric cancers is lacking. Additional research and insight into the developing immune system and pediatric tumor immunology are required to overcome to bring additional immunotherapies to pediatric oncology.

Thus, a critical challenge in pediatric oncology is leveraging the progress in basic biology and technologies used to interrogate the tumor immune microenvironment to advance therapies to treat childhood and young adult cancers. The goal of this Research Topic is to provide an opportunity for scholarly discussion of our current understanding of the tumor immune microenvironment of pediatric cancers, and a forum for the publication of basic, pre-clinical and clinical studies tackling this field.

We encourage the submission of basic, translational, and clinical studies as well as comprehensive reviews and commentaries centered around this topic.

Please note: manuscripts consisting solely of bioinformatics or computational analysis of public genomic or transcriptomic databases which are not accompanied by validation (independent cohort or biological validation in vitro or in vivo) are out of scope for this section and will not be accepted as part of this Research Topic.