REVIEW article
Front. Immunol.
Sec. Cancer Immunity and Immunotherapy
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2025.1621812
This article is part of the Research TopicMonitoring the Immune/Tumor Microenvironment to Improve Cancer ImmunotherapyView all 12 articles
The Tumor Immune Microenvironment (TIME): Implications for Cancer Immunotherapy, Treatment Strategies, and Monitoring Approaches
Provisionally accepted
- University of California, Davis, Davis, United States
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The tumor immune microenvironment (TIME) plays a pivotal role in cancer progression, detection, and response to cancer treatments. Current knowledge of the diverse and dynamic cellular components of the TIME underscores how the immune landscape evolves in response to immunotherapy. This review highlights the importance of understanding the TIME for advancing cancer immunotherapy by integrating insights from basic biology and clinical practice with recent advances in science and technology, paving the way for more personalized cancer therapies through modern medical innovations. The cellular and molecular compositions of the TIME and the cellular interactions will be explored. Next, we summarize how the TIME is shaped by immune activation and suppression through various mechanisms of action. Immunotherapies designed to enhance host immune function are discussed in detail to visualize and quantify cellular dynamics within the TIME once treated with immunotherapy. In particular, the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) has significantly enhanced early cancer detection and diagnostics by analyzing patient samples with greater precision. The topics are structured to explore core principles, immune activation and suppression, imaging methods, current and emerging therapies, and the broader influence of the TIME on diagnosis, monitoring, and treatment strategies.
Keywords: immunosuppressive, tumor immune microenvironment (TIME), immune surveilance, immune activation, Artificial Inteligence-AI, Immunotherapy
Received: 01 May 2025; Accepted: 27 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Racacho, Shiau, Villa, Mahri, Tang, Lin and Li. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yuanpei Li, University of California, Davis, Davis, United States
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