Genomic and Multi-Omics Insights into Carcinogenesis Induced by Environmental and Chemical Exposures

Environmental and chemical exposures have emerged as critical contributors to the global cancer burden. Sources such as dietary contaminants, food additives, industrial pollutants, heavy metals, and microbial toxins are implicated in increasing cancer incidence worldwide. These agents can promote malignancy through mechanisms like genomic instability, epigenetic remodelling, metabolic shifts, suppressed immunity, and disrupted cellular signalling. Recent industrial and societal changes have heightened these risks, particularly in populations with rapid urbanization and evolving dietary habits. While newer technologies have begun to shed light on these mechanisms, knowledge gaps persist in understanding the precise pathways by which different exposures promote carcinogenesis and in translating this knowledge to improved health outcomes.

In recent years, advances in genomics and multi-omics—including transcriptomics, epigenomics, metabolomics, proteomics, and single-cell profiling—are providing transformative insight into the molecular consequences of cancer-causing exposures. Integrating these high-throughput omics approaches with toxicogenomics, exposomics, and computational modelling has propelled our capacity to map pathways, recognize exposure-related patterns, identify risk biomarkers, and move toward targeted prevention or intervention. Yet, major questions remain, such as how distinct exposures intersect at the molecular level, how complex mixtures act in vivo, and how omics data can be harnessed for risk assessment, early detection, or therapeutic targeting.

This Research Topic aims to advance the mechanistic understanding of how environmental, dietary, and chemical exposures drive carcinogenesis, highlighting multi-omic integration and translational perspectives. We seek to bridge gaps between experimental and computational findings, foster biomarker discovery, and facilitate the move from bench to bedside for prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of exposure-related cancers. To gather further insights into the diverse consequences and interventions related to exposure-driven carcinogenesis, we welcome articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:

• Genomic, epigenomic, and chromosomal alterations induced by environmental, dietary, or chemical carcinogens
• Multi-omics integration and network modelling to characterize exposure-driven tumorigenesis using bulk, single-cell, and spatial data
• Toxicogenomics and exposome-to-genome interactions shaping cancer susceptibility and progression
• Molecular pathways linking food additives, preservatives, packaging chemicals, and processing by-products to cancer initiation and progression
• Transcriptomic, proteomic, and metabolomic signatures associated with industrial, occupational, or agricultural exposures
• Biomarkers for exposure assessment, early detection, risk stratification, and mechanistic classification of cancers
• Immune modulation, inflammation, and tumor microenvironment changes driven by contaminants and complex exposure mixtures
• Computational methods for causal inference, dose-response modelling, mixture effects, and harmonization across cohorts
• Data resources, standards, and reproducible pipelines for exposure-omics and multi-omics integration

We invite Original Research, Review, Mini Review, Systematic Review, Methods, Data Report, and Perspective articles, particularly studies that combine computational and experimental approaches, make use of public resources, or contribute reusable datasets, code, or protocols.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review
• Systematic Review

Keywords: Environmental carcinogens, chemical exposures, toxicogenomics, multi-omics, gene–environment interactions, exposure-driven carcinogenesis, food safety, epigenetics, biomarkers, immune dysregulation.

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.