The terms “inflammatome” (holistic inflammation networks) and “inflammatomics” (a novel omics field) were proposed to decode dysbiosis-driven chronic inflammation and its disease links. Inflammatomics explores microbiota–immune crosstalk, particularly innate immune interactions, revealing how dysregulated microbial communities trigger chronic inflammation underlying disorders like inflammatory bowel disease, metabolic diseases, and neurodegeneration. This discipline transcends traditional inflammation paradigms by dissecting molecular pathways connecting dysbiosis to systemic inflammation, enabling early detection and precision interventions. It integrates evolutionary perspectives on host–microbe interactions, emphasizing the human body as a stress-sensitive “organ”. Challenges include standardizing inflammatome profiling, translating findings into clinical tools, and advancing multiomics technologies. By bridging microbial ecology, immunology, and systems medicine, inflammatomics holds a transformative potential to shift health care from reactive treatment to proactive, personalized prevention, targeting disease origins shaped by chronic inflammatome dysregulation.

Current influenza vaccines need to be updated annually owing to constant antigenic drift in the globular head of the viral surface hemagglutinin (HA) glycoprotein. The immunogenic subdominant stem domain of HA is highly conserved and can be recognized by antibodies capable of binding multiple HA subtypes. Therefore, the HA stem antigen is a promising target for the design of universal influenza vaccines. On the basis of an established lipid nanoparticle-encapsulated mRNA vaccine platform, we designed and developed a novel universal influenza mRNA vaccine (mHAs) encoding the HA stem antigen of the influenza A (H1N1) virus. We tested the efficacy of the mHAs vaccine using a mouse model. The vaccine induced robust humoral and specific cellular immune responses against the stem region of HA. Importantly, two doses of the mHAs vaccine fully protected mice from lethal challenges of the heterologous H1N1 and heterosubtypic H5N8 influenza viruses. Vaccinated mice had less pathological lung damage and lower viral titers than control mice. These results suggest that an mRNA vaccine using the conserved stem region of HA may provide effective protection against seasonal and other possible influenza variants.

Mammalian endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) are ancient retroviruses that have been integrated into genomes. ERVs were believed to be inactive until the discovery of ERV transcription in the mouse genome. However, the transcription level and function of ERV elements in mammalian genomes are not well understood. In this study, we performed the first genome-wide scanning of ERV loci in the American mink (Neogale vison) genome (NeoERV) followed by transcriptomic analysis to detect actively transcribed NeoERV elements. A total of 365,791 NeoERV loci were identified, and161,205 (44%) of these loci were found to be actively transcribed based on transcriptomic data from three types of tissues (amygdala, trachea and lung). More than one third of the actively transcribed NeoERV loci were tissue-specific. Furthermore, some of the active loci were associated with host gene transcription, and the level of NeoERV transcription was positively correlated with that of host genes, specifically when active loci were located in overlapped gene regions. An in-depth analysis of the envelope protein coding env gene showed that, in general, its transcription level was higher than that of NeoERVs, which is believed to be associated with host immunity.

The human microbiome, the second genome of the human body, can determine human health status. Microbiome research has prompted humans to re-understand the relationship between microbiota and individuals, as well as microbiota and the ecological environment. A comprehensive and systematic study of the structure and function of human gut microbiome and an analysis of the interaction and regulation mechanism of the relevant core bacteria will bring revolutionary theoretical innovations to solve the health problems of humans, and the resulting disruptive technological innovation has the potential to provide better solutions for microbiome research.