Mapping programmable mRNA research relevant to cancer-associated immune escape: a dual-database bibliometric and...

Programmable messenger RNA (mRNA) platforms can encode tumor antigens or immunomodulators, enabling coordinated antigen delivery and immune modulation. Yet the literature spans cancer vaccination, delivery engineering, immune biology, and adjacent infectious-disease research, making its structure and evidentiary boundaries difficult to discern. We mapped this cross-domain corpus to clarify its development, organization, and relevance to cancer-associated immune escape.

We searched the Web of Science Core Collection (WoSCC) and Scopus on July 29, 2026, for English-language Articles and Reviews published since 2006. The strategy combined programmable or therapeutic mRNA, cancer, and immune-escape-related concepts. R-based analyses summarized the number of publications (NP), total citations (TC), and collaboration patterns; BERTopic modeled titles and abstracts after entity-aware preprocessing. Independent two-author review supported the five topic labels and characterized the outliers, and robustness was assessed across alternative clustering configurations.

The dataset comprised 756 publications (NP = 756). Annual output increased more than fourfold in 2021 and reached NP = 182 in 2025. China (NP = 291; 38.49%) and the United States (NP = 146; 19.31%) accounted for nearly 58% of corresponding-author publications. Sichuan University and Frontiers in Immunology ranked first in institutional and journal output, respectively. Nature had the highest retained source-record citation total (TC = 2,326). BERTopic assigned 745 publications to five topics, while 11 of 756 records remained outliers (1.46%). The topics represented mRNA delivery and immunomodulatory cancer-vaccine research (52.1%), SARS-CoV-2 vaccination in oncology and immunotherapy settings (23.6%), therapeutic mRNA cancer-vaccine platforms (13.3%), tumor-antigen discovery and immune-subtype stratification (8.6%), and mRNA-vaccine immunogenicity during autoimmune immunosuppression (2.4%).

Publication activity in the retrieved cross-domain corpus expanded rapidly after 2020. The corpus included both direct cancer-mRNA research and adjacent platform or immune-response literature. By distinguishing these components and identifying thematic connections among delivery, antigen selection, immune context, and collaboration, the analysis provides an evidence-navigation framework for prioritizing systematic reviews, mechanistic studies, and clinical evaluation. The map does not itself establish therapeutic efficacy.