Oxidative stress responses in human bronchial epithelial cells exposed to cigarette smoke and vapor from tobacco- and nicotine-containing products

The use of novel tobacco- and nicotine-containing vapor products that do not combust tobacco leaves is on the rise worldwide. The emissions of these products typically contain lower numbers and levels of potentially harmful chemicals compared with conventional cigarette smoke. These vapor products may therefore elicit fewer adverse biological effects. We compared the effects of emissions from different types of such products, i.e., our proprietary novel tobacco vapor product (NTV), a commercially available heat-not-burn tobacco product (HnB), and e-cigarette (E-CIG), and a combustible cigarette in a human bronchial epithelial cell line. The aqueous extract (AqE) of the test product was prepared by bubbling the produced aerosol into medium. Cells were exposed to the AqEs of test products, and then glutathione oxidation, Nrf2 activation, and secretion of IL-8 and GM-CSF were examined. We found that all endpoints were similarly perturbed by exposure to each AqE, but the effective dose ranges were different between cigarette smoke and the tobacco- and nicotine-containing vapors. These results demonstrate that the employed assays detect differences between product exposures, and thus may be useful to understand the relative potential biological effects of tobacco- and nicotine-containing products.