Electronic-Cigarette Use Alters Nasal Mucosal Immune Response to Live-attenuated Influenza Virus. A Clinical Trial.

Inhalation of tobacco smoke has been linked to increased risk of viral infection, such as influenza. Inhalation of electronic-cigarette (e-cigarette) aerosol has also recently been linked to immune suppression within the respiratory tract, specifically the nasal mucosa. We propose that changes in the nasal mucosal immune response modify antiviral host-defense responses in e-cigarette users. Nonsmokers, cigarette smokers, and e-cigarette users were inoculated with live-attenuated influenza virus (LAIV) to safely examine the innate immune response to influenza infection. Before and after LAIV inoculation, we collected nasal epithelial-lining fluid, nasal lavage fluid, nasal-scrape biopsy specimens, urine, and blood. Endpoints examined include cytokines and chemokines, influenza-specific IgA, immune-gene expression, and markers of viral load. Statistical analysis included primary comparisons of cigarette and e-cigarette groups with nonsmokers, as well as secondary analysis of demographic factors as potential modifiers. Markers of viral load did not differ among the three groups. Nasal-lavage-fluid anti-LAIV IgA levels increased in nonsmokers after LAIV inoculation but did not increase in e-cigarette users and cigarette smokers. LAIV-induced gene-expression changes in nasal biopsy specimens differed in cigarette smokers and e-cigarette users as compared with nonsmokers, with a greater number of genes changed in e-cigarette users, mostly resulting in decreased expression. The top downregulated genes in cigarette smokers were SMPD3, NOS2A, and KLRB1, and the top downregulated genes in e-cigarette users were MR1, NT5E, and HRAS. Similarly, LAIV-induced cytokine levels in nasal epithelial-lining fluid differed among the three groups, including decreased antiviral host-defense mediators (IFNγ, IL6, and IL12p40). We also detected that sex interacted with tobacco-product exposure to modify LAIV-induced immune-gene expression. Our results demonstrate that e-cigarette use altered nasal LAIV-induced immune responses, including gene expression, cytokine and chemokine release, and LAIV-specific IgA levels. Together, these data suggest that e-cigarette use induces changes in the nasal mucosa that are consistent with the potential for altered respiratory antiviral host-defense function.Clinical trial registered with www.clinicaltrials.gov (NCT02019745).

E-Cigarette Use: Device Market, Study Design, and Emerging Evidence of Biological Consequences.

Electronic cigarettes are frequently viewed as a safer alternative to conventional cigarettes; however, evidence to support this perspective has not materialized. Indeed, the current literature reports that electronic cigarette use is associated with both acute lung injury and subclinical dysfunction to the lung and vasculature that may result in pathology following chronic use. E-cigarettes can alter vascular dynamics, polarize innate immune populations towards a proinflammatory state, compromise barrier function in the pulmonary endothelium and epithelium, and promote pre-oncogenic phenomena. This review will summarize the variety of e-cigarette products available to users, discuss current challenges in e-cigarette study design, outline the range of pathologies occurring in cases of e-cigarette associated acute lung injury, highlight disease supporting tissue- and cellular-level changes resulting from e-cigarette exposure, and briefly examine how these changes may promote tumorigenesis. Continued research of the mechanisms by which e-cigarettes induce pathology benefit users and clinicians by resulting in increased regulation of vaping devices, informing treatments for emerging diseases e-cigarettes produce, and increasing public awareness to reduce e-cigarette use and the onset of preventable disease.

E-cigarette use increases susceptibility to bacterial infection by impairment of human neutrophil chemotaxis, phagocytosis, and NET formation.

E-cigarettes are portrayed as safer relative to conventional tobacco. However, burgeoning evidence suggests that E-cigarettes may adversely affect host defenses. However, the precise mechanisms by which E-cigarette vapor alters innate immune cell function have not been fully elucidated. We determined the effects of E-cigarette exposure on the function and responses to infectious challenge of the most abundant innate immune cell, the neutrophil, using isolated human neutrophils and a mouse model of gram-negative infection. Our results revealed that human neutrophils exposed to E-cigarette vapor had 4.2-fold reductions in chemotaxis toward the bacterial cell-well component f-Met-Leu-Phe (P < 0.001). F-actin polarization and membrane fluidity were also adversely affected by E-cigarette vapor exposure. E-cigarette-exposed human neutrophils exhibited a 48% reduction in production of reactive oxygen species (ROS; P < 0.001). Given the central role of ROS in neutrophil extracellular trap (NET) production, NET production was quantified, and E-cigarette vapor exposure was found to reduce NETosis by 3.5-fold (P < 0.01); formulations with and without nicotine containing propylene glycol exhibiting significant suppressive effects. However, noncanonical NETosis was unaffected. In addition, exposure to E-cigarette vapor lowered the rate of phagocytosis of bacterial bioparticles by 47% (P < 0.05). In our physiological mouse model of chronic E-cigarette exposure and sepsis, E-cigarette vapor inhalation led to reduced neutrophil migration in infected spaces and a higher burden of Pseudomonas. These findings provide evidence that E-cigarette use adversely impacts the innate immune system and may place E-cigarette users at higher risk for dysregulated inflammatory responses and invasive bacterial infections.