BACKGROUND Endothelial dysfunction is an important pathophysiologic feature in many smoke-related diseases. Endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) are the precursors of endothelial cells and play a fundamental role in the maintenance of endothelial integrity and function. Endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) is the dominant NOS isoform in the vasculature and plays a central role in the mainten...

BACKGROUND Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is characterized by defective extracellular matrix (ECM) turnover as a result of prolonged cigarette smoking. Fibroblasts have a central role in ECM turnover. The TGFbeta induced Smad pathway provides intracellular signals to regulate ECM production. We address the following hypothesis: fibroblasts have abnormal expression of genes in the ...

Chronic bladder inflammation can result in a significant reduction in quality of life. Smoking remains a leading preventable risk factor in many diseases. Despite the large amount of evidence supporting the risks of smoking, roughly 45 million people in the United States remain smokers. The impact of cigarette smoking on inflammation is well established, but how smoking promotes bladder inflamm...

Airway neutrophilia is a prominent feature of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. As cigarette smoke (CS) and epidermal growth factor (EGF) both cause release of interleukin-8 (IL-8) from epithelial cells in vitro, we investigated whether autocrine ligands for the EGF receptor (EGFR) are involved in this proinflammatory response to CS. NCI-H292 or primary bronchial epithelial cells were cult...

Cigarette smoking is an environmental risk factor associated with a variety of pathologies including cardiovascular disease, inflammation, and cancer development. Interstitial cystitis/bladder pain syndrome (IC/BPS) is a chronic inflammatory bladder disease with multiple etiological contributors and risk factors associated with its development, including cigarette smoking. Previously, we determ...

Cigarette smoking is a major pathogenic factor in lung cancer. Macrophages play an important role in host defense and adaptive immunity. These cells display diverse phenotypes for performing different functions. M2 type macrophages usually exhibit immunosuppressive and tumor-promoting characteristics. Although macrophage polarization toward the M2 phenotype has been observed in the lungs of cig...

BACKGROUND COPD patients have a higher risk of pneumonia when treated with fluticasone propionate (FP) than with placebo, and a lower risk with budesonide (BUD). We hypothesized that BUD and FP differentially affect the mucosal barrier in response to viral infection and/or cigarette smoke. METHODS We assessed protective effects of equivalent concentrations of BUD and FP on cytokine production...

BACKGROUND Vitamin D can translocate a vitamin D receptor (VDR) from the nucleus to the cell membranes. The meaning of this translocation is not elucidated in terms of a role in pathogenesis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) till now. VDR deficient mice are prone to develop emphysema, suggesting that abnormal function of VDR might influence a generation of COPD. The blood levels o...

TO THE EDITOR: We read with interest the article by Aravamudan and colleagues (1) on cigarette smoke-induced mitochondrial fragmentation and dysfunction in human airway smooth muscle. As explained in a recent Perspectives (4), mitochondria are at the center of a reactive oxygen species-dependent pathway regulating cellular cytotoxic responses. The study by Aravamudan et al. demonstrates that ci...

PURPOSE To investigate the effects of icariin, a major constituent of flavonoids isolated from the herb Epimedium, on cigarette smoke (CS) induced inflammatory responses in vivo and in vitro. METHODS In vivo, BALB/c mice were exposed to smoke of 15 cigarettes for 1 h/day, 6 days/week for 3 months and dosed with icariin (25, 50 and 100 mg/kg) or dexamethasone (1 mg/kg). In vitro, A549 cells we...