eLife (Apr 2022)

Effects of mango and mint pod-based e-cigarette aerosol inhalation on inflammatory states of the brain, lung, heart, and colon in mice

  • Alex Moshensky,
  • Cameron S Brand,
  • Hasan Alhaddad,
  • John Shin,
  • Jorge A Masso-Silva,
  • Ira Advani,
  • Deepti Gunge,
  • Aditi Sharma,
  • Sagar Mehta,
  • Arya Jahan,
  • Sedtavut Nilaad,
  • Jarod Olay,
  • Wanjun Gu,
  • Tatum Simonson,
  • Daniyah Almarghalani,
  • Josephine Pham,
  • Samantha Perera,
  • Kenneth Park,
  • Rita Al-Kolla,
  • Hoyoung Moon,
  • Soumita Das,
  • Min Kwang Byun,
  • Zahoor Shah,
  • Youssef Sari,
  • Joan Heller Brown,
  • Laura E Crotty Alexander

DOI
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.67621
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11

Abstract

Read online

While health effects of conventional tobacco are well defined, data on vaping devices, including one of the most popular e-cigarettes which have high nicotine levels, are less established. Prior acute e-cigarette studies have demonstrated inflammatory and cardiopulmonary physiology changes while chronic studies have demonstrated extra-pulmonary effects, including neurotransmitter alterations in reward pathways. In this study we investigated the impact of inhalation of aerosols produced from pod-based, flavored e-cigarettes (JUUL) aerosols three times daily for 3 months on inflammatory markers in the brain, lung, heart, and colon. JUUL aerosol exposure induced upregulation of cytokine and chemokine gene expression and increased HMGB1 and RAGE in the nucleus accumbens in the central nervous system. Inflammatory gene expression increased in the colon, while gene expression was more broadly altered by e-cigarette aerosol inhalation in the lung. Cardiopulmonary inflammatory responses to acute lung injury with lipopolysaccharide were exacerbated in the heart. Flavor-specific findings were detected across these studies. Our findings suggest that daily e-cigarette use may cause neuroinflammation, which may contribute to behavioral changes and mood disorders. In addition, e-cigarette use may cause gut inflammation, which has been tied to poor systemic health, and cardiac inflammation, which leads to cardiovascular disease.

Keywords