{"doi":"10.1016/j.cjca.2021.05.006","title":"Increased Expression of Proatherogenic Proteins in Immune Cell Subtypes in Tobacco Cigarette Smokers But Not in Electronic Cigarette Vapers","abstract":"It is unclear how oxidative stress triggered by smoking and vaping may alter specific immune cell subsets. In this study, we showed that tobacco cigarette smoking, but not electronic-cigarette vaping, is associated with increased expression of major proteins in the toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) inflammasome-interleukin (IL)-6 signalling axis in monocyte subtypes and T cells. TLR4 senses oxidative stress in immune cells caspase-1 is a key protein of inflammasome activation, and IL-6R-α is the receptor for IL-6 that drives proatherogenic IL-6 signalling. These findings implicate the non-nicotine, pro-oxidant toxicants in tobacco cigarette smoke as instigators of increased expression of key proteins in the TLR4-inflammasome-IL-6 axis that contribute to atherogenesis.","journal":"Canadian Journal of Cardiology","year":2021,"id":206709,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":5,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9561,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":791170,"name":"Yuyan Zhang","orcid":"0000-0001-7024-4666","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":712279,"name":"Elizabeth Tran","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":759279,"name":"Grace Sosa","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":511539,"name":"Holly R. Middlekauff","orcid":"0000-0001-7848-8585","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":414531,"name":"Theodoros Kelesidis","orcid":"0000-0002-8463-3811","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":20,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:51:41.571653Z","pmid":"34023441","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}