{"doi":"10.1016/j.toxrep.2022.08.007","title":"The role of synthetic coolants, WS-3 and WS-23, in modulating E-cigarette-induced reactive oxygen species (ROS) in lung epithelial cells","abstract":"There has been a substantial rise in e-cigarette (e-cig) use or vaping in the past decade, prompting growing concerns about their adverse health effects. Recently, e-cig manufacturers have been using synthetic cooling agents, like WS-23 and WS-3, to provide a cooling sensation without the \"menthol taste\". Studies have shown that aerosols/vapes generated by e-cigs can contain significant levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS). However, studies investigating the role of synthetic coolants in modulating ROS levels generated by e-cigs are lacking. This study seeks to understand how synthetic coolants, e-cig additives that have become increasingly prevalent in e-liquids sold in the United States (US), impact acellular ROS production from e-liquid aerosols as well as cellular ROS levels from pulmonary epithelial cells exposed to these e-liquids. To further explain, our study aims to understand whether the addition of WS-3 and WS-23 to e-liquid base and e-liquid base with nicotine significantly modifies generated acellular ROS levels within aerosolized e-liquids, as well as cellular ROS within BEAS-2B cells treated with these same e-liquids. Aerosols were generated from e-liquids with and without synthetic coolants through a single-puff aerosol generator; subsequently, acellular ROS was semi-quantified in H2O2 equivalents via fluorescence spectroscopy. Our acellular ROS data suggest that adding WS-3 to e-liquid base (PG:VG), regardless of nicotine content, has a minimal impact on modifying e-cig generated acellular ROS levels. Additionally, we also measured cellular ROS in lung epithelial cells using both e-liquids containing and not containing synthetic coolants via the CellROX Green fluorescent sensor. Similar comparable results were found in BEAS2B cells though ROS was increased by WS-3 and WS-23 treated in e-cig nicotine groups. Altogether, our data suggest that neither the addition of WS-23 nor WS-3 to e-liquid base solution, with and without nicotine, significantly modifies e-cig generated acellular ROS levels within aerosolized e-liquids and cellular ROS levels within treated BEAS-2B cells. Together, our data provide insight into whether synthetic coolants added to e-liquids could impact vaping-induced oxidative stress in the lungs.","journal":"Toxicology Reports","year":2022,"id":255694,"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":20,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9562,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2022-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":903943,"name":"Sadiya Bi Shaikh","orcid":"0000-0002-0453-5809","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":294140,"name":"Marko Manevski","orcid":"0000-0002-7125-4468","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":275204,"name":"Hitendra S. Chand","orcid":"0000-0002-0574-9307","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":275207,"name":"Irfan Rahman","orcid":"0000-0003-2274-2454","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":903942,"name":"Shaiesh Yogeswaran","orcid":"0000-0002-7736-9346","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":42,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T00:25:17.224217Z","pmid":"36518479","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":[]}