{"doi":"10.1093/ntr/ntaa267","title":"Acute Effects of Heated Tobacco Product (IQOS) Aerosol Inhalation on Lung Tissue Damage and Inflammatory Changes in the Lungs","abstract":"INTRODUCTION: Emerging heated tobacco products (HTPs) were designed to reduce exposure to toxicants from cigarette smoke (CS) by avoiding burning tobacco and instead heating tobacco. We studied the effects of short-term inhalation of aerosols emitted from HTP called IQOS, on lung damage and immune-cell recruitment to the lungs in mice. METHODS: Numerous markers of lung damage and inflammation including albumin and lung immune-cell infiltrates, proinflammatory cytokines, and chemokines were quantified in lungs and bronchoalveolar (BAL) fluid from IQOS, CS, or air-exposed (negative control) mice. RESULTS: Importantly, as a surrogate marker of lung epithelial-cell damage, we detected significantly increased levels of albumin in the BAL fluid of both HTP- and CS-exposed mice compared with negative controls. Total numbers of leukocytes infiltrating the lungs were equivalent following both IQOS aerosols and CS inhalation and significantly increased compared with air-exposed controls. We also observed significantly increased numbers of CD4+IL-17A+ T cells, a marker of a T-cell immune response, in both groups compared with air controls; however, numbers were the highest following CS exposure. Finally, the numbers of CD4+RORγt+ T cells, an inflammatory T-cell subtype expressing the transcription factor that is essential for promoting differentiation into proinflammatory Th17 cells, were significantly augmented in both groups compared with air-exposed controls. Levels of several cytokines in BAL were significantly elevated, reflecting a proinflammatory milieu. CONCLUSIONS: Our study demonstrates that short-term inhalation of aerosols from IQOS generates damage and proinflammatory changes in the lung that are substantially similar to that elicited by CS exposure. IMPLICATIONS: Exposure of mice to IQOS, one of the candidate modified-risk tobacco products, induces inflammatory immune-cell accumulation in the lungs and augments the levels of proinflammatory cytokines and chemokines in the BAL fluid. Such an exacerbated pulmonary proinflammatory microenvironment is associated with lung epithelial-cell damage in IQOS-exposed mice, suggesting a potential association with the impairment of lung function.","journal":"Nicotine & Tobacco Research","year":2020,"id":62523,"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":51,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9605,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":330833,"name":"Suresh Kalathil","orcid":"0000-0002-7800-3151","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":330834,"name":"Noel J. Leigh","orcid":"0000-0002-6850-9634","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":275205,"name":"Thivanka Muthumalage","orcid":"0000-0003-4648-9529","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":275207,"name":"Irfan Rahman","orcid":"0000-0003-2274-2454","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":304696,"name":"Maciej Ł. Goniewicz","orcid":"0000-0001-6748-3068","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":330835,"name":"Yasmin Thanavala","orcid":"0000-0003-4802-4952","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":330832,"name":"Tariq A. Bhat","orcid":"0000-0003-0738-8776","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":47,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T21:10:35.996198Z","pmid":"33346355","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":[]}