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This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) All Versions of this Article: 295/3/L412    most recent 00392.2007v1 Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in Web of Science Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Web of Science (4) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Thatcher, T. H. Articles by Sime, P. J. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Thatcher, T. H. Articles by Sime, P. J.

High-dose but not low-dose mainstream cigarette smoke suppresses allergic airway inflammation by inhibiting T cell function

¹Department of Medicine, and ²Department of Environmental Medicine and the Lung Biology and Disease Program, University of Rochester, Rochester, New York

Submitted 19 September 2007 ; accepted in final form 19 June 2008

Epidemiological studies have identified childhood exposure to environmental tobacco smoke as a significant risk factor for the onset and exacerbation of asthma, but studies of smoking in adults are less conclusive, and mainstream cigarette smoke (MCS) has been reported to both enhance and attenuate allergic airway inflammation in animal models. We sensitized mice to ovalbumin (OVA) and exposed them to MCS in a well-characterized exposure system. Exposure to MCS (600 mg/m³ total suspended particulates, TSP) for 1 h/day suppresses the allergic airway response, with reductions in eosinophilia, tissue inflammation, goblet cell metaplasia, IL-4 and IL-5 in bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid, and OVA-specific antibodies. Suppression is associated with a loss of antigen-specific proliferation and cytokine production by T cells. However, exposure to a lower dose of MCS (77 mg/m³ TSP) had no effect on the number of BAL eosinophils or OVA-specific antibodies. This is the first report to demonstrate, using identical smoking methodologies, that MCS inhibits immune responses in a dose-dependent manner and may explain the observation that, although smoking provokes a systemic inflammatory response, it also inhibits T cell-mediated responses involved in a number of diseases.

cigarette smoking; asthma; allergy; T helper 2; T cells