Abstract
The newly identified smoke hazard, thirdhand smoke (THS), has gained public attention in recent years but its health impact and biological effects are largely unknown. THS may be defined by “the four Rs”: tobacco chemicals that remain, react, re-emit, and/or are resuspended long after active smoking has ceased. This review summarizes recent research progress in the effects of THS on genotoxicity, metabolism and early life development using cellular and animal models. We first reported that THS generated in laboratory systems caused significant DNA damage in human cell lines. Our finding that THS significantly induces oxidative base lesions has been confirmed in skin wounds of mice models exposed to THS. THS also induced metabolomic changes in human reproductive cell lines. Furthermore, we demonstrated that early exposure to THS not only negatively impacts body weight in both male and female mice, but also induces persistent changes to immunological parameters in peripheral blood in these mice. These results indicate that THS is genotoxic at realistic experimental doses and that there may be a window of susceptibility for some forms of cellular damage induced by THS.
Highlights
A “hidden” risk from tobacco smoke has been revealed, that is, Secondhand smoke (SHS) that lingers in the indoor environment over many hours and may become more hazardous with time [4], suggesting that people are at risk from exposure to cigarette smoke residues in ways that have not been recognized before
This so-called thirdhand smoke (THS) [5] is defined as the contamination of surfaces in contact with compounds emitted in SHS, the novel products generated by chemical transformations of the components, and the off-gassing of volatile components into the air
We have recently reported significantly higher levels of oxidative DNA damage in both HPRT and POLB genes in BEAS-2B cells exposed to THS
Summary
Mainstream smoke (MSS), or firsthand smoke, is created by tobacco combustion at 600–900 ◦C, when smokers inhale the smoke from a burning cigarette, whereas sidestream smoke (SSS) emanates from the smoldering end of a lit cigarette at ~600 ◦C between puffs. A “hidden” risk from tobacco smoke has been revealed, that is, SHS that lingers in the indoor environment over many hours and may become more hazardous with time [4], suggesting that people are at risk from exposure to cigarette smoke residues in ways that have not been recognized before. This so-called thirdhand smoke (THS) [5] is defined as the contamination of surfaces in contact with compounds emitted in SHS, the novel products generated by chemical transformations of the components, and the off-gassing of volatile components into the air. This prompted us to investigate the DNA damaging capacity of THS and its constituent(s), as described below
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