Effect of combustible tobacco product preparations on neutrophil-like cells

Abstract

Abstract Chronic exposure to cigarette smoking causes inflammation and immune suppression, which are known to contribute to smoking-related diseases and increased susceptibility of smokers to microbial infections. Neutrophils play an essential role in innate immune responses to protect against microbial infections. However, there is limited information on how smoking impacts innate immunity, particularly neutrophil functions. The use of neutrophils in research is limited due to their short lived nature. Therefore, alternate sources for neutrophil-like cells have been sought. Treatment with DMSO, results in differentiation of the HL60 cells to neutrophil-like cells, which provides an alternate model for assessment of certain neutrophil functions. In this study, we have differentiated HL60 cells with DMSO to neutrophil-like cell phenotype. The differentiated cells were characterized by the expression of CD11b and phagocytosis, and assessed the effects of exposure to different tobacco products. We assessed the effect of combustible cigarette whole smoke conditioned medium (WS-CM) and smokeless tobacco (ST) extracts, prepared from reference tobacco products, on the neutrophil-like cells on cell migration and phagocytic function. A dose-dependent decrease in the migration and phagocytosis was observed on treatment with WS-CM, but not with ST extracts. These findings suggest that neutrophil-like cells can be utilized to assess the effects of combustible and non-combustible tobacco products. Further, these results show that combustible and non-combustible tobacco products differentially impact neutrophil functions in this model.