1
Return

Disease-dependent airway epithelial responses to acute electronic cigarette aerosol exposure: a pilot single-cell analysis

delete2026-06-04
delete0
PRE
AI
C
Courtney Van
P
Pin-Hsun Mao
J
Jackie Nguyen
K
Kyeong-Joo Jung
N
Neil Sampath
R
Roy A Miller
M
Manjula Karpurapu
L
Loren E Wold
D
Dongjun Chung
J
John W Christman *
S
Sangwoon Chung *
DOI:10.1093/toxsci/kfag068delete
deleteOriginal
deleteOriginal request for help
deleteShare
deleteSave
Abstract

Abstract

En 中文
Electronic cigarette (e-cig) use is increasingly common among individuals with asthma, yet the cell type-specific airway responses to e-cig exposure remain poorly understood. Because asthma is characterized by altered epithelial composition and heightened inflammatory susceptibility, e-cig exposure could elicit disease-dependent epithelial responses in asthmatic airways. Here, we used single-cell RNA sequencing to define responses to acute e-cig exposure in human primary airway epithelial cells differentiated at air-liquid interface from healthy and asthmatic donors. Cultures were exposed to e-cig aerosols for 30 min and analyzed 24 hrs later. Ten epithelial and stromal populations were identified. At baseline, asthma-derived cultures showed descriptive differences in cell-type composition compared with healthy-derived cultures, while acute e-cig exposure produced only modest additional changes in relative abundance. In contrast, transcriptional responses were disease dependent. Asthma-derived ATII, basal, goblet, mesenchymal, and mesothelial cells showed distinct inflammatory and immediate-early gene-expression changes, whereas healthy-derived cultures showed defense- and stress-associated responses. Pathway-level analysis showed enrichment of inflammatory signaling, injury/stress-response, and migration/ECM-related pathways in selected asthma-derived populations, while healthy-derived ATII and club cells were associated with defense and biotic-response pathways. SenMayo analysis showed cell type-specific patterns of senescence-associated gene set enrichment, with the strongest signal in club cells, together with increased CDKN2A and CDKN1A expression in asthma-derived epithelial populations. These findings suggest that asthma-associated epithelial states shape cell type-specific inflammatory, stress-associated, and senescence-related transcriptional responses to acute e-cig exposure.

Journal

Toxicological Sciences cover
Toxicological Sciences
IF:
4.1
Papers:
7.2K
Citations:
1.6W

Organization

T
The Ohio State University
Scholars:
3.7K
Papers: 1.5K
Citations: 7.4W
Cited Papers

Cited Papers

Citing Papers

Citing Papers