Article

Disruption of vascular endothelial homeostasis by tobacco smoke: impact on atherosclerosis.

Institute for Biomedical Aging Research, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Innsbruck, Austria.
The FASEB Journal (impact factor: 5.71). 01/2004; 17(15):2302-4. DOI:10.1096/fj.03-0312fje
Source: PubMed

ABSTRACT The World Health Organization (WHO) predicts that by 2020 tobacco will become the largest single health problem worldwide and will cause an estimated 8.4 million deaths annually (http://www5.who.int/tobacco/). Although the impact of smoking on human health is well defined from the medical point of view, surprisingly little is known about the mechanisms by which tobacco smoke mediates its disastrous effects. Here, we demonstrate that tobacco smoke dramatically changes vascular endothelial cell and tissue morphology, leading to a loss of endothelial barrier function within minutes. Long-term exposure of endothelial cells to tobacco smoke extracts induces necrosis that may trigger a pro-inflammatory status of the vessel wall. Pre-incubation of the extracts without cells for 6 h at 37 degrees C led to a complete loss of activity. Further, the endothelium could be rescued by changing to fresh medium even at times when the extracts had lost their activity. Finally, we show that N-acetyl cysteine and statins inhibit the adverse tobacco smoke effects.

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Keywords

adverse tobacco smoke effects
 
complete loss
 
disastrous effects
 
endothelial barrier function
 
endothelial cells
 
estimated 8.4 million deaths
 
human health
 
induces necrosis
 
largest single health problem
 
Long-term exposure
 
medical point
 
N-acetyl cysteine
 
Pre-incubation
 
statins
 
tissue morphology
 
tobacco smoke
 
tobacco smoke mediates
 
vessel wall