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How cigarette smoke skews immune responses to promote infection, lung disease and cancer

Nature Reviews Immunology volume 9, pages 377–384 (2009)Cite this article

Abstract

A complex and multilayered immune defence system protects the host against harmful agents and maintains tissue homeostasis. Cigarette smoke ex posure markedly impacts the immune system, compromising the host's ability to mount appropriate immune and inflammatory responses and contributing to smoking-related pathologies. These adverse effects on the immune system not only occur in active smokers, but also in those exposed to smoke passively in contaminated environments, and may persist for decades after exposure has ended.

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Figure 1: Adverse effects of cigarette smoke.
Figure 2: Overview of immune defects caused by smoking in the lungs.

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Acknowledgements

We thank M. Peters for expert advice on the effect of smoke on human clinical infections. We also thank our basic science collaborators M. Hibbs, M. Ernst, S. Bozinovski and R. Gualano, as well as the graduate students G. Gaschler, C. Bauer and C. Zavitz.

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  1. Martin R. Stämpfli is at the Department of Pathology and Molecular Medicine, and the Department of Medicine, Centre for Gene Therapeutics, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.,

    Martin R. Stämpfli

  2. Gary P. Anderson is at the Departments of Medicine and Pharmacology, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, 3010 Victoria, Australia.,

    Gary P. Anderson

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Stämpfli, M., Anderson, G. How cigarette smoke skews immune responses to promote infection, lung disease and cancer. Nat Rev Immunol 9, 377–384 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/nri2530

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