Tobacco farmers are routinely exposed to complex mixtures of inorganic and organic chemicals present in tobacco leaves. In this study, we examined the genotoxicity of tobacco leaves in the snail Helix aspersa as a measure of the risk to human health. DNA damage was evaluated using the micronucleus test and the Comet assay and the concentration of cytochrome P450 enzymes was estimated. Two group...

Tobacco is a uniquely dangerous consumer product that is addictive and harmful to human health when used as intended. Smokeless tobacco practices are common in some parts of the world, especially in India (Pershagen, 1996). Nicotine exposure is similar in smokeless tobacco users and smokers (Ebbert et al., 2006) often leading to strong physical dependence. As a rule, smokeless tobacco products ...

The biological effects of only a finite number of tobacco toxins have been studied. Here, we describe exposure of cultures of human bronchial epithelial cells to low concentrations of tobacco carcinogens: nickel sulphate, benzo(b)fluoranthene, N-nitrosodiethylamine, and 4-(methylnitrosamino)-1-(3-pyridyl)-1-butanone (NNK). After a 24-hour exposure, EGFR was expressed in cell membrane and cytopl...

Smokeless tobacco usage is a growing public health problem worldwide. The molecular mechanism(s) underlying smokeless tobacco associated tissue damage remain largely unidentified. In the present study we have tried to explore the effects of aqueous extract of smokeless tobacco (STE) on tubulin-microtubule, the major cytoskeleton protein that maintains cells morphology and participates in cell d...

BACKGROUND Cigarette smoke is harmful to human health at both cellular and genetic levels. Recently, a unique bioassay for smoke cytotoxicity using air pollution-sensitive plant cells (tobacco) has been proposed. METHODS Model plant cells (tobacco Bel-W3 cells) and human cells (alveolar epithelial A549 cells) suspended in fresh culture media were exposed to cigarette smoke sampled after light...

INTRODUCTION In teenagers with perennial allergic rhinitis, exposure to tobacco cigarette smoke increases the count of eosinophils in the nasal mucosa; the recruitment of eosinophils arises from the combined action of a number of cellular and molecular signals, including eotaxin. OBJECTIVE To assess the effect of exposure to tobacco cigarette smoke on the count of immunoreactive cells to eota...

The focus of the Children's Vaccine Initiative is to encourage the discovery of technology that will make vaccines more readily available to developing countries. Our strategy has been to genetically engineer plants so that they can be used as inexpensive alternatives to fermentation systems for production of subunit antigens. In this paper we report on the immunological response elicited in vi...

Several properties of RNA polymerase (nucleosidetriphosphate:RNA nucleotidyltransferase, EC 2.7.7.6) active fractions obtained from tobacco plants, be they uninfected, infected with tobacco mosaic virus, or infected with tobacco necrosis virus, were compared. By the seven criteria tested, the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase from these three sources behaved the same, although its activity is greatl...

Chronic exposure to tobacco smoke, which contains over 60 tumor-initiating carcinogens, is the major risk factor for development of lung cancer, accounting for a large portion of cancer-related deaths worldwide. It is well established that tobacco smoke is a tumor initiator, but we asked whether it also acts as a tumor promoter once malignant initiation, such as caused by K-ras activation, has ...

The definition of "minor" veins in leaves is arbitrary and of uncertain biological significance. Generally, the term refers to the smallest vein classes in the leaf, believed to function in phloem loading. We found that a galactinol synthase promoter, cloned from melon (Cucumis melo), directs expression of the gusA gene to the smallest veins of mature Arabidopsis and cultivated tobacco (Nicotia...