Impact of cigarette smoke on T and B cell responsiveness

Although its direct effects cannot be discounted, tobacco's effects on the immune system have been proposed to play a key role in mediating its deleterious health impact. Studies in rats using high levels of smoke exposure have suggested that tobacco smoke exhausts cellular signal transduction cascades, making lymphocytes unresponsive to stimulation. In the present study, we show that purified B or T cells, and total lymphocytes from the lungs, …