Analysis of Langmuir trough synthetic lung surfactant monolayers exposed to e-cigarette additives

The use of electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes) has widely increased; in 2019, about 10.9 million people reported to use e-cigarettes. The flavoring additives have been associated with the increase of e-cigarette usage. Interestingly, some of these flavoring chemicals are known to be toxic and have been associated with lung illnesses such a popcorn lung. Also, while the flavoring chemicals may meet the safety levels for ingestion, the inhalation levels have not been determined. This shows that investigation of the impact that e-cigarettes have in our health is important since they might not be as safe as advertised and unfortunately, not many studies have been reported.

An important component in our lungs is the lung surfactant, a lipid layer located at the inner walls of the alveolus, which is responsible for lowering the surface tension and preventing the lung from collapsing. Since it is not well understood how the chemicals in the e-cigarette may affect the lung surfactant, we are working on determining the physical and structural changes in the lung surfactant membrane associated with the e-cigarette additives; we are analyzing synthetic lung surfactant membranes’ surface tension, fluidity, and lipid packing structure.