The safety of propylene glycol (PG) and vegetable glycerin (VG) as solvents in electronic cigarette liquid has received increasing attention and discussion. However, the conclusions derived from toxicity assessments conducted through animal experiments and traditional methodologies have consistently been contentious. This study constructed an original real-time aerosol exposure system, centered around a self-designed microfluidic bionic-lung chip, to assess the biological effects following exposure to aerosols from different solvents (PG, PG/VG mixture alone and PG/VG mixture in combination with nicotine) on BEAS-2B cells. The study aimed to investigate the impact of aerosols from different solvents on gene expression profiles, intracellular biomarkers (i.e., reactive oxygen species content, nitric oxide content, and caspase-3/7 activity), and extracellular biomarkers (i.e., IL-6, IL-8, TNF-α, and malondialdehyde) of BEAS-2B cells on-chip. Transcriptome analyses suggest that ribosomal function could serve as a potential target for the impact of aerosols derived from various solvents on the biological responses of BEAS-2B cells on-chip. And the results showed that aerosols of PG/VG mixtures had significantly less effect on intracellular and extracellular biomarkers in BEAS-2B cells than aerosols of PG, whereas increasing nicotine levels might elevate these effects of aerosol from PG/VG mixture.

中文翻译：

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利用微流控芯片研究电子烟溶剂实时气溶胶诱导的体外毒性作用

丙二醇（PG）和植物甘油（VG）作为电子烟液溶剂的安全性越来越受到关注和讨论。然而，通过动物实验和传统方法进行的毒性评估得出的结论一直存在争议。本研究构建了一个原创的实时气溶胶暴露系统，以自主设计的微流控仿生肺芯片为中心，评估暴露于不同溶剂（PG、单独的PG/VG混合物和PG/VG混合物中的气溶胶）后的生物效应。与尼古丁的组合）对 BEAS-2B 细胞的影响。该研究旨在研究不同溶剂的气溶胶对基因表达谱、细胞内生物标志物（即活性氧含量、一氧化氮含量和 caspase-3/7 活性）和细胞外生物标志物（即 IL-6、芯片上 BEAS-2B 细胞的 IL-8、TNF-α 和丙二醛。转录组分析表明，核糖体功能可以作为各种溶剂产生的气溶胶对片上 BEAS-2B 细胞生物反应影响的潜在目标。结果表明，PG/VG 混合物气雾剂对 BEAS-2B 细胞的细胞内和细胞外生物标志物的影响明显小于 PG 气雾剂，而增加尼古丁水平可能会提高 PG/VG 混合物气雾剂的这些影响。