Cigarette smoking is considered to be a risk factor for several chronic diseases and even premature death. However, despite the importance of this detrimental habit, little seems known in terms of the overall toxicity potential of its ingredients in humans. In this study, a panel of genetically modified bioluminescent bioreporter bacteria was used to evaluate its usefulness in estimating the cigarette smoke's complex molecular mixture on a bacterial toxicity-bioreporter panel, both filtered or unfiltered. This work enabled to confirm the usefulness of cigarette filters, with better protection found in higher priced brands despite both having genotoxic and cytotoxic attributes. Quorum sensing interference was also shown, which may explain why cigarette smokers are at greater risk for pulmonary infections. Moreover, the findings of this study support the fact that the filter is a dominating contributor to reducing the harm caused by cigarette smoke. Increased efforts should be conducted to reduce the harmful effects of cigarette smoke, via increasingly effective filters. To conclude, the panel of bioreporter bacteria was found to be useful in the evaluation of the general effect of the toxic mixture found in cigarette smoke and therefore has the potential to be used in cigarette research, helping researchers pinpoint the reduction of toxicity when working with filter improvement.

吸烟被认为是几种慢性疾病甚至过早死亡的危险因素。然而，尽管这种有害习惯很重要，但就其成分对人体的潜在总体毒性而言，似乎知之甚少。在这项研究中，一组经过基因修饰的生物发光生物报告细菌被用于评估其在细菌毒性生物报告专家组（过滤的或未过滤的）上评估香烟烟雾中复杂分子混合物的有用性。这项工作能够证实香烟过滤嘴的有用性，尽管具有遗传毒性和细胞毒性特性，但在高价品牌中却能提供更好的保护。还显示了群体感应干扰，这可以解释为什么吸烟者遭受肺部感染的风险更大。此外，这项研究的发现支持以下事实：过滤嘴是减少香烟烟​​雾造成危害的主要因素。应通过日益有效的过滤器加大力度以减少香烟烟​​雾的有害影响。总而言之，发现生物报告细菌可用于评估香烟烟雾中有毒混合物的一般效果，因此具有用于香烟研究的潜力，可帮助研究人员查明与过滤器改进。