The easy accessibility and growing popularity of vaping has led to an emergence of new users within the past few years. This has led to an outbreak of a relatively new condition known as e-cigarette or vaping use-associated lung injury (EVALI). This syndrome can be caused by interactions of toxins found in vaping solutions with the pulmonary surfactant monolayer in the lungs. Pulmonary surfactant (PS) is responsible for process of respiration, one of the most important physiological functions. Therefore, any impediment into this system that negatively effects the efficacy of this function will have a strong hindrance on the individual and their quality of life. Our group has focused on investigating various toxins found in vaping oils, such as medium chain triglycerides (MCT), and how they affect PS biophysically. One important parameter of investigation is the mechanics of the system, which can provide an idea of how a toxicant can impact the PS system and the associated physiological processes. The technique of neutron spin echo (NSE) allows us to employ neutrons as a means of garnering information of the mechanical properties of membranes, with a resemblance to the composition to human PS. Both in the presence and absence of MCT. A lipid-only PS mimic system (48:32:10:10 DPPC:POPC:POPG:Cholesterol), as well as two animal-derived surfactants, Curosurf (porcine-derived) and BLES (bovine-derived) were investigated in the presence of varying amounts of MCT. This data, as well as supplementary Langmuir trough oscillations studies give an in-depth look at how vaping toxicant MCT affects the biophysical nature of pulmonary surfactant, and will aid in painting a more complete picture on the effects of vaping

Investigating the effect of medium chain triglycerides from vaping oils on pulmonary surfactant systems

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ACS Fall 2022

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