Effects of sham air and cigarette smoke on A549 lung cells: implications for iron-mediated oxidative damage

J. Winzerling. Effects of sham air and cigarette smoke on A549 lung cells: implications for iron-mediated oxidative damage. Am J Physiol Lung Cell Mol Physiol 286: L866–L876, 2004; 10.1152/ajplung. 00268.2003.—Inhalation of airborne pollution particles that contain iron can result in a variety of detrimental changes to lung cells and tissues. The lung iron burden can be substantially increased by exposure to cigarette smoke, and cigarette smoke contains iron par-ticulates, as well as several environmental toxins, that could influence intracellular iron status. We are interested in the effects of environ-mental contaminants on intracellular iron metabolism. We initiated our studies using lung A549 type II epithelial cells as a model, and we evaluated the effects of iron dose and smoke treatment on several parameters of intracellular iron metabolism. We show that iron at a physiological dose stimulates ferritin synthesis without altering the transferrin receptor (TfR) mRNA levels of these cells. This is medi