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Updated: Aug 20, 2025
Author Spotlight: Development and Characterization of a Mouse Model for Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm
Published on: August 2, 2024
E-cigarette exposure augments murine abdominal aortic aneurysm development: role of Chil1
Joscha Mulorz1,2,3,4, Joshua M Spin2,3,4, Pireyatharsheny Mulorz2,3,4
1Clinic for Vascular and Endovascular Surgery, Medical Faculty and University Hospital Düsseldorf, Heinrich-Heine-University, Düsseldorf, Germany.
Aims:
Abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) is a common cardiovascular disease with a strong correlation to smoking, although underlying mechanisms have been minimally explored. Electronic cigarettes (e-cigs) have gained recent broad popularity and can deliver nicotine at comparable levels to tobacco cigarettes, but effects on AAA development are unknown.
Methods And Results:
We evaluated the impact of daily e-cig vaping with nicotine on AAA using two complementary murine models and found that exposure enhanced aneurysm development in both models and genders. E-cigs induced changes in key mediators of AAA development including cytokine chitinase-3-like protein 1 (CHI3L1/Chil1) and its targeting microRNA-24 (miR-24). We show that nicotine triggers inflammatory signalling and reactive oxygen species while modulating miR-24 and CHI3L1/Chil1 in vitro and that Chil1 is crucial to e-cig-augmented aneurysm formation using a knockout model.
Conclusions:
In conclusion our work shows increased aneurysm formation along with augmented vascular inflammation in response to e-cig exposure with nicotine. Further, we identify Chil1 as a key mediator in this context. Our data raise concerns regarding the potentially harmful long-term effects of e-cig nicotine vaping.
