Acute lung inflammatory response by cigarette smoke in mouse is inhibited by alpha‐tocopherol and ascorbic acid supplementation

Short‐term cigarette smoking leads to acute lung inflammation through its influences over oxidants/antioxidants imbalance. Antioxidants supplementation is unclear to reduce inflammatory lung responses. Our aim was to analyze lung effects of supplementation by both vitamins C and E in mice exposed to a six‐cigarette/day inhalation. C57Bl/6 mice were exposed to cigarette smoke (IFC) for 5 days. They were divided in exposed to ambient air (Control), IFC, IFC+C (50mg/kg/day), IFC+E (50mg/kg/day) and IFC+C+E (50mg/kg/day each) groups. We performed bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL), lipid peroxidation essay (TBARS), western blot to NFκB and immunohistochemical detection of MMP‐12 and TNF‐α in mouse lungs. The number of AM and PMN in BAL (cells x 103/ml) values were 305±15 and 3±1 (control), 680±60 and 80±22 (IFC), 363±35 and 5±3 (IFC+C), 360±50 and 4±2 (IFC+E), 377±23 and zero (IFC+C+E). TBARS values were 100±5 (control), 162±7 (IFC), 130±5 (IFC+C), 112±4 (IFC+E) and 102±4 (IFC+C+E). MMP‐12, TNF‐α and NFκB were detected mainly on IFC group compared to the other groups. Our results indicate that supplementations of vitamins C, E, or both were efficient in decreasing acute lung inflammation in all parameters analyzed. Supported by CAPES, FAPERJ and CNPq.