Direct exposure to inhaled mainstream cigarette smoke is known to cause smoking-related damage in the human lung. Aerosol exposure of human three dimensional (3D) organotypical airway epithelial tissue cultures, growing at an air-liquid interface, is a well-established in vitro model enabling a Systems Biology-based Reduced Risk Product (RRP) assessment. Migration kinetics and metabolism of deposited aerosol compounds are important parameters in understanding their bioavailability. To better understand the role of xenobiotic metabolism after cigarette smoking, human subcellular liver and lung fraction models (microsomes, S9) have been established to assess metabolite profiles and reactive metabolites relevant for toxicological assessment. The integration of exposure characterization results with a systems toxicology approach to measure the biological impact of exposure is informative to the product assessment strategy and has the potential to highlight modes of action associated with RRP exposure.
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Reduced Risk Products ("RRPs”) is the term we use to refer to products that present, are likely to present, or have the potential to present less risk of harm to smokers who switch to these products versus continuing smoking. PMI has a range of RRPs in various stages of development, scientific assessment and commercialization. Our RRPs are smoke-free products that produce an aerosol that contains far lower quantities of harmful and potentially harmful constituents than found in cigarette smoke.