Maternal Smoking and CC-16: Implications for Lung Development and COPD Across the Lifespan

Maternal smoking was linked to reduced circulating and airway CC16 in COPD patients, controls, and a preclinical murine COPD model. In human adults, lower CC16 correlated with accelerated lung function decline and emphysema progression, while in children it was associated with obstructive physiology and early small airway impairment. In both mice and humans, maternal smoking-induced CC16 reduction was accompanied by greater epithelial injury (fibrosis, inflammation, apoptosis, oxidative stress). In murine explants, smoking impaired lung branching, whereas rhCC16 restored branching via α2-integrin binding Conclusions: Maternal smoking reduces CC16 levels, disrupting lung development in ways that predispose to lifelong impairment of lung function and worse COPD outcomes. Defining the mechanisms by which CC16 regulates lung maturation is essential for establishing reliable outcome measures and designing trials aimed at preventing early COPD. This article is open access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives License 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).