Figure 2.

Impact of cigarette components on ulcerative colitis (UC). The distal segment of the large intestine could be mainly affected by the circulating components, where both carbon monoxide and nicotine could modulate the inflammatory profile, autoantibodies production, and leukocyte migration. These immunomodulatory effects could prevail in UC over the harmful effects observed in ileal Crohn’s disease, probably due to the lower arrival of luminal components and to the etiological differences between both disorders. Purple text denotes described effects and red text denotes proposed effects.