en Neuroscience Research <div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:14px;"><span style="font-family:Times New Roman;"><strong>Background and Aim:</strong> Smoking has been extensively investigated in oncology, and controversial associations with brain tumor incidence have been reported. Caspase-3 and matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) belong to an important cascade in tumor vasculogenesis. We aim to study the smoking impact on these signaling molecules in nontumoral rat brain tissue.<br> <strong>Methods and Materials/Patients:</strong> A total of 60 Wistar rats were divided into two groups: treatment (cigarette smoke/electronic cigarette) and control groups with subgroups of male and female rats. After general anesthesia and decapitation, their brains were collected, and 3-&mu;m thick coronal sections were prepared. Following immunohistochemical staining with rabbit anti-MMP-2 and anti-caspase-3 antigens, protein expressions were analyzed by selecting two fields at 400x magnification.<br> <strong>Results: </strong>Our data suggest that the expression of MMP-2 was not significantly different between the studied groups. However, the significant inductive activity of cigarette smoking was observed on caspase-3.<br> <strong>Conclusion:</strong> Cigarette smoking indicates pro-tumoral signaling impact in normal tissue with activation of caspase-3 in rat brain tissue.</span></span></div> Caspase-3, MMP-2, Rat, Smoking 113 118 http://irjns.org/browse.php?a_code=A-10-534-1&slc_lang=en&sid=1 Seyed Abolghasem Mortazavi sgmortazavi@gmail.com 100319475328460011291 100319475328460011291 No Department of Neurosurgery, Sina Hospital, Tehran, Iran Hadi Digaleh hadi.hd71@gmail.com 100319475328460011292 100319475328460011292 Yes Department of Neurosurgery, Sina Hospital, Tehran, Iran Hiva Saffar hsaffar@sina.tums.ac.ir 100319475328460011293 100319475328460011293 No Department of Pathology, Shariati Hospital, Tehran, Iran Hannan Ebrahimi ebrahimi.hannan@gmail.com 100319475328460011294 100319475328460011294 No Department of Neurosurgery, Sina Hospital, Tehran, Iran Hossein Kazemi dr.hosseinkazemi1991@gmail.com 100319475328460011295 100319475328460011295 No Department of Neurosurgery, Sina Hospital, Tehran, Iran Elham Madreseh emadreseh@yahoo.com 100319475328460011296 100319475328460011296 No Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran