Previously, we found that COPD-derived PBMCs had higher basal levels of 8-hydroxy-2′-deoxyguanosine (8-OH-dG), a marker of oxidative stress to DNA, that further increased when AIM2 was stimulated (Colarusso et al., 2019), compared to healthy smokers and non-smokers subjects-derived PBMCs that, accordingly, showed higher levels of 8-Oxoguanine glycosylase (OGG1), a repairing DNA enzyme (De Falco et al., 2017a). This evidence concerns the gene AIM2 and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.