Scientists have developed a vaccine against heroin addiction
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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To teach immunity to respond not only to heroin, but also to its derivatives, scientists have developed a "dynamic vaccine" that undergoes the same transformations in the body as real heroin, and gradually teaches the immune system to recognize the products of heroin metabolism.
Among the approaches offered by scientists to combat heroin addiction, there is the idea of anti-heroin serum, which amounts to ensuring that the body's immune system attacks a dangerous substance.
But the difficulty is that heroin quickly turns into the body into 6-acetylmorphine and morphine, which easily pass through the blood-brain barrier and reach the opiate receptors in the brain. Therefore, immunity must simultaneously catch not one pest, but several.
Researchers from the Scripps Institute (USA) have found a way to teach the immune system to recognize several heroin derivatives in one fell swoop. First, scientists synthesized a heroin-like haptenic molecule. This molecule is a "doll", on which one can "train" the immunity of a real enemy. But in itself, it is too small to be recognized by the immune system, so it needs a large macromolecule that will "present" it. In this case, to the hapten "doll" researchers tied the hemocyanin of the sea mollusk fissurelly, with the help of which the immunity was able to create specific antibodies.
The trick was that the substance that mimicked heroin slowly underwent the same changes in the body as heroin, that is, it gradually showed all the morphine derivatives of heroin to the immune system. And the attached protein did not interfere with this at all. The researchers called it a "dynamic heroin vaccine" and injected rats to test their effectiveness.
In response to the introduction of the "dynamic vaccine", antibodies against the entire set of heroin derivatives were synthesized in the animals. Moreover, the vaccine was able to suppress the craving of rats to heroin: only three of the seven animals continued to press the lever to get the coveted drug. At the same time, the vaccine, created only against morphine and not providing for a change in the target substance, did not reduce heroin cravings in animals.
The dynamic vaccine worked only with heroin derivatives and did not affect sensitivity to other substances, also interacting with opioid receptors and used in the rehabilitation of drug addicts (such as naloxone or methadone). Thus, the researchers conclude, the vaccine they created can very well be used together with other types of antinarcotic therapy.
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