Vaccine Induced Immune Response to Opioids Cures Addiction
Due to the ever increasing death toll from opioid overdoes, researchers have been diligently working on a novel means of addiction intervention. Currently, Opioid Management Therapy (OMT) relies heavily on patients adhering to a strict opioid-based medication regime in order to slowly wean them off of their substance of choice. Unfortunately, many patients fail to complete their OMT program, and become even more addicted to opioids then ever before. In order to circumvent the issues which occur with OMT, clinicians have turned to an immunopharmotherapeutic approach to curb patients drug related cravings. In an immunopharmotherapeutic approach, researchers were interested in generating an “anti-opioid vaccine” in which an antibody could bind to a drug and prevent it from passing through the Blood Brain Barrier (BBB) and subsequently activing opioid receptors in the brain. This vaccine, when injected, would have to illicit and immune response which generated a high titer of antibodies against the immunogen as well as a broad range of opioids. Unfortunately, heroine itself is a hapten, meaning it is too small of a molecule to illicit any sort of immune response on its own. Therefore the vaccine could not simply be composed of a heroin hapten-like molecule, but also be conjugated to a carrier protein and a strong human acceptable adjuvant. In order to accomplish this, the researchers altered the pre-existing haptagenic opiate surrogate 6-AMHAP to a more stable form which was conjugated to tetanus toxoid and mixed with an adjuvant of monophosphotyl lipid A liposomes. This combination generated a stable anti-opioid vaccine which targeted a wide range of common opioids without cross reacting with over the counter pain medications, OMT, or drugs required for overdose resuscitation. This vaccine was tested in mice and rats given large doses of the opioid heroine. The resulting animals presented with a high titer of anti- 6-AMHAP IgGs which resulted in a significant improvement of the drug related behavioral changes locomotion and pain tolerance. Overall, the authors are hopeful that this vaccine can be used to not only help with withdrawal related symptoms, but can also inhibit a patients constant need for drug use.
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