New ‘super-vaccine’ could make quitting nicotine, drugs easy
15 Jan 2015
American scientists have designed a new effective nicotine vaccine, which they believe could be a big step in helping smokers and even drug addicts quit.
The body reacts to the vaccine by creating antibodies to bind specifically to nicotine molecules. When a person later uses tobacco, the anti-nicotine antibodies stop the nicotine molecules from entering the central nervous system.
The problem with the previous nicotine vaccine, which only worked in 30 per cent of patients, was that it did not single out the most common form of nicotine for attack.
Nicotine has two forms that look like mirror images of each other - a 'right-handed' version and a 'left-handed' kind. Even though 99 per cent of the nicotine found in tobacco is the left-handed version, the previous vaccine elicited antibodies against both.
The researchers elicited a more robust antibody response by creating a vaccine from only left-handed nicotine haptens. To do this, they prepared haptens as a 50-50 mixture and as pure right-handed or pure left-handed versions of nicotine, so they could use the two versions separately or together.
Lead author Jonathan Lockner said the study demonstrates that future vaccines should target that left-handed version, indicating there may even be more effective haptens available in future.
The study has been published in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry.
