Pharmacokinetic Approach to Combat the Synthetic Cannabinoid PB-22

Behavioral metabolomics: how behavioral data can guide metabolomics research on neuropsychiatric disorders

INTRODUCTION

Metabolomics produces vast quantities of data but determining which metabolites are the most relevant to the disease or disorder of interest can be challenging.

OBJECTIVES

This study sought to demonstrate how behavioral models of psychiatric disorders can be combined with metabolomics research to overcome this limitation.

METHODS

We designed a preclinical, untargeted metabolomics procedure, that focuses on the determination of central metabolites relevant to substance use disorders that are (a) associated with changes in behavior produced by acute drug exposure and (b) impacted by repeated drug exposure. Untargeted metabolomics analysis was carried out on liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry data obtained from 336 microdialysis samples. Samples were collected from the medial striatum of male Sprague-Dawley (N = 21) rats whilst behavioral data were simultaneously collected as part of a (±)-3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA)-induced behavioral sensitization experiment. Analysis was conducted by orthogonal partial least squares, where the Y variable was the behavioral data, and the X variables were the relative concentrations of the 737 detected features.

RESULTS

MDMA and its derivatives, serotonin, and several dopamine/norepinephrine metabolites were the greatest predictors of acute MDMA-produced behavior. Subsequent univariate analyses showed that repeated MDMA exposure produced significant changes in MDMA metabolism, which may contribute to the increased abuse liability of the drug as a function of repeated exposure.

CONCLUSION

These findings highlight how the inclusion of behavioral data can guide metabolomics data analysis and increase the relevance of the results to the phenotype of interest.

Biopharmaceuticals against substance use disorders - Present and future

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES

Pharmacological treatments available for substance use disorder (SUD) focus on pharmacodynamics, agonizing or antagonizing the drug of abuse (DOA) on receptor level. Drawbacks of this approach include the reliance on long-term patient compliance, on-target off-site effects, perpetuation of addiction and unavailability for many DOAs. Newer, pharmacokinetic approaches are needed that restrict DOA's access to the brain or disrupt DOA-instated brain changes maintaining addiction. Biotechnology might be able to provide the right biopharmaceutical tools to deliver a fine-tuned solution with less side effects compared to currently available treatments.

METHODS

This review examines the available literature on biopharmaceuticals developed to treat SUD.

RESULTS

Active and passive immunization, metabolic enhancers that augment DOA metabolism and clearance, as well as genetic/epigenetic modulation are promising next generation SUD treatments. Active immunization relies on production of antidrug antibodies by means of vaccination, while passive immunization constitutes of exogenous administration of such antibodies. Metabolic enhancers include drug-specific metabolizing enzymes that can be administered or secreted by modified skin grafts, as well as catalytic antibodies that hasten DOA metabolism. Nanotechnological advances can also allow for brain delivery of siRNAs, mRNAs or DNA in order to modulate central, common in all addictions, genetic or epigenetic targets attenuating drug seeking behavior and reversing drug-induced brain changes.

CONCLUSIONS

and Scientific Significance: Biopharmaceuticals can in the future complement or even replace traditional pharmacodynamics approaches in SUD treatment. While passive and active immunization biopharmaceuticals have entered human clinical trials, metabolic enhancers and genetic approaches are at the preclinical level.

Catalytic Antibodies: Design, Expression, and Their Applications in Medicine

Catalytic antibodies made it feasible to develop new catalysts, which had previously been the subject of research. Scientists have discovered natural antibodies that can hydrolyze substrates such as nucleic acids, proteins, and polysaccharides during decades of research, as well as several ways of producing antibodies with specialized characteristics and catalytic functions. These antibodies are widely used in chemistry, biology, and medicine. Catalytic antibodies can continue to play a role and even fully prevent the emergence of autoimmune disorders, especially in the field of infection and immunity, where the process of its occurrence and development often takes a long time. In this work, the development, design and evolution methodologies, and the expression systems and applications of catalytic antibodies, are discussed. Trial registration: not applicable.

Development of Cross-Reactive Antibodies for the Identification and Treatment of Synthetic Cannabinoid Receptor Agonist Toxicity

Synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonists (SCRAs) are compounds that mimic the pharmacology of the psychoactive components in cannabis. These compounds are structurally diverse, inexpensive, commercially available, and difficult to identify with modern analytical methods, making them highly accessible for recreational use. Suspected SCRA toxicity, which can present with a breadth of cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, and neurological disturbances, is currently addressed through symptom management followed by a toxicological screening that often occurs long after patient discharge. Here, we report the development of four cross-reactive anti-SCRA bioconjugate vaccines as a platform for developing improved diagnostic and therapeutic interventions against SCRA intoxication, using SCRA-resembling small molecule haptens that combine common subregional motifs occurring within and across different generations of SCRA molecules. Using a combination of multiplexed competitive ELISA screening and chemoinformatic analyses, it was found that the antibodies resulting from vaccination with these bioconjugates demonstrated their ability to detect multiple SCRAs with a Tanimoto minimum common structure score of 0.6 or greater, at concentrations below 8 ng/mL. The scope of SCRAs detectable using these haptens was found to include both bioisosteric and non-bioisosteric variants within the core and tail subregions, as well as SCRAs bearing valine-like head subregions, which are not addressed by commercially available ELISA screening approaches. Vaccination with these bioconjugates was also found to prevent the changes in locomotion and body temperature that were induced by a panel of SCRAs at doses of 1 and 3 mg/kg. Further refinement of this genericized hapten design and cross-reactivity-prioritizing approach may enable the rapid detection of otherwise cryptic SCRAs that arise during overdose outbreaks, and could ultimately lead to identification of monoclonal antibody species applicable for overdose reversal.

Development of effective therapeutics for polysubstance use disorders

Traditional pharmacotherapies for substance use disorders have focused on mono-substance abuse. However, recent epidemiological studies have found polysubstance use disorders (PUD) are becoming more prevalent and the abuse of adulterated drugs has led to increasing unintentional overdose deaths. Unfortunately, there are no approved pharmacological agents for PUD. Hence, a therapeutic model of interest to address this growing epidemic is immunopharmacotherapy, where individuals are inoculated with conjugate vaccines formulated with haptens that mimic the drug of abuse. These conjugate vaccines have demonstrated significant therapeutic potential against mono-substance abuse, thus recent studies have applied this model to address PUD. This review presents immunopharmacotherapeutic advancements against polysubstance abuse and discusses necessary developments for conjugate vaccines in order to effectively treat this unaddressed epidemic.