Blocking interleukin-4 enhances efficacy of vaccines for treatment of opioid abuse and prevention of opioid overdose.

ABSTRACT: Vaccines offer an option to treat heroin and prescription opioid abuse and prevent fatal overdoses. Opioid vaccines elicit antibodies that block opioid distribution to the brain and reduce opioid-induced behavioral effects and toxicity. The major limitation to the translation of addiction vaccines is that efficacy is observed only in subjects achieving optimal drug-specific serum antibody levels. This study tested whether efficacy of a vaccine against oxycodone is increased by immunomodulators targeting key cytokine signaling pathways involved in B and T cell lymphocyte activation. Blockage of IL-4 signaling increased vaccine efficacy in blocking oxycodone distribution to the brain and protection against opioid-induced behavior and toxicity in mice. This strategy generalized to a peptide-p

SUBMITTER: Laudenbach M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5882912 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature