Smoking Cessation This enzyme reduces dependence without triggering withdrawal symptoms

An enzyme stops dependence on nicotine?

The World Heath Organization WHO classifies smoking as a global epidemic causing about five to six million deaths each year. Researchers have now developed an enzyme that can break down nicotine without triggering withdrawal symptoms.

Scientists at the Scripps Research Institute have now developed a drug that could help people quit smoking. The enzyme already breaks down nicotine in the blood. The physicians published the results of their study in the English language journal "Science Advances".

How could nicotine addiction be overcome??

Many researchers around the world are looking for new ways to help people overcome the harmful addictions of smoking - from a vaccine that prevents the beneficial effects of nicotine to magnetic impulses that are delivered to the brain and attenuate substance dependence.

Enzyme NicA2-J1 works extremely effectively

Researchers at the Scripps Research Institute made a major breakthrough in 2015 as they first discovered a natural enzyme called NicA2 in the soil of a tobacco field that is produced by a bacterium called Pseudomonas putida. Since then, the team has been working to optimize this enzyme, making it more effective in the hunt and destruction of nicotine in the bloodstream of an animal and staying there longer in the bloodstream. The newly developed enzyme is called NicA2-J1. In animal studies, the enzyme is proving to be extremely effective in lowering nicotine blood levels in rats, the researchers say in a press release. In rat models designed to mimic human dependence on nicotine, the animals showed incredibly low nicotine levels in their bloodstream after treatment with the new enzyme, the authors add to the study. More importantly, the animals did not show significant withdrawal symptoms after ingestion of the enzyme.

NicA2-J1 reduces dependency without withdrawal symptoms

The special thing about this enzyme is that it removes enough nicotine to reduce addiction, but leaves enough to keep the animals from getting severe withdrawal symptoms, the researchers explain. The study also examined the longer-term effects of the enzyme, especially with regard to the relapse into dependence. Nicotine was withheld from the animals for ten days after which an injection of nicotine was administered. The animals originally treated with NicA2-J1 showed significantly reduced addictive behavior compared to the untreated rats, suggesting that the enzyme has long-term beneficial effects.

Side effects are minimal

One of the intriguing aspects of this research is that scientists are working to eliminate nicotine in the bloodstream before nicotine reaches the brain. Unlike other new techniques, this method prevents the drug from getting to the brain at all. This is a very exciting approach because nicotine dependence can be reduced without causing cravings and other severe withdrawal symptoms, and the process works in the bloodstream, not in the brain, so the side effects should be minimal, say the authors of the study.

Research on humans is necessary

Of course, the results have not been reproduced in humans yet, but the researchers are confident that after years of work, they are now ready to conduct human studies with the first enzyme that destroys nicotine in the bloodstream. Safety and efficacy in humans are still major hurdles to overcome, but as research progresses, this treatment could be an incredibly useful new aid to stop smoking. This could save the lives of millions of people around the world, the study authors conclude. (As)