Title:The Development of Antibody-based Immunotherapy for Methamphetamine Abuse: Immunization, and Virus-Mediated Gene Transfer Approaches
Volume: 13
Issue: 1
Author(s): Yun-Hsiang Chen and Chia-Hsiang Chen
Affiliation:
Keywords:
Adeno-associated virus, antibody, gene therapy, immunization, methamphetamine abuse, vaccine, antagonists, immunotherapy
Abstract: Methamphetamine is a highly addictive psychostimulant that has been seriously abused worldwide, and currently
there are no approved medications for the treatment of its abuse. Conventional treatments for drug addiction mainly
seek to use small molecule agonists or antagonists to target the drug receptors in the brain, but unfortunately it is difficult
to find a similar small molecule for the treatment of methamphetamine dependence. Alternatively, anti-methamphetamine
antibodies can sequester the drug in the bloodstream and reduce the amount of drug available to the central nervous system,
acting as peripheral pharmacokinetic antagonists. This review describes the development of antibody-based immunotherapies,
classified into active and passive immunizations, for the treatment of methamphetamine addiction. Furthermore,
an alternative therapeutic approach, using a recombinant adeno-associated virus-mediated gene transfer technique to
achieve in vivo expression of characterized anti-methamphetamine monoclonal antibodies, is proposed in this article.
