In This Issue Cite This: ACS Chem. Neurosci. 2018, 9, 1225−1225
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A DUAL-ACTING OPIOID VACCINE
that allows predictions to be made about the spreading of pathological aggregates in neurodegenerative disease.
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Opioid abuse is a major health crisis in the United States, and deaths from overdose of opioids such as fentanyl have been increasing sharply over the past decade. Fentanyl, which is nearly 50 times more potent than heroin, is increasingly appearing as a contaminant in heroin and other illicit drugs, which can result in accidental overdose. To combat the acute and toxic effects of opioid abuse, the Janda group has pioneered immunotherapeutic strategies such as vaccines that mitigate the psychoactive effects of opioids that underlie addictive behaviors. In this issue, Hwang and coworkers (DOI: 10.1021/acschemneuro.8b00079) report a vaccine against heroin that has been contaminated with small amounts of fentanyl. The vaccine contains a mixture of both heroin and fentanyl hapten-conjugates to elicit immune responses against both drugs. This proof-of-concept admixture vaccine was found to successfully bind drugs in vivo and produce antibodies capable of sequestering fentanyl to reduce brain penetration.
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pubs.acs.org/chemneuro
MAPPING LIPID CHANGES IN THE FLY
Cocaine abuse can cause adverse psychological effects such as cognitive decline and behavioral changes. At the molecular level, it has been shown that cocaine abuse can alter dopaminergic signaling pathways, resulting in changes in phospholipid profiles in the brain. Alterations in lipid function and metabolism in the brain can have profound impacts, and may play a role in the cognitive impairments that arise from cocaine misuse. In this issue, Philipsen et al. (DOI: 10.1021/acschemneuro.8b00046) use time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (ToF-SIMS) to profile the effects of cocaine and methylphenidate on phospholipids in Drosophila. This technique enabled characterization of the spatial localization and abundance of phospholipid species in the nervous system of the fly, revealing the impacts of cocaine on the brain lipid structure and, possible correlation with effects on cognition and memory.
PRION-LIKE SPREADING OF TAU
In recent years, much research has been dedicated to understanding how neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease, spread throughout the brain. The prion hypothesis states that protein assemblies, including aggregated tau, are capable of self-propagation or “prion-like” spreading, seeding new aggregates and spreading them to neighboring cells. While it has been shown previously that tau filaments can seed new aggregates, their mechanism of amplification is not well understood. In this issue, Kundel and co-workers (DOI: 10.1021/acschemneuro.8b00094) use single molecule microscopy to study the assembly, fragmentation, and resulting spreading of tau filaments. The authors build a simple model © 2018 American Chemical Society
Published: June 20, 2018 1225
DOI: 10.1021/acschemneuro.8b00275 ACS Chem. Neurosci. 2018, 9, 1225−1225
