Bacteria Help Fight Cocaine Addiction

Cocaine is one of the most potent and addictive drugs in the world. Once people fall in its hands, they can be made to stop only after intensive rehab and with great difficulty. Most of the times, former users end up as wrecks of their old selves, and need years to get their life back in order. But now, experts discover a new bacterial protein that apparently has the ability to help people go through rehab a lot faster. The protein is called cocaine esterase (CocE), and it is naturally capable of breaking down cocaine, even inside the body, e! Science News reports.

This means that the enzyme can, in fact, reduce the addictive properties that cocaine has. But, thus far, animal testings have proven that the half-life of this substance is too reduced to have considerable effects in the human body. But the new research, which focuses on a type of CocE that is more stable than others – double mutant or DM CocE – shows that cocaine abuse and related overdose deaths can now be avoided more easily. Details of the work appear in the latest issue of the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, and are also reviewed by expert Friedbert Weiss, from the Faculty of 1000 Medicine.

In the new experiments, researchers trained rats so that they administered cocaine to themselves. By pressing a button, the rodents would receive a small cocaine fix, at a time of their choosing. Some of the animals were left untreated, whereas the others were given DM CocE in various concentrations. The study revealed that those who were administered the bacterial protein tended to push the button a lot less than rats in the control group. The team says that this implies that the enzyme was effective in breaking down cocaine, and staving off its addictive effects.

The team also reveals that the bacterial compound provides long-lasting protection against the terrible effects of cocaine overdose, which is something of high importance in the case of people who just left rehab, and are back on the streets. The researchers underline, however, that a large dose of cocaine can naturally reverse or bypass the preemptive effects of DM CocE. “These therapeutic approaches may therefore not be 'fail-safe' for reducing cocaine intake by determined users [but] long-acting forms of CocE represent potentially valuable treatment approaches not only for the prevention of cocaine-induced toxicity, but also for ongoing cocaine abuse in humans,” Weiss concludes.