Laboratory of Biomathematics, Institute of Physiology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, 14220 Prague, Czech Republic.
Department of Nanotoxicology and Molecular Epidemiology, Institute of Experimental Medicine of the Czech Academy of Sciences, 14220 Prague, Czech Republic.
Int J Mol Sci. 2020 Dec 30;22(1):315. doi: 10.3390/ijms22010315.
The observation of the immunomodulatory effects of opioid drugs opened the discussion about possible mechanisms of action and led researchers to consider the presence of opioid receptors (OR) in cells of the immune system. To date, numerous studies analyzing the expression of OR subtypes in animal and human immune cells have been performed. Some of them confirmed the expression of OR at both the mRNA and protein level, while others did not detect the receptor mRNA either. Although this topic remains controversial, further studies are constantly being published. The most recent articles suggested that the expression level of OR in human peripheral blood lymphocytes could help to evaluate the success of methadone maintenance therapy in former opioid addicts, or could serve as a biomarker for chronic pain diagnosis. However, the applicability of these findings to clinical practice needs to be verified by further investigations.
阿片类药物的免疫调节作用的观察引发了对可能的作用机制的讨论,并促使研究人员考虑阿片受体(OR)在免疫系统细胞中的存在。迄今为止,已经进行了许多分析 OR 亚型在动物和人类免疫细胞中表达的研究。其中一些研究证实了 OR 在 mRNA 和蛋白质水平上的表达,而另一些研究则没有检测到受体 mRNA。尽管这个话题仍然存在争议,但仍在不断发表进一步的研究。最近的一些文章表明,OR 在人外周血淋巴细胞中的表达水平可以帮助评估美沙酮维持治疗在前阿片类药物成瘾者中的成功,或者可以作为慢性疼痛诊断的生物标志物。然而,这些发现的临床应用需要进一步的研究来验证。