New insights in the clastic binding hypothesis for opiate-receptor interactions I: Electron-transfer mechanism.

A clastic binding hypothesis for opiate-receptor interactions, in which the key step in eliciting the opiate response is an electron transfer from the opiate nitrogen to the receptor, is analyzed from a chemical point of view and is found to be chemically feasible. An extended form of this hypothesis is proposed in order to accommodate recent observations about the N-demethylation of morphines in the brain. An in vitro model system for studying the electron-transfer reactions of morphines is proposed, and the initial experiments in this system are reported.