Bacteria that `eats` nicotine gives hope for anti-smoking therapy

Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute in California have been carrying out promising research on a bacterial enzyme that reportedly “eats nicotine like Pac-Man”, according to Medical News Today.

Study researchers said that the enzyme has been recreated in lab settings and is a good candidate for a new drug that could be targeted at smokers who are having trouble quitting.

NicA2’s test results are even more impressive considering the researchers say now available smoking cessation aids are only successful for 10-20 percent of smokers. The bacterial enzyme NicA2 could eat up the nicotine and resultantly make smoking less rewarding for smokers.

The Scripps Research Institute has been working to find a good treatment against smoking addiction for an excruciatingly long time.

Janda’s team hopes to develop an enzyme therapy that combats smoking addiction better than current medications on the market.

In recent finding, the bacteria is found to be useful in destroying the nicotine and will be useful to quit smoking if the drug is made out of this. With this new research on the bacterial enzyme, the scientists think a more favorable outcome will be seen within anti-smoking programs.

The study to create this breakthrough therapy has been under the microscope for many years in the lab. The process has proven to work as they have been able to extract the enzyme from bacterium Pseudomonas putida. Many therapies, solutions, and drugs have already failed. The enzyme is extracted and isolated originally from the soil in a tobacco field as the enzyme consumes nicotine as its source of survival which contains carbon and nitrogen.

The serum has been combined with nicotine that is equal to one cigarette and then the enzyme had been added to the serum-nicotine mixture.

Pac-Man Enzyme just loves eating nicotine so your brain doesn’t have to!

It has been revealed, thorough extensive analysis and lab-conducted investigations, that a relatively high dose of the enzyme, including a few chemical modifications, could reduce the half-life of nicotine and stop it from reaching the brain.

In essence, this enzyme therapy would prevent the nicotine from reaching the brain and producing dopamine.

The enzyme eats up nicotine and drops its life from about two or three hours to under 15 minutes.

The next step is to tinker with the enzyme’s chemistry to avoid potentially negative immune responses and enhance its therapeutic properties, Janda says.