ß-arrestin 2 germline knockout does not attenuate opioid respiratory depression
Abstract
Opioids are perhaps the most effective analgesics in medicine. However, between 1999 to 2018, over 400,000 people in the United States died from opioid overdose. Excessive opioids make breathing lethally slow and shallow, a side-effect called opioid induced respiratory depression. This doubled-edged sword has sparked the desire to develop novel therapeutics that provide opioid-like analgesia without depressing breathing. One such approach has been the design of so-called 'biased agonists' that signal through some, but not all pathways downstream of the µ-opioid receptor (MOR), the target of morphine and other opioid analgesics. This rationale stems from a study suggesting that MOR-induced ß-arrestin 2 dependent signaling is responsible for opioid respiratory depression, whereas adenylyl cyclase inhibition produces analgesia. To verify this important result that motivated the 'biased agonist' approach, we re-examined breathing in ß-arrestin 2 deficient mice and instead find no connection between ß-arrestin 2 and opioid respiratory depression. This result suggests that any attenuated effect of 'biased agonists' on breathing is through an as-yet defined mechanism.
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The data generated in Figures 2-4 are provided in the source files.
Article and author information
Author details
Funding
NIH Office of the Director (DP5-OD023116)
- Kevin Yackle
Program for Breakthrough Biomedical Research
- Kevin Yackle
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Ethics
Animal experimentation: All animal experiments were performed in accordance with national and institutional guidelines with standard precautions to minimize animal stress and the number of animals used in each experiment. All animal protocols have been approved by the UCSF 'Office of Research'.approval number AN181239.
Reviewing Editor
- Allan Basbaum, University of California San Francisco, United States
Publication history
- Received: October 1, 2020
- Accepted: May 17, 2021
- Accepted Manuscript published: May 18, 2021 (version 1)
- Accepted Manuscript updated: May 24, 2021 (version 2)
- Version of Record published: June 18, 2021 (version 3)
Copyright
© 2021, Bachmutsky et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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