FLICKR, MATT TROSTLEAvailable treatments for quitting smoking fail in the vast majority of those who try them, but a new study points to a bacterial enzyme that may prove more successful. Pseudomonas putida, a soil bacterium first isolated from a tobacco field, gets all its carbon and nitrogen by consuming nicotine. And a P. putida enzyme called NicA2 is responsible for breaking down nicotine, according to a study published last week (August 6) in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
“The bacterium is like a little Pac-Man. It goes along and eats nicotine,” coauthor Kim Janda of the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, said in a press release. “Our research is in the early phase of drug development process, but the study tells us the enzyme has the right properties to eventually become a successful therapeutic.” If NicA2 can degrade nicotine before it reaches the brain’s reward centers, it could help a smoker kick the habit by blocking a pleasurable feeling they get from cigarettes.
Sure enough, when the researchers spiked mouse serum with a dose of nicotine equivalent to one cigarette, then added NicA2 to the mix, the enzyme cut nicotine’s half-life from more than two hours to less than 15 minutes. ...
