The accurate analytical measurement of binding affinities of polyclonal antibody in sera to heroin, 6-acetylmorphine (6-AM), and morphine has been a challenging task. A simple nonradioactive method that uses deuterium-labeled drug tracers and equilibrium dialysis (ED) combined with ultra performance liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC/MS/MS) to measure the apparent dissociation constant (K d) of antibodies to 6-AM and morphine is described. The method can readily detect antibodies with K d in the low nanomolar range. Since heroin is rapidly degraded in sera, esterase inhibitors were included in the assay, greatly reducing heroin hydrolysis. MS/MS detection directly measured the heroin in the assay after overnight ED, thereby allowing the quantitation of % bound heroin in lieu of K d as an alternative measurement to assess heroin binding to polyclonal antibody sera. This is the first report that utilizes a solution-based assay to quantify heroin-antibody binding without being confounded by the presence of 6-AM and morphine and to measure K d of polyclonal antibody to 6-AM. Hapten surrogates 6-AcMorHap, 6-PrOxyHap, MorHap, DiAmHap, and DiPrOxyHap coupled to tetanus toxoid (TT) were used to generate high affinity antibodies to heroin, 6-AM, and morphine. In comparison to competition ED-UPLC/MS/MS which gave K d values in the nanomolar range, the commonly used competition enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) measured the 50% inhibition concentration (IC50) values in the micromolar range. Despite the differences in K d and IC50 values, similar trends in affinities of hapten antibodies to heroin, 6-AM, and morphine were observed by both methods. Competition ED-UPLC/MS/MS revealed that among the five TT-hapten bioconjugates, TT-6-AcMorHap and TT-6-PrOxyHap induced antibodies that bound heroin, 6-AM, and morphine. In contrast, TT-MorHap induced antibodies that poorly bound heroin, while TT-DiAmHap and TT-DiPrOxyHap induced antibodies either did not bind or poorly bound to heroin, 6-AM, and morphine. This simple and nonradioactive method can be extended to other platforms, such as oxycodone, cocaine, nicotine, and methamphetamine for the selection of the lead hapten design during substance abuse vaccine development.
Keywords: Antibody affinity; Apparent dissociation constant (K d); Competition ELISA; Equilibrium dialysis; Heroin hapten; UPLC/MS/MS.