Opioid receptors on white blood cells: effect of HIV infection and methadone treatment.

Opioid receptors (OR) are involved in many physiological and pathological immune functions. During recent years, the treatment of opiate addiction with methadone in HIV-positive and HIV-negative patients has become widely accepted. However, little is known on the occurrence and course of OR on lymphocytes of these individuals. The objective of the study was to detect and quantify OR on peripheral white blood cells (WBC) by fluorescence-activated cell sorting using polyclonal antibodies and reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction, and to assess the influence of HIV infection and methadone treatment. We compared OR levels in 80 HIV-positive homosexuals, 18 HIV-positive intravenous drug users (IVDU) treated with methadone, 18 HIV-negative IVDU receiving methadone and 25 healthy controls. HIV infection was shown to decrease the amount of OR on WBC, especially of the delta-subtype on lymphocytes and granulocytes. The decrease correlated with the duration of HIV-infection (P<0.01), and inversely with the HIV viral load (P<0.01). In contrast, chronic methadone administration led to a significant increase of OR exclusively in HIV-negative IVDU. In particular the delta-OR was increased by 31-, 62- and 42-fold on lymphocytes, monocytes and granulocytes of HIV-negative patients (each P<0.005), respectively, which was not observed in HIV-positive IVDU. Therefore, HIV seems to reduce OR particularly on lymphocytes and granulocytes regardless of the mode of HIV transmission. The quantification of OR on immune cells may help to elucidate the effects of opioid analogues in health and drug addiction.