Melanin Play a Role in Drug Binding

Does Melanin Play a Role in Drug Binding  

To examine the role of melanin for the incorporation of cocaine, two types of hair were exposed to cocaine plus radiotracer. The amount of cocaine present in the 

Incorporation of Cocaine into Melanin as Measured by Digestion Techniques 

Note Numbers are in units of ng cocaine/10 mg hair. The hair was exposed to 2.5 pg/mL of cocaine containing tracer for 1 h, rinsed two times with distilled water, and dried. After centrifugation, all the digested hair in the supernatant could not be separated from the melanin pellet. Therefore, some residual amount of the drug remained associated with the melaiun pellet. This amount is estimated to be between 2 to 10% of the total. Thus, the amount of cocaine actually associated with the melanin fraction is even less than that cited above. 

We have also employed melanin from synthetic sources and Sepia officinalis. However, synthetic melanin has a structure distinctly different from naturally occurring melanins, and therefore it makes a poor model for hair melanin. Based on these results, melanin may play a role in some drug binding, especially for highly lipophilic drugs, but this role may be overshadowed by that played by the hair protein matrix. 

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