10.1021/bc500016k.s001 Karen C. Collins Karen C. Collins Kim D. Janda Kim D. Janda Investigating Hapten Clustering as a Strategy to Enhance Vaccines against Drugs of Abuse American Chemical Society 2015 antibody affinity concentration vaccine paradigm Hapten Clustering Enhance Vaccines trivalent hapten diglycine spacer abuse monovalent AM 1 analog equivalent affinity response hapten density context 2015-12-17 01:05:10 Journal contribution https://acs.figshare.com/articles/journal_contribution/Investigating_Hapten_Clustering_as_a_Strategy_to_Enhance_Vaccines_against_Drugs_of_Abuse/2030139 Vaccines for drugs of abuse have yet to achieve full clinical relevance, largely due to poor/inconsistent immune responses in patients. The use of multivalent scaffolding as a means to tailor drug–hapten density and clustering was examined in the context of drug-immune response modulation. A modular trivalent hapten containing a diglycine spacer, triAM1­(Gly)<sub>2</sub>, was synthesized and shown to elicit anti-nicotine antibodies at equivalent affinity and concentration to the monovalent AM1 analog, despite in this instance having a lower effective hapten density. Augmenting this data, the corresponding monovalent hapten AM1­(Gly)<sub>2</sub> resulted in enhanced antibody affinity and concentration. Drug-hapten clustering represents a new vaccine paradigm, and, while examined only in the context of nicotine, it should be readily translatable to other drugs of abuse.