ABSTRACT
A histochemical method was designed to detect the regions of binding the dopamine and morphine in human peripheral blood lymphocytes. It is based on incubating the suspension of lymphocytes and conjugated dopamine or morphine with bull serum albumin (BSA) marked by horse-radish peroxidase. After incubation, smears are prepared from the lymphocyte suspension, which are stained by diaminobenzidine in the presence of hydrogen peroxide for peroxidase. The light microscope with oil immersion is used to count the number of lymphocytes (from among 100 hundred of them), which contain the peroxidase granules. Smears from the lymphocyte suspension, which were incubated with the BSA-peroxidase conjugate, were controls. The binding of peroxidase-marked ligands of dopamine and mu-opioid receptors with lymphocytes was oppressed by the dose-dependant preliminary incubation with antagonists (haloperidol, naloxone), on the basis of which the presence of the ligand-receptor interaction can be suggested. The number of bindings of dopamine and morphine in lymphocytes was shown to be reliably higher in the alcoholic-intoxication state versus the healthy subjects without any signs of alcohol consumption. The designed method is simple enough in use and does not require any special equipment for the receptor detection in a moderate blood quantity.