An in Vitro Assay to Study the Role of Opioids in Modulating Immune Cell Adhesion

Opioids play a pivotal role in pain transmission but are also able to modulate immune cell functions. In the last decades a connection between opioids and integrins-adhesion molecules involved, among many other processes, in leukocyte recruitment at inflamed site-has been established. To study immune cell integrin-mediated adhesion, cell adhesion assay is a simple, reproducible, and valuable tool capable of unraveling concentration-dependent effects of a test candidate on integrin-mediated cell adhesion.