Development of a simultaneous analytical method and characterization of metabolic pathways for synthetic cathinones

Abstract

Synthetic cathinones are phenylalkylamines derivatives having similar effects like amphetamine that are newly introduced to avoid detection in standard analysis. To detect and quantify emerging synthetic cathinones, we developed a simultaneous analytical method for 27 cathinones and related drugs in human urine using liquid-chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry. The chromatographic separation was performed on a reverse-phase column with multiple reaction monitoring. The developed method was fully validated in terms of selectivity, linearity, accuracy, precision, recovery and stability. This validated method can be applied to examine urine samples from drug abuser for screening of emerging new synthetic cathinones. Metabolism studies were also carried out to confirm drug abuse and predict in vivo metabolites in biological samples. we investigated metabolic profiling of seven representative synthetic cathiones using rat and human liver microsome fraction and human hepatocyte incubation. Through this study, specific metabolic pathways and its biomarkers of synthetic cathinones were characterized and identified. These results will provide evidence for in vivo synthetic cathinones metabolism, and they can be applied to the analysis of these drugs and its metabolites in biological samples.