Identification of 5-aminometonitazene and 5-acetamidometonitazene in a postmortem case: are nitro-nitazenes unstable?

Autor:	Parks C; SPA Forensic Services, Govan, Glasgow G51 3AD, United Kingdom.; School of Medicine, Dentistry & Nursing, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, United Kingdom., Maskell PD; SPA Forensic Services, Govan, Glasgow G51 3AD, United Kingdom.; School of Medicine, Dentistry & Nursing, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, United Kingdom., McKeown DA; SPA Forensic Services, Govan, Glasgow G51 3AD, United Kingdom.; School of Medicine, Dentistry & Nursing, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, United Kingdom., Couchman L; Analytical Services International, St George's University of London, London SW17 0RE, United Kingdom.; Department of Analytical, Environmental and Forensic Sciences, King's College London, London SE1 9NH, United Kingdom.
Jazyk:	angličtina
Zdroj:	Journal of analytical toxicology [J Anal Toxicol] 2024 Nov 15; Vol. 48 (9), pp. 691-700.
DOI:	10.1093/jat/bkae076
Abstrakt:	In recent years, the use of 2-benzylbenzimidazole opioids ('nitazenes') has increased with them becoming one of the most prominent synthetic opioid subclasses of novel psychoactive substances. With the increased prevalence, there is also a concern of the dangers to public health with the use of nitazenes due to their high potency especially with polypharmacy. To aid in the detection of such compounds, it is important that forensic toxicology laboratories maintain up-to-date compound libraries for drug screening methods and that sensitive analytical instrumentation is available to detect the low blood/plasma concentrations of more potent drugs. This includes not only the compounds themselves but also potential metabolites and/or degradation products. Metonitazene is a 'nitro-nitazene' with a nitro group at position 5 of the benzimidazole ring. As a nitro-nitazene, there is a potential for bacterial degradation of metonitazene to 5-aminometonitazene, as occurs with nitro-benzodiazepines. In this study, we provide evidence from a postmortem (PM) case of degradation of metonitazene in unpreserved PM blood using liquid chromatography-triple quadrupole mass spectrometry (LC-QQQ-MS), and putative identification of the degradation/metabolic products 5-aminometonitazene and 5-acetamidometonitazene by liquid chromatography-quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry. The results from LC-QQQ-MS analysis indicated that there did not appear to be such degradation in preserved (fluoride/oxalate) blood. These results suggest that nitro-nitazenes may be subject to similar in vitro stability/degradation issues as nitro-benzodiazepines. These breakdown products should be added to instrument libraries to aid in the detection of the use of nitro-nitazenes, and nitro-nitazenes should be quantified in preserved blood samples where available. (© The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For commercial re-use, please contact reprints@oup.com for reprints and translation rights for reprints. All other permissions can be obtained through our RightsLink service via the Permissions link on the article page on our site–for further information please contact journals.permissions@oup.com.)
Databáze:	MEDLINE
Externí odkaz:	Zobrazit plný text záznamu