Mass Spectrometric Evaluation of Mephedrone In Vivo Human Metabolism: Identification of Phase I and Phase II Metabolites, Including a Novel Succinyl Conjugate
作者:Óscar J. Pozo、María Ibáñez、Juan V. Sancho、Julio Lahoz-Beneytez、Magí Farré、Esther Papaseit、Rafael de la Torre、Félix Hernández
DOI:10.1124/dmd.114.061416
日期:2015.2
In recent years, many new designer drugs have emerged, including the group of cathinone derivatives. One frequently occurring drug is mephedrone; although mephedrone was originally considered as a “legal high” product, it is currently banned in most Western countries. Despite the banning, abuse of the drug and seizures are continuously reported. Although the metabolism of mephedrone has been studied in rats or in vitro using human liver microsomes, to the best of our knowledge, no dedicated study with human volunteers has been performed for studying the in vivo metabolism of mephedrone in humans. Therefore, the aim of this study was to establish the actual human metabolism of mephedrone and to compare it with other models. For this purpose, urine samples of two healthy volunteers, who ingested 200 mg mephedrone orally, were taken before administration and 4 hours after substance intake. The discovery and identification of the phase I and phase II metabolites of mephedrone were based on ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled to hybrid quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry, operating in the so-called MSE mode. Six phase I metabolites and four phase II metabolites were identified, four of them not previously reported in the literature. The structure of four of the detected metabolites was confirmed by synthesis of the suggested compounds. Remarkably, a mephedrone metabolite conjugated with succinic acid has been identified and confirmed by synthesis. According to the reviewed literature, this is the first time that this type of conjugate is reported for human metabolism.
近年来,出现了许多新的特制毒品,包括卡西酮类衍生物。经常出现的一种药物是甲氧麻黄酮;尽管甲氧麻黄酮最初被认为是一种 "合法兴奋剂",但目前在大多数西方国家已被禁用。尽管已被禁用,但仍不断有滥用这种药物和缉获这种药物的报告。虽然已在大鼠体内或利用人体肝脏微粒体在体外对甲氧麻黄酮的代谢进行了研究,但就我们所知,还没有利用人体志愿者对甲氧麻黄酮在人体内的代谢进行过专门研究。因此,本研究的目的是确定甲氧麻黄酮在人体中的实际代谢情况,并将其与其他模型进行比较。为此,研究人员在两名健康志愿者口服 200 毫克甲氧麻黄酮后,分别在服药前和服药后 4 小时采集了他们的尿样。发现和鉴定甲氧麻黄酮的 I 期和 II 期代谢物的方法是采用超高效液相色谱法和混合四极杆飞行时间质谱法,以所谓的 MSE 模式运行。结果发现了六种 I 期代谢物和四种 II 期代谢物,其中四种以前未在文献中报道过。检测到的四种代谢物的结构已通过合成所建议的化合物得到证实。值得注意的是,发现了一种与琥珀酸共轭的甲氧麻黄酮代谢物,并通过合成得到了证实。根据所查阅的文献,这是首次报告人体代谢中存在这种共轭物。