A Validated Method for the Detection of Synthetic Cannabinoids in Oral Fluid

Abstract

Workplace drug testing in Australia is governed by two standards AS/NZS 4308:2008 for testing in urine and AS 4760:2006 for oral fluid. These standards are prescriptive and describe the drugs tested, procedures for analysis and collection devices. However, the drugs listed are not exhaustive and workers may consume novel psychoactive substances without detection. Here we present a validated method for the detection and quantitation of 19 synthetic cannabinoids in oral fluid. These drugs are AM2233, JWH-200, AB-005, AB-FUBINACA, AB-PINACA, AB-CHMINACA, AM2201, RCS-4, JWH-250, STS-135, JWH-73, XLR-11, JWH-251, JWH-18, JWH-122, JWH-19, UR-144, JWH-20 and AKB-48. The sample volume is 100 μL and is subject to a rapid, simple, protein precipitation step prior to centrifugation and injection into the LC-MS/MS system. Chromatographic separation was achieved in 4 min on a Kinetex Biphenyl column (50 mm × 3 mm × 2.6 μm) using 0.1% formic acid in water and acetonitrile as the mobile phase. The method was validated with a limit of detection (1 ng/mL) limit of quantitation (2.5 ng/mL), selectivity, linearity (2.5-500 ng/mL), accuracy (90.5-112.5% of the target concentration) and precision (3-14.7%). This method provides for the rapid detection of synthetic cannabinoids in oral fluid which is readily applicable to a routine laboratory.

Cannabis et cannabinoïdes de synthèse. À propos de leur détection biologique

“…La littérature scientifique récente est très orientée « cannabinoïdes de synthèse », d'autant que certains ont été identifiés dans des e-liquides de vapotage [22]. Des méthodes existent dans le sang [23], les urines [24], la salive [25] et les cheveux [26]. Toutes ces méthodes mettent en avant plusieurs difficultés : connaître les nouveaux composés disponibles dans la rue et sur Internet, obtenir les substances de référence pour étalonner les instruments analytiques et surtout identifier correctement la molécule cible, du fait d'une métabolisation extensive.…”

Determination of the Synthetic Cannabinoids JWH-122, JWH-210, UR-144 in Oral Fluid of Consumers by GC-MS and Quantification of Parent Compounds and Metabolites by UHPLC-MS/MS

“…Thus, very low concentrations are expected to be found in biological fluids including OF [13]. Determination of SCs in OF has been successfully accomplished by gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC-MS) [13][14][15], and by liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24]. Scarce data are available about synthetic cannabinoids oral fluid pharmacokinetic properties in humans [20,24,25] and no published method has targeted metabolites yet.…”

Validation of a Bioanalytical Method for the Determination of Synthetic and Natural Cannabinoids (New Psychoactive Substances) in Oral Fluid Samples by Means of HPLC-MS/MS

“…The purity and composition of products containing NPS are often unknown, and it can be very difficult to develop methods to identify them in biological matrices (Strano-Rossi et al, 2012Brunt et al, 2017;Anzillotti et al, 2018Anzillotti et al, , 2019bBianchi et al, 2019;Graziano et al, 2019;Williams et al, 2019). Although, at present, there is a rapid development of these substances of abuse, there are no current guidelines with threshold reference standard values for NPS in biological samples, to the best of our knowledge.…”