近年来,2-苄基苯并咪唑阿片类药物(\'nitazenes\')的使用有所增加,它们已成为新型精神活性物质中最突出的合成阿片类药物亚类之一。随着患病率的增加,由于硝基苯的高效力,尤其是在多药制剂中,使用硝基苯对公众健康的危害也令人担忧。为了帮助检测这些化合物,重要的是法医毒理学实验室保持用于药物筛选方法的最新化合物库,并且灵敏的分析仪器可用于检测更有效药物的低血液/血浆浓度。这不仅包括化合物本身,而且包括潜在的代谢物和/或降解产物。甲硝唑是一种在苯并咪唑环5位具有硝基的硝基-硝唑。作为硝基-硝基氮烯,有可能将甲硝唑细菌降解为5-氨基甲硝唑,与硝基苯二氮卓类药物一样。在这项研究中,我们提供了使用LC-QQQ-MS在未保存的死后血液中甲硝嗪降解的死后案例的证据,并通过LC-QTOF-MS推定鉴定降解/代谢产物5-氨基单氮唑和5-乙酰氨基单氮唑。LC-QQQ-MS分析的结果表明,在保存的(氟化物/草酸盐)血液中似乎没有这种降解。这些结果表明,硝基-硝基二氮杂可经受与硝基-苯并二氮卓类类似的体外稳定性/降解问题。这些分解产物应添加到仪器库中,以帮助检测硝基硝基苯的使用,和硝基硝基苯应在保存的血液样本中进行定量。
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 post-mortem
case of degradation of metonitazene in unpreserved post-mortem blood using LC-QQQ-MS, and putative identification of the degradation/ metabolic products 5-aminometonitazene and 5-acetamidometonitazene by LC-QTOF-MS. 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.