背景:自2019年底以来,用合成大麻素受体激动剂(SCRA)强化“常规”大麻植物材料已成为药物市场上的显着现象。由于许多SCRA比真正的大麻构成更高的健康风险,从减少危害的角度来看,认识到SCRA掺杂的大麻很重要。然而,这并不总是一件容易的事,因为掺假的大麻只能通过专用的方式与真正的大麻区分开来,通常是昂贵且耗时的分析技术。此外,SCRA市场的动态特性使强化样品的识别成为一项具有挑战性的任务。因此,我们建立并应用了基于体外大麻素受体1(CB1)活性的程序来筛选植物材料中SCRA的存在。
方法:测定原理依赖于β-抑制蛋白2募集到活化的CB1后分裂纳米荧光素酶的功能互补。简单的样品制备,包括甲醇提取和稀释,针对植物基质进行了优化,包括大麻,加标5微克/毫克的SCRACP55,940。
结果:生物测定法成功检测了一组(n=24)经分析确认的真实香料产品的所有样品,另外提供有关制剂的“强度”的相关信息,以及不同样品是否可能来自单独的批次或同一生产批次。最后,该方法用于评估在国际舞蹈节上收集的大量草药材料(n=252)中SCRA掺假的发生情况.这并没有显示任何积极因素,即没有产生相关CB1激活的样品。
结论:总之,我们建立了SCRA筛选草药材料作为基于活性的CB1生物测定的新应用。样品制备的简单性,快速的结果和生物测定的普遍特征使其成为评估草药材料是否存在SCRA的有效且面向未来的工具,这在减少伤害的背景下是相关的。
BACKGROUND: Since late 2019, fortification of \'regular\'
cannabis plant material with synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonists (SCRAs) has become a notable phenomenon on the drug market. As many SCRAs pose a higher health risk than genuine
cannabis, recognizing SCRA-adulterated
cannabis is important from a harm reduction perspective. However, this is not always an easy task as adulterated
cannabis may only be distinguished from genuine
cannabis by dedicated, often expensive and time-consuming analytical techniques. In addition, the dynamic nature of the SCRA market renders identification of fortified samples a challenging task. Therefore, we established and applied an in vitro cannabinoid receptor 1 (CB1) activity-based procedure to screen plant material for the presence of SCRAs.
METHODS: The assay principle relies on the functional complementation of a split-nanoluciferase following recruitment of β-arrestin 2 to activated CB1. A straightforward sample preparation, encompassing methanolic extraction and dilution, was optimized for plant matrices, including
cannabis, spiked with 5 µg/mg of the SCRA CP55,940.
RESULTS: The bioassay successfully detected all samples of a set (n = 24) of analytically confirmed authentic Spice products, additionally providing relevant information on the \'strength\' of a preparation and whether different samples may have originated from separate batches or possibly the same production batch. Finally, the methodology was applied to assess the occurrence of SCRA adulteration in a large set (n = 252) of herbal materials collected at an international dance festival. This did not reveal any positives, i.e. there were no samples that yielded a relevant CB1 activation.
CONCLUSIONS: In summary, we established SCRA screening of herbal materials as a new application for the activity-based CB1 bioassay. The simplicity of the sample preparation, the rapid results and the universal character of the bioassay render it an effective and future-proof tool for evaluating herbal materials for the presence of SCRAs, which is relevant in the context of harm reduction.