title: Electrophoretic fingerprinting of benzodiazepine tablets in spike drinks.
abstract: Over the last few years, there has been an increase in the reports of drug-facilitated crimes. The list of drugs associated with these crimes is extensive and benzodiazepines constitute one of the groups of substances more commonly used. The sedative properties, which characterize benzodiazepines, are enhanced when such drugs are combined with alcohol, being more attractive for committing these types of crimes. In this work, a capillary electrophoresis method was applied to the analysis of 63 different samples of club drinks spiked with benzodiazepine tablets. The resulting electropherograms were processed and analyzed with the chemometric multivariate techniques: principal component analysis (PCA) and soft independent modeling of class analogies (SIMCA) classification. The PCA results allowed a clear differentiation of each drug class in a 3D plot. In addition, the SIMCA classification model (5% significance level) showed that eight out of nine test samples were automatically assigned by software to their proper sample class. The conflicting sample was correctly classified in the Coomans' plot (95% confidence). This novel approach based on the comparison of electrophoretic profiles of spiked drinks by chemometric tools allows determining the benzodiazepine used for drink spiking without the use of drug standards. Moreover, it provides an opportunity for the forensic laboratories to incorporate the identification capability provided by the electrophoretic fingerprinting of benzodiazepine solutions in existing or new databases.
authors.affiliation: Department of Analytical Chemistry, Physical Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Multipurpose Building of Chemistry, University of Alcalá, Madrid, Spain; University Institute of Research in Police Sciences (IUICP), University of Alcalá, Madrid, Spain.
authors.forename: Jorge
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Sáiz
authors.forename: Fernando
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Ortega-Ojeda
authors.forename: Lucía
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: López-Melero
authors.forename: Gema
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Montalvo
authors.forename: Carmen
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: García-Ruiz
mesh_terms: D000434:Alcoholic Beverages / Q000032:analysis; D001569:Benzodiazepines / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000145:classification*; D002253:Carbonated Beverages / Q000032:analysis; D044707:Forensic Sciences / Q000379:methods*; D025341:Principal Component Analysis; D013607:Tablets / Q000737:chemistry
chemical_list: D013607:Tablets; D001569:Benzodiazepines
keywords: Benzodiazepines; Drug-facilitated crimes; Multivariate data analysis; PCA; SIMCA