title: Simultaneous determination of major phytocannabinoids, their main metabolites, and common synthetic cannabinoids in urine samples by LC-MS/MS.
abstract: Simultaneous determination of major phytocannabinoids (THC, CBD, CBN), their main metabolites (11-OH-THC, THC-COOH, THC-COOH-glucuronide) and common synthetic cannabinoids (HU-210, JWH-018, JWH-073, JWH-250) remains an issue in forensic toxicology. The present study has developed a liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method to simultaneously detect the above 10 analytes in human urine samples. The chromatographic separation was performed on an ACQUITY UPLC(®)BEH Phenyl 1.7μm (2.1×100mm) column, using a mobile phase consisting of 0.1% formic acid in water and acetonitrile at a flow rate of 0.3mL/min in gradient elution mode. The limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantification (LOQ) of all analytes were 0.01-0.5ng/mL and 0.05-1ng/mL, respectively. The assay was linear from LOQ to 100ng/mL for phytocannabinoids, their main metabolites and HU-210, and from 0.05 to 50ng/mL for JWH-250, JWH-018 and JWH-073. The extraction recoveries were over 50% and the matrix effects were between 59.4% and 100.1%. The accuracy and precision were <10.4% of bias and <10.5% of relative standard deviation (RSD), respectively. The developed method was applied to 5 urine samples from real caseworks, and the results that THC metabolites together with synthetic cannabinoids were detected demonstrated the effectiveness of our method.
authors: Department of Forensic Medicine, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, China.
authors: Xiaoru
authors: X
authors: Dong
authors: Department of Forensic Medicine, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, China.
authors: Liliang
authors: L
authors: Li
authors: Department of Forensic Medicine, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, China.
authors: Yonghong
authors: Y
authors: Ye
authors: Department of Forensic Medicine, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, China.
authors: Lixing
authors: L
authors: Zheng
authors: Department of Forensic Medicine, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, China. Electronic address: jiangyan@fudan.edu.cn.
authors: Yan
authors: Y
authors: Jiang
mesh_terms: D002186:Cannabinoids / Q000652:urine*; D002853:Chromatography, Liquid / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D057230:Limit of Detection; D016014:Linear Models; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D015813:Substance Abuse Detection; D053719:Tandem Mass Spectrometry / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D002186:Cannabinoids
keywords: LC–MS/MS; Metabolites; Phytocannabinoids; Synthetic cannabinoids