Monitoring Metabolism Of Synthetic Cannabinoid 4F-MDMB-BINACA Via High-resolution Mass Spectrometry Assessed In Cultured Hepatoma Cell Line, Fungus, Liver Microsomes And Confirmed Using Urine Samples Forensic Toxicology Springer Nature Link

Oxidation of 4′-hydroxybutyl moiety in B2 led to formation of 4′-carboxybutyl metabolite (B4) having a precursor ion of m/z 362, which was 14 Da higher than the m/z for B2 (loss of two hydrogen atoms with addition of a carbonyl group


Some mice showed abnormal behaviors (catalepsy, loss of traction, convulsion) right after the administration of the tested substances. The locomotor activity of the mice was measured 30 min and 2 hrs after the last substance administration. We also examined their neurotoxicity using brain samples through histopathological diagnose, especially in the nucleus accumbens core region. In histopathological analysis, neural cells of the animals treated with the high dose (5 mg/kg) of JWH-081 or JWH-210 showed distorted nuclei and nucleus membranes in the core shell of nucleus accumbens, suggesting neurotoxicity.
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Synthetic cannabinoids have consistently been shown to produce discriminative stimulus effects similar to those https://cannabinoidsrc4f-adb.com/ of Δ9-THC (Bannister and Connor, 2018), and MDMB-FUBINACA fully substituted for Δ9-THC (Gamage et al., 2018). The chemical structures of the recent synthetic cannabinoids are unlike that of Δ9-THC, but are largely based on the structure of older synthetic cannabinoids that are known to have substantial abuse liability (Fig. 1). All 5 compounds decreased locomotor activity and produced discriminative stimulus effects similar to those of Δ9-THC, which suggests they may have abuse liability similar to that of Δ9-THC. Subsequent testing identified 5F-ADB to have been present in a total of ten people who had died from unexplained drug overdoses in Japan between September 2014 and December 2014. AMB-FUBINACA produced tremors and may be of increased risk in human recreational users.
Michael B Gatch
These findings are in agreement with earlier studies showing the synthetic cannabinoids substitute for the discriminative stimulus effects of Δ9-THC (see review by Wiley et al., 2017). Pretreatment times and dose ranges for the drug discrimination assay were selected based on the time of peak depression in the locomotor activity assay in mice. As mentioned previously, short-onset compounds have a greater abuse liability; further, compounds that have fewer adverse effects while they are active are likely to be preferred. All five of the compounds in the present study fully substituted with a pretreatment time of 15 min, suggesting a rapid onset of the discriminative stimulus effects. All of the cathinones fully substituted for the discriminative stimulus effects of Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol (≥80% drug-appropriate responding). Because response suppression may compromise stimulus control, rats failing to complete at least ten responses during the test session were excluded from the analysis of the discriminative stimulus effects of that dose of test compoun

In both tests, a group of mice were treated with negative control (vehicle, 1 mg/kg, i.p.), positive control (methamphetamine, 1 mg/kg, i.p.), or one of the three doses of test substances (0.1, 1, 5 mg/kg, i.p.) once every other day for 10 day


Separation of compounds was performed on a 2.1 mm×100 mm, 1.7 https://cannabinoidsrc4f-adb.com/ μm particle size ACQUITY Torus™ DIOL analytical column (Waters) with guard cartridge. Measurements were performed by an ACQUITY UPC2 supercritical fluid chromatography system (Waters) coupled with a Xevo TQ-S Triple Quadrupole Mass Spectrometer (Waters). During the death scene examination, multiple cigarette butts without filters were found in an ashtray; also found were alcohol bottles, an unopened box of nebivolol-containing drug, and 18 g of unrecognizable herbal residue in a cigarette box.
Victim B also brought "something resembling a drug" (unrecognizable by Witness A) from his cousin (Witness B) in a cigarette box and mixed this substance with their tobacco. The half-maximal effective concentration (EC50) of 4F-MDMB-BINACA is 5.69 nM (2.76–11.0 nM) on CB1, and 0.69 nM (0.30–1.56 nM) on CB2, in vitro half-life (t1/2) is 10.27 min . It is usually available as a powder, liquid (vapor fluid), or herbal plant mixtur

Moreover, genetic makeup, physiological conditions (age, gender and ethnicity), environmental influences (diet) and pathological factors (liver diseases, diabetes, and obesity) would further complicate the metabolism of drug


Product ions detected at m/z 302, 217, and 145 (B2) confirmed that tert-leucine and indazole moieties remained unchanged, leading to the structure elucidation of a hydroxy-functional group at the 4-position of the butyl side chain by oxidative defluorination. The product ion m/z 336 (loss of methyl ester moiety) further confirmed the presence of dihydroxylated metabolites. The precursor ion, m/z 364 (B14, B5/B6) had a loss of 2 Da from m/z 366 indicated further dehydrogenation of the ester hydrolysis plus monohydroxylated metabolites. The presence of the product ion m/z 320, likely formed from a loss of carbon dioxide, indicated monohydroxylation at the tert-leucine in B8 (m/z 219), butyl side chain in B9 (m/z 145) and indazole moiety in B13 (m/z 161). The precursor ion, m/z 350 showed a loss of 14 Da explaining the hydrolysis of methyl ester from 4F-MDMB-BINACA.
Fig. 2.
The precursor ion m/z 396 (B10, B12/B15) was 32 Da higher than the parent drug, 4F-MDMB-BINACA, suggesting the addition of two hydroxy groups. All the below explanations for transformations into metabolites are based on the data shown in Fig. Metabolites were identified according to their precursor ions, product ions, and fragmentation patterns (Fig. 1). Traditional in-vivo metabolism studies to generate human metabolites of drugs relied heavily on the use of whole animal model systems, which are expensive, limited by drug administration amount, influenced by species variation and faced by many ethical issues. Eight in-vivo metabolites tentatively identified were mainly products of ester hydrolysis with or without additional dehydrogenation, N-dealkylation, monohydroxylation and oxidative defluorination with further oxidation to butanoic acid.
Fig. 1.
Monitoring metabolism of synthetic cannabinoid 4F-MDMB-BINACA via high-resolution mass spectrometry assessed in cultured hepatoma cell line, fungus, https://cannabinoidsrc4f-adb.com/ liver microsomes and confirmed using urine samples The threshold for fatal overdose of combined use of SCRAs and ethanol can be estimated as a little ng/mL (0.37–4.1 ng/mL according to the reported cases) of SCRA and 1.5–2.5 g/L of ethanol. The reported cases and reviews of the scientific literature suggest a possible synergistic effect between SCRAs and ethanol, because their combined use clearly increases their toxicity. The victim died due to severe necrotizing pancreatitis and acute kidney injury evolving into multi-organ failure 11 days after hospital admission . Studies have found no unequivocal synergistic effect between THC and ethanol at low or moderate ethanol doses [29, 30], but no data on high doses of ethanol are available. Given that THC and ethanol act on the same receptors, data on their simultaneous use may yield important insights in this regard.
Fungus C. elegans
Concentrations of 4F-MDMB-BINACA in the postmortem blood samples were 2.50 and 2.34 ng/mL, which are in line with published data. Although the lethal dose of 4F-MDMB-BINACA is unknown, its concentration in postmortem blood samples was found to range between 0.10 and 2.90 ng/mL . In SCRA-related cases in which the deceased suffered from heart disease, the SCRA concentration in the postmortem blood was less than 1 ng/mL . Concentrations of SCRAs in postmortem cases cover a wide range ; however, some reports of survival have also been published—even at relatively high blood SCRA concentrations [19, 20