Develop a high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS) method for separation of enantiomers of N-ethylpentedrone and its phase-1 metabolites

Author: Aluda Tchelidze
Keywords: enantiomers, metabolites, separation of enantiomers, separation of phase-1 metabolites.
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The main objective of this study is to develop a high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS) method for separation of enantiomers of N-ethylpentedrone and its phase-1 metabolites in human Oral Fluid (OF) and urine samples. Nowadays the number of new psychoactive substances (NPS) is increasing rapidly, among different compound classes, many NPS are chiral and few publications deal with the different pharmacological and toxicological properties of their pure enantiomers. Therefore, analytical method development concerning enantioseparation of NPS is of great interest in forensic toxicology. The compound studied is this work is one of the member of NPS class. For the method development several chiral stationary phases were tested. After screening of all available chiral selectors in our laboratory Cellulose tris(3,5-dimethylphenylcarbamate) coated on Silica-gel was chosen. Methanol and 5mM ammonium acetate buffer in water with 70:30(v/v) ratio was chosen as a final mobile phase. These conditions were used to study pharmacokinetic profile of n-ethylpentedrone in OF samples. This method was suitable to quantitatively detect mother compound and some of its phase-1 metabolites as well. For the separation of enantiomers of phase-1 metabolites different stationary and mobile phases were used. From the results of this study we can say that using this validated method it is possible to detect and quantify enantiomers of n-ethylpentedrone in OF samples using HPLC-MS method, with modification of the method separation of enantiomers of phase-1 metabolites of n-ethylpentedrone is feasible as well.