A Historical Drug or a Current Problem? Determination of Methaqualone and Its Analogs in Biological Material via UHPLC-QqQ-MS/MS

first_page Download PDF settings Order Article Reprints Font Type: Arial Georgia Verdana Font Size: Aa Aa Aa Line Spacing:    Column Width:    Background: Open AccessAbstract A Historical Drug or a Current Problem? Determination of Methaqualone and Its Analogs in Biological Material via UHPLC-QqQ-MS/MS † by Kaja TusiewiczKaja Tusiewicz SciProfiles Scilit Preprints.org Google Scholar 1,*, Marcin ZawadzkiMarcin Zawadzki SciProfiles Scilit Preprints.org Google Scholar 2 and Paweł SzpotPaweł Szpot SciProfiles Scilit Preprints.org Google Scholar 1 1 Department of Forensic Medicine, Wroclaw Medical University, 4 J. Mikulicza-Radeckiego Street, 50345 Wroclaw, Poland 2 Department of Social Sciences and Infectious Diseases, Faculty of Medicine, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, 27 Wybrzeże Wyspiańskiego, 50370 Wroclaw, Poland * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. † Presented at the 1st International Electronic Conference on Toxics, 20–22 March 2024; Available online: https://sciforum.net/event/IECTO2024. Proceedings 2024, 102(1), 28; https://doi.org/10.3390/proceedings2024102028 Published: 3 April 2024 Download keyboard_arrow_down Download PDF Download PDF with Cover Download XML Download Epub Versions Notes Keywords: methaqualone; new psychoactive substances; sedative-hypnotic compounds; UHPLC-QqQ-MS/MS Introduction: Methaqualone was introduced to the market in the 1960s as a sedative–hypnotic drug, intended as an alternative to compounds in the barbiturate group. Due to its side effects, as well as increasing recreational use, methaqualone and its analogs, synthesized for medical purposes, were withdrawn from the market or never appeared on the market as pharmaceutical products. Given the current state of the market for new psychoactive substances, the high level of interest in methaqualone and its analogs on dedicated online forums suggests a significant risk that their abuse could become more widespread in the coming years.Methods: An ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography–triple quadrupole–tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-QqQ-MS/MS) method was developed to simultaneously determine nine compounds from the methaqualone group. Biological specimens were prepared using liquid–liquid extraction (LLE) with the use of ethyl acetate at a pH 9. The quantification of those xenobiotics was performed in blood in multiple reaction monitoring (MRM) mode. Methaqualone-d7 served as an internal standard. The limit of quantification (LOQ) of the method was 0.1 or 0.2 ng/mL depending on the substance; precision and accuracy values did not exceed ±20%. The method's recovery was in the range of 84.2–113.7%.Results: The developed method allowed for the chromatographic separation of all nine compounds from the methaqualone group tested, with satisfactory validation parameters. Moreover, the fragmentation mass spectra presented may contribute to the ability to detect these compounds in routine toxicological analysis.Conclusions: The described situation poses a significant problem from the analytical point of view, as well as in terms of interpretation and forensic toxicological expertise. The developed method will contribute to increased analytical capabilities and to an enhanced detection of compounds from the methaqualone group that may appear on the illicit market. Author ContributionsConceptualization, K.T.; methodology, K.T.; supervision, M.Z. and P.S.; resources, M.Z. and P.S. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.FundingThis research received no external funding.Institutional Review Board StatementNot applicable.Informed Consent StatementNot applicable.Data Availability StatementThe datasets presented in this article are not readily available because it is not published yet. Requests to access the datasets should be directed to K.T.Conflicts of InterestThe authors declare no conflict of interest.Disclaimer/Publisher's Note: The statements, opinions and data contained in all publications are solely those of the individual author(s) and contributor(s) and not of MDPI and/or the editor(s). MDPI and/or the editor(s) disclaim responsibility for any injury to people or property resulting from any ideas, methods, instructions or products referred to in the content. © 2024 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Share and Cite MDPI and ACS Style Tusiewicz, K.; Zawadzki, M.; Szpot, P. A Historical Drug or a Current Problem? Determination of Methaqualone and Its Analogs in Biological Material via UHPLC-QqQ-MS/MS. Proceedings 2024, 102, 28. https://doi.org/10.3390/proceedings2024102028 AMA Style Tusiewicz K, Zawadzki M, Szpot P. A Historical Drug or a Current Problem? Determination of Methaqualone and Its Analogs in Biological Material via UHPLC-QqQ-MS/MS. Proceedings. 2024; 102(1):28. https://doi.org/10.3390/proceedings2024102028 Chicago/Turabian Style Tusiewicz, Kaja, Marcin Zawadzki, and Paweł Szpot. 2024. "A Historical Drug or a Current Problem? Determination of Methaqualone and Its Analogs in Biological Material via UHPLC-QqQ-MS/MS" Proceedings 102, no. 1: 28. https://doi.org/10.3390/proceedings2024102028 Article Metrics No No Article Access Statistics Multiple requests from the same IP address are counted as one view.