Drug abuse has recently become a serious worldwide problem and is increasing rapidly. Illicit drugs are stimulants, marijuana, cocaine, heroin and tranquilizers, among which methamphetamine (MA) is the most frequently abused drug in Japan. Arrests for violation of the Stimulant Drug Control Law are now on the verge of 20000/year. MA addiction is evidenced by the detection of unchanged MA as well as metabolite amphetamine (AP), thus MA analysis in urine samples has been employed routinely as a standard screening test using thin layer chromatography (TLC), 1) followed by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS).2) MA is metabolized either by hydroxylation of the aromatic ring or demethylation of the side chain. It has been reported that the metabolites of MA in urine were excreted as the unchanged (18-27%), free and conjugated forms of p-hydroxymethamphetamine (p-OHMA; 14-16%) and AP (2-3%) (Fig. 1). 3)It has been reported in the literature that the analysis of conjugated forms of p-OHMA in the urine samples of MA abusers used to be carried out by comparing the ratios of free p-OHMA to total p-OHMA before and after hydrolysis with b-glucuronidase or HCl treatment. [4][5][6][7][8] In the present paper, we describe the development and optimization of the method for the direct determination of intact p-OHMA glucuronide (p-OHMAG). Even in a case where the concentration of AP present in the urine is too low to be determined, it has been reported that the levels of p-OHMA and its conjugated form excreted in the urine were much higher than AP. We are thus convinced that a simultaneous determination of p-OHMAG, p-OHMA and MA in the urine of MA abusers could be unambiguous evidence of the ingestion of MA.
ExperimentalMaterials and Reagents p-Hydroxymethamphetamine glucuronide (p-OHMAG) was synthesized from 4-hydroxyphenylacetic acid methyl ester according to the method developed in our laboratory.9) Pholedrine, p-hydroxymethamphetamine (p-OHMA) and methamphetamine (MA) hydrochloride were obtained from Sigma (St. Louis, MO, U.S.A.) and Dainippon Pharmaceutical (Osaka, Japan), respectively (Fig. 1). Sodium 1-dodecanesulfonate (ion pair grade) was purchased from Tokyo Kasei Kogyo (Tokyo, Japan). Methanol and acetonitrile were of HPLC grade, and all other reagents were of analytical grade.Standard solutions: the concentrations of a standard solution were set in the vicinity of the limits of quantification (LOQ). Stock solutions were prepared by dissolving appropriate amounts of p-OHMAG, p-OHMA and MA in distilled water and were kept frozen until use, then diluted appropriately prior to use.Distilled and deionized water prepared with Elix (Millipore, Tokyo) was used throughout this investigation.Sep-Pak ® Light C18 cartridges (reversed-phase monofunctional silane, 130 mg) were obtained from Waters Corp. (Milford, MA, U.S.A.).A drug free urine sample collected from a healthy subject in our laboratory was used to make blank and spiked urine samples containing standard solutions. The urine samples of MA abusers were obtained f...