Phospholipid metabolites of GHB as potential biomarkers in whole blood: Synthesis, analytics, and in vitro formation of homolog 16:0/18:1

• DOI: 10.1002/dta.3386
• Publication Date: 2022-10-14T02:39:53Z
• Authors: Julian S. Thimm; Vanessa Hofmann; Marc Bartel; Tom R. Sundermann
• Keywords: Forensic Toxicology

Gamma-hydroxybutyric acid (GHB) is a common drug of abuse, and the detection consumption or administration longstanding research objective in clinical forensic toxicology. However, until now, short window GHB could not be enlarged by use metabolites. Therefore, new biomarkers for intake are needed. In analogy to phosphatidylethanols as long-time ethanol, phospholipids with might represent promising compound class. While availability reference compounds often represents bottleneck toxicological research, two phospholipids-phosphatidyl-GHB (16:0/18:1) its isomer phosphatidyl beta-hydroxybutyric (16:0/18:1)-were successfully synthesized highly versatile synthetic route. Structural characterization data, together 1 H-, 13 C-, 31 P-NMR high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) spectra, reported. Subsequently, HPLC-MS/MS method was established determination both (limits [LOD] ≤ 2 ng/ml), formation these metabolites investigated vitro experiments. The phosphatidyl-GHB observed an incubation experiment converting phosphatidylcholine phospholipase D whole blood samples spiked 50 mM GHB, respectively. valuable metabolite potential extension biomarker.