Characterization of in vitro Metabolites of Methylenedioxy Designer Drugs

Abstract

: Eutylone, dibutylone, and dimethylone are potential psychotropic designer drugs. The purpose of this study was to investigate the in vitro metabolic pathways of synthetic cathinones with methylenedioxy groups. The three methylenedioxy derivatives were incubated with human liver microsomes. The metabolites were characterized based on liquid chromatography and quadrupole-time-of-flight mass spectrometry. Eutylone, dibutylone, and dimethylone were metabolized to yield three, six, and four metabolites, respectively. Reduction and demethylenation were the major metabolic pathways for all three drugs tested. However, dibutylone and dimethylone showed an additional metabolite generated via N-oxidation. These results provide evi-dence for the in vivo metabolism of methylenedioxy synthetic cathinones, and could be applied to the analysis of synthetic cathi-nones and their relevant metabolites in biological samples.