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Analysis of 11‐nor‐Δ 9 ‐tetrahydrocannabinol‐9‐carboxylic acid and its glucuronide in urine by capillary electrophoresis/mass spectrometry
Author(s) -
Iwamuro Yoshiaki,
IioIshimaru Reiko,
Chinaka Satoshi,
Takayama Nariaki,
Hayakawa Kazuichi
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
biomedical chromatography
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.4
H-Index - 65
eISSN - 1099-0801
pISSN - 0269-3879
DOI - 10.1002/bmc.2719
Subject(s) - chemistry , chromatography , urine , detection limit , capillary electrophoresis , mass spectrometry , ammonium formate , capillary electrophoresis–mass spectrometry , electrospray ionization , biochemistry
Δ 9 ‐Tetrahydrocannabinol is the primary psychoactive component in cannabis, one of the most commonly used illicit drugs in the world. This paper describes a simple and rapid method for direct analysis of major metabolites of Δ 9 ‐tetrahydrocannabinol; 11‐nor‐Δ 9 ‐tetrahydrocannabinol‐9‐carboxylic acid and its glucuronide in urine by capillary electrophoresis/mass spectrometry. The only pretreatment needed for a urine sample was dilution with methanol containing an internal standard and centrifugation. Electrophoresis was carried out in an untreated fused‐silica capillary (50 µm i.d. × 85 cm) filled with 40 m m ammonium formate (pH 6.4). An analysis could be completed within 10 min. For both compounds, the assay was linear over the range 0.1 − 10 µg/mL in urine with correlation coefficients ( r 2 ) > 0.99 and the limit of detection was 0.5 pg (10 nL injection). The detection yields and reproducibilities were determined at three different concentrations (0.1, 0.5 and 2 µg/mL in urine). The mean detection yields were 60 − 99%. The intra‐ and inter‐day relative standard deviations of migration times were 0.063 − 0.19 and 0.18 − 0.36%, and those of peak areas were 4.2 − 18 and 5.9 − 25%, respectively. The proposed method successfully analyzed the urine samples of cannabis users. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.