Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2013 Sep 1:934:102-8.
doi: 10.1016/j.jchromb.2013.07.005. Epub 2013 Jul 15.

Detection and tentative identification of urinary phase I metabolites of phenylacetylindole cannabimimetics JWH-203 and JWH-251, by GC-MS and LC-MS/MS

Affiliations

Detection and tentative identification of urinary phase I metabolites of phenylacetylindole cannabimimetics JWH-203 and JWH-251, by GC-MS and LC-MS/MS

Pierce Kavanagh et al. J Chromatogr B Analyt Technol Biomed Life Sci. .

Abstract

The synthetic phenylacetylindole cannabimimetics, JWH-203 and JWH-251, have been identified in 'herbal' smoking mixtures following the widespread legislative control of 'first generation' compounds such as JWH-018 and CP47, 497(C8). N-Alkylindole cannabimimetics (including phenylacetylindoles) undergo extensive metabolism and little or none of the parent compounds are found in urine. Utilizing GC-MS and LC-MS/MS, a series of JWH-203 and JWH-251 urinary metabolites have been tentatively identified. These are products of mono- and dihydroxylation, monohydroxylation combined with formation of carbonyl group on the N-pentyl chain, carboxylation of N-pentyl chain and N-dealkylation combined with monohydroxylation. Additionally, trihydroxylated metabolites were detected for JWH-203. No parent compounds were detected. The monohydroxylated metabolites with the hydroxyl group positioned on the N-pentyl chain were the most abundant and were found to be suitable for establishing ingestion of JWH-203 or JWH-250. Maximum urinary concentrations of chain-monohydroxylated metabolites were observed at 2.5-3h (JWH-203) and 6-10h (JWH-251) following ingestion. These metabolites were observed (GC-MS) for to 10 and 8 days (JWH-203 and JWH-251, respectively).

Keywords: GC–MS; JWH-203; JWH-251; LC–MS/MS; Metabolite; Synthetic cannabinoid.

PubMed Disclaimer

Publication types

Substances

LinkOut - more resources