Metabolism and metabolomics of opiates: A long way of forensic implications to unravel

Abstract

Opium poppy has important medical, socioeconomic, forensic and political implications. More than 80 benzylisoquinoline alkaloids have been described, many of them with relevant therapeutic properties such as morphine, codeine, papaverine and noscapine. Heroin, a semi-synthetic drug produced from morphine is a worldwide serious cause of morbidity and mortality. Heroin dependence is complex phenomenon with environmental and genetic influence, and several biomarkers of exposure have been proposed. This work aims to review the metabolism and metabolomics of opiates with particular interest on their relevance as potential clinical and forensic antemortem and postmortem biomarkers. It is known that the heroin is mainly a prodrug that is rapidly deacetylated in blood to its active metabolite, 6-acetylmorphine, which is then subsequently slowly deacetylated to morphine. Therefore, 6-acetylmorphine has been used as the main target metabolite to prove heroin abuse in clinical, but mostly in forensic routine. Nevertheless, its applicability is limited due to the reduced detection window. Therefore, morphine (and its metabolites morphine-3-glucuronide and morphine-6-glucuronide), codeine, codeine-6-glucuronide, 6-acetylcodeine, noscapine (and its metabolites meconine, desmethylmeconine, and cotarnine), papaverine (and its metabolites 6-desmethylpapaverine, hydroxypapaverine, dihydroxypapaverine, 6-desmethylpapaverine-glucuronide) and thebaine (and acetylthebaol and the non-acetylated analog thebaol) have been additionally recommended to obtain the most reliable results possible. More recently, the identification by metabolomics analysis of several endogenous compounds offered an alternative approach of significant importance to uncover toxic effects. Profound alterations in the neurotransmitters levels and energy and amino acid metabolism have been reported with l-tryptophan, 5-hydroxytryptamine and 5-hydroxyindoleacetate being suggested as potential non-specific biomarkers of long-term heroin addiction. These endogenous metabolic profiles and exogenous components that together comprise the exposome will certainly help to uncover metabolic disturbances and patterns that may be associate to addiction with relevant clinical and forensic implications.

Keywords: Addiction; Biomarkers; Codeine; Heroin; Metabolism; Metabolomics; Morphine; Opiates.