Phase II Metabolites of Drugs in Hair: A Potential Solution for Environmental Contamination, 2020-2022

Although drugs and some metabolites can be measured reliably in hair, it can be difficult if not impossible to differentiate drugs deposited in hair due to actual use of the parent drug from a drug that is present due to external contamination. The objective of this project was to look for unique metabolites in hair that are indicators of consumption in addition to, or in place of, the parent drugs. The research team conducted exploratory research to look for the presence of these metabolites in hair from known drug users using a variety of sample preparation and liquid chromatography - mass spectrometry (LC-MS) detection techniques. Data acquisition included targeted LC-MS/MS acquisition methods commonly employed in metabolite identification applications, as well as full scan high resolution MS data acquisition and comparative analyses using a metabolomics approach.

Research questions for this study were:

• Can phase II metabolites (i.e., conjugated metabolites) serve as an alternative to current decontamination procedures for drug testing in hair?
• Can phase II metabolites be inadvertently produced during sample analysis?
• Are concentrations of phase II metabolites high enough for quantification?

This collection contains 6 Excel files and 1 PDF file. Excel data files contain lists of integrated peaks from semi-targeted and non-targeted data acquisition for the drugs of interest tested in this study (cocaine, methamphetamines, opioids, oxycodone). The PDF file contains information on the sample list, data acquisition, and peak integration parameters.