Isolation and determination of FUB-AMB in synthetic cannabinoids by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry

Abstract

N-[[1-[(4-fluorophenyl)methyl]-1H-indazol-3-yl]carbonyl]-L-valine, methyl ester (FUB-AMB) is the most recent psychoactive substance in Vietnam. FUB-AMB is a synthetic cannabinoid (SC) with has similar biological effects to tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main active component of natural cannabis. The previous study exhibits a harmful SC compound, which may cause many threatening to consumer health and social security due to the intensive effect of this compound on the mental status and behavior of the consumer. In this study, FUB-AMB was isolated the first time in Vietnam (1 g) with a purity of 98.34% (determined by High Performance Liquid Chromatography). Spectroscopic data (ultraviolet, infraRed 1Hydro - nuclear magnetic resonance, 13carbon - nuclear magnetic resonance) confirmed the structure of that isolated compound. The isolated FUB-AMB was used as a reference standard to develop an analytical method to detect drugs in the general marijuana group. Chromatography separation was achieved using a diphenyl dimethyl polysiloxane Gas chromatography (GC) column (30m×0.25mm×0.25µm) with a total run time of 10 minutes. The limits of detection and quantification for FUB-AMB was 0.15 μg/mL and 0.5 μg/mL, respectively. The developed method was used to detect FUB-AMB in synthetic cannabinoids in 30 samples. The results showed that the content of FUB-AMB ranged from 3.4-59.2 mg/g in 30 synthetic cannabinoids. The advanced GC-MS method is simple, sensitive, accurate and practically useful for the determination of FUB-AMB in synthetic cannabinoids, which supports the authorities’ crime handling.