Development of an exctraction for water soluble drugs in forensic samples

2019 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 17K09264
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Section: 一般
• Research Field: Legal medicine
• Research Institution: Hiroshima University
• Principal Investigator: Namera Akira 広島大学, 医系科学研究科(医), 准教授 (30284186)
• Project Period (FY): 2017-04-01 – 2020-03-31
• Keywords: 薬物分析 / 法医鑑定 / クロマトグラフィー / 質量分析

Outline of Final Research Achievements

The purpose of this study is to extract water-soluble compounds from postmortem samples using the hydrophilic interaction chromatography separation mode and to enable simple and rapid drug identification. As a result, 0.1 ml of whole blood was deproteinized with acetonitrile containing 0.1% formic acid, and the supernatant was then passed through a phospholipids removing column with a centrifugation to remove endogenous components. The recovery rate of the model compounds in whole blood was close to 60% when acetonitrile was used, and further increased by 20 to 30% when acetonitrile containing formic acid was used. In addition, it was recognized that the variation was as small as 2.4 to 7.9%. By using this method, it became possible to quantify reproducibly even down to the therapeutic level of the water-solvable drugs. However, satisfactory results were not obtained regarding tetrodotoxin and 2-aminothiazoline-4-carboxylic acid, so they were left as a subject for future study.

Free Research Field

薬物分析化学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

本研究の成果は、法医中毒学および臨床中毒学といった学問的意義のみならず、犯罪解決に大きな影響を与えることから対社会的にも大いに期待される。また、検査機関毎で結果の異なることが懸念され、再検査の必要性が指摘されているが、国内外を問わず同一の結果が出せることから再検査も不要となる。このように最先端かつ実用的分析法を加味した研究は、国内外を問わず全く行われておらず、大変意義のある研究であり、科学技術発展にも大いに貢献できると考える。