Enantiodeterminación de catinonas en orina mediante electroforesis capilar

Identifier:  TDX:3215

Handle: https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11797/TDX3215

Authors:  Pérez Alcaraz, Alberto

Abstract:
In recent years, the consumption of synthetic derivatives of cathinone, an alkaloid naturally found in the leaves of the khat plant, has increased as they represent a more affordable and accessible alternative to other well-known illicit drugs such as amphetamines. After their consumption, these compounds can be found in the organism either metabolized or in their pure form at low concentrations. Therefore, highly sensitive methods are usually necessary to determine these substances in biological samples such as blood, hair, oral fluids, or, more commonly, urine. Cathinones present a chiral centre, so they can be found in two enantiomeric forms (R and S). Each enantiomer can present different pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic behaviour and have different effects on the organism. Consequently, the enantioseparation of synthetic cathinones can be very useful. In these sense, capillary electrophoresis represents an excellent technique for this purpose, since enantioseparation can be achieved simply by adding a chiral selector to the background electrolyte. However, despite of this and other well-known advantages of this analytical technique, one of its main limitations is its poor sensitivity