Determination of the metabolites of the new designer drugs bk-MBDB and bk-MDEA in human urine

This is the first report on identifying the specific metabolites of the new designer drugs 2-methylamino-1-(3,4-methylenedioxyphenyl)butan-1-one (bk-MBDB) and 2-ethylamino-1-(3,4-methylenedioxyphenyl)propan-1-one (bk-MDEA) in human urine using synthesized standards. Based on GC/MS and LC/MS, we identified N-dealkylation, demethylenation followed by O-methylation, and β-ketone reduction as their major metabolic pathways. The quantitative analyses by LC/MS revealed that both demethylenation followed by O-methylation and β-ketone reduction were superior to N-dealkylation and that both bk-MBDB and bk-MDEA were mainly metabolized into their corresponding 4-hydroxy-3-methoxy metabolites (4-OH-3MeO metabolites). After hydrolysis, the concentrations of 4-OH-3MeO metabolites and 3-hydroxy-4-methoxy metabolites of both bk-MBDB and bk-MDEA dramatically increased, suggesting that the metabolites mainly exist as their conjugates.