Stride Nielsen Louise, Villesen Palle, Lindholst Christian
Department of Forensic Medicine, Section for Forensic Chemistry, Aarhus University, Palle Juul-Jensens Boulevard 99, 8200 Aarhus N, Denmark; Bioinformatics Research Centre, Aarhus University, C. F. Møllers Allé 8, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.
Bioinformatics Research Centre, Aarhus University, C. F. Møllers Allé 8, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark; Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University, Denmark.
Forensic Sci Int. 2018 Sep;290:129-136. doi: 10.1016/j.forsciint.2018.06.039. Epub 2018 Jul 5.
Impurity profiling is a well described forensic tool that may be applied to gain information about the illegal drug market. However, it requires experience to assess the correlation between chemical profiles thereby separating linked from unlinked samples. One of the challenges in this context is that the chemical profiles may change over time, thus complicating an assessment if samples are stored under different conditions. In this study, the impact of different storage conditions on the stability of amphetamine impurity profiles was investigated. We examined the influence of storage time, temperature, sample purity, sample quantity and the presence of methanol on the amphetamine profile stability when stored for up to 12 months. We find that the target compounds in amphetamine impurity profiles are susceptible to all the examined storage conditions. Consequently, this unstable nature of amphetamine profiles may complicate the assessment when comparing amphetamine seizures that has been separated for longer time periods or stored under different conditions prior to seizure. Knowledge about the seizure history is rarely available to the forensic analyst. Therefore, sample stability issues should be taken into account when comparisons of chemical profiles are made.
杂质剖析是一种广为人知的法医工具，可用于获取有关非法毒品市场的信息。然而，评估化学特征之间的相关性从而区分相关样本和无关样本需要经验。在这种情况下的一个挑战是，化学特征可能会随时间变化，因此如果样本在不同条件下储存，评估就会变得复杂。在本研究中，研究了不同储存条件对苯丙胺杂质特征稳定性的影响。我们研究了储存时间、温度、样品纯度、样品量以及甲醇的存在对苯丙胺特征在长达12个月储存期内稳定性的影响。我们发现，苯丙胺杂质特征中的目标化合物易受所有检测到的储存条件影响。因此，当比较长时间分离或在缉获前在不同条件下储存的苯丙胺缉获物时，苯丙胺特征的这种不稳定性质可能会使评估变得复杂。法医分析师很少能获得有关缉获历史的信息。因此，在进行化学特征比较时应考虑样本稳定性问题。
