Department of Pharmacy and Biotechnology, Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna, 40126 Bologna, Italy.
Department of Morphology, Experimental Medicine and Surgery, Section of Legal Medicine and LTTA Center, University of Ferrara, 44121 Ferrara, Italy.
Int J Mol Sci. 2020 Feb 9;21(3):1150. doi: 10.3390/ijms21031150.
Novel Psychoactive Substances (NPS) include several classes of substances such as synthetic cannabinoids (SCBs), an emerging alternative to marijuana, easily purchasable on internet. SCBs are more dangerous than Δ-Tetrahydrocannabinol as a consequence of their stronger affinities for the CB and CB receptors, which may result in longer duration of distinct effects, greater potency, and toxicity. The information on SCBs cytotoxicity, genotoxicity, mutagenicity, and long-term effects is scarce. This fact suggests the urgent need to increase available data and to investigate if some SCBs have an impact on the stability of genetic material. Therefore, the aim of the present study was the evaluation of the mutagenic effect of different SCBs belonging to indole- and indazole-structures. The analyzes were conducted in vitro on human TK6 cells and mutagenicity were measured as micronucleus fold increase by flow cytometry. Our results have highlighted, for the first time, the mutagenic capacity of four SCBs, in particular in terms of chromosomal damage induction. We underline the serious potential toxicity of SCBs that suggests the need to proceed with the studies of other different synthetic compounds. Moreover, we identified a method that allows a rapid but effective screening of NPS placed on the market increasingly faster.
新型精神活性物质（NPS）包括几类物质，如合成大麻素（SCB），这是一种新兴的大麻替代品，可在互联网上轻松购买。与 Δ-四氢大麻酚相比，SCB 的亲和力更强，作用时间更长，效力更大，毒性更强。关于 SCB 的细胞毒性、遗传毒性、致突变性和长期影响的信息很少。这一事实表明，迫切需要增加现有数据，并研究一些 SCB 是否会影响遗传物质的稳定性。因此，本研究的目的是评估属于吲哚和吲唑结构的不同 SCB 的致突变作用。分析在体外进行，在人 TK6 细胞上进行，并通过流式细胞术测量微核倍数增加来测量致突变性。我们的结果首次强调了四种 SCB 的致突变能力，特别是在诱导染色体损伤方面。我们强调了 SCB 的严重潜在毒性，这表明需要对其他不同的合成化合物进行研究。此外，我们确定了一种方法，该方法允许对市场上越来越快出现的新型精神活性物质进行快速但有效的筛选。
