Eisenbeiss Lisa, Binz Tina M, Baumgartner Markus R, Kraemer Thomas, Steuer Andrea E
Department of Forensic Pharmacology and Toxicology, Zurich Institute of Forensic Medicine, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
Center for Forensic Hair Analytics, Zurich Institute of Forensic Medicine, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland.
Analyst. 2020 Oct 12;145(20):6586-6599. doi: 10.1039/d0an01265c.
Hair analysis has become an integral part in forensic toxicological laboratories for e.g. assessment of drug or alcohol abstinence. However, hair samples can be manipulated by cosmetic treatments, altering drug concentrations which eventually leads to false negative hair test results. In particular oxidative bleaching of hair samples under alkaline conditions significantly affects incorporated drug concentrations. To date, current techniques to detect cosmetic hair adulterations bear limitations such as the implementation of cut-off values or the requirement of specialized instrumentations. As a new approach, untargeted hair metabolomics analysis was applied to detect altered, endogenous biomolecules that could be used as biomarkers for oxidative cosmetic hair treatments. For this, genuine hair samples were treated in vitro with 9% hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) for 30 minutes. Untreated and treated hair samples were analyzed using liquid-chromatography high-resolution time-of-flight mass spectrometry. In total, 69 metabolites could be identified as significantly altered after hair bleaching. The majority of metabolites decreased after bleaching, yet totally degraded metabolites were most promising as suitable biomarkers. The formation of biomarker ratios of metabolites decreasing and increasing in concentrations improved the discrimination of untreated and treated hair samples. With the results of this study, the high variety of identified biomarkers now offers the possibility to include single biomarkers or biomarker selections into routine screening methods for improved data interpretation of hair test results.
毛发分析已成为法医毒理学实验室不可或缺的一部分，例如用于评估药物或酒精戒断情况。然而，毛发样本可能会因美容处理而被篡改，从而改变药物浓度，最终导致毛发检测结果出现假阴性。特别是在碱性条件下对毛发样本进行氧化漂白会显著影响其中所含药物的浓度。迄今为止，目前用于检测美容性毛发掺假的技术存在局限性，如设定临界值或需要专门的仪器设备。作为一种新方法，非靶向毛发代谢组学分析被用于检测改变的内源性生物分子，这些分子可作为氧化美容性毛发处理的生物标志物。为此，将真实的毛发样本在体外用9%的过氧化氢（H2O2）处理30分钟。使用液相色谱高分辨率飞行时间质谱对未处理和处理过的毛发样本进行分析。总共可鉴定出69种代谢物在毛发漂白后有显著变化。大多数代谢物在漂白后减少，但完全降解的代谢物作为合适的生物标志物最具潜力。代谢物浓度降低和升高的生物标志物比率的形成提高了对未处理和处理过的毛发样本的区分能力。根据这项研究的结果，现在大量已鉴定出的生物标志物使得将单个生物标志物或生物标志物组合纳入常规筛查方法成为可能，以改进毛发检测结果的数据解读。
