Identification and Quantification of the Main Psychoactive Ingredients of Cannabis in Urine Using Excitation-Eemission Matrix Fluorescence Coupled with Parallel Factor Analysis

Sheng-Feng Cui; Hai-Long Yang; Si-Yu Lin; Jing-Wei Wan; Cheng-He Zhou

doi:10.1021/acsomega.3c04913

Identification and Quantification of the Main Psychoactive Ingredients of Cannabis in Urine Using Excitation-Eemission Matrix Fluorescence Coupled with Parallel Factor Analysis

ACS Omega. 2023 Sep 21;8(39):36302-36310. doi: 10.1021/acsomega.3c04913. eCollection 2023 Oct 3.

Authors

Sheng-Feng Cui^{1

2}, Hai-Long Yang¹, Si-Yu Lin¹, Jing-Wei Wan^{1

2}, Cheng-He Zhou³

Affiliations

¹ Center for Traffic Evidence Technology, Department of Criminal Science and Technology, Railway Police College, Zhengzhou 450053, China.
² Institute of Public Safety, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450001, China.
³ Key Laboratory of Applied Chemistry of Chongqing Municipality, School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Southwest University, Chongqing 400715, China.

Abstract

Cannabis is the most prevalent abused substance after alcohol, and its consumption severely harms human health and thus adversely impacts society. The identification and quantification of cannabis in urine play important roles in practical forensics. Excitation-emission matrix (EEM) fluorescence spectroscopy coupled with parallel factor (PARAFAC) analysis was developed to identify and quantify the four main ingredients of cannabis in urine samples. The main ingredients of cannabis including Δ-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), cannabidiol, cannabinol, and tetrahydrocannabinolic acid (THC-COOH) exhibited diverse fluorescence characteristics, and the concentrations of these compounds depicted a positive linear relationship with the fluorescence intensity at the ng/mL level. The EEM/PARAFAC method adequately characterized and discriminated the four ingredients in calibration and prediction samples with a low root-mean-square error of prediction (RMSEP; 0.03-0.07 μg/mL) and limit of quantitation (LOQ; 0.26-0.71 μg/mL). The prediction results of the EEM/PARAFAC method well correlated with that of GC-MS with a low RMSEP range (0.01-0.05 μg/mL) and LOQ range (0.07-0.44 μg/mL) in urine samples. The EEM spectroscopic investigation coupled with the PARAFAC algorithm results in an organic, solvent-less, fast, reliable tool to perform accurate and rapid screening of cannabis abusers.