Identification of N-pyrrolidino protonitazene in powders sold as heroin and associated with overdose clusters in Dublin and Cork, Ireland.

Synthetic opioids have been associated globally with adverse effects in drug users. The nitazene group of drugs is a relatively new addition to the synthetic opioid class emerging in Europe in 2019. Some nitazenes have been shown to be more potent than fentanyl. Overdose clusters in heroin users in Dublin (57 cases) and Cork (20 cases), Ireland, in November and December 2023, respectively, prompted a rapid response from a number of Irish laboratories to identify the substance(s) of concern. Light brown (tan) powders were obtained from cases associated with overdoses, and the results from these analyses by collaboration of four laboratories are reported here. The samples were found to contain N-pyrrolidino protonitazene (protonitazepyne), caffeine, paracetamol, benzoic acid and mannitol.

Enzyme immobilization strategies and electropolymerization conditions to control sensitivity and selectivity parameters of a polymer-enzyme composite glucose biosensor.

In an ongoing programme to develop characterization strategies relevant to biosensors for in-vivo monitoring, glucose biosensors were fabricated by immobilizing the enzyme glucose oxidase (GOx) on 125 µm diameter Pt cylinder wire electrodes (Pt(C)), using three different methods: before, after or during the amperometric electrosynthesis of poly(ortho-phenylenediamine), PoPD, which also served as a permselective membrane. These electrodes were calibrated with H(2)O(2) (the biosensor enzyme signal molecule), glucose, and the archetypal interference compound ascorbic acid (AA) to determine the relevant polymer permeabilities and the apparent Michaelis-Menten parameters for glucose. A number of selectivity parameters were used to identify the most successful design in terms of the balance between substrate sensitivity and interference blocking. For biosensors electrosynthesized in neutral buffer under the present conditions, entrapment of the GOx within the PoPD layer produced the design (Pt(C)/PoPD-GOx) with the highest linear sensitivity to glucose (5.0 ± 0.4 µA cm(-2) mM(-1)), good linear range (K(M) = 16 ± 2 mM) and response time (< 2 s), and the greatest AA blocking (99.8% for 1 mM AA). Further optimization showed that fabrication of Pt(C)/PoPD-GOx in the absence of added background electrolyte (i.e., electropolymerization in unbuffered enzyme-monomer solution) enhanced glucose selectivity 3-fold for this one-pot fabrication protocol which provided AA-rejection levels at least equal to recent multi-step polymer bilayer biosensor designs. Interestingly, the presence of enzyme protein in the polymer layer had opposite effects on permselectivity for low and high concentrations of AA, emphasizing the value of studying the concentration dependence of interference effects which is rarely reported in the literature.

Oxygen tolerance of an implantable polymer/enzyme composite glutamate biosensor displaying polycation-enhanced substrate sensitivity.

Biosensors were fabricated at neutral pH by sequentially depositing the polycation polyethyleneimine (PEI), the stereoselective enzyme L-glutamate oxidase (GluOx) and the permselective barrier poly-ortho-phenylenediamine (PPD) onto 125-microm diameter Pt wire electrodes (Pt/PEI/GluOx/PPD). These devices were calibrated amperometrically at 0.7 V versus SCE to determine the Michaelis-Menten parameters for enzyme substrate, l-glutamate (Glu) and co-substrate, dioxygen. The presence of PEI produced a 10-fold enhancement in the detection limit for Glu (approximately 20 nM) compared with the corresponding PEI-free configurations (Pt/GluOx/PPD), without undermining their fast response time (approximately 2 s). Most remarkable was the finding that, although some designs of PEI-containing biosensors showed a 10-fold increase in linear region sensitivity to Glu, their oxygen dependence remained low.

The selectivity of electrosynthesised polymer membranes depends on the electrode dimensions: implications for biosensor applications.

A biosensor selectivity coefficient defined for poly(o-phenylenediamine) electrosynthesised onto Pt microdisks and cylinders was unexpectedly found to change as the scale of the electrodes decreased, mainly due to enhanced permeability of a ubiquitous interference species in biological systems, ascorbic acid.