View article

Detection of new highly potent synthetic opioids is challenging as new compounds enter the market. Here we present a novel screening method for the detection of opiates and (synthetic) opioids based on their activity.

A cell-based system was set up in which activation of the μ-opioid receptor (MOR) led to recruitment of β-arrestin 2, resulting in functional complementation of a split NanoLuc luciferase and allowing readout via bioluminescence. Assay performance was evaluated on 107 postmortem blood samples. Blood (500 μL) was extracted via solid-phase extraction. Following evaporation and reconstitution in 100 μL of Opti-MEM^® I, 20 μL was analyzed in the bioassay.

In 8 samples containing synthetic opioids, in which no positive signal was obtained in the bioassay, quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry …