Abstract

Background: Various illegal phosphodiesterase-5 (PDE5) inhibitors have been indiscriminately added to food and dietary supplements since the early 2000s without evaluating their side effects or pharmaceutical effects.

Objective: The metabolic pathway of benzamidenafil was evaluated using liquid chromatography quadrupole time-of-flight mass spectrometry (LC-Q-ToF-MS).

Methods: In vitro metabolic samples were prepared using human liver microsomes, and in vivo metabolic samples were obtained from drug-administered rats. The metabolic samples were extracted to remove biological interferences and injected into the LC-Q-ToF-MS system for analysis. Their mass spectra and chromatograms were compared and interpreted.

Results: A total of nine metabolites were evaluated in the benzamidenafil-treated samples. All error values were within 5 ppm with high accuracy.

Conclusion: These newly identified metabolites of benzamidenafil could be used to construct relevant legal databases and applied to related forensic cases.

Keywords: Benzamidenafil, metabolic profile, LC-Q-TOF-MS, forensic toxicology, forensic chemistry, illegal compounds.