Synthesis and characterization of phencyclidine and his derivatives

Phencyclidine (PCP), an arylcyclohexylamine and dissociative anesthetic, was initially sold as a local anesthetic but withdrawn due to psychoactive addiction and harmful health effects. PCP acts as an antagonist of the NMDA receptor, causing antiglutamatergic hallucinations, while a structural derivative, BTCP, acts as an NMDA receptor agonist. The paper describes PCP's metabolism and methods for its identification and quantification in biological samples. Immunological tests can yield false positives due to interference from other abused substances, whereas gas chromatography combined with mass spectroscopy is the method of choice for examining biological samples for PCP presence.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Phencyclidine (PCP) or 1-phenyl-cyclohexylpiperidine is the best-known representative drug from the compound class of arylcyclohexylamines. On a pharmacological activities basis, it belongs to the family of drugs known as dissociative anesthetics. In recent years, great attention has been paid to the investigation of substances that have been abused, including PCP. PCP is a synthetic drug with stimulating and hallucinogenic effects (street name 'angel dust'), and it is included in the Schedule Substances List in Serbia and worldwide. In the beginning, PCP has been sold in pharmacies as a local anesthetic, but very quickly it was withdrawn from sale because of unwanted effects on consumer health causing psychoactive addiction. Taking into account that great attention is being given nowadays to substances that are subject of abuse, biological and pharmacological effects of PCP and its derivative, which depend on their structure and methods for synthesis, is described in this paper. It is shown that PCP is antagonist of N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) and that it causes antiglutamatergic hallucinations, unlike BTCP whose agonist is an NMDA receptor and is obtained by modifying the structure of PCP. This paper presents a PCP metabolism and provides an overview of the methods for their identification and quantification in biological samples. Immunological tests of PCP in biological samples can provide a quick but wrong result because of the possible interference with the other substances of abuse as opposed to instrumental methods. Based on the presented method and the results it was concluded that the method of choice for the examinations of biological samples for the presence of PCP is gas chromatography in combination with mass spectroscopy.