Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Kusari, Souvik
• Tatsimo, Simplice Joel N.
• Zühlke, Sebastian
• Spiteller, Michael

Titel

Synthetic Origin of Tramadol in the Environment

Ist Teil von

• Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 2016-01, Vol.55 (1), p.240-243

Auflage

International ed. in English

Ort / Verlag

Weinheim: WILEY-VCH Verlag

Erscheinungsjahr

2016

Quelle

MEDLINE

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• The presence of tramadol in roots of Sarcocephalus latifolius trees in Northern Cameroon was recently attributed to point contamination with the synthetic compound. The synthetic origin of tramadol in the environment has now been unambiguously confirmed. Tramadol samples isolated from tramadol pills bought at a street market in downtown Maroua and highly contaminated soil at Houdouvou were analyzed by high‐precision 14C measurements by accelerator mass spectrometry (14C AMS): Tramadol from the pills did not contain any radiocarbon, thus indicating that it had been synthesized from 14C‐free petroleum‐derived precursors. Crucially, tramadol isolated from the soil was also radiocarbon‐free. As all biosynthetic plant compounds must contain radiocarbon levels close to that of the contemporary environment, these results thus confirm that tramadol isolated from the soil cannot be plant‐derived. Analyses of S. latifolius seeds, in vitro grown plants, plants from different origins, and stable‐isotope labeling experiments further confirmed that synthetic tramadol contaminates the environment. The presence of tramadol in roots of Sarcocephalus latifolius trees and several other plant species as well as its occurrence in the soil and the surface and ground water in Northern Cameroon raised the question whether these traces are of natural or synthetic origin. Various measurements, for example, by accelerator mass spectrometry to determine the 14C content, unambiguously confirm that synthetic tramadol has contaminated the environment.