Importantly, LC–MS revealed a number of different adulterants that were mixed to cocaine: Fig. 1B shows a representative chromatogram. Among others we found paracetamol, benzoylecgonine, levamisole and phenacetin (Table 1); levamisole was present in almost two thirds of all examined samples (66 of 104 samples). The PD0325901 solubility dmso ratio between cocaine and levamisole in these samples was highly variable. While some samples contained less than 1% levamisole, one sample even

displayed 20 times more levamisole than cocaine. The mean amount of levamisole was 59 ± 22% relative to cocaine. This highly variable amount of the different drugs also emphasize the risk incurred: people consume the purchased drug until they experience the desired effect (Cole et al., 2010). Hence, they are likely to also consume more of the adulterant. Given the fact that in our survey levamisole was the most commonly used adulterant of cocaine, we reasoned that it likely has pharmacological properties that render it especially useful as adulterant. This conjecture is justified, because our findings are in line with other reports: levamisole has been observed to be one of the most predominant adulterants over the past two decades (Buchanan et al., 2010 and Chai et al., 2011). Hence, we first explored whether levamisole exerted

an action on the three main neurotransmitter transporters SERT, NET and DAT using HEK293 cells

stably expressing the individual human isoforms Erlotinib of these transporters. Uptake-inhibition experiments were performed with increasing concentrations of levamisole or cocaine (Fig. 2). Cocaine blocked the uptake at the expected concentrations (Ravna et al., 2003): the observed IC50 values were 1.8 ± 1.12 μM (SERT), 1.0 ± 1.07 μM (NET) and 0.56 ± 1.12 μM (DAT). Levamisole also reduced the uptake of substrate but at much higher concentrations. Measured IC50 values were 1512 ± 1.09 μM (SERT), 74.5 ± 1.12 µM (NET), 209.9 ± 1.31 μM (DAT). Based on the high IC50 values of levamisole, it is unlikely that the compound exerts Ribonucleotide reductase any significant inhibitory action on the transporters in vivo, when administered in therapeutic doses (e.g., as an adjuvant in cancer chemotherapy). Oral administration of 50 mg levamisole gives rise to peak plasma concentrations (cmax) of on average 368 μg/L (equivalent to about 1.5 μM) ( Gwilt et al., 2000). There is a large intraindividual variation in pharmacokinetics ( Gwilt et al., 2000) and some uncertainty about nasal absorption. In addition, levamisole is a highly lipophilic substance that readily permeates the blood–brain barrier ( Lin and Tsai, 2006). Therefore levamisole may possibly reach higher concentrations than cocaine in the brain and thereby lead to or support a blockage of NET and DAT, when consumed at excessive levels.