The widespread occurrence of pharmaceuticals in the aquatic environment has raised concerns about their potential adverse effects on exposed wildlife. Little is currently known on exposure levels of drugs in fish, but some studies reported the detection of pharmaceuticals and endocrine disrupting compounds in this type of biota. Due to possible accumulation processes, pharmaceuticals and metabolites could be thousand times more concentrated in fish than in polluted living waters. By other hand, fish are known to possess a hepatic detoxification system which are likely capable of metabolizing pharmaceuticals taken up from polluted waters. Some studies proposed the analysis of bile from fish to evaluate pharmaceuticals exposure including the identification of metabolites by UPLC-HRMS. In this context, we propose the evaluation of the metabolism of frequently detected drugs in fish, performing a rapid screening of bile by HR-MS for the presence of stable intermediates. Fish were collected from different regions in the Mediterranean coast of Spain. Afterwards, their bile was isolated from the fish and analyzed for the detection of parent drugs and some metabolites listed in an in-house suspected list. A sampling campaign was planned to collect tuna fish, Euthynnus alletteratus, from the Mediterranean coast of Spain: Tarragona, Cartagena and Ceuta catched by spearfishing between 2015-2017. Their bile samples were analyzed directly by UPLC-HRMS after a protein precipitation. The HRMS data allowed screening for suspected pharmaceuticals and their metabolites and provided plausible chemical formulae. The comparison of MS/MS spectra of the parent compounds and their metabolites allowed to propose chemical structures for possible metabolites in fish bile. With this analytical methodology some metabolites, corresponding to different reactions that includes products of hidroxylation, glucuronide conjugates were identified. The suspect analysis of bile samples allowed the detection of several pharmaceuticals. Psycho-active drugs were one of the most commonly detected drugs. Their identities were proposed by matching their accurate MS and MS/MS data against different libraries. Finally, authentic standards were employed to confirm the proposed drug identities and to determine analyte concentrations in the fish samples

Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC Europe) 28th Annual Meeting, Responsible and Innovative Research for Environmental Quality, 13−17 May 2018, Rome, Italy.-- 1 page

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