6-Monoacetylmorphine

6-Monoacetylmorphine

Systematic (IUPAC) name
3-hydroxy-6-acetyl-(5α,6α)-7,8-Didehydro-4,5-epoxy-17-methylmorphinan
Clinical data
Legal status	AU: S9 (Prohibited) UK: Class A US: Schedule I
Routes of administration	Intravenous
Pharmacokinetic data
Biological half-life	< 5 mins
Identifiers
CAS Number	2784-73-8 N
ATC code	none
PubChem	CID: 5462507
ChemSpider	4575434 Y
ChEMBL	CHEMBL592009 Y
Synonyms	6-acetylmorphine
Chemical data
Formula	C19H21NO4
Molecular mass	327.374 g/mol
SMILES CC(=O)c3cc(O)c1O[C@@H]4[C@]25CCN(C)[C@H](Cc3c12)[C@@H]5/C=C\[C@@H]4O
InChI InChI=1S/C19H21NO4/c1-9(21)10-8-15(23)17-16-11(10)7-13-12-3-4-14(22)18(24-17)19(12,16)5-6-20(13)2/h3-4,8,12-14,18,22-23H,5-7H2,1-2H3/t12-,13+,14-,18-,19-/m0/s1 N Key:DUAISAINBBQDAF-LEPYJNQMSA-N N
NY (what is this?)  (verify)

6-Monoacetylmorphine (6-MAM) or 6-acetylmorphine (6-AM) is one of three active metabolites of heroin (diacetylmorphine), the others being morphine and the much less active 3-monoacetylmorphine (3-MAM).

6-MAM is rapidly created from heroin in the body, and then is either metabolized into morphine or excreted in the urine. Since 6-MAM is a unique metabolite to heroin, its presence in the urine confirms that heroin was the opioid used. This is significant because on a urine immunoassay drug screen, the test typically tests for morphine, which is a metabolite of a number of legal and illegal opiates/opioids such as codeine, morphine sulfate, and heroin. Trace amounts of 6-MAM, a specific metabolite of heroin, are also excreted for approximately 6-8 hours following heroin use. so a urine specimen must be collected soon after the last heroin use, however, the presence of 6-MAM suggests that heroin was used as recently as within the last day. 6-MAM is naturally found in the brain of certain mammals.

Heroin is rapidly metabolized by esterase enzymes in the brain and has an extremely short half-life. It has also relatively weak affinity to μ-opioid receptors because the 3-hydroxy group which is essential for effective binding to the receptor is masked by the acetyl group. Therefore, heroin acts as a pro-drug, serving as a lipophilic transporter of sorts for the systemic delivery of morphine, which actively binds with μ-opioid receptors.

Black tar heroin

6-MAM already has a free 3-hydroxy group and shares the high lipophilicity of heroin, so it penetrates the brain just as quickly and does not need to be deacetylated at the 6-position in order to be bioactivated; this makes 6-monoacetylmorphine somewhat more potent than heroin, but it is rarely encountered as an illicit drug due to the difficulty in selectively acetylating morphine at the 6-position without also acetylating the 3-position. This can however be accomplished by using acetic acid with an appropriate catalyst to carry out the acetylation,{[1]} rather than acetic anhydride, as acetic acid is not a strong enough acetylating agent to acetylate the phenolic 3-hydroxy group but is able to acetylate the 6-hydroxy group, thus selectively producing 6-MAM rather than heroin. The process used in creating black tar heroin actually leaves 6-MAM in the final product, which is one of several reasons why black tar, even when less pure, may be more potent than some powder varieties of heroin.

See also

• M3G, morphine-3-glucuronide an inactive metabolite of morphine much as 3-MAM is the less active metabolite of heroin (notably here as morphine is an active secondary metabolite of heroin itself with 6-Monoacetylmorphine being the intermediate stage)
• M6G, morphine-6-glucuronide the active variant in close relation to 6-MAM, being relative as twin metabolites of this articles very metabolite itself, morphine, twinned to a metabolite (3-MAM) of a parent compound (heroin) of this article's chemical

Acetyl groups of heroin. In 6-MAM upper group is changed to hydrogen making hydroxyl-group in 3-position.