Analytical Approaches for the Determination and Identification of Drug Metabolites in Plants After Uptake

The present chapter gives an overview of analytical methodologies employed for the identification and quantitation of metabolites formed in plants or plant cell cultures from drugs and personal care products after uptake from water or soil. Important aspects like experimental approaches for plant growing, extraction of the investigated analytes from plants, preconcentration strategies, and final analytical techniques allowing the proposal of (at least tentative) structures for drug-related metabolites are discussed. Special emphasis is also set on the elucidation of translocation processes by analyzing different plant parts. In one table, a comprehensive overview of the current state of knowledge available from the literature is given, with respect to the topics listed above.