S198 Abstracts / Toxicology Letters 205S (2011) S180–S300 cessfully developed the hair testing methods of amphetamines (methamphetamine, amphetamine, MDMA), opiates (morphine, 6- acetylmorphine), tramadol. The analysis of these drugs is based on cleaning the specimen with chloroform, then grinding it in liquid nitrogen, these 6 compounds are then extracted with methanol, and then detected using LC–MS–MS by multiple reaction monitor- ing mode (MRM). The linear ranges are 200–12,000 pg/mg, the low ends could meet the cut-off criteria of the proposed revisions to mandatory guidelines for federal workplace drug testing programs of SAMHSA, USA. All of the R 2 values of the linear range of tar- get compounds are more than 0.997, and the accuracy are within 20% for quality control samples. The proposed procedure was also applied to test hair. In 30 samples collected from Cairo, Egypt, 1 are MDMA positive, 3 is methamphetamine positive, and 15 tramadol positive in 40 samples supplied by toxicology center, 6 are MDMA positive and associated with 8 methamphetamine/amphetamine, 20 tramadol positive, and 5,6-acetylmorphine positive. doi:10.1016/j.toxlet.2011.05.681 P2058 Evaluation of in vitro cytotoxicity and in vivo biodistribution of poly caprolactone fumarat nanoparticles containing doxorubicin or Dir E. Azizi 1,* , N. Shokri 2 , S. Fouladdel 1 , H. Akbari 2 1 Molecular Research Lab, Dept. of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Faculty of Pharmacy, Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS), Tehran, Iran, 2 Department of Pharmaceutics, Tehran University of Medical Sciences (TUMS), Tehran, Iran Purpose: Cancer chemotherapy fails due to several reasons such as poor target cells accumulation and development of drug resis- tance. Nanopolymers can be loaded and prepared in such a way to deliver drugs to tumor cells far better than currently available drug formulations. Therefore, preparation, characterization, and biolog- ical effects of polycaprolactone fumarate nanoparticles containing doxorubicin (Dox) were evaluated. Methods: Several formulations of polycaprolactone fumarate nanoparticles were prepared and characterized for physicochemical properties as a new drug deliv- ery system. The breast cancer T47D and colorectal carcinoma HT29 cell lines were treated with nanopolymers alone or loaded with doxorubicin (Dox) to determine the in vitro cytotoxicity on can- cer cells using MTT assay. Whole animal imaging system was also used to evaluate biodistribution of nanopolymers alone or loaded with Dir fluorescent dye in BALB/c mice. Results: Out of several for- mulations of nanopolymers, three of them (PCLF 2000, 1250 and 530) showed better physicochemcal characteristics. These three nanopolymers alone showed low or no cytotoxicity in comparison to Dox alone or nanopolymer loaded with Dox on both T47D and HT29 cancer cell lines in MTT assay. In vivo whole animal imaging analysis for evaluation of biodistribution of nanopolymers alone or loaded with Dir fluorescent dye showed liver and spleen accumu- lation and whole body redistribution that retained for up to 72 h assay period. Therefore, these nanopolymers are safe enough and have good properties for further biological experiments as new drug delivery system for cancer chemotherapy. doi:10.1016/j.toxlet.2011.05.682 P2059 Quantification of paraquat in postmortem samples by gas chromatography–ion trap mass spectrometry P. Moreira 1 , P.G. Pinho 2 , M.T. Baltazar 2,* , M.L. Bastos 2 , F. Carvalho 2 , R.J. Dinis-Oliveira 3 1 North Branch, National Institute of Legal Medicine, I.P, Porto, Portugal, 2 Laboratory of Toxicology, Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Pharmacy, Porto, Portugal, 3 Department of Clinical Analysis and Public Health, Cooperativa de Ensino Superior, Politécnico e Universitário, CRL, Vila Nova de Famalicão, Portugal Purpose: Paraquat (PQ) is an herbicide implicated in numer- ous fatalities mainly caused by voluntary ingestion. Until known, there is no validated method for the analysis of PQ in postmortem samples. Therefore, the aim of this study was to develop an analyt- ical method, applying gas-chromatography, to quantify paraquat (PQ) in postmortem samples. Methods: Gas chromatography–ion trap mass spectrometry (GC-IT/MS), after solid phase extraction was used to quantify PQ in postmortem samples, namely in whole blood, urine, liver, lung, and kidney, in order to cover the major routes of distribution, accumulation and elimination of PQ. Results of the study: The method proved to be selective since there were no interferences of endogenous compounds with the same retention time of PQ and ethyl paraquat (EPQ, used as internal standard). The regression analysis for PQ showed to be linear in the range of 0–10 g/mL. The detection limits of the method for PQ ranged from 0.0076 g/mL for urine to 0.047 g/mL for whole blood, and the recoveries of PQ were 68.9–88.9% in whole blood, 82.9–92.4% in urine, 70.8–89.0% in liver, 73.0–83.1% in lung and 61.4–88.4% in kidney samples. The proof of applicability was performed in two fatal PQ intoxications. The proposed GC-IT/MS method provided an accurate and simple assay with adequate precision and recovery for the quantification of PQ in postmortem samples. This method was subsequently applied to postmortem samples collected in the autopsy of fatal cases due to PQ poisoning. doi:10.1016/j.toxlet.2011.05.683 P2060 Collection of biological samples in forensic toxicology R.J. Dinis-Oliveira 1 , J.A. Duarte 2 , F. Remião 3 , A. Marques 1 , A. Santos 1 , T. Magalhães 1 , F. Carvalho 3,* 1 Institute of Legal Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal, 2 Physiology, Faculty of Sport, Porto, Portugal, 3 Laboratory of Toxicology, Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Pharmacy, Porto, Portugal There are several specific challenges to select and collect specimens for ante-mortem and post-mortem toxicology inves- tigation. Post-mortem specimens may be numerous and can endow some special difficulties compared to clinical specimens, namely those resulting from autolytic and putrefactive changes. Storage stability is also an important issue to be considered during the pre-analytic phase, since its consideration should facil- itate the assessment of sample quality and the analytical result obtained from that sample. The knowledge on degradation mech- anisms and methods to increase storage stability may enable the forensic toxicologist to circumvent possible difficulties. To limit the scope of this study, articles written in English were searched using the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed MedLine database and the Web of Knowledge (WOK). “Forensic Toxicology”,