Cocaine esterase occurrence in global wastewater microbiomes and potential for biotransformation of novel psychoactive substances

Summary The analysis of drugs in wastewater for forensic purposes has been constantly increasing and the investigation of the potential interaction between drugs or metabolites and sewage microbiota is important. The results demonstrated that cocaine esterase genes were widely distributed in 1142 global wastewater samples collected from 64 countries and linked to several bacterial species. In addition, in silico predictions indicated that carfentanil, 4F‐MDMB‐BINACA, 5F‐MDMB‐PICA, MDMB‐4en‐PINACA and mitragynine might also undergo microbial hydrolysis, in a similar fashion of cocaine degradation by cocaine esterase. In conclusion, it was demonstrated the microbial potential to hydrolyze drugs of abuse in wastewater environments, contributing to the critical evaluation of potential metabolites as biomarkers for microbial and human transformation of drugs in wastewater.