Identification of a metabolite of atrazine, N-ethyl-6-methoxy-N'-(1-methylethyl)-1,3,5-triazine-2,4-diamine, upon incubation with rat liver microsomes.

Atrazine is an herbicide which has shown potential antimalarial effects both in vitro and in vivo in rats. In order to study the metabolism of atrazine in rat livers, we developed a sensitive LC/MS/MS method for the identification of atrazine and several of its metabolites. Using this method, we identified one previously unreported metabolite with a mass of 211 Da in addition to two known metabolites. This new metabolite was confirmed to be N-ethyl-6-methoxy-N'-(1-methylethyl)-1,3,5-triazine-2,4-diamine, also known as atraton, by comparison of the LC/MS/MS mass spectra and the retention time to those of a commercial standard.