Linkage of Aromatic Ring Structures in Saturates, Aromatics, Resins and Asphaltenes Fractions of Vacuum Residues Determined by Collision-Induced Dissociation Technology

The linkage of aromatic ring structures in vacuum residues was important for the refining process. The Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry(FT-ICR MS) combined with collision-induced dissociation(CID) is a powerful method to characterize the molecular structure of petroleum fractions. In this work, model compounds with different aromatic ring structures were measured by CID FT-ICR MS. The cracking of the parent ions and the generated fragment ions were able to distinguish different linkage of the model compounds. Then, vacuum residues were separated into saturates, aromatics, resins and asphaltenes fractions(SARA), and each fraction was characterized by CID technology. According to the experimental results, the aromatic rings in saturates and aromatics fractions were mainly of the island-type structures, while the aromatic rings in resins and asphaltenes fractions had a significant amount of archipelago-type structures.

Appropriate choice of collision-induced dissociation energy for qualitative analysis of notoginsenosides based on liquid chromatography hybrid ion trap time-of-flight mass spectrometry

Liquid chromatography hybrid ion trap/time-of-flight mass spectrometry possesses both the MS^n ability of ion trap and the excellent resolution of a time-of-flight and has been widely used to identify drug metabolites and determine trace multi-components in natural products. Collision energy, one of the most important factors in acquiring MS^n information, could be set freely in the range of 10%–400%. Herein, notoginsenosides were chosen as model compounds to build a novel methodology for the collision energy optimization. Firstly, the fragmental patterns of the representatives for the authentic standards of protopanaxadiol-type and protopanaxatriol-type notoginsenosides were obtained based on accurate MS^2 and MS^3 measurements via liquid chromatography hybrid ion trap/time-of-flight mass spectrometry. The extracted ion chromatograms of characteristic product ions of notoginsenosides in Panax Notoginseng Extract were produced under a series of collision energies and compared to screen the optimum collision energies values for MS^2 and MS^3. The results demonstrated that the qualitative capability of liquid chromatography hybrid ion trap/time-of-flight mass spectrometry was greatly influenced by collision energies, and 50% of MS^2 collision energy was found to produce the highest collision-induced dissociation efficiency for notoginsenosides. Addtionally, the highest collision-induced dissociation efficiency appeared when the collision energy was set at 75% in the MS^3 stage.

Quadrupole-Linear Ion Trap Tandem Mass Spectrometry System for Clinical Biomarker Analysis

The accurate and efficient measurement of small molecule disease markers for clinical diagnosis is of great importance.In this study,a quadrupole-linear ion trap(Q-LIT)tandem mass spectrometer was designed and built in our laboratory.Target precursor ions were first selected in the quadrupole,and then injected,trapped,and fragmented simultaneously in the linear ion trap(LIT)to reduce the space charge effect,enrich the target product ions,and promote sensitivity.The targeted analytes were measured with selected reaction monitoring using a positive scan mode with electrospray ionization(ESI).Ions with a mass-to-charge ratio(m/z)ranging from 195 to 2022 were demonstrated.When scanning at 1218amu.s^(-1),unit resolution and an accuracy of higher than m/z 0.28 was obtained for m/z up to 2000.The dimensionless Mathieu parameter(q)value used in this study was 0.40 for collision-induced dissociation(CID),which was activated by resonance excitation.And an overall CID efficiency of 64%was achieved(activation time,50 ms).Guanidinoacetic acid(GAA)and creatine(CRE)were used as model compounds for small molecule clinical biomarkers.The limits of quantification were 1.0 and 0.2 nmol.L^(-1)for GAA and CRE,respectively.A total of 77 actual samples were successfully analyzed by the home-built ESI-Q-LIT tandem mass spectrometry system.The developed method can reduce matrix interference,minimize space charge effects,and avoid the chromatographic separation of complex samples to simplify the pretreatment process.This novel Q-LIT system is expected to be a good candidate for the determination of biomarkers in clinical diagnosis and therapeutics.

Fragmentation Reactions of Adduct Ions [M+CH_3CO]^+ of Isomeric Phenylenediamines

The dissociation routes of the adduct ions [M+CH3CO]+ formed by ion-moleculereaction of isomeric phenylenediamines with acetyl ion from acetone under chemical ionizationcondition were investigated by using collision-induced dissociation (CID) technique performed ation kinetic energies of 40eV. The adduct ions are intermediate ion-neutral complexes.

Structural Characterization of Petroleum Molecules by CID FT-ICR MS with Narrow Isolation Window

High resolution tandem mass spectrometry has been applied to obtain the structure information of petroleumsamples. Here, we report a mefflod for structural characterization of crude oil molecules by the collision-induced dissocia-tion （CID） technology coupled wiffl the high-field Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonmlce mass spectrometry （FT-ICRMS）. The ion isolation window was narrowed down to 1 Da to distinguish file complex homologues contained in petroleum.Aromatic model compounds and crude oil samples were measured by CID FT-ICR MS at different collision energy levels.The fragmentation of model compounds wiffl alkyl side-chains was found to be related to the size of file aromatic rings. Thefragmentation of model compounds wiffl archipelago structures depended on file lengffl of file bridge alkylene chain. Theprevalent reaction pafflway of model compounds with naphthenic rings was mainly determined by the position of naphfflen-ic rings in file molecules. On file basis of file fragmentation pathways, the structure differences of two crude oils were recog-nized as different content of naphthenic rings by CID technology with 1 Da isolation window. The NMR analysis was alsoapplied to confirm file CID results. This study exhibits the great potential of CID FT-ICR MS wiffl narrow isolation windowin file smlctural characterization of crude oil molecules.

Studies on Ion-molecule Reaction of Disubstituted Benzene with Ion System of Acetyl Chloride in Gas Phase

The ion-molecule reactions of disubstituted benzenes with the ion system of acetyl chloride under the chemical ionization condition were examined and the fragmentation reactions of the adduct ions formed by the ion-molecule reactions were studied by using collision-induced dissociation technique. It was found that the electron-releasing groups favored the adduct reactions and the electron-withdrawing groups did not. The position and properties of substituting groups had an effect on the relative abundance of the adduct ions. The fragmentation reaction of the adduct ions formed by ortho-benzene diamine with the acetyl ion was similar to the reductive alkylation reaction of amine in condensed phase.

Investigation of the Structures of the Product Ions Produced via self-CI of Acetone

The ion-molecule reactions in acetone were investigated which were induced under the chemical ionization. The structural information of the reaction products were obtained by using collision-induced dissociation (CID) technique performed at ion kinetic energies of 30eV.

Sequence analysis of peptides with biological activities using electrospray-Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry

The mass spectra of five peptides with biological activities are reported. All mass spectra were recorded using a 4.7-T Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometer equipped with an external electrospray source. The accurate molecular weights for the five peptides prepared by solid phase synthesis were measured as 1765.9013, 1063.5420, 1092.5254, 820.3804 and 1078.5193, respectively. All the data were obtained with the external calibration. Differences between observed and theoretical monoisotopic molecular weights were in the (0.2-1.0)×10-6 range. The complete primary sequence for the five polypep-tides were determined using the method of in-source electrospray ionization/collision induced dissociation (ESI/CID). All the intact y series ions and b series ions were obtained from various peptides respectively, thus determining the sequences of the five polypeptides. We found that the meas-ured accurate molecular mass of sample 4 was not in agreement with that expected from the planned

pepgrep:A Tool for Peptide MS/MS Pattern Matching

Typically, detection of protein sequences in collision-induced dissociation （CID） tandem MS （MS2） dataset is performed by mapping identified peptide ions back to protein sequence by using the protein database search （PDS） engine. Finding a particular peptide sequence of interest in CID MS2 records very often requires manual evaluation of the spectrum, regardless of whether the peptide-associated MS2 scan is identified by PDS algorithm or not. We have developed a com- pact cross-platform database-free command-line utility, pepgrep, which helps to find an MS2 finger- print for a selected peptide sequence by pattern-matching of modelled MS2 data using Peptide-to- MS2 scoring algorithm, pepgrep can incorporate dozens of mass offsets corresponding to a variety of post-translational modifications （PTMs） into the algorithm. Decoy peptide sequences are used with the tested peptide sequence to reduce false-positive results. The engine is capable of screening an MS2 data file at a high rate when using a cluster computing environment. The matched MS2 spectrum can be displayed by using built-in graphical application programming interface （API） or optionally recorded to file. Using this algorithm, we were able to find extra peptide sequences in studied CID spectra that were missed by PDS identification. Also we found pepgrep especially useful for examining a CID of small fractions of peptides resulting from, for example, affinity puri- fication techniques. The peptide sequences in such samples are less likely to be positively identified by using routine protein-centric algorithm implemented in PDS. The software is freely available at http：//bsproteomics.essex.ac.uk：8080/data/download/pepgrep- 1.4.tgz.

STUDY ON C_2H_6^(2+) DOUBLY CHARGED IONS——EVIDENCE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF C_2H_6^(2+) IN GAS PHASE

Collision-Induced Dissociation (CID) or Collision Activation (CA) of ion involves high kinetic energy colliding with neutral gas molecules. In part of the ions, the translational energy is converted into excitation energy, Which may lead to subsequent ion decomposition. CID has developed into an important technique for elucidating