Mass spectral fragmentations of cholesterol acetate oxidation products.
In this work, electron-impact mass spectroscopy (EI-MS) was employed on a wide range of sterol compounds in order to study their behaviour with regard to their functional groups. In particular, some specific mechanisms of fragmentation occurring in these substrates (i.e. retro-Diels-Alder reaction, neutral molecules eliminations, specific hydrogen migrations) were investigated. Loss of the alkyl side chain and of the D ring were observed in all cases. Finally, a classification of sterols on the basis of characteristic mass spectral fragments is suggested, and further applications to substrates with functional groups on positions other than the A and B rings is proposed.
Pelillo
M
M
Dept. of Chemistry, University of Bologna, Italy.
Galletti
G
G
Lercker
G
G
D000818:Animals; D002788:Cholesterol Esters / Q000032:analysis / Q000737:chemistry*; D006801:Humans; D013058:Mass Spectrometry / Q000379:methods; D010084:Oxidation-Reduction
D002788:Cholesterol Esters; C060123:cholesterol acetate