title: Structural characterization of fatty acids cationized with copper by electrospray ionization mass spectrometry under low-energy collision-induced dissociation.
abstract: Fatty acids have for many years been characterized by mass spectrometry using electron ionization after chemical derivatization. When fatty acids are ionized using desorption/ionization methods such as electrospray ionization or fast atom bombardment, structural information is usually obtained through high-energy collision-induced dissociation (CID) using sector instruments. It has been shown that copper displays very interesting properties in the gas phase during CID. In this study, the reactivity of saturated and unsaturated fatty acid-copper [M-H+Cu(II)]+ complex and the role of the copper ion in promoting fragmentations were investigated under low-energy collisional activation conditions. The decomposition of these species in an ion trap instrument led to diagnostic ion series that reflect C--C bond cleavage, which involves Cu(II) reduction followed by the release of an alkyl radical. It was demonstrated that in this way the localization of one or two homoconjugated double bonds is possible using low-energy CID. Moreover, the distinction of cis and trans isomers is possible through characteristic product ions related to a specific loss of CO2. When these experiments are repeated using a triple-quadrupole instrument with argon as collision gas, a different behavior is observed as in this case, in addition to the product ion distributions observed in the ion trap, other distributions are observed that reflect the influence of the different kinetic shifts and the occurrence of consecutive decompositions. Different examples are presented with various saturated and unsaturated fatty acid chains. Mechanisms are proposed in order to rationalize the experimental observations.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de Chimie Structurale Organique et Biologique, UMR 7613, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, 4 place Jussieu, 75225 Paris Cedex 05, France.
authors.forename: Carlos
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Afonso
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Riu
authors.forename: Ying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Françoise
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Fournier
authors.forename: Jean-Claude
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Tabet
mesh_terms: D002412:Cations / Q000737:chemistry; D003300:Copper / Q000737:chemistry*; D005227:Fatty Acids / Q000737:chemistry*; D008968:Molecular Conformation; D010103:Oxygen Isotopes; D021241:Spectrometry, Mass, Electrospray Ionization; D013229:Stearic Acids / Q000737:chemistry
chemical_list: D002412:Cations; D005227:Fatty Acids; D010103:Oxygen Isotopes; D013229:Stearic Acids; C031183:stearic acid; D003300:Copper