Fragmentation study of noscapine derivatives under electrospray conditions.

Nagy, Lajos; Kuki, Ákos; Szabó, Katalin; Sipos, Attila; Zsuga, Miklós; Kéki, Sándor

RATIONALE Noscapine is a biologically active molecule with anticancer activity among other things. Therefore, from an analytical point of view, knowledge of the mass spectrometric properties of noscapine and its derivatives is essential. The goal of the present study is to describe the collision-induced dissociation behavior of noscapine and its seven derivatives ionized by protons and lithium and sodium ions. METHODS Protonated noscapines were produced using electrospray ionization (ESI) mass spectrometry (MS). For the tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) experiments nitrogen was used as the collision gas and the collision energies were varied in the range of 1-53 eV (in the laboratory frame). RESULTS The ESI-MS/MS measurements showed that the MS/MS spectra of the protonated noscapines were more informative than the lithiated and sodiated ones. Based on the MS/MS studies, the main fragmentation channels of the protonated noscapines were found to be the loss of water and the loss of a meconine moiety from the precursor ion; furthermore, methyl transfer was also observed in the MS/MS spectra. CONCLUSIONS The MS/MS study of the protonated noscapines gives more structural information than that of lithiated and sodiated noscapines. However, the most important fragmentation channel, which leads to the formation of the most intensive product ion in the MS/MS spectra, is independent of the ionization agent. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

NOSCAPINE; ELECTROSPRAY ionization mass spectrometry; CHEMICAL derivatives; TANDEM mass spectrometry; PROTON transfer reactions

Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry: RCM, 2014, Vol 28, Issue 7, p822

0951-4198

Academic Journal

10.1002/rcm.6847