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Ionization mechanism of oligonucleotides in matrix‐assisted laser desorption/ionization time‐of‐flight mass spectrometry
Author(s) -
Kong Yufei,
Zhu Yifei,
Zhang JingYuan
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
rapid communications in mass spectrometry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.528
H-Index - 136
eISSN - 1097-0231
pISSN - 0951-4198
DOI - 10.1002/1097-0231(20010115)15:1<57::aid-rcm192>3.0.co;2-7
Subject(s) - chemistry , deprotonation , protonation , mass spectrometry , thymine , ionization , matrix assisted laser desorption/ionization , nucleobase , oligonucleotide , photoionization , field desorption , chemical ionization , photochemistry , ion source , soft laser desorption , desorption , analytical chemistry (journal) , ion , dna , chromatography , organic chemistry , biochemistry , adsorption
The ionization of nucleosides in matrix‐assisted laser desorption/ionization time‐of‐flight mass spectrometry was systematically investigated using adenine (A), thymine (T), guanine (G) and cytosine (C) with several common matrices. Experimental results of the protonation and deprotonation of the bases of A, T, G and C in the matrices 2,5‐dihydroxybenzoic acid (2,5‐DHB), α‐cyano‐4‐hydroxycinnamic acid (α‐CHCA) and 3‐hydroxypicolinic acid (3‐HPA) provide an insight into the ionization mechanism of oligonucleotides in MALDI. It was found that the low ion signal from DNA in poly‐G in MALDI as reported in earlier work could be attributed to the fact that the base of G is difficult to ionize. Our results suggest that the ionization of DNA in MALDI is dominated by the protonation and deprotonation of bases and it is basically independent of the backbone of DNA. Both the protonation and deprotonation are strongly structure dependent. The protonation is dominated by pre‐protonation before laser ablation, while the deprotonation is controlled by the thermal reaction. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.