Electrospray ionization quadrupole time-of-flight tandem mass spectrometric analysis of hexamethylenediamine-modified...

A combined methodology for obtaining at the preparative scale and characterization by nanoelectrospray ionization (nanoESI) quadrupole time-of-flight (QTOF) mass spectrometry (MS) and tandem MS (MS/MS) of linear polysaccharides modified at the reducing end is presented. Two polydisperse maltodextrins (1000 and 3000 Da) and a high molecular weight polydisperse dextran (6000 Da) were coupled with hexamethylenediamine (HMD). The coupling products were analyzed by nanoESI-QTOF-MS in the positive ion mode and MS/MS using collision-induced dissociation (CID) at low energies. In the HMD-M1000 mixture, the polysaccharide chains containing from 2 to 8 Glc residues were detected, while in HMD-M3000 we identified a complete series of chains containing from 8 to 21 Glc moieties. The employed ESI conditions enhanced the detection of chains with up to 46 Glc residues in the HMD-D6000 sample. By optimized MS/MS, HMD-modified polysaccharides of 3, 4, 5, 12 and 46 degrees of polymerization yielded product ion spectra exhibiting the whole set of Y- and B-fragment ions. The MS structural data were obtained within a few minutes of signal acquisition, with a sample consumption situating the analysis sensitivity in the picomolar range.