Radical additions to aromatic residues in peptides facilitate unexpected side chain and backbone losses

Accurate identification of fragments in tandem mass spectrometry experiments is aided by knowledge of relevant fragmentation mechanisms. Herein, novel radical addition reactions that direct unexpected side-chain dissociations at tryptophan and tyrosine residues are reported. Various mechanisms that can account for the observed dissociation channels are investigated by experiment and theory. The propensity for radical addition at a particular site is found to be primarily under kinetic control, which is largely dictated by molecular structure. In certain peptides, intramolecular radical addition reactions are favored, which leads to the observation of numerous unexpected fragments. In one pathway, radical addition leads to migration of an aromatic side chain to another residue. Alternatively, radical addition followed by hydrogen atom loss leads to cyclization of the peptide and increased observation of internal sequence fragments. Radical addition reactions should be considered when assigning fragmentation spectra obtained from activation of hydrogen deficient peptides.