Protomer of Imipramine Captured in Cucurbit[7]uril

Small molecules possessing multiple proton-accessible sites are important not only to many biological systems but also to host-guest chemistry; their protonation states are causal to boosting or hindering specific host-guest interactions. However, determining the protonation site is not trivial. Herein, we conduct electrospray ionization ion mobility spectrometry-mass spectrometry to imipramine, a known molecule with two protonation sites, based on the introduction of cucurbit[7]uril as a host molecule. For protonated imipramine, the proposed strategy allows clear distinction of the two protomers as host-guest complex ions and can be leveraged to capture the energetically less preferable protomer of the protonated imipramine.