Atypical cleavage of protonated N-fatty acyl amino acids derived from aspartic acid evidenced by sequential MS3 experiments.

Lipidomics calls for information on detected lipids and conjugates whose structural elucidation by mass spectrometry requires to rationalization of their gas phase dissociations toward collision-induced dissociation (CID) processes. This study focused on activated dissociations of two lipoamino acid (LAA) systems composed of N-palmitoyl acyl coupled with aspartic and glutamic acid mono ethyl esters (as LAA(*D) and LAA(*E)). Although in MS/MS, their CID spectra show similar trends, e.g., release of water and ethanol, the [(LAA(*D/*E)+H)-C2H5OH]+ product ions dissociate via distinct pathways in sequential MS3 experiments. The formation of all the product ions is rationalized by charge-promoted cleavages often involving stepwise processes with ion isomerization into ion-dipole prior to dissociation. The latter explains the maleic anhydride or ketene neutral losses from N-palmitoyl acyl aspartate and glutamate anhydride fragment ions, respectively. Consequently, protonated palmitoyl acid amide is generated from LAA(*D), whereas LAA(*E) leads to the [*E+H-H2O]+ anhydride. The former releases ammonia to provide acylium, which gives the C n H(2n-1) and C n H(2n-3) carbenium series. This should offer structural information, e.g., to locate either unsaturation(s) or alkyl group branching present on the various fatty acyl moieties of lipo-aspartic acid in further studies based on MS n experiments.

Atropisomerism in the 2-arylimino-N-(2-hydroxyphenyl)thiazoline series: influence of hydrogen bonding on the racemization process.

A series of original atropisomeric iminothiazolines 1 in which X = OH or (and) Y = OH were prepared from the corresponding methoxy precursors. The resolution of the atropisomeric enantiomers on chiral support is reported, and the barriers to enantiomerization are given. These barriers were determined either by off-line racemization studies or by treatment of the plateau-shape chromatogram during chromatography on chiral support. When X = OH, the barriers are quite low due to the development of a hydrogen bond between the proton of the OH group and the nitrogen of the imino group. For these compounds, plateau shape chromatograms were obtained during HPLC on chiral support. DFT calculations confirmed the occurrence of hydrogen bonding all along the rotation process and produced calculated barriers in close agreement with the experimental data. Compound 1i (OH, OH) in which both X and Y are hydroxy groups was particularly easy to prepare by demethylation with BBr3 of the dimethoxy precursor. Since the above-mentioned precursor is readily available from N,N'-bis(2-methoxyphenyl)thiourea and 1-chloropropan-2-one, 1i (OH, OH) is a good candidate for further functionalization. Atropisomerism in a 12-membered bridged bisether prepared from 1i (OH, OH) is reported as an illustrating example.