Letter: Does the reagent gas influence collisional activation when performing in situ chemical ionization with an ion trap mass spectrometer?
Abstract
Users of ion trap mass spectrometers frequently develop methods that associate chemical ionization with tandem mass spectrometry detection. With apparatus using internal ionization, the chemical reagent is present in the trap during the collision induced dissociation (CID) step and one may wonder if the reagent influences the fragmentation ratios in MS/MS. We report a comparison of the fragmentation ratios of protonated molecules when using the most common reagents (methane, ammonia, methanol, acetonitrile, isobutane) for performing in situ chemical ionization. Four molecules were chosen in the medical field to serve as models: alprazolam, diazepam, flunitrazepam and acetaminophen. In the non-resonant CID mode, the influence of the reagent mass is clearly seen in spite of its low partial pressure in the ion trap; the reagent acts as a "heavy target": the degree of fragmentation increases with the molecular weight of the reagent. In the resonant CID mode, there is no evident correlation between the fragmentation ratio of MH+ ions and the nature of the CI reagent; a slight shift of the secular frequency of the precursor ion, which tends to reduce the CID efficiency, could compensate for the "heavy target" effect underscored in the non-resonant mode. © IM Publications 2007.