Protomer Formation Can Aid the Structural Identification of Caffeine Metabolites

Anal Chem. 2022 Aug 2;94(30):10601-10609. doi: 10.1021/acs.analchem.2c00257. Epub 2022 Jul 21.

Abstract

The structural annotation of isomeric metabolites remains a key challenge in untargeted electrospray ionization/high-resolution mass spectrometry (ESI/HRMS) metabolomic analysis. Many metabolites are polyfunctional compounds that may form protomers in electrospray ionization sources and therefore yield multiple peaks in ion mobility spectra. Protomer formation is strongly structure-specific. Here, we explore the possibility of using protomer formation for structural elucidation in metabolomics on the example of caffeine, its eight metabolites, and structurally related compounds. It is observed that two-thirds of the studied compounds formed high- and low-mobility species in high-resolution ion mobility. Structures in which proton hopping was hindered by a methyl group at the purine ring nitrogen (position 3) yielded structure-indicative fragments with collision-induced dissociation (CID) for high- and low-mobility ions. For compounds where such a methyl group was not present, a gas-phase equilibrium could be observed for tautomeric species with two-dimensional ion mobility. We show that the protomer formation and the gas-phase properties of the protomers can be related to the structure of caffeine metabolites and facilitate the identification of the structural isomers.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Caffeine*
  • Ions
  • Isomerism
  • Protein Subunits
  • Protons
  • Spectrometry, Mass, Electrospray Ionization* / methods

Substances

  • Ions
  • Protein Subunits
  • Protons
  • Caffeine