Mass spectrometric methods for the analysis of chlorinated and nitrated isoflavonoids: a novel class of biological metabolites

Electrospray ionization combined with tandem mass spectrometry was applied to a study of some representative chlorinated and nitrated isoflavones-potential metabolites of isoflavones in inflammatory cells. Upon collision-induced dissociation of deprotonated [M - H](-) ions of these compounds, a number of structurally characteristic product ions were produced. The product ion analysis of 3'- and 8-chlorodaidzein in the tandom mass spectra led to ready differentiation of these isomers. 3-Nitro derivatives of both genistein and daidzein have product ions due to the losses of HNO(2) and two OH groups. Chlorinated derivatives of isoflavones were detected in cell-based experiments and their structures were proposed by comparing the tandem mass spectra of their product ions with those of standards. This work provides a suitable analytical basis to aid the characterization of chlorinated and nitrated metabolites in studies in vivo and in vitro.     

土壤重金属污染来源及其解析研究进展

土壤重金属污染问题是环境和土壤科学研究者关注的热点问题。对土壤重金属污染物来源的鉴别是准确、有效控制和治理污染源的前提。根据近年来国内外对土壤重金属污染的相关研究报道,综述了土壤中污染物的工业、农业和交通因子三大主要来源,重点阐述了目前解析土壤重金属污染来源所运用的化学形态研究、剖面分布、同位素示踪、空间分析和多元统计等方法,并就存在的问题和今后的研究重点进行了总结。     

Individual determination of ortho and non-ortho substituted polychlorobiphenyls (PCBs) in sediments by high performance liquid chromatographic pre-separation and gas chromatography/ECD detection

Summary An analytical procedure for the individual determination of ortho and non-ortho PCB congeners in sediments, using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) preseparation and gas chromatography/ECD detection, is described. Gas chromatography/FTIR spectrometry (GC/FTIR) and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) were employed for individual congener identification and determination. Sample extraction, clean-up of extract and selective elution procedures were optimized by using reference certified marine sediment samples. Recovery and precision were typically 83% and 16% respectively at 2 ng/g of total PCB content. The proposed procedure, tested by analyzing real sediment samples, showed a reproducibility better than 20% at 13 ng/g PCB level.     

Identification of low molecular weight proteins isolated by 2-D liquid separations

Proteins with molecular mass (M(r)) <20 kDa are often poorly separated in 2-D sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. In addition, low-M(r) proteins may not be readily identified using peptide mass fingerprinting (PMF) owing to the small number of peptides generated in tryptic digestion. In this work, we used a 2-D liquid separation method based on chromatofocusing and non-porous silica reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography to purify proteins for matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometric (MALDI-TOFMS) analysis and protein identification. Several proteins were identified using the PMF method where the result was supported using an accurate M(r) value obtained from electrospray ionization TOFMS. However, many proteins were not identified owing to an insufficient number of peptides observed in the MALDI-TOF experiments. The small number of peptides detected in MALDI-TOFMS can result from internal fragmentation, the few arginines in its sequence and incomplete tryptic digestion. MALDI-QTOFMS/MS can be used to identify many of these proteins. The accurate experimental M(r) and pI confirm identification and aid in identifying post-translational modifications such as truncations and acetylations. In some cases, high-quality MS/MS data obtained from the MALDI-QTOF spectrometer overcome preferential cleavages and result in protein identification.     

A comparison of electron ionization mass spectra obtained at 70 eV,low electron energies,and with cold EI and their NIST library identification probabilities

Electron ionization (EI) mass spectra of 46 compounds from several different compound classes were measured. Their molecular ion abundances were compared as obtained with 70‐eV EI, with low eV EI (such as 14 eV), and with EI mass spectra of vibrationally cold molecules in supersonic molecular beams (Cold EI). We further compared these mass spectra in their National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) library identification probabilities. We found that

1. Low eV EI is not a soft ionization method, and it has little or no influence on the molecular ion relative abundances for large molecules and those with weak or no molecular ions.
2. Low eV EI for compounds with abundant or dominant molecular ions in their 70 eV mass spectra results in the reduction of low mass fragment ions abundances thereby reducing their NIST library identification probabilities thus rarely justifies its use in real‐world applications.
3. Cold EI significantly enhances the relative abundance of the molecular ions particularly for large compounds; yet, it retains the low mass fragment ions; hence, Cold EI mass spectra can be effectively identified by the NIST library.
4. Different standard EI ion sources provide different 70 eV EI mass spectra. Among the Agilent technologies ion sources, the “Extractor” exhibits relatively abundant molecular ions compared with the “Inert” ion source, while the “High efficiency source” (HES) provides mass spectra with depleted molecular ions compared with the “Inert” ion source or NIST library mass spectra.

These conclusions are demonstrated and supported by experimental data in nine figures and two tables.     

Application of diode array detectors for solute identification in toxicological analysis

Summary The possibilities and limitation of automated solute identification via UV/VIS spectroscopy in HPLC are demonstrated and applications in toxicologic analysis are described. A standard isocratic system is used. The influence of various chromatographic parameters on retention time is shown. A retention time window of ±15% is required. In addition to retention time, derived spectral data are calculated (minima and maxima of derivatives, area counts under standardized spectral ranges, absorption at various wavelength) and used for positive solute identification. It is possible to identify solutes with a high degree of certainty in urine and plasma if their concentration is at least 10 ppm.     

Structure-activity relationship of Ca2+ channel blockers: A study using conformational analysis and chemometric methods

Summary A structure-activity relationship study has been done on 8 compounds with the activity known as Ca²⁺ channel blockers. Conformational analysis was carried out using a molecular mechanics method. The 3D-QSAR approach was used and the most polar functional groups present in all the molecules were considered. Eight interatomic distances are necessary to define the relative spatial disposition of these relevant molecular fragments. The structure-activity relationship between interatomic distances and biological activity was performed using statistic and chemometric methods. In particular, with Principal Component Analysis, it was possible to reduce the number of interatomic distances: only six of the eight distances are sufficient to describe the system in a useful way. A classification method was iteratively used to select the most probable conformations linked to the biological activity and to build a model able to classify conformations according to their biological behaviour. Cluster analysis on the active selected conformations subsequently allowed the identification of two different geometrical patterns for the active compounds. Finally the validity of the model was verified by correctly predicting the activity of other molecules not used in the construction of the model but possessing known activity.     

Photolysis of 2-dialkylamino-3-amino(or alkylamino)-1,4-naphthoquinones

Using¹H and¹³C NMR spectroscopy, naphthodihydroimidazolediols were identified as the primary products of photolysis of 2-dialkylamino-3-amino(alkylamino)-1,4-naphthoquinones. Their further non-photochemical (thermal) transformations depend on their structure and on the photolysis conditions.Translated fromIzvestiya Akademii Nauk. Seriya Khimicheskaya, No. 2, pp. 358–362, February, 1993.     

Impact of biological factors on binding media identification in art objects: identification of animal glue in the presence of Aspergillus niger

The materials and especially organic materials used for creation of art objects can be utilized by various microorganisms for their growth and facilitate the microbial colonization of the object. An understanding of the chemical alterations in artefacts caused by the presence of microorganisms can be crucial for correct identification of the materials initially used for the artefact creation--nowadays an important step in restoration and/or art-historical investigation of the art object. The present article describes a model experiment in which we investigated the possible chemical alterations in animal glue films used as substrate for growth of the fungus Aspergillus niger. The sterilized animal glue solution was poured into Petri dishes, inoculated with Aspergillus niger, and subsequently incubated at 15 degrees C for 0, 7, 9, 14, and 28 days. After interruption of incubation, the content of the Petri dish was analyzed for amino acid composition by the GC-MS based method. It was found that the growth of Aspergillus niger on animal glue films did not cause significant changes in the amino acid composition of the film and had no impact on animal glue identification.     

The aliasing‐phenomenon in visual terms

In a recent paper it was shown that the aliasing phenomenon, which leads to a severe identification problem in the estimation of stochastic differential equations, can be overcome by using a polygonal (or higher) approximation for the time paths of the exogenous variables. This work attempts to visualize the problem and presents several simulated trajectories of a continuous time AR(2)‐process (Ornstein‐Uhlenbeck‐process) together with the observationally equivalent structures. Furthermore it is shown that aliasing can even change the analytical properties of the time paths of the system: whereas the first component of the Ornstein‐Uhlenbeck‐process is differentiable, the trajectories of the aliasing structures are continuous, but not differentiable any more.