Collision-activated cleavage of a peptide/antibiotic disulfide linkage: possible evidence for intramolecular disulfide bond rearrangement upon collisional activation

Ceftiofur is an important veterinary beta-lactam antibiotic whose bioactive metabolite, desfuroylceftiofur, has a free thiol group. Desfuroylceftiofur (DFC) was reacted with two peptides, [Arg8]-vasopressin and reduced glutathione, both of which have cysteine residues to form disulfide-linked peptide/antibiotic complexes. The products of the reaction, [vasopressin + (DFC-H) + (DFC-H) + H]+, [(vasopressin+H) + (DFC-H) + H]+ and [(glutathione-H) + (DFC-H) + H]+, were analyzed using collision-activated dissociation (CAD) with a quadrupole ion trap tandem mass spectrometer. MS/MS of [vasopressin + (DFC-H) + (DFC-H) + H]+ resulted in facile dissociative loss of one and two covalently bound DFC moieties. Loss of one DFC resulted from either homolytic or heterolytic dissociation of the peptide/antibiotic disulfide bond with equal or unequal partitioning of the two sulfur atoms between the fragment ion and neutral loss. Hydrogen migration preceded heterolytic dissociation. Loss of two DFC moieties from [vasopressin + (DFC-H) + (DFC-H) + H]+ appears to result from collision-activated intramolecular disulfide bond rearrangement (IDBR) to produce cyclic [vasopressin + H]+ (at m/z 1084) as well as other cyclic fragment ions at m/z 1084 +/- 32 and +64. The cyclic structure of these ions could only be inferred as MS/MS may result in rearrangement to non-cyclic structures prior to dissociative loss. IDBR was also detected from MS(3) experiments of [vasopressin + (DFC-H) + (DFC-H) + H]+ fragment ions. MS/MS of [(glutathione-H) + (DFC-H) + H]+ resulted in cleavage of the peptide backbone with retention of the DFC moiety as well as heterolytic cleavage of the peptide/antibiotic disulfide bond to produce the fragment ion: [(DFC-2H) + H]+. These results demonstrate the facile dissociative loss by CAD of DFC moieties covalently attached to peptides through disulfide bonds. Published in 2004 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Electron capture dissociation of O-glycosylated peptides: radical site-induced fragmentation of glycosidic bonds

Glycosylation of proteins represents one of the most important post-translational modifications. The structural characterisation of glycoproteins--especially with respect to the determination of the glycosylation site--by direct mass spectrometric methods still remains an elusive goal. We have applied the low energy dissociation method electron capture dissociation (ECD) in a 9.4 T Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometer to the structural elucidation of mucin-derived peptides glycosylated with glycans of different core types. Capture of an electron by multiply protonated precursor ions [M + nH](n+) resulted in the formation of reduced odd electron radical cations [M + nH](n-1)+*. Subsequent cleavage of the N-Calpha bonds of the peptide chain, mostly without loss of the labile sugar moiety, represents a major fragmentation pathway allowing unambiguous assignment of the glycosylation site. In addition to peptide backbone cleavages, loss of acetyl radicals from the N-acetyl group of the HexNAc glycans is observed. Radical site induced elimination processes of the glycan moieties initiated by hydrogen transfer, from the glycan to the peptide backbone and vice versa give rise to signals in the ECD spectra. The different sugar core types exhibit different fragmentation patterns driven by the stability of the resulting fragments allowing the discrimination of isomeric glycans.     

Does Electron Capture Dissociation Cleave Protein Disulfide Bonds?

Peptide and protein characterization by mass spectrometry (MS) relies on their dissociation in the gas phase into specific fragments whose mass values can be aligned as ‘mass ladders’ to provide sequence information and to localize possible posttranslational modifications. The most common dissociation method involves slow heating of even-electron (M+n H)ⁿ⁺ ions from electrospray ionization by energetic collisions with inert gas, and cleavage of amide backbone bonds. More recently, dissociation methods based on electron capture or transfer were found to provide far more extensive sequence coverage through unselective cleavage of backbone N–Cα bonds. As another important feature of electron capture dissociation (ECD) and electron transfer dissociation (ETD), their unique unimolecular radical ion chemistry generally preserves labile posttranslational modifications such as glycosylation and phosphorylation. Moreover, it was postulated that disulfide bond cleavage is preferred over backbone cleavage, and that capture of a single electron can break both a backbone and a disulfide bond, or even two disulfide bonds between two peptide chains. However, the proposal of preferential disulfide bond cleavage in ECD or ETD has recently been debated. The experimental data presented here reveal that the mechanism of protein disulfide bond cleavage is much more intricate than previously anticipated.     

Electron Capture Dissociation of Disulfide, Sulfur–Selenium, and Diselenide Bound Peptides

To examine the electron capture dissociation (ECD) behavior of disulfide (S?CS), sulfur?Cselenium (S?CSe), and diselenide (Se?CSe) bonds-containing peptides, a series of free cysteine (Cys) and selenocysteine (Sec) containing peptides were reacted to form interchain S?CS, S?CSe, and Se?CSe bonds, and then studied using ECD with Fourier transform ion cyclotron mass spectrometry (FTICR MS). These results demonstrate that the radical has higher tendency to stay at selenium rather than sulfur after the cleavage of Se?CS bonds by ECD. In addition, ?CSH (?C33), ?CS (?C32), and ?CS + H (?C31) small neutral losses were all observed from the cleavage of C?CS bonds of a disulfide bound peptide. Similar, but minor, fragments were also detected in S?CSe bound peptides. In contrast, the cleavage of C?CSe bonds of the Se?CSe species mainly forms fragments with neutral loss of ?CSe + H (?C78.90868), and the radical tends to stay on the selenium of its corresponding complementary pair. Although the electron affinities of S atom (2.07?eV) and Se atom (2.02?eV) are very close; they have very different reactivity towards electrons. The replacement of sulfur with selenium greatly increases the electron affinities of S?CSe and Se?CSe bonds comparing to S?CS bonds (with an increase of electron affinity by about 0.20?eV by replacing a sulfur with a selenium) (Int J Quantum Chem 110:513-523, 2010), which in turn leads to different ECD fragmentation behavior and mechanisms. Our results are in good agreement with previously published ab initio calculations on Se?CSe compounds by other groups.     

Ion trap collisional activation of disulfide linkage intact and reduced multiply protonated polypeptides.

The presence of disulfide linkages in multiply charged polypeptide ions tends to inhibit the formation of structurally informative product ions under conventional quadrupole ion trap collisional activation conditions. In particular, fragmentation that requires two cleavages (i.e., cleavage of a disulfide linkage and a peptide linkage) is strongly suppressed. Reduction of the disulfide linkage(s) by use of dithiothreitol yields parent ions upon electrospray without this complication. Far richer structural information is revealed by ion trap collisional activation of the disulfide-reduced species than from the native species. These observations are illustrated with doubly protonated native and reduced somatosin, the [M + 5H](5+) ion of native bovine insulin and the [M + 4H](4+) and [M + 3H](3+) ions of the B-chain of bovine insulin produced by reduction of the disulfide linkages in insulin, and the [M + 11H](11+) ion of native chicken lysozyme and the [M + 11H](11+) and [M + 14H](14+) ions of reduced lysozyme. In each case, the product ions produced by ion trap collisional activation were subjected to ion/ion proton transfer reactions to facilitate interpretation of the product ion spectra. These studies clearly suggest that the identification of polypeptides with one or more disulfide linkages via application of ion trap collisional activation to the multiply charged parent ions formed directly by electrospray could be problematic. Means for cleaving the disulfide linkage, such as reduction by dithiothreitol prior to electrospray, are therefore desirable in these cases.     

Charge state dependent collision-induced dissociation of native and reduced porcine elastase

The [M + 20H](20+)-[M + 12H](12+) charge states of native and reduced porcine elastase, a 25.9 kDa serine protease, were subjected to collisional activation in a quadrupole ion trap. For most charge states, ion parking was used to increase the number of parent ions over that yielded directly by electrospray. Ion-ion proton transfer reactions were used to reduce product ion charge states largely to +1 to simplify spectral interpretation. Both forms of the protein show charge state dependent fragmentation behavior. The native protein, which contains four disulfide linkages, shows almost no evidence for fragmentation within the regions of the protein linked by disulfide bonds. However, at the lowest charge states studied, evidence for cleavage of a least one of the disulfide bonds was evident in the appearance of a c-type ion. The highest charge states of native elastase showed several prominent cleavages C-terminal to valine residues. As the charge state decreased, however, preferential cleavages at acidic amino acid residues became important. The reduced form of the protein did not show particularly prominent cleavages at valine residues. However, many of the same preferential cleavages at acidic amino acid residues noted for the native protein were also observed in the same charge states of the reduced protein. The reduced protein also showed additional cleavages from regions of the protein that are ordinarily protected by disulfide linkages in the native form.     

Electron capture dissociation initiates a free radical reaction cascade

For small cyclic peptides, one electron capture by the [M + 2H](2+) ion generates numerous fragments corresponding to amino acid losses, side-chain losses, and losses of some low molecular weight species such as H(2)O, CH(3)(*), C(3)H(6), and (*)CONH(2). As predicted, the side-chain cleavages are amplified relative to linear peptides of similar size, but the amino acid losses were unexpected because they require that one electron capture cause more than one backbone cleavage, a phenomenon which necessitates further refinement or reinterpretation of current ECD mechanisms. A modified mechanism is postulated in which nonergodic electron capture fragmentation generates an alpha-carbon radical species that then propagates along the protein backbone. This radical migration initiates multiple free radical rearrangements, which cause both multiple backbone cleavages and additional side-chain cleavages.     

Divalent metal ion-peptide interactions probed by electron capture dissociation of trications

Electron capture dissociation (ECD) of the peptide Substance P (SubP) complexed with divalent metals has been investigated. ECD of [SubP + H + M]3+ (M2+ = Mg2+ -Ba2+ and Mn2+ -Zn2+) allowed observation of a larger number of product ions than previous investigations of doubly charged metal-containing peptides. ECD of Mg-Ba, Mn, Fe, and Zn-containing complexes resulted in product ions with and without the metal from cleavage of backbone amine bonds (c' and z* -type ions). By contrast, ECD of Co and Ni-containing complexes yielded major bond cleavages within the C-terminal methionine residue (likely to be the metal ion binding site). Cu-containing complexes displayed yet another behavior: amide bond cleavage (b and y'-type ions). We believe some results can be rationalized both within the hot hydrogen atom mechanism and mechanisms involving electron capture into excited states, such as the recently proposed amide superbase mechanism. However, some behavior, including formation of (cn 'M - H)+ ions for Ca-Ba, is best explained within the latter mechanisms with initial electron capture at the metal. In addition, the ECD behavior appears to correlate with the metal second ionization energy (IE2). Co and Ni (displaying sequestered fragmentation) have IE2s of 17.1 and 18.2 eV, respectively, whereas IE2s for Mg-Ba, Mn, and Fe (yielding random cleavage) are 10.0 to 16.2 eV. This behavior is difficult to explain within the hot hydrogen atom mechanism because hydrogen transfer should not be influenced by IE2s. However, the drastically different fragmentation patterns for Co, Ni, and Cu compared to the other metals can also be explained by their higher propensity for nitrogen (as opposed to oxygen) binding. Nevertheless, these results imply that directed fragmentation can be accomplished via careful selection of the cationizing agent.     

Dissociative recombination cross section and branching ratios of protonated dimethyl disulfide and N-methylacetamide

Dimethyl disulfide (DMDS) and N-methylacetamide are two first choice model systems that represent the disulfide bridge bonding and the peptide bonding in proteins. These molecules are therefore suitable for investigation of the mechanisms involved when proteins fragment under electron capture dissociation (ECD). The dissociative recombination cross sections for both protonated DMDS and protonated N-methylacetamide were determined at electron energies ranging from 0.001 to 0.3 eV. Also, the branching ratios at 0 eV center-of-mass collision energy were determined. The present results give support for the indirect mechanism of ECD, where free hydrogen atoms produced in the initial fragmentation step induce further decomposition. We suggest that both indirect and direct dissociations play a role in ECD.     

Electron capture dissociation of weakly bound polypeptide polycationic complexes

We have previously reported that, in electron capture dissociation (ECD), rupture of strong intramolecular bonds in weakly bound supramolecular aggregates can proceed without dissociation of weak intermolecular bonds. This is now illustrated on a series of non-specific peptide-peptide dimers as well as specific complexes of modified glycopeptide antibiotics with their target peptide. The weak nature of bonding is substantiated by blackbody infrared dissociation, low-energy collisional excitation and force-field simulations. The results are consistent with a non-ergodic ECD cleavage mechanism.     

Identification and localization of the fatty acid modification in ghrelin by electron capture dissociation

Electron capture dissociation (ECD) has been demonstrated to be an effective fragmentation technique for characterizing the site and structure of the fatty acid modification in ghrelin, a 28-residue growth-hormone-releasing peptide that has an unusual ester-linked n-octanoyl (C8:0) modification at Ser-3. ECD cleaves 21 of 23 possible backbone amine bonds, with the product ions (c and z· ions) covering a greater amino acid sequence than those obtained by collisionally activated dissociation (CAD). Consistent with the ECD nonergodic mechanism, the ester-linked octanoyl group is retained on all backbone cleavage product ions, allowing for direct localization of this labile modification. In addition, ECD also induces the ester bond cleavage to cause the loss of octanoic acid from the ghrelin molecular ion; the elimination process is initiated by the capture of an electron at the protonated ester group, which is followed by the radical-site-initiated reaction known as -cleavage. The chemical composition of the attached fatty acid can be directly obtained from the accurate Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance (FTICR) mass measurement of the ester bond cleavage product ions.     

SO<Stack><Subscript>2</Subscript><Superscript>−·</Superscript></Stack> electron transfer ion/ion reactions with disulfide linked polypeptide ions

Multiply-charged peptide cations comprised of two polypeptide chains (designated A and B) bound via a disulfide linkage have been reacted with SO2-* in an electrodynamic ion trap mass spectrometer. These reactions proceed through both proton transfer (without dissociation) and electron transfer (with and without dissociation). Electron transfer reactions are shown to give rise to cleavage along the peptide backbone, loss of neutral molecules, and cleavage of the cystine bond. Disulfide bond cleavage is the preferred dissociation channel and both Chain A (or B)-S* and Chain A (or B)-SH fragment ions are observed, similar to those observed with electron capture dissociation (ECD) of disulfide-bound peptides. Electron transfer without dissociation produces [M + 2H]+* ions, which appear to be less kinetically stable than the proton transfer [M + H]+ product. When subjected to collision-induced dissociation (CID), the [M + 2H]+* ions fragment to give products that were also observed as dissociation products during the electron transfer reaction. However, not all dissociation channels noted in the electron transfer reaction were observed in the CID of the [M + 2H]+* ions. The charge state of the peptide has a significant effect on both the extent of electron transfer dissociation observed and the variety of dissociation products, with higher charge states giving more of each.     

Side-chain fragmentation of alkylated cysteine residues in electron capture dissociation mass spectrometry

The recent development of novel fragmentation processes based on either electron capture directly or transfer from an anion show great potential for solving problems in proteomics that are intractable by the more widely employed thermal-based fragmentation processes such as collision induced dissociation. The dominant fragmentation occurring upon electron capture dissociation of peptides is cleavage of N-C alpha bonds in the peptide backbone to form c and z* ions. In the case of disulfide-linked peptides, it has also been shown that electron capture on one of the cystine sulfur atoms is favored, resulting in cleavage of the disulfide bond. In this study, we report that electron capture on the sulfur of alkylated cysteine residues is also a dominant process, causing cysteine side-chain loss from z* ions.     

Electron-capture induced dissociation of doubly charged dipeptides: on the neutral losses and N-Cα bond cleavages

Electron capture by doubly charged peptide cations leads to neutral losses in addition to N-C(α) bond cleavages that give c and z fragments. In this work we discuss the influence of amino acid sequence on hydrogen versus ammonia loss and the propensity for subsequent partial side-chain cleavage after ammonia loss to give w fragment ions. Experiments were done on two series of doubly protonated dipeptides, [XK+2H](2+) and [XR+2H](2+), where X is one of the twenty common amino acid residues, excluding aspartic acid (D), and K and R are lysine and arginine, respectively. While it was previously established that NH(3) is lost exclusively from the N-terminal ammonium group and not from side-chain ammonium groups, we find here that ammonia can be lost from guanidinium radicals as well. The ratio between H loss and NH(3) loss reveals some information on internal ionic hydrogen bonds and peptide conformation since proton sharing between the N-terminal ammonium group and a basic side chain decreases the probability for NH(3) loss due to a lower recombination energy and as a result reduced capture probability. The abundance of w ions was found to correlate with the reaction energy for their formation; highest yield was found for CK and lowest for AK and HK. The survival rate of charge-reduced species was higher for XR than for XK, which is likely linked to the formation of long-lived C(α) radicals in the latter case. The probability for N-C(α) bond cleavage is smaller on average for XR than for XK which indicates that hydrogen transfer from the ε-ammonium radical to the amide group triggers some of the cleavages, or is a result of the different distances between the amide group and the charges in XR and XK. Finally, our data support the previous concept that charge partitioning between c and z fragments can be explained by competition between the two fragments for the proton.     

Coulomb-assisted dissociative electron attachment: application to a model peptide

The fragmentation of positively charged gas-phase samples of peptides is used to infer the primary structure of such molecules. In electron capture dissociation (ECD) experiments, very low-energy electrons attach to the sample and rupture bonds to effect the fragmentation. It turns out that ECD fragmentation tends to produce cleavage of very specific types of bonds. In earlier works by this group, it has been suggested that the presence of positive charges produces stabilizing Coulomb potentials that allow low-energy electrons to exothermically attach to sigma orbitals of certain bonds and thus to cleave those bonds. In the present effort, the stabilizing effects of Coulomb potentials due to proximal positive charges are examined for a small model peptide molecule that contains a wide range of bond types. Direct attachment of an electron to the sigma orbitals of eight different bonds as well as indirect sigma bond cleavage, in which an electron first binds to a carbonyl C=O pi orbital, are examined using ab initio methods. It is found that direct attachment to and subsequent cleavage of any of the eight sigma bonds is not likely except for highly positively charged samples. It is also found that attachment to a C=O pi orbital followed by cleavage of the nitrogen-to-alpha-carbon bond is the most likely outcome. Interestingly, this bond cleavage is the one that is seen most commonly in ECD experiments. So, the results presented here seem to offer good insight into one aspect of the ECD process, and they provide a means by which one can estimate (on the basis of a simple Coulomb energy formula) which bonds may be susceptible to cleavage by low-energy electron attachment.     

Negative-ion electron capture dissociation: radical-driven fragmentation of charge-increased gaseous peptide anions

The generation of gaseous polyanions with a Coulomb barrier has attracted attention as exemplified by previous studies of fullerene dianions. However, this phenomenon has not been reported for biological anions. By contrast, electron attachment to multiply charged peptide and protein cations has seen a surge of interest due to the high utility for tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS). Electron capture dissociation (ECD) and electron transfer dissociation (ETD) involve radical-driven fragmentation of charge-reduced peptide/protein cations to yield N-C(α) backbone bond cleavage, resulting in predictable c'/z(?)-type product ions without loss of labile post-translational modifications (PTMs). However, acidic peptides, e.g., with biologically important PTMs such as phosphorylation and sulfonation, are difficult to multiply charge in positive ion mode and show improved ionization in negative-ion mode. We found that peptide anions ([M - nH](n-), n ≥ 1) can capture electrons within a rather narrow energy range (~3.5-6.5 eV), resulting in charge-increased radical intermediates that undergo dissociation analogous to that in ECD/ETD. Gas-phase zwitterionic structures appear to play an important role in this novel MS/MS technique, negative-ion electron capture dissociation (niECD).     

Microbial degradation of physiologically active peptides by strain B-9

The reaction of some physiologically active peptides with bacterial strain B-9 has been investigated. Bradykinin, β-endorphin, and [Leu(5)]enkephalin were quickly degraded, with half-lives of <5 min. Somatostatin, substance P, and angiotensin I were degraded relatively smoothly, with half-lives of 10 min to 1 h, whereas oxytocin and insulin were slowly degraded, with half-lives of 1 and 4 days, respectively. Vasopressin was barely degraded, with a half-life of >7 days. Linearized vasopressin, prepared by the reductive cleavage of the disulfide bond followed by alkylation with iodoacetamide, was degraded significantly faster than intact vasopressin, with a half-life of 2.5 h. A loop formed by disulfide bond formation was regarded as one of the degradation-resistant factors. Hydrolysis of the peptides in this study took place through cleavage of various peptide bonds, and the strain B-9 may bear similarities to the neutral endopeptidase in terms of its broad selectivity.     

Generation and characterization of ionic and neutral P(OH) 2 +/. in the gas phase by tandem mass spectrometry and computational chemistry

The bicoordinated dihydroxyphosphenium ion P(OH)2+ (1+) was generated specifically by charge-exchange dissociative ionization of triethylphosphite and its connectivity was confirmed by collision induced dissociation and neutralization-reionization mass spectra. The major dissociation of 1+ forming PO+ ions at m/z 47 involved another isomer, O=P-OH2+ (2+), for which the optimized geometry showed a long P-OH2 bond. Dissociative 70-eV electron ionization of diethyl phosphite produced mostly 1+ together with a less stable isomer, HP(O)OH+ (3+). Ion 2+ is possibly co-formed with 1+ upon dissociative 70-eV electron ionization of methylphosphonic acid. Neutralization-reionization of 1+ confirmed that P(OH)2* (1) was a stable species. Dissociations of neutral 1, as identified by variable-time measurements, involved rate-determining isomerization to 2 followed by fast loss of water. A competitive loss of H occurs from long-lived excited states of 1 produced by vertical electron transfer. The A and B states undergo rate-determining internal conversion to vibrationally highly excited ground state that loses an H atom via two competing mechanisms. The first of these is the direct cleavage of one of the O-H bonds in 1. The other is an isomerization to 3 followed by cleavage of the P-H bond to form O=P-OH as a stable product. The relative, dissociation, and transition state energies for the ions and neutrals were studied by ab initio and density functional theory calculations up to the QCISD(T)/6-311+G(3df,2p) and CCSD(T)/aug-cc-pVTZ levels of theory. RRKM calculations were performed to investigate unimolecular dissociation kinetics of 1. Excited state geometries and energies were investigated by a combination of configuration interaction singles and time-dependent density functional theory calculations.     

Radical conversion and migration in electron capture dissociation

Electron capture dissociation (ECD) is an important analytical technique which is used frequently in proteomics experiments to reveal information about both primary sequence and post-translational modifications. Although the utility of ECD is unquestioned, the underlying chemistry which leads to the observed fragmentation is still under debate. Backbone dissociation is frequently the exclusive focus when mechanistic questions about ECD are posed, despite the fact that numerous other abundant dissociation channels exist. Herein, the focus is shifted to side chain loss and other dissociation channels which offer clues about the underlying mechanism(s). It is found that the initially formed hydrogen abundant radicals in ECD can convert quickly to hydrogen deficient radicals via a variety of pathways. Dissociation which occurs subsequent to this conversion is mediated by hydrogen deficient radical chemistry, which has been the subject of extensive study in experiments which are independent from ECD. Statistical analysis of fragments observed in ECD is in excellent agreement with predictions made by an understanding of hydrogen deficient radical chemistry. Furthermore, hydrogen deficient radical mediated dissociation likely contributes to observed ECD fragmentation patterns in unexpected ways, such as the selective dissociation observed at disulfide bonds. Many aspects of dissociation observed in ECD are easily reproduced in well-controlled experiments examining hydrogen deficient radicals generated by non-ECD methods. All of these observations indicate that when considering the means by which electron capture leads to dissociation, hydrogen deficient radical chemistry must be given careful consideration.     

Electronic structure of 3d[M(H2O)6](3+) ions from Sc(III) to Fe(III): a quantum mechanical study based on DFT computations and natural bond orbital analyses

The metal-donor atom bonding along the series of 3d[M(H2O)6](3+) ions from Sc(3+) to Fe(3+) has been investigated by density-functional calculations combined with natural localized bond orbital analyses. The M-OH(2) bonds were considered as donor-acceptor bonds, and the contributions coming from the metal ion's 3d sigma-, 3d pi-, and 4s sigma-interactions were treated individually. In this way, the total amount of charge transferred from the water oxygen-donor atoms toward the appropriate metal orbitals could be analyzed in a straightforward manner. One result obtained along these lines is that the overall extent of ligand-to-metal charge transfer shows a strong correlation to the hydration enthalpies of the aqua metal ions. If the contributions to the total ligand-to-metal ion charge transfer are divided into sigma- and pi-contributions, it turns out that Cr(3+) is the best sigma-acceptor, but its pi-accepting abilities are the weakest along the series. Fe(3+) is found to be the best pi-acceptor among the 3d hexaaqua ions studied. Its aptitude to accept sigma-electron density is the second weakest along the series and only slightly higher than that of Sc(3+) (the least sigma-acceptor of all ions) because of the larger involvement of the Fe(3+) 4s orbital in sigma-bonding. The strengths of the three types of bonding interactions have been correlated with the electron affinities of the different metal orbitals. Deviations from the regular trends of electron affinities along the series were found for those [M(H2O)6](3+) ions that are subject to Jahn-Teller distortions. In these cases (d(1) = [Ti(H2O)6](3+), d(2) = [V(H2O)6](3+), and d(4) = [Mn(H2O)6](3+)), ligand-to-metal charge transfer is prevented to go into those metal orbitals that contain unpaired d electrons. A lowering of the complex symmetry is observed and coupled with the following variations: The Ti(3+)- and V(3+)-hexaaqua ions switch from T(h)() to C(i)() symmetry while the Mn(3+)-hexaaqua ion moves to D(2)(h)() symmetry. The loss of orbital overlap leading to a diminished ligand-to-metal charge transfer toward the single occupied metal orbitals is compensated by amplified bonding interactions of the ligand orbitals with the unoccupied metal orbitals to some extent.