Individual b2 ion fragmentation profiles combined with AspN digestion improve N-terminal peptide sequencing

The N terminus of peptides generated by AspN is restricted to about 40 dipeptide motifs starting with D or E. These motifs are visible upon collision-induced dissociation (CID) as b₂ ions, which are often the most abundant low-mass fragment ions. It was observed that b₂ ions are accompanied by a set of sequence-specific neutral losses of CO, H₂O, NH₃, and some other small units. To test the utility of these profiles as additional parameters for reliable assignment of the b₂ ion motif besides its m/z value, the CID spectra of 221 different AspN-generated peptides covering all N-terminal D-X and E-X motifs were recorded. Qualitatively, the b₂ ion fragmentation profiles of individual motifs were found to exhibit little dependency on the rest of the peptide sequence. Thus, it is concluded that the set of b₂ ion fragmentation profiles recorded in this study can be used as reference set. Knowledge of these profiles provides an increased specificity for b₂ ion annotation of AspN-generated peptides compared to the use of only a solitary b₂ ion m/z value. Recognition of the b₂ ion motif provides a two-amino-acid sequence including its direction; it provides the location of this motif at the N terminus, and it sets a starting point for further extension of the b ion series.