Understanding the Fragmentation Pathways of Carbocyclic Derivatives of Amino Acids by Using Electrospray Ionization Tandem Mass Spectrometry

Abstract

Aminoacyl derivatives of aminoadamantanes amantadine and rimantadine have been investigated in regard to their antiviral properties. So far, few studies on the mass spectrometric fragmentation pathway of these compounds have been reported using high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS). Two major fragmentation pathways have been observed. For the rimantadine derivatives, losses of rimantadine and N-(1-adamantyl) ethylformamide were described. Similarly, in case of amantadine derivatives, there were losses of amantadine and N-(1-adamantyl) formamide. The loss of the aminoacyl group was common to all of the studied compounds. Understanding the fragmentation mechanism can bring new insight into the characterization of these compounds.