Fragmentation behavior of glycated peptides derived from D-glucose, D-fructose and D-ribose in tandem mass spectrometry

Abstract

Nonenzymatic glycosylation (or glycation) is a common nonenzymatic side-chain specific sequence-independent posttranslational modification formed by the reaction of reducing carbohydrates with free amino groups. Thus, proteins can react with aldoses or ketoses to yield Amadori or Heynes compounds, respectively. Here, the fragmentation behavior of D-glucose and D-ribose-derived Amadori peptides as well as D-fructose-derived Heynes peptides were studied by collision-induced fragmentation (CID) after electrospray (ESI) or matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) mass spectrometry (MS). All three sugar moieties displayed characteristic fragmentation patterns accompanying the parent and the fragment ions, which could be explained by consecutive losses of water and formaldehyde. Glucose-derived Amadori parent and fragment ions displayed losses of 18, 36, 54, 72, and 84 u at a characteristic intensity distribution compared with losses of 18, 36, 54, 72, 84, and 96 u for D-fructose-derived ions and losses of 18, 36, and 54 u for ribose-derived ions. Furthermore, each sugar moiety produced indicative lysine-derived immonium ions that were successfully used in a precursor ion scan analysis to identify Amadori peptides in a tryptic digest of bovine serum albumin (BSA) glycated with D-glucose. BSA was modified on lysine residues at positions 36, 160, 235, 256, 401, and 548.