Abstract
Lipid A, the inflammatory portion of lipopolysaccharides (LPS, endotoxins), is the main component of the outer membrane of Gram-negative bacteria. Its bioactivity in humans and animals is strictly related to its chemical structure. In the present work, the fragmentation patterns of the singly charged monosodium [M + Na](+) and disodium [M - H + 2Na](+) adducts, as well as the protonated form of monophosphorylated lipid A species were investigated in detail using positive-ion electrospray ionization-based tandem (MS/MS) and multistage mass spectrometry (MS(n)) with low-energy collision-induced dissociation (CID). Several synthetic and native lipid A samples were included in the study. We found that the fragmentation pattern of disodiated lipid A is quite similar to that of the well-characterized deprotonated lipid A molecule (typically detected in the negative-ion mode), while the fragmentation pattern of monosodiated lipid A contains fragment ions similar to those of both protonated and deprotonated lipid A molecules. In summary, we propose a new mass spectrometry approach based on the fragmentation regularities of only positively charged precursor ions to dissect the location of the phosphate group and fatty acid moieties on monophosphorylated lipid A. Moreover, this study provides a better understanding of the so-called "chimera mass spectra", which are commonly detected during the fragmentation of native lipid A samples containing both C-1 and C-4' phosphate positional isomers but rarely identified in negative-ion mode.