High-energy collisions of protonated enantiopure amino acids with a chiral target gas

• High-energy CID of enantiopure amino acids with chiral target gases was studied.
• No dependence on the chiral or achiral nature of the target gas was found.
• The observed fragmentation patterns are dominated by statistically driven processes.
• The results are consistent with well-established fragmentation models.

We have studied the fragmentation of the singly protonated l- and d-forms of enantiomerically pure phenylalanine (Phe), tryptophan (Trp), and methionine (Met) in high-energy collisions with chiral and achiral gas targets. (S)-(+)-2-butanol, racemic (±)-2-butanol, and argon were used as target gases. At center-of-mass frame collision energy of 1 keV, it was found that all of the ions exhibit common fragmentation pathways which are independent of target chirality. For all projectile ions, the elimination of NH3 and H2O + CO were found to be the main reaction channels. The observed fragmentation patterns were dominated by statistically driven processes. The energy deposited into the ions was found to be sufficient to yield multiple fragment ions, which arise from decomposition via various competitive reaction pathways.

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