Characterization of amino polyaromatic hydrocarbon-DNA adducts using continuous-flow fast atom bombardment and collision-induced dissociation: Positive and negative ion spectra

Separation procedures capable of revealing DNA adducts

Detection and quantification of DNA adducts are very important in relation to diseases such as cancer. Both high sensitivity and high selectivity are required for the detection of DNA adducts because the content of adducts in DNA is very small compared with those of normal bases and only small amounts of DNA samples are available for analysis in general cases. In this paper are described separation procedures such as liquid chromatography, gas chromatography and capillary electrophoresis combined with a detection and identification method such as 32P-postlabeling, mass spectrometry, electrochemical detection, fluorescence detection and immunoassay. The merits and demerits of the procedures are also discussed.

Characteristics of high energy collision-induced dissociation tandem Mass Spectra of Polycyclic aromatic Hydrocarbon diolepoxide adducted peptides

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) diolepoxides are known to covalently modify serum albumin and hemoglobin. Mass spectrometric techniques have proven quite useful in the characterization of the site of adduction on these proteins. To facilitate the study of PAH diolepoxide adducted peptides, model peptide adducts of benzo[a]pyrene-trans-7,8-dihydrodiol-epoxide [anti-BaP(9,10)DE] and benzo[a]anthracene-trans-8,9-dihydrodiol-10,11-epoxide [anti-BaA(10,11)DE] have been synthesized for the purpose of studying their high energy collision-induced dissociation tandem mass spectra. These spectra are dominated by ions produced from cleavage of the peptide-adduct bond with charge retention by the adducting moiety. Such ions allow for the facile identification of adducted peptides in a mixture by use of neutral loss scans. The peptide sequence can still be deduced from the data in most cases, and the site of adduction can be determined. For those peptide-adducts in which this is not possible, a charged derivative placed at the N-terminus simplifies the peptide fragmentation pattern and makes the spectrum more interpretable.