Use of perfluorinated counter ions for the combination of ion pair HPLC and field desorption mass spectrometry. Application to the early characterization of aminoglycoside antibiotics.

The use of perfluorinated carboxylic acids counter ions is described for easy combination of ion pair HPLC and FD-MS. This technique is applied to the analysis of aminoglycoside antibiotics and to the problem of their early characterization from culture broths. Reliable molecular weight informations can be obtained with this method from minute amounts of purified products (10 micrograms) allowing formal identification in most cases.