Field desorption mass spectrum of glucagon

A low resolution, high sensitivity study has been made of the field desorption mass spectrum of glucagon, a 29 amino acid residue underivatized peptide. The highest molecular weight fragments observed, when spectra were taken under conditions which minimized surface reactions of the peptide on the emitter, were found to contain no more than 18 amino acid residues. The most probable fragmentation processes for ions larger than m/e 600 were the production of fragments containing 10, 11 or 12 amino acid residues.