Collisionally activated dissociation of protonated 2′-deoxycytidine, 2′-deoxyuridine, and their oxidatively damaged derivatives

We examined the collisionally activated dissociation (CAD) pathways of protonated 2'-deoxycytidine (dC), 5-formyl-2'-deoxycytidine (5-FmdC), 5-hydroxy-2'-deoxycytidine (5-OHdC), 5-hydroxymethyl-2'-deoxycytidine (5-HmdC), and their corresponding stable isotope-labeled compounds to gain insights into the effects of modifications on the fragmentation pathways of the pyrimidine bases. Multi-stage MS (MSn) results showed that protonated cytosine, its 5-hydroxyl- and 5-hydroxymethyl-substituted derivatives, but not its 5-formyl-substituted analog, could undergo Dimroth-like rearrangement in the gas-phase. The elimination of HNCO was one of the major fragmentation pathways observed for the protonated ions of all dC derivatives except for 5-hydroxymethylcytosine, which underwent this loss only after a H2O molecule had been eliminated. In addition, the protonated cytosine and 5-hydroxycytosine can undergo a facile elimination of NH3 molecule. This loss, however, was not observed for protonated 5-hydroxymethylcytosine, 5-formylcytosine, and their uracil analogs. Taken together, our study demonstrated that modifications could alter markedly the CAD patterns of the protonated pyrimidine bases. The results from this study provided a basis for the identifications of other modified pyrimidine bases/nucleosides by tandem mass spectrometry.