Structural investigation of cyclic peptidolipids from Bacillus subtilis by high-energy tandem mass spectrometry.

The natural products belonging to the surfactin family are cycloheptapeptides bearing a long beta-hydroxy-fatty acyl chain at the N-terminal position. The structure of these compounds, often isolated as complex mixtures, can be elucidated by high-energy tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS). The protonated molecules generated by cesium ion bombardment (LSIMS) undergo charge-proximate fragmentations leading to the b- and y-type ion series useful for the sequence determination. The sodium-cationised molecules show a radically different behaviour towards high-energy collisional activation. Besides the well-known charge-remote dissociation products of the alkyl side chain, complete series of d- and w-type fragments allow easy distinction between leucine and isoleucine. The complementary MS/MS data obtained from the protonated and cationised molecules prove to be of great interest for the structural characterisation of this type of compounds.