Propagation of structural deviations of poly(amidoamine) fan-shape dendrimers (generations 0–3) characterized by MALDI and electrospray mass spectrometry

Fan-shape PAMAM dendrimers, from generations 0 to 3, were analyzed by mass spectrometry, using both MALDI and electrospray ionization techniques, to identify any structural deviations present in each sample. First, it could be concluded that all detected molecules were present in the samples as they were detected in MALDI as well as in electrospray mass spectra. Apart from commonly reported dendrimer defects (“missing arm” and “molecular loop”), new impurities were found to arise from propagation of these defects during the synthesis of upper generations. These assignments were based on both compound molecular weight and, when ions were detected with sufficient abundance, deviations from perfect structure behaviour during MS/MS experiments. Since new impurities could be created, either from perfect or defective molecules, during each new generation dendrimer synthesis, models were built to predict the molecular weight of a compound as a function of its synthesis history and efficiently guide mass spectral interpretation.