The Perseus Exobiology mission on MIR: behaviour of amino acids and peptides in Earth orbit.

Leucine, alpha-methyl leucine and two peptides were exposed to space conditions on board the MIR station during the Perseus-Exobiology mission. This long duration space mission was aimed at testing the delivery of prebiotic building blocks. During this mission, two amino acids (leucine and alpha-methyl leucine) and two peptides (leucine-diketopiperazine and trileucine thioethylester) were exposed in Earth orbit for three months. Basalt, clay and meteorite powder were also mixed with the samples in order to simulate the effects of potential meteorite protection. Analysis of the material after the flight did not reveal any racemization or polymerisation but did provide information regarding photochemical pathways for the degradation of leucine and of the tripeptide. Amino acids appeared to be more sensitive to UV radiation than peptides, the cyclic dipeptide being found to be as particularly resistant. Meteorite powder which exhibits the highest absorption in Vacuum UltraViolet (VUV) afforded the best protection to the organic molecules whereas montmorillonite clay, almost transparent in VUV, was the least efficient. By varying the thickness of the meteorite, we found that the threshold for efficient protection against radiation was about 5 microm. The possible exogenous origin of biological building blocks is discussed with respect to the stability to the molecules and the nature of the associated minerals.

In-source fragmentation of peptide aldehydes and acetals: influence of peptide length and charge state.

The use of in-source collision-induced dissociation (CID) was evaluated to generate structural information on peptide aldehydes, which represent an important class of compounds as inhibitors for serine and cysteine proteases and as key intermediates for protein engineering. By studying five peptide aldehydes of different lengths, and their peptide acetal counterparts, mass to charge (m/z) dependency of in-source fragmentation was established for peptides that differ only by their C-terminal functionalization. In-source fragmentation of peptide aldehydes and acetals leads to the same final ion, probably via a similar mechanism. Moreover, the gas-phase information obtained here reflects the equilibrium occurring in solution between the peptide aldehyde and its hydrated form, which was retained during the ionization process. The equilibrium constant was determined to be close to unity. Disturbance of this equilibrium should enable the stability of covalent hydration of a given series of aldehydes to be compared.

Identification of by-products from an orthogonal peptide ligation by oxime bonds using mass spectrometry and tandem mass spectrometry.

Synthetic proteins with unusual architecture are obtained through chemoselective ligation, a method based on the condensation of unprotected peptides under mild aqueous conditions. The last step of a new procedure leading to a tri-branched conjugate consists of the chemoselective ligation reaction between an (aminooxy)acetyl peptide and a peptide aldehyde resulting from a first ligation via an oxime bond. In order to optimize the reaction conditions, electrospray ionization mass spectrometry combined with liquid chromatography and tandem mass spectrometry has been used. In addition to the target tri-branched conjugate, two other conjugates were characterized allowing documentation of transoximation reactions in peptide chemistry. A fourth conjugate was identified as a side product appearing after the first ligation. Data obtained by low-energy collision-induced dissociation led to a rapid and reliable identification of impurities observed in the (aminooxy)acetyl peptide despite a previous high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) purification. This highlights the great reactivity of the aminooxy group towards carbonyl-containing compounds.

Ion/molecule reactions with dimethyl ether and dimethyl-d6 ether: differentiation of four isomers contained in patchouli essential oil

In this study, we show that it is possible to differentiate four sesquiterpene isomers (C(15)H(24)) preliminarily separated by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS). Dimethyl ether is evaluated as a selective ionization reagent and the relative abundance of adducts formed with this reagent gas under positive chemical ionization conditions are compared and adduct ions are characterized using collision-induced dissociation. The mechanisms have been confirmed by achieving the same experiments with deuterated dimethyl ether. Copyright 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.