A METHOD FOR THE DETERMINATION OF THE POSITION OF UNSATURATION IN A COMPOUND

摘要

The disclosed invention includes a method for determining the position of unsaturation in a compound comprising one or more unsaturated chains, the method including the steps of: (i) ionizing the compound to provide ions; (ii) selecting ions of a given mass-to-charge ratio; (iii) allowing the selected ions to react with ozone to give ozone induced fragment ions; (iv) mass analysis and detection of the ozone induced fragment ions formed in step (iii); and (v) determining the position of unsaturation in the compound based on the difference between the mass-to- charge ratio of the ions selected in step (ii), and the mass-to-charge ratio of one or more of the ozone induced fragment ions formed from the selected ions in step (iii). The compound may be selected from the group consisting of: polymers, metabolites, lipids, fatty acids, drugs, biological extracts and natural products.