Infrared free electron lasers such as those in Paris, Berlin and Nijmegen have been at the forefront of the development of infrared ion spectroscopy. In this contribution, I will give an overview of new developments in IR spectroscopy of stored ions at the FELIX Laboratory. In particular, I will focus on recent developments made possible by the coupling of a new commercial ion trap mass spectrometer to the FELIX beamline. The possibility to record IR spectra of mass-selected molecular ions and their reaction products has in recent years shed new light on our understanding of collision induced dissociation (CID) reactions of protonated peptides in mass spectrometry (MS). We now show that it is possible to record IR spectra for the products of electron transfer dissociation (ETD) reactions

[M + nH]n+ + A−   →   [M + nH](n−1)+ + A   →   dissociation of analyte

These reactions are now widely used in novel MS-based protein sequencing strategies, but involve complex radical chemistry. The spectroscopic results allow stringent verification of computationally predicted product structures and hence reaction mechanisms and H-atom migration.

The sensitivity and high dynamic range of a commercial mass spectrometer also allows us to apply infrared ion spectroscopy to analytes in complex “real-life” mixtures. The ability to record IR spectra with the sensitivity of mass-spectrometric detection is unrivalled in analytical sciences and is particularly useful in the identification of small (biological) molecules, such as in metabolomics. We report preliminary results of a pilot study on the spectroscopic identification of small metabolites in urine and plasma samples.

Deprotonated thymine can exist in two different forms, depending on which of its two N sites is deprotonated: N1[T-H]⁻ or N3[T-H]⁻. Here we report a photodetachment study of the N1[T-H]⁻ isomer cooled in a cryogenic ion trap and the observation of an excited dipole-bound stateD. L. Huang, H. T. Liu, C. G. Ning, G. Z. Zhu and L. S. Wang, Chem. Sci., 6, 3129-3138 (2015) Eighteen vibrational levels of the dipole-bound state are observed, and its vibrational ground state is found to be 238 ± 5 cm⁻¹below the detachment threshold of N1[T-H]⁻. The electron affinity of the deprotonated thymine radical (N1[T-H]^.) is measured accruately to be 26 322 ± 5 cm⁻¹(3.2635 ± 0.0006 eV). By tuning the detachment laser to the sixteen vibrational levels of the dipole-bound state that are above the detachment threshold, highly non-Franck-Condon resonant-enhanced photoelectron spectra are obtained due to state- and mode-selective vibrational autodetachment. Much richer vibrational information is obtained for the deprotonated thymine radical from the photodetachment and resonant-enhanced photoelectron spectroscopy. Eleven fundamental vibrational frequencies in the low-frequency regime are obtained for the N1[T-H]^. radical, including the two lowest-frequency internal rotational modes of the methyl group at 70 ± 8 cm⁻¹and 92 ± 5 cm⁻¹.

---

Footnotes:

D. L. Huang, H. T. Liu, C. G. Ning, G. Z. Zhu and L. S. Wang, Chem. Sci., 6, 3129-3138 (2015).

Mixtures of structural isomers can pose a challenge for vibrational ion spectroscopy. In cases where particular structures display diagnostic vibrations, these structures can be selectively "burned away". In ion traps, the ion population can be subjected to multiple laser shots, in order to fully deplete a particular structure, in effect allowing a quantification of this structure. Protonated para-amino benzoic acid (PABA) serves as an illustrative example. PABA is known to preferentially exist in the N-protonated (N-prot) form in solution, but in the gas phase it is energetically favorable in the O-protonated (O-prot) form. As shown in Figure 1, the N-prot structure can be kinetically trapped in the gas phase when sprayed from non-protic solvent, whereas the O-prot structure is obtained when sprayed from protic solvents, analogous to results by others [1,2]. r0pt Figure By parking the light source on the diagnostic 3440 cm⁻¹mode, the percentage of the O-prot structure can be determined, and by default the remainder is assumed to adopt the N-prot structure. It will be shown that the relative percentages of O-prot vs N-prot are highly dependent on the solvent mixture, going from close to 0% O-prot in non-protic solvents, to 99% in protic solvents. Surprisingly, water behaves much more like a non-protic solvent than methanol. It is observed that the capillary temperature, which aids droplet desolvation by black-body radiation in the ESI source, is critical to promote the appearance of O-prot structures. These results are consistent with the picture that a protic bridge mechanism is at play to facilitate proton transfer, and thus allow conversion from N-prot to O-prot, but that this mechanism is subject to appreciable kinetic barriers on the timescale of solvent evaporation. 1. J. Phys. Chem. A 2011, 115, 7625. 2. Anal. Chem. 2012, 84, 7857.

The naturally occurring thiated uridine nucleosides, 4-thiouridine (s⁴Urd) and 2-thiouridine (s²Urd), play important roles in the function and analysis of a variety of RNAs. 2-Thiouridine and its C5 modified analogues are commonly found in tRNAs and are believed to play an important role in codon recognition possibly due to their different structure, which has been shown by NMR to be predominantly C3^′-endo. 2-Thiouridine may also play an important role in facilitating nonenzymatic RNA replication and transcription. 4-Thiouridine is a commonly used photoactivatable crosslinker that is often used to study RNA-RNA and RNA-protein cross-linking behavior. Differences in the base pairing between uracil and 4-thiouracil with adenine and guanine are an important factor in their role as a cross linker. The photoactivity of s⁴Urd may also aid in preventing near-UV lethality in cells. An understanding of their intrinsic structure in the gas-phase may help further elucidate the roles these modified nucleosides play in the regulation of RNAs. In this work, infrared multiple photon dissociation (IRMPD) action spectra of the protonated forms of s²Urd and s⁴Urd were collected in the IR fingerprint region. Structural information is determined by comparison with theoretical linear IR spectra generated from density functional theory calculations using molecular modeling to generate low-energy candidate structures. Present results are compared with analogous results for the protonated forms of uridine and 2^′-deoxyuridine as well as solution phase NMR data and crystal structures.

Cisplatin [(NH₃)₂PtCl₂], the first FDA-approved platinum-based anticancer drug, has been widely used in cancer chemotherapy. Its pharmacological mechanism has been identified as its ability to coordinate to genomic DNA with guanine as its major target. Amino acid-linked cisplatin derivatives are being investigated as alternatives for cisplatin that may exhibit altered binding selectivity such as that found for ornithine-linked cisplatin (Ornplatin, [(Orn)PtCl₂]), which exhibits a preference for adenine over guanine in RNA. Infrared multiple photon dissociation (IRMPD) action spectroscopy experiments and complementary electronic structure calculations are performed on a series of Ornplatin complexes to elucidate the nature of binding of the Orn amino acid to the Pt center and how that binding is influenced by the local environment. The complexes examined in the work include: [(Orn−H)PtCl₂]⁻, [(Orn)PtCl]⁺, [(Orn)Pt(H₂O)Cl]⁺, and [(Orn)PtCl₂+Na]⁺. In contrast to that found previously for the glycine-linked cisplatin complex (Glyplatin), which binds via the backbone amino and carboxylate groups, binding of Orn in these complexes is found to involve both the backbone and sidechain amino groups. Extensive broadening of the IRMPD spectrum for the [(Orn)Pt(H₂O)Cl]⁺ complex suggests that either multiple structures are contributing to the measured spectrum or strong intra-molecular hydrogen-binding interactions are present. The results for Ornplatin lead to an interesting discussion about the differences in selectivity and reactivity versus cisplatin.

An experimental approach for the formation of solvated ionic clusters and their vibrational spectroscopy will be presented. This recently developed apparatus combines an electrospray ionization source, two temperature controlled cryogenic ion traps and a time-of-flight infrared photofragmentation spectrometer, to allow for a universal and controlled formation and characterization of solvent clusters around ionic core as well as product of ion-molecule reaction. Recent results on the spectroscopy of such solvated ions, will be presented and discussed. In particular, this talk will present the structural evolution of glycylglycine as a function of stepwise solvation, and show how the presence of just a few water can modify the geometry of this model peptide. I will also present results solvation of ion that do not form hydrogen bond or strongly interactions with the solvent.

Decades of research on water oxidation catalysis has yielded much progress in making water splitting a viable option for alternative energy. However, precise molecular-level understanding of the catalytic mechanism remains elusive due to the difficulty of studying reaction intermediates by traditional methods. In this talk, vibrational characterization of a ruthenium water oxidation catalyst and catalytic intermediates will be presented. In particular, infrared spectra acquired using a recently developed approach that employs two cryogenic ion traps, which enable the isolation of the chemical species discussed here, will be the focus of this talk.

Radio frequency (rf) ion traps are very well suited for spectroscopy experiments thanks to the long time storage of the species of interest in a well defined volume. The electrical potential of the ion trap is determined by the geometry of its electrodes and the applied voltages. In order to understand the behavior of trapped ions in realistic multipole traps it is necessary to characterize these trapping potentials. Commercial programs like SIMION or COMSOL, employing the finite difference and/or finite element method, are often used to model the electrical fields of the trap in order to design traps for various purposes, e.g. introducing light from a laser into the trap volume. For a controlled trapping of ions, e.g. for low temperature trapping, the time dependent electrical fields need to be known to high accuracy especially at the minimum of the effective (mechanical) potential. The commercial programs are not optimized for these applications and suffer from a number of limitations. Therefore, in our approach the boundary element method (BEM) has been employed in home-built programs to generate numerical solutions of real trap geometries, e.g. from CAD drawings. In addition the resulting fields are described by appropriate multipole expansions. As a consequence, the quality of a trap can be characterized by a small set of multipole parameters which are used to optimize the trap design. In this presentation a few example calculations will be discussed. In particular the accuracy of the method and the benefits of describing the trapping potentials via multipole expansions will be illustrated. As one important application heating effects of cold ions arising from non-ideal multipole fields can now be understood as a consequence of imperfect field configurations.