Fast atom bombardment tandem mass spectrometry for amino acid sequence determination in tripeptides.

Mass spectral information obtained from the spectra of 26 tripeptides was carefully studied. The data were obtained from their mass, metastable ion and collisional activation spectra. On the basis of the positive ion tandem mass spectra a simple and unambiguous method for the sequence determination of amino acids in tripeptides and Y3" ions is proposed. The use of negative ion spectra for sequence determination in tripeptides is evaluated.