Laser desorption/Fourier transform mass spectra of glycoalkaloids and steroid glycosides.

Positive- and negative-ion mass spectra of five glycoconjugates were obtained using laser desorption/Fourier transform mass spectrometry. These were the glycoalkaloids alpha-solanine and alpha-tomatine and the steroid glycosides gitoxin, lanatoside A and digitonin. Doping with KCl yielded both potassium- and chloride-attachment ions. Few fragment ions were observed for these species, with the exception of digitonin, although the negative-ion spectra showed relatively more fragmentation than the positive-ion spectra. All major fragments appeared to arise from losses of sugar groups due to cleavages at the glycosidic linkages. This contrasted sharply with the behavior of the malto-oligosaccharides studied in this laboratory.