1 H-NMR measurement is widely used for determination of host-guest complex formation, however, the method cannot be used for measuring confirmation of host-guest complex formation in case either the peaks of guest and host overlap each other or these signals show broad. Recently, it reported that mass spectrometry can be used to detect noncovalent association complexes. [1][2][3][4] We reported that FAB-MS is useful method as well as 1 H-NMR method not only for confirmation of TGDMAP (1) and biological relevant phosphates such as nucleotide complex geometry but also for determination of stability constant (K s ) values of the complexes because the K s value calculated by FAB-MS (100 M Ϫ1 for UMP) was most similar to the K s value calculated by 1 H-NMR spectrometry (110 M Ϫ1 for UMP).
5-7)These results show that the binding stability in aqueous solution is preserved in the gas phase. In this report, investigation on the complex formation of 1 with L-glutamic acid (Glu) and L-aspartic acid (Asp) as guests which play an important role in receptor-signaling in the brain was made by FAB-MS, cold-spray ionization mass spectrometry (CSI-MS), electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS). The K s values of 1 · Glu and 1 · Asp were obtained by the three different MS methods almost agreed. On the other hand, a novel water-soluble cyclophane (2) as a host bearing 1,4,7,10-tetraazacyclododecane group on the alkyl bridge as blanches of cyclophane having diphenylmethane skeleton in order to bind to the carboxyl group and also lead to remedy the solubility of cyclophane was designed. The synthesis of the novel cyclophane (2) is shown in Chart 1. Examination on the complex formation of 2 with Glu was performed by 1 H-NMR spectrometry in 0.1 M phosphate buffer solution (pD 6.8). However, the 1 H-NMR spectrum of Glu was complicated and the chemical shift changes of Glu in the presence of 2 were negligible. Therefore, it was impossible to calculate the K s values between 2 and Glu and also the complex ion peaks of 2 with Glu and Asp were not observed in FAB-MS. For the purpose to solve the problem, we investigated the measurement of the K s values by use of ESI-MS and CSI-MS. Especially ionization procedure of 9) which is milder than that of ESI-MS is expected to provide a powerful means to study noncovalent host-guest complexes such as hydrogen bond formation. Our primary purpose in this report is to judge if ESI-MS and CSI-MS as well as FAB-MS are useful for determination of the complex formations of 2 · L-acidic amino acids such as Glu and Asp when FAB-MS cannot be used for measuring confirmation of host-guest complex formation as described above. In fact, the complex ion peaks were observed clearly by using ESI-MS and CSI-MS instead of FAB-MS, and also the K s values calculated by the two different mass spectrometry methods almost agreed.
Results and DiscussionIn order to determine the complex formation and K s value of 1 with Glu or Asp, three ionizing methods (FAB-MS, ESI- Pharmacy, Nihon University; 7-7-1 Narashinodai...