Dedicated to Professor Wolfgang Steglich on the occasion of his 70th birthday.Carbonic anhydrase is a zinc-centered enzyme, with a molecular weight of around 30 kDa, which efficiently catalyzes the conversion of carbon dioxide into soluble bicarbonate (HCO 3 À ), thereby greatly facilitating the transport of CO 2 in biological systems.[1] The function of carbonic anhydrase is outlined in Scheme 1: [2] [3] The protein environment of the active center, obtained through evolution, provides an ideal arrangement of three histidine residues which serve as ligands L and to enables acceleration of the rate-limiting steps by proton relays. [3][4][5] Herein, we report an investigation of the intrinsic requirements for CO 2 activation according to Scheme 1 in the idealized gas phase. This approach raises two immediate questions: 1) can the nucleophilic attack formally required for bond activation of CO 2 be achieved at all by a gaseous cation bearing a real Coulomb charge? 2) If so, what is the optimal number of ligands (n) for activation of CO 2 by [L n ZnOH] + ions in the gas phase?Electrospray ionization (ESI) [6] allows a variety of ligated metal ions to be generated directly from solution. The experiments described herein were performed with a VG BIO-Q instrument consisting of an ESI source combined with a tandem mass spectrometer of QHQ configuration (Q = quadrupole and H = hexapole). [7] When dilute solutions of ZnX 2 (X = F-I, NO 3 ) in methanol/water containing a trace of either imidazole (im) or pyridine (py) as the nitrogen ligands L are subjected to ESI, [L n Zn] 2+ and [L n ZnX] + species form as the main zinc-containing cations.[+ ratio depends on the coordination ability of the counterion X À : the weaker-coordinating X À is, the more the Equilibrium (1) is shifted to the left. With more weakly coordinatingcounterions (X = Cl, Br, and NO 3 ), solvolysis of the dication (Equilibrium (2)) can compete with anion rebound to afford the desired [L n ZnOH] + species.In ESI, the degree of ligation can be controlled by the cone voltage, a parameter reflecting the degree of collisioninduced dissociation (CID) of the initially formed ions during their transfer to the high-vacuum manifold of the mass spectrometer.[ + . We note that the isotope patterns [10] observed are fully consistent with the formulae [L n ZnOH]+ and that CID of the mass-selected ions is as expected: exclusive loss of L is detected for n = 3, for n = 1 and 2 competing eliminations of L and H 2 O are detected, where the loss of water involves transfer of one hydrogen atom from the ligand to the hydroxy group.To mimic the activation of CO 2 by carbonic anhydrase in a gas-phase experiment, a further indicator is required because the heterolytic cleavage [