The protonated molecules and radical cations of meso-tetraphenylporphyrins with -pyrrolic substituents, when formed by fast atom bombardment (FAB) and subjected to high-energy collisions, give rise to unexpected fragment ions. The reaction involves hydrogen migration from the ortho position of the phenyl ring to the ␣ atom of the substituent, with formation of an intramolecular, six-membered ring. The process is analogous to condensed-phase cyclizations described for the same type of compounds. The fragmentation requires the presence of a double bond in the substituent group attached to the pyrrolic ring. A rearrangement process involving anchimeric assistance by the phenyl group (analogous to an ortho effect) is proposed for the formation of these ions. T he porphyrin macrocycle is present in a variety of systems found in nature and participates in numerous important biochemical functions. New porphyrins are being synthesized to mimic the natural systems. Research on porphyrins has accelerated recently because they are applicable in a variety of fields of chemistry, physics, medicine, and biology [1]. Most promising are applications as agents in photodynamic therapy in cancer treatment [2], receptor models in molecular recognition [3], and use in materials chemistry [4] owing to their optical properties and their ability to form microporous solids, conductive polymers, and sensors. The functionalization of the -pyrrolic positions of meso-tetraphenylporphyrins is particularly of interest because the properties of the porphyrin macrocycle can be modified by small changes in the -pyrrolic substituents [5]. The ability of these substituents to interact with the adjacent phenyl groups may lead to deviations of planarity of the porphyrin rings, affecting the chemical, spectroscopic, and other properties of the substituted porphyrins [6,7]. An example is the role of non-planar conformations of chlorophyll, vitamin B12, and cytochrome P450 in biological processes [8].Despite the increasing interest in this class of compounds, the mass spectrometric analysis of porphyrins is still relatively unexplored [9], particularly that of substituted meso-tetraphenylporphyrins [10 -16]. The few studies that describe the fragmentation of tetraphenylporphyrins in the MS/MS mode [12][13][14][15][16] show that this approach gives valuable structural information about the peripheral substituents. MS/MS is expected to be useful for the chemical characterization of porphyrins because it allows a rapid identification of porphyrins in mixtures, especially those resulting from synthetic procedures. Further, the assembly of spectral databases will make widely available the valuable structural data from MS [17,18]. Nevertheless, mass spectral data of tetraphenylporphyrins substituted in -pyrrolic positions comprise only two recent reports: One on -bromotetraphenylporphyrins [19,20] and another on the fragmentation of -nitrotetraphenylporphyrin [16], which is the precedent for this research.In this report, we discuss the unexpected fragm...