We report here infrared spectra of protonated and lithiated valine with varying degrees of hydration in the gas phase and interpret them with the help of DFT calculations at the B3LYP/6-31++G** level. In both the protonated and lithiated species our results clearly indicate that the solvation process is driven first by solvation of the charge site and subsequently by formation of a second solvation shell. The infrared spectra of Val x Li+ (H2O)4 and Val x H+ (H2O)4 are strikingly similar in the region of the spectrum corresponding to hydrogen-bonded stretches of donor water molecules, suggesting that in both cases similar extended water structures are formed once the charge site is solvated. In the case of the lithiated species, our spectra are consistent with a conformation change of the amino acid backbone from syn to anti accompanied by a change in the lithium binding from a NO coordination to OO coordination configuration upon addition of the third water molecule. This change in the mode of metal ion binding was also observed previously by Williams and Lemoff [J. Am. Soc. Mass Spectrom. 2004, 15, 1014-1024] using blackbody infrared radiative dissociation (BIRD). In contrast to the zwitterion formation inferred from results of the BIRD experiments upon addition of a third water molecule, our spectra, which are a more direct probe of structure, show no evidence for zwitterion formation with the addition of up to four water molecules.

We report here a new method to obtain electronic spectra of biomolecular ions that are produced in the gas phase by electrospray and cooled to approximately 10 K in a 22-pole ion trap, and we demonstrate this technique by applying it to protonated tryptophan and tyrosine. Cooling in the trap greatly simplifies the spectrum of protonated tyrosine, which exhibits a well-defined band origin and clearly resolved low frequency vibrational bands. In contrast, the spectrum of protonated tryptophan exhibits only broad features, even at low temperatures, suggesting that a fast nonradiative process broadens the individual vibronic features, even upon excitation at the electronic band origin. The method demonstrated here should be applicable to a wide variety of biological molecules.

We report UV photodissociation (UVPD) and IR-UV double-resonance spectra of dibenzo-18-crown-6 (DB18C6) complexes with alkali metal ions (Li(+), Na(+), K(+), Rb(+), and Cs(+)) in a cold, 22-pole ion trap. All the complexes show a number of vibronically resolved UV bands in the 36,000-38,000 cm(-1) region. The Li(+) and Na(+) complexes each exhibit two stable conformations in the cold ion trap (as verified by IR-UV double resonance), whereas the K(+), Rb(+), and Cs(+) complexes exist in a single conformation. We analyze the structure of the conformers with the aid of density functional theory (DFT) calculations. In the Li(+) and Na(+) complexes, DB18C6 distorts the ether ring to fit the cavity size to the small diameter of Li(+) and Na(+). In the complexes with K(+), Rb(+), and Cs(+), DB18C6 adopts a boat-type (C(2v)) open conformation. The K(+) ion is captured in the cavity of the open conformer thanks to the optimum matching between the cavity size and the ion diameter. The Rb(+) and Cs(+) ions sit on top of the ether ring because they are too large to enter the cavity of the open conformer. According to time-dependent DFT calculations, complexes that are highly distorted to hold metal ions open the ether ring upon S(1)-S(0) excitation, and this is confirmed by extensive low-frequency progressions in the UVPD spectra.

We present here ultraviolet and infrared spectra of protonated aromatic amino acids in a cold, 22-pole ion trap. Ultraviolet photofragmentation spectra of protonated tyrosine and phenylalanine show vibronically resolved bands corresponding to different stable conformers: two for PheH+ and four in the case of TyrH+. We subsequently use the resolved UV spectra to perform conformer-specific infrared depletion spectroscopy. Comparison of the measured infrared spectra to density functional theory calculations helps assign the geometry of the various conformers, all of which exhibit NH...pi hydrogen bonds and NH...O=C interactions, with the COOH group oriented either anti or gauche to the aromatic ring. In both molecules the majority of the observed fragments result from dissociation on an excited electronic state. In TyrH+, different conformers excited with practically the same energy exhibit different fragmentation patterns, suggesting that the excited-state dynamics depend upon conformation.

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