Mass spectral fragmentations of cholesterol acetate oxidation products.

In this work, electron-impact mass spectroscopy (EI-MS) was employed on a wide range of sterol compounds in order to study their behaviour with regard to their functional groups. In particular, some specific mechanisms of fragmentation occurring in these substrates (i.e. retro-Diels-Alder reaction, neutral molecules eliminations, specific hydrogen migrations) were investigated. Loss of the alkyl side chain and of the D ring were observed in all cases. Finally, a classification of sterols on the basis of characteristic mass spectral fragments is suggested, and further applications to substrates with functional groups on positions other than the A and B rings is proposed. Copyright 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.