Fragmentation studies of synthetic 2-acylamino-1,4-naphthoquinones by electrospray ionization mass spectrometry.

We report here the fragmentation mechanism for five 2-acylamino-1,4-naphthoquinone derivatives using electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry (ESI-MS/MS). Analyses were performed on a low-resolution, triple-quadrupole mass spectrometer. Fragmentation pathways for protonated molecular derivatives 2-acylamino-1,4-naphthoquinone [M+H]+ are proposed on the basis of theoretical calculations. There is evidence that the nitrogen atom is the protonation site, based on the nucleophilic atomic indices. Copyright (c) 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.