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Evaluation of the Mass Spectral Analysis of Soil Inositol, Inositol Phosphates, and Related Compounds¹

ABSTRACT

The potential of mass spectrometry in the structure analysis of soil inositol, inositol phosphate carbon, and soil microbial metabolites was evaluated. Mass spectra of myo-inositol (I) isolated from the organic phosphate fraction of a forest soil, quebrachitol (II), myo-Inositol hexaacetate (III), D,L-epi-inosose (IV), and of compounds I and II labeled with deuterium in the hydroxyl groups were determined. Intense fragment ion spectral peaks at mass/charge (m/e) 60, 73, and 102 were common to each of the natural occurring cyclitol structures studied. Structural variations of inositol were found to be identifiable by peak shifts from m/e 60, 73, and 102 to other m/e values as due to attached groups or to other carbon oxidation states. An exchange of the hydroxyl protons with deuterium permitted the determination of the number of hydroxyl groups on a given mass spectral ion fragment and supplied evidence for the presence of attached groups. Studies dealing with phosphated compounds in soils required a hydrolysis of the phosphate esters prior to the mass spectral analysis. The mass spectral analysis was found most useful for the identification of cyclitol structures in soil, microbial, and plant metabolism studies when the sample size is limited to microgram quantities.

¹ Contribution from the Dep. de Agricultura, Instituto Nacional de Energia Nuclear, Av. Insurgentes Sur No. 1079, México 18, D. F., México, and the Dep. of Soils, Water & Engineering of the Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, 85721. Presented before the national meetings of the Mexican Academy of Science and Nuclear Technology, 1975 Oct. 23, in Guanajuato, Gto., México. Univ. Ariz. Agric. Exp. Stn. Pap. No. 199.

² Research Biochemist and Professor, Instituto Nacional de Energia Nuclear and University of Arizona, respectively.

Received for publication March 15, 1976. Accepted for publication May 17, 1976.