Acylpolyamines: Mass spectrometric analytical methods for Araneidae spideracylpolyamines

A new class of compounds, acylpolyamine has been isolated from spider venom constituents. Recent advances in highly sensitive mass spectrometric techn iques have been applied successfully to characterize these acylpolyamines e ven with the use of a single venom gland. This has been achieved, in part, by improvements in fast atom bombardment mass spectrometry (FAB), continuou s flow (FRIT) FAB-MS combined with reversed-phase high performance liquid c hromatography (HPLC), matrix assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI) a nd high energy collision induced dissociation (CID) tandem MS/MS. Crude ven om analysis without chromatographic separation can be realized directly by MALDI-MS. A charge-remote fragmentation method has provided abundant struct ure-related product ions and have reduced the quantity of required venom fo r the structure analysis of acylpolyamines. These mass spectrometric method s were proved to be useful for the analysis of complex constituents of spid ers and other arthropod Venom glands.