On the influence of water on fragmentation of the amino acid L-threonine

Abstract

Abstract The present study describes the fragmentation of the amino acid L-threonine (C4H9NO3) with and without the inclusion of water influence. The fragmentation of the L-threonine molecule was theoretically studied using the Becke’s three-parameter hybrid functional method by applying the non-local correlation provided by Lee, Yang and Parr (B3LYP) with the correlation consistent triple zeta basis (cc-pVTZ). The polarizable continuum model (PCM) was used to evaluate the influence of water. Fragments were selected based on data from mass spectrometry experiments. The chemical compositions of fragments were identified, and the appearance energy was calculated. Based on the obtained results, we can conclude that water affects the appearance energy, the fragment structure and the fragment formation processes.