On the mass spectrometric fragmentations of the bacterial sesterterpenes sestermobaraenes A–C

A 13C-labelling was introduced into each individual carbon of the recently discovered sestermobaraenes by the enzymatic conversion of the correspondingly 13C-labelled isoprenyl diphosphate precursors with the sestermobaraene synthase from Streptomyces mobaraensis. The main compounds sestermobaraenes A, B, and C were analysed by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS), allowing for a deep mechanistic investigation of the electron impact mass spectrometry (EIMS) fragmentation reactions of these sesterterpene hydrocarbons.