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Abstract Stereoselective thioallylation of alkynes under possible gold redox catalysis was accomplished with high efficiency (as low as 0.1 % catalyst loading, up to 99 % yield) and broad substrate scope (various alkynes, inter‐ and intramolecular fashion). The gold(I) catalyst acts as both a π‐acid for alkyne activation and a redox catalyst for Au^I/IIIcoupling, whereas the sulfonium cation generated in situ functions as a mild oxidant. This novel methodology provides an exciting system for gold redox catalysis without the need for a strong oxidant. 

Ion dissociation is the usual basis for tandem MS analysis but a significant limitation is that only charged fragments from ion dissociation events are detected while neutral fragments are simply lost. This study reports our continued effort to solve this problem by developing atmospheric pressure neutral reionization mass spectrometry (APNR). In APNR, analyte ions are thermally dissociated (atmospheric pressure thermal dissociation, APTD) followed by soft reionization using electrosonic spray ionization (ESSI). Our results show that APNR is a powerful method for structural analysis of various biomolecules such as peptides, saccharides and nucleotides, as well as for elucidating unimolecular ion dissociation mechanisms. It was found that APNR provides extensive fragment ions including a series of y ions in peptides, which benefit sequencing and provide complementary information to collision induced dissociation (CID). In particular, direct cleavage of disulfide bonds of peptides occurs during APTD, facilitating peptide sequencing and disulfide bond mapping. In addition, many cross-ring cleavage fragments are detected during APNR analysis of oligosaccharides, indicating that the APTD dissociation process is energetic and potentially useful for identifying glycan linkage sites. Fragmentation patterns of oligosaccharide isomers can be used for their differentiation. Furthermore, in the cases of dissociation of nucleotides and synthetic naphthoylindole drugs, the putative neutral, phosphorylated riboses and indoles, were successfully detected using APNR, providing strong evidence to confirm previously proposed unimolecular ion dissociation mechanisms. We believe this APNR technique along with APTD should be of high value in structure determination of biomolecules.