Adduct of the blistering warfare agent sesquimustard with human serum albumin and its mass spectrometric identification for biomedical verification of exposure.

ABSTRACT: Apart from the well-known sulfur mustard (SM), additional sulfur-containing blistering chemical warfare agents exist. Sesquimustard (Q) is one of them and five times more blistering than SM. It is a common impurity in mustard mixtures and regularly found in old munitions but can also be used in pure form. Compared to the extensive literature on SM, very little experimental data is available on Q and no protein biomarkers of exposure have been reported. We herein report for the first time the adduct of Q with the nucleophilic Cys³⁴ residue of human serum albumin (HSA) formed in vitro and introduce two novel bioanalytical procedures for detection. After proteolysis of this HSA adduct catalyzed either by pronase or by proteinase K, two biomarkers were identified by high-resolution

SUBMITTER: Blum MM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7550388 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature