Structural deviations in poly(amidoamine) dendrimers: a MALDI-TOF MS analysis

A step-by-step synthesis/purification (CC, HILIC, HPLC) of poly(amidoamine) PAMAM dendrimers was performed. MALDI-TOF MS in the linear and reflectron mode was used to analyze the purified samples and byproduct samples of G0–G5 generations of the dendrimers up to the mass of 35 000 Da. DHB/fucose was found to give the best resolution, causing the least fragmentation of the samples. The precise mass number for the ideally branched dendrimers and their “structural errors” was obtained. The profile of the structural errors was established.