Resonance structures of the amide bond: the advantages of planarity

Spectroscopic and theoretical studies of some 3-(4'-substituted phenylsulfanyl)-1-methyl-2-piperidones

The analysis of the IR carbonyl bands of some 3-(4′-substituted phenylsulfanyl)-1-methyl-2-piperidones 1–6 bearing substituents: NO₂ (compound 1), Br (compound 2), Cl (compound 3), H (compound 4) Me (compound 5) and OMe (compound 6) supported by B3LYP/6-31+G(d,p) and PCM calculations along with NBO analysis (for compound 4) and X-ray diffraction (for 2) indicated the existence of two stable conformations, i.e., axial (ax) and equatorial (eq), the former corresponding to the most stable and the least polar one in the gas phase calculations. The sum of the energy contributions of the orbital interactions (NBO analysis) and the electrostatic interactions correlate well with the populations and the ν_CO frequencies of the ax and eq conformers found in the gas phase. Unusually, in solution of the non-polar solvents n-C₆H₁₄ and CCl₄, the more intense higher IR carbonyl frequency can be ascribed to the ax conformer, while the less intense lower IR doublet component to the eq one. The same ν_CO frequency trend also holds in polar solvents, that is ν_{CO (eq)} < ν_{CO (ax)}. However, a reversal of the ax/eq intensity ratio occurs going from non-polar to polar solvents, with the ax conformer component that progressively decreases with respect to the eq one in CHCl₃ and CH₂Cl₂, and is no longer detectable in the most polar solvent CH₃CN. The PCM method applied to compound 4 supports these findings. In fact, it predicts the progressive increase of the eq/ax population ratio as the relative permittivity of the solvent increases. Moreover, it indicates that the computed ν_CO frequencies of the ax and eq conformers do not change in the non–polar solvents n-C₆H₁₄ and CCl₄, while the ν_CO frequencies of the eq conformer become progressively lower than that of the ax one going from CHCl₃ to CH₂Cl₂ and to CH₃CN, in agreement with the experimental IR values. The analysis of the geometries of the ax and eq conformers shows that the carbonyl oxygen atom of the eq conformer is free for solvation, while the O_[CO]^…H_[o-Ph] hydrogen bond that takes place in the ax conformer partially hinders the approach of the solvent molecules to the carbonyl oxygen atom. Therefore, the larger solvation that occurs in the carbonyl oxygen atom of the eq conformer is responsible for the observed and calculated decrease of the corresponding frequency. The X-ray single crystal analysis of 2 indicates that this compound adopts the most polar eq geometry in the solid. In fact, in order to obtain the largest energy gain, the molecules are arranged in the crystal in a helical fashion due to dipole moment coupling along with C-H^…O and C-H^…π_Ph hydrogen bonds.

Peptide bond distortions from planarity: new insights from quantum mechanical calculations and peptide/protein crystal structures

By combining quantum-mechanical analysis and statistical survey of peptide/protein structure databases we here report a thorough investigation of the conformational dependence of the geometry of peptide bond, the basic element of protein structures. Different peptide model systems have been studied by an integrated quantum mechanical approach, employing DFT, MP2 and CCSD(T) calculations, both in aqueous solution and in the gas phase. Also in absence of inter-residue interactions, small distortions from the planarity are more a rule than an exception, and they are mainly determined by the backbone ψ dihedral angle. These indications are fully corroborated by a statistical survey of accurate protein/peptide structures. Orbital analysis shows that orbital interactions between the σ system of C(α) substituents and the π system of the amide bond are crucial for the modulation of peptide bond distortions. Our study thus indicates that, although long-range inter-molecular interactions can obviously affect the peptide planarity, their influence is statistically averaged. Therefore, the variability of peptide bond geometry in proteins is remarkably reproduced by extremely simplified systems since local factors are the main driving force of these observed trends. The implications of the present findings for protein structure determination, validation and prediction are also discussed.

Medium-bridged lactams: a new class of non-planar amides

Medium-bridged twisted lactams, in which a non-planar amide bond is achieved by incorporating the nitrogen atom at the bridgehead position in a medium-sized heterocycle, offer an attractive setting in which to study the properties of distorted amide linkages. This Emerging Area article will describe progress in the preparation and study of these compounds. This work shows that compounds containing an even moderately distorted amide bond display useful and unusual chemical properties while retaining a measure of stability that enables their study.

Two-state model based on the block-localized wave function method

The block-localized wave function (BLW) method is a variant of ab initio valence bond method but retains the efficiency of molecular orbital methods. It can derive the wave function for a diabatic (resonance) state self-consistently and is available at the Hartree-Fock (HF) and density functional theory (DFT) levels. In this work we present a two-state model based on the BLW method. Although numerous empirical and semiempirical two-state models, such as the Marcus-Hush two-state model, have been proposed to describe a chemical reaction process, the advantage of this BLW-based two-state model is that no empirical parameter is required. Important quantities such as the electronic coupling energy, structural weights of two diabatic states, and excitation energy can be uniquely derived from the energies of two diabatic states and the adiabatic state at the same HF or DFT level. Two simple examples of formamide and thioformamide in the gas phase and aqueous solution were presented and discussed. The solvation of formamide and thioformamide was studied with the combined ab initio quantum mechanical and molecular mechanical Monte Carlo simulations, together with the BLW-DFT calculations and analyses. Due to the favorable solute-solvent electrostatic interaction, the contribution of the ionic resonance structure to the ground state of formamide and thioformamide significantly increases, and for thioformamide the ionic form is even more stable than the covalent form. Thus, thioformamide in aqueous solution is essentially ionic rather than covalent. Although our two-state model in general underestimates the electronic excitation energies, it can predict relative solvatochromic shifts well. For instance, the intense pi-->pi* transition for formamide upon solvation undergoes a redshift of 0.3 eV, compared with the experimental data (0.40-0.5 eV).

“Amide Resonance” Correlates with a Breadth of C−N Rotation Barriers

Complete basis set calculations (CBS-QB3) were used to compute the CN rotation barriers for acetamide and eight related compounds, including acetamide enolate and O-protonated acetamide. Natural resonance theory analysis was employed to quantify the "amide resonance" contribution to ground-state electronic structures. A range of rotation barriers, spanning nearly 50 kcal/mol, correlates well to the ground-state resonance weights without the need to account for transition-state effects. Use of appropriate model compounds is crucial to gain an understanding of the structural and electronic changes taking place during rotation of the CN bond in acetamide. The disparate changes in bond length (DeltarCO << DeltarCN) are found to be consonant with the resonance model. Similarly, charge differences are consistent with donation from the nitrogen lone pair electrons into the carbonyl pi* orbital. Despite recent attacks on the resonance model, these findings demonstrate it to be a sophisticated and highly predictive tool in the chemist's arsenal.