Kochman MA, Palczewski K, Kubas A. Theoretical Study of the Photoisomerization Mechanism of All-
Trans-Retinyl Acetate.
J Phys Chem A 2021;
125:8358-8372. [PMID:
34546761 PMCID:
PMC8488936 DOI:
10.1021/acs.jpca.1c05533]
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Abstract
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The compound 9-cis-retinyl acetate (9-cis-RAc) is a precursor
to 9-cis-retinal,
which has potential application in the treatment of some hereditary
diseases of the retina. An attractive synthetic route to 9-cis-RAc is based on the photoisomerization reaction of the
readily available all-trans-RAc. In the present study,
we examine the mechanism of the photoisomerization reaction with the
use of state-of-the-art electronic structure calculations for two
polyenic model compounds: tEtEt-octatetraene and tEtEtEc-2,6-dimethyl-1,3,5,7,9-decapentaene. The occurrence
of photoisomerization is attributed to a chain-kinking mechanism,
whereby a series of S1/S0 conical intersections
associated with kinking deformations at different positions along
the polyenic chain mediate internal conversion to the S0 state, and subsequent isomerization around one of the double bonds.
Two other possible photoisomerization mechanisms are taken into account,
but they are rejected as incompatible with simulation results and/or
the available spectroscopic data.
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