Thermal and solvent effects on NMR indirect spin-spin coupling constants of a prototypical Chagas disease drug

Factors Governing the Chemical Stability and NMR Parameters of Uracil Tautomers and Its 5-Halogen Derivatives

We report on the density functional theory (DFT) modelling of structural, energetic and NMR parameters of uracil and its derivatives (5-halogenouracil (5XU), X = F, Cl, Br and I) in vacuum and in water using the polarizable continuum model (PCM) and the solvent model density (SMD) approach. On the basis of the obtained results, we conclude that the intramolecular electrostatic interactions are the main factors governing the stability of the six tautomeric forms of uracil and 5XU. Two indices of aromaticity, the harmonic oscillator model of aromaticity (HOMA), satisfying the geometric criterion, and the nuclear independent chemical shift (NICS), were applied to evaluate the aromaticity of uracil and its derivatives in the gas phase and water. The values of these parameters showed that the most stable tautomer is the least aromatic. A good performance of newly designed xOPBE density functional in combination with both large aug-cc-pVQZ and small STO(1M)-3G basis sets for predicting chemical shifts of uracil and 5-fluorouracil in vacuum and water was observed. As a practical alternative for calculating the chemical shifts of challenging heterocyclic compounds, we also propose B3LYP calculations with small STO(1M)-3G basis set. The indirect spin-spin coupling constants predicted by B3LYP/aug-cc-pVQZ(mixed) method reproduce the experimental data for uracil and 5-fluorouracil well.

Enhancing NMR Quantum Computation by Exploring Heavy Metal Complexes as Multiqubit Systems: A Theoretical Investigation

Assembled together with the most common qubits used in nuclear resonance magnetic (NMR) quantum computation experiments, spin-1/2 nuclei, such as ¹¹³Cd, ¹⁹⁹Hg, ¹²⁵Te, and ⁷⁷Se, could leverage the prospective scalable quantum computer architectures, enabling many and heteronuclear qubits for NMR quantum information processing (QIP) implementations. A computational design strategy for prescreening recently synthesized complexes of cadmium, mercury, tellurium, selenium, and phosphorus (called MRE complexes) as suitable qubit molecules for NMR QIP is reported. Chemical shifts and spin-spin coupling constants (SSCCs) in five MRE complexes were examined using the spin-orbit zeroth order regular approximation (ZORA) at the density functional theory level and the four-component relativistic Dirac-Kohn-Sham approach. In particular, the influence of different conformers, basis sets, exchange-correlation functionals, and methods to treat the relativistic as well as solvent effects were studied. The differences in the chemical shifts and SSCCs between different low energy conformers of the studied complexes were found to be very small. The TZ2P basis set was found to be the optimum choice for the studied chemical shifts, while the TZ2P-J basis set was the best for the couplings studied in this work. The PBE0 exchange-correlation functional exhibited the best performance for the studied MRE complexes. The addition of solvent effects has not improved on the gas phase results in comparison to the experiment, with the exception of the phosphorus chemical shift. The use of MRE complexes as qubit molecules for NMR QIP could face the challenges in single qubit control and multiqubit operations. They exhibit chemical shifts appropriately dispersed, allowing qubit addressability and exceptionally large spin-spin couplings, which could reduce the time of quantum gate operations and likely preserve the coherence.

Theoretical spectroscopic insights of tautomers and enantiomers of penicillamine

B3LYP and MP2 calculations have been carried out to investigate tautomers and enantiomers of penicillamine (Pen). Their infrared (IR), ultraviolet (UV), circular dichroism (CD) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectra were obtained at linear-response, time-dependent DFT (TD-DFT). IR, UV and NMR spectra cannot be used to identify Pen enantiomers, showing nearly equal spectral profiles. CD spectra, however, give rise to completely symmetric signals, forming a perfect specular image to each other. Distinct CD profiles were also obtained for Pen tautomers. Important IR differences were found in positions and intensities of the vibrational stretching bands involving acid and amine groups of Pen tautomers. The highest electron transitions involving HOMO-LUMO orbitals show to be of major importance in the computed UV spectra, showing a large red-shift around 30nm as the zwitterionic and neutral Pen spectra are compared. NMR results show to be quite useful for identification of Pen tautomers since clear differences are found by means of the computed shielding tensors as well as spin-spin coupling constants ¹J(N,H) data.

Value of NMR Parameters and DFT Calculations for Quantum Information Processing Utilizing Phosphorus Heterocycles

Quantum computing is the field of science that uses quantum-mechanical phenomena, such as superposition and entanglement, to perform operations on data. The fundamental information unit used in quantum computing is the quantum bit or qubit. It is well-known that quantum computers could theoretically be able to solve problems much more quickly than any classical computers. Currently, the first and still the most successful implementations of quantum information processing (QIP) have been based on nuclear spins in liquids. However, molecules that enable many qubits NMR QIP implementations should meet some conditions: have large chemical shifts and be appropriately dispersed for qubit addressability, appreciable spin-spin coupling between any pair of spins, and a long relaxation time. In this line, benzyldene-2,3-dihydro-1H-[1,3]diphosphole (BDF) derivatives have been theoretically tested for maximizing large chemical shifts, spin-spin coupling, and minimizing the hyperfine coupling constant. Thus, the structures were optimized at the B3LYP/6-311G(d,p) level and showed a significant similarity with the experimental geometrical parameters. The NMR spectroscopic parameters (δ and J) were calculated with six different DFT functionals. The τ-HCTH/6-31G(2d) level is in better agreement with the experimental data of ³¹P and ¹³C chemical shifts, while PCM-B3LYP/cc-pVDZ level shows a decrease on deviation between calculated and experimental values for P-P and P-C SSCC. The surface response technique was employed to rationalize how the hyperfine constant varies with the chemical shifts and coupling constants values. From our findings, BDF-NO₂ was the best candidate for NMR quantum computations (NMR-QC) among the studied series.

Exploring EPR Parameters of 99Tc Complexes for Designing New MRI Probes: Coordination Environment, Solvent, and Thermal Effects on the Spectroscopic Properties

We have evaluated the solvent and thermal effects on spectroscopic parameters of 99Tc complexes coordinated to explicit water molecules. Molecular dynamics simulations were performed followed by hyperfine coupling constant calculations (Aiso). Our results show a significant increase of Aiso, which demonstrates that the studied compounds can be promising contrast agents in MRI.

(1)H NMR spectra of alcohols in hydrogen bonding solvents: DFT/GIAO calculations of chemical shifts

Proton nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) shifts of aliphatic alcohols in hydrogen bonding solvents have been computed on the basis of density functional theory by applying the gauge-including atomic orbital method to geometry-optimized alcohol/solvent complexes. The OH proton shifts and hydrogen bond distances for methanol or ethanol complexed with pyridine depend very much on the functional employed and very little on the basis set, provided it is sufficiently large to give the correct quasi-linear hydrogen bond geometry. The CH proton shifts are insensitive to both the functional and the basis set. NMR shifts for all protons in several alcohol/pyridine complexes are calculated at the Perdew, Burke and Ernzerhof PBE0/cc-pVTZ//PBE0/6-311 + G(d,p) level in the gas phase. The results correlate with the shifts for the pyridine-complexed alcohols, determined by analysing data from the NMR titration of alcohols against pyridine. More pragmatically, computed shifts for a wider range of alcohols correlate with experimental shifts in neat pyridine. Shifts for alcohols in dimethylsulfoxide, based on the corresponding complexes in the gas phase, correlate well with the experimental values, but the overall root mean square difference is high (0.23 ppm), shifts for the OH, CHOH and other CH protons being systematically overestimated, by averages of 0.42, 0.21 and 0.06 ppm, respectively. If the computed shifts are corrected accordingly, a very good correlation is obtained with a gradient of 1.00 ± 0.01, an intercept of 0.00 ± 0.02 ppm and a root mean square difference of 0.09 ppm. This is a modest improvement on the result of applying the CHARGE programme to a slightly different set of alcohols. Some alcohol complexes with acetone and acetonitrile were investigated both in the gas phase and in a continuum of the relevant solvent.

99Tc NMR as a promising technique for structural investigation of biomolecules: theoretical studies on the solvent and thermal effects of phenylbenzothiazole complex

The phenylbenzothiazole compounds show antitumor properties and are highly selective. In this paper, the (99)Tc chemical shifts based on the ((99m)Tc)(CO)3 (NNO) complex conjugated to the antitumor agent 2-(4'-aminophenyl)benzothiazole are reported. Thermal and solvent effects were studied computationally by quantum-chemical methods, using the density functional theory (DFT) (DFT level BPW91/aug-cc-pVTZ for the Tc and BPW91/IGLO-II for the other atoms) to compute the NMR parameters for the complex. We have calculated the (99)Tc NMR chemical shifts of the complex in gas phase and solution using different solvation models (polarizable continuum model and explicit solvation). To evaluate the thermal effect, molecular dynamics simulations were carried, using the atom-centered density matrix propagation method at the DFT level (BP86/LanL2dz). The results highlight that the (99)Tc NMR spectroscopy can be a promising technique for structural investigation of biomolecules, at the molecular level, in different environments.

F···HO intramolecular hydrogen bond as the main transmission mechanism for (1h)J(F,H(O)) coupling constant in 2'-fluoroflavonol

Flavonoids are useful compounds in medicinal chemistry and exhibit conformational isomerism, which is ruled by intramolecular interactions. One of the main intramolecular forces governing the stability of conformations is the hydrogen bond. Hydrogen bond involving fluorine covalently bonded to carbon has been found to be rare, but it appears in 2'-fluoroflavonol, although the F···HO hydrogen bond cannot be considered the main effect governing the conformational stability of this compound. Because (19)F is magnetically active and suitable for NMR studies, the (1h)J(F,H(O)) coupling constant can be used as a probe for such an interaction in 2'-fluoroflavonol. In fact, the (1h)J(F,H(O)) coupling was computationally analyzed in this work, and the F···HO hydrogen bond was found to be its main transmission mechanism, which modulates this coupling in 2'-fluoroflavonol, rather than overlap of proximate electronic clouds, such as in 2-fluorophenol.