Cyclic and Acyclic Fructose Conformers in the Gas Phase: A Large-Scale Second-Order Perturbation Theory Study

Catalytic mechanism for the isomerization of glucose into fructose over an aluminium-MCM-41 framework

Al-Containing MCM-41 catalysts exhibit good catalytic activity toward glucose-to-fructose isomerization.

Pyranose ring puckering in aldopentoses, ketohexoses and deoxyaldohexoses. A molecular dynamics study

Conformation of monosaccharides, including the ring shape, has for years been the subject of intensive research. Although d-aldohexopyranoses are the most extensively studied pyranoses, there also exist other groups of saccharides that contain analogous chemical system of the six-membered ring. Here we describe in details the results of the molecular dynamics-based conformational analysis concerning a series of pyranoses, namely: d-aldopentoses, d-ketohexoses as well as deoxy- (d-quinovose, l-fucose, l-rhamnose) and dideoxy- (abequose, paratose, tyvelose, digitoxose) derivatives of aldohexoses. By using the carbohydrate-dedicated GROMOS 56a6_CARBO force field, we determined the conformational properties of both the lactol and hydroxymethyl groups as well as the anomeric populations for all considered compounds. The orientation of the lactol group follows the trend expected on the basis of the exo-anomeric effect for all compounds whereas the conformation of the hydroxymethyl group in d-ketohexoses is represented by the two gauche (with respect to the ring oxygen atom) rotamers. The special emphasis is put on the ring-inversion properties studied in the context of both the full chair-chair inversion and the chair-boat/skew-boat rearrangement. The calculated ring-distortion energies, compared with those obtained for regular d-aldohexopyranoses allowed for estimating the influence of particular substituents on the ring flexibility. Overall, such influence is correlated with the dimension of the substituent and its orientation but is limited to the case of the chair-chair inversion whereas the chair-to-boat/skew-boat rearrangement exhibits roughly the same properties for all pyranoses. For all d-aldopyranoses the α anomers exhibit lower ring-inversion free energies in comparison to the β anomers whereas this trend is inverted in the case of d-ketohexopyranoses.

Anomerization reaction of bare and microhydrated d-erythrose via explicitly correlated coupled cluster approach. Two water molecules are optimal

We present a comprehensive benchmark computational study which has explored a complete path of the anomerization reaction of bare d-erythrose involving a pair of the low-energy α- and β-furanose anomers, the former of which was observed spectroscopically (Cabezas et al., Chem. Commun. 2013, 49, 10826). We find that the ring opening of the α-anomer yields the most stable open-chain tautomer which step is followed by the rotational interconversion of the open-chain rotamers and final ring closing to form the β-anomer. Our results indicate the flatness of the reaction's potential energy surface (PES) corresponding to the rotational interconversion path and its sensitivity to the computational level. By using the explicitly correlated coupled cluster CCSD(T)-F12/cc-pVTZ-F12 energies, we determine the free energy barrier for the α-furanose ring-opening (rate-determining) step as 170.3 kJ/mol. The question of the number of water molecules (n) needed for optimal stabilization of the erythrose anomerization reaction rate-determining transition state is addressed by a systematic exploration of the PES of the ring opening in the α-anomer-(H₂ O)_n and various β-anomer-(H₂ O)_n (n = 1-3) clusters using density functional and CCSD(T)-F12 computations. These computations suggest the lowest free energy barrier of the ring opening for doubly hydrated α-anomer, achieved by a mechanism that involves water-mediated multiple proton transfer coupled with the furanose CO bond breakage. Among the methods used, the G4 performed best against the CCSD(T)-F12 reference at estimating the ring-opening barrier heights for both the hydrated and bare erythrose conformers. Our results for the hydrated species are most relevant to an experimental study of the anomerization reaction of d-erythrose to be carried out in microsolvation environment. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.