Experimental charge density of a potential DHO synthetase inhibitor: dimethyl-trans-2-oxohexahydro-pyrimidine-4,6-dicarboxylate

Similarities and Differences between Crystal and Enzyme Environmental Effects on the Electron Density of Drug Molecules

The crystal interaction density is generally assumed to be a suitable measure of the polarization of a low-molecular weight ligand inside an enzyme, but this approximation has seldomly been tested and has never been quantified before. In this study, we compare the crystal interaction density and the interaction electrostatic potential for a model compound of loxistatin acid (E64c) with those inside cathepsin B, in solution, and in vacuum. We apply QM/MM calculations and experimental quantum crystallography to show that the crystal interaction density is indeed very similar to the enzyme interaction density. Less than 0.1 e are shifted between these two environments in total. However, this difference has non-negligible consequences for derived properties.

N–H⋯O hydrogen bonding to the alkoxy oxygen of a carboxylic ester group: crystal structures of methyl 2,6-diaminobenzoate and its derivatives

Molecules with hydrogen bonds from amino groups to both oxygens of a carboxylic ester are described, and other examples of hydrogen bonding to an ester's alkoxy oxygen atom are highlighted.

A quantitative definition of hypervalency

The concept of hypervalency has had a long but troubled history. Although several attempts have been made to dispense with the concept altogether, it remains in widespread use. By developing a simple but quantitative measure of hypervalency, the concept can be rehabilitated to provide valuable chemical insights in the context of Lewis models.

From the inception of Lewis' theory of chemical bonding, hypervalency has remained a point of difficulty that has not been fully resolved by the currently accepted qualitative definition of this term. Therefore, in this work, a quantitative measure of hypervalency has been developed. The only required input is the atomic charge map, which can be obtained from either quantum calculations or from experiment. Using this definition, it is found that well-known species such as O₃, CH₂N₂ and ClO₄^–, are indeed hypervalent, whilst others such as XeF₄, PCl₅ and SO₄^2–, are not. Quantitative analysis of known species of general formulae XF_n^m–, XCl_n^m–, and XO_n^m– shows that there are no fundamental differences in chemical bonding for hypervalent and non-hypervalent species. Nevertheless, hypervalency is associated with chemical instability, as well as a high degree of covalent rather than ionic bonding. The implications for accepted Lewis structure conventions are discussed.

An approximation of the Cioslowski–Mixon bond order indexes using the AlteQ approach

Fast and reliable prediction of bond orders in organic systems based upon experimentally measured quantities can be performed using electron density features at bond critical points (J Am Chem Soc 105:5061–5068, 1983; J Phys Org Chem 16:133–141, 2003; Acta Cryst B 61:418–428, 2005; Acta Cryst B 63:142–150, 2007). These features are outcomes of low-temperature high-resolution X-ray diffraction experiments. However, a time-consuming procedure of gaining these quantities makes the prediction limited. In the present work we have employed an empirical approach AlteQ (J Comput Aided Mol Des 22:489–505, 2008) for evaluation of electron density properties. This approach uses a simple exponential function derived from comparison of electron density, gained from high-resolution X-ray crystallography, and distance to atomic nucleus what allows calculating density distribution in time-saving manner and gives results which are very close to experimental ones. As input data AlteQ accepts atomic coordinates of isolated molecules or molecular ensembles (for instance, protein–protein complexes or complexes of small molecules with proteins, etc.). Using AlteQ characteristics we have developed regression models predicting Cioslowski–Mixon bond order (CMBO) indexes (J Am Chem Soc 113(42):4142–4145, 1991). The models are characterized by high correlation coefficients lying in the range from 0.844 to 0.988 dependently on the type of covalent bond, thereby providing a bonding quantification that is in reasonable agreement with that obtained by orbital theory. Comparative analysis of CMBOs approximated using topological properties of AlteQ and experimental electron densities has shown that the models can be used for fast determination of bond orders directly from X-ray crystallography data and confirmed that AlteQ characteristics can replace experimental ones with satisfactory extent of accuracy.

Role of Triple Bond in 1,2-Diphenylacetylene Crystal: A Combined Experimental and Theoretical Study

We have performed a combined experimental and theoretical study of the molecular system of 1,2-diphenylacetylene. The occurrence of two different geometries of the molecule in the crystal structure, one being planar and the other tilted by approximately 6 degrees , has been investigated in relation to the nature of the acetylenic linker. The experimental charge density analysis shows that the acetylenic linker exhibits a noncylindrical density reminiscent of the strong conjugation present in the molecule. The pi-orbitals of the acetylenic linker derived from density functional theory (DFT) calculations are found to sustain a variety of conjugation lengths between the phenyl rings, thereby giving flexibility to the molecule to arrange itself in various packing conformations in the crystal. It is interesting that the energy involved for such distortions is only kBT, allowing several polymorphic forms of the crystal structure as reported in the literature. The distortions entertained by the molecule and the corresponding changes in the charge density distribution and energy are all relevant to molecular electronics.

Atomic and bond topological properties of the tripeptide l-alanyl–l-alanyl–l-alanine based on its experimental charge density obtained at 20 K

A 20 K high resolution X-ray data set of L-Ala-L-Ala-L-Ala*1/2 H2O was measured using an ultra-low temperature laboratory setup, that combines area detection and a closed cycle helium cryostat. The charge density determination includes integration of atomic basins and topological analysis according to Bader's quantum theory of atoms in molecules. Two tripeptide units are found in the asymmetric unit, allowing the assessment of transferability of bond topological and atomic properties taking also into consideration previous data of oligopeptides. With respect to invariom modeling the limits of such transferability are investigated and the results of this study show the validity of the nearest/next-nearest neighbour approximation and support the use of database approaches for electron density modeling of macromolecules.