Journal of Physical Chemistry A, Vol.106, No.44, 10554-10562, 2002
On conformation and hydrogen bonding in vigabatrin amino acid molecule
Structure and stability of 285 conformers of the vigabatrin molecule in the gas phase have been obtained by using two combined approaches of conformer search. The first approach consisted of the successive recurrent scanning of all the dihedral angles in the molecule, at the semiempirical AMI and the ab initio HF/6-31G* levels. The second approach involved the identification of conformers of vigabatrin through the use of a Monte Carlo search coupled with molecular mechanics. The structures formed by using the two kinds of searches were grouped into classes corresponding to defined carbon backbone arrangement and further optimized at the HF/6-311++G** level. For each conformer, if a hydrogen donor-acceptor distance was smaller than ca. 3 Angstrom, the hydrogen bond analysis using the atoms in molecules (AIM) method was applied by using the MP2/6-311++G** electron density. A new intramolecular NH...C hydrogen bonding was found. The selected conformers, being those of the lowest energy in each class and representatives for all kinds of hydrogen bonds, were further optimized at the MP2 level. Parameters of the hydrogen bonds were tabulated, compared, and discussed.