On Instability of Fullerene C72

The most important fullerene is buckminsterfullerene C60, obtained by leap-frog transformation of the fullerene C20. The second smallest fullerene obtained by leap-frog transformation is C72 (obtained from C24). It is surprising that C72 is unstable. The standard explanation of this fact is based on steric strain resulting from the existence of two hexagons, each surrounded by 6 hexagons. By analyzing the p-electron content, it is demonstrated that these hexagons show some »pentagon-like« behavior that may be the cause (or an additional cause) of the instability of C72. Hence, it is shown that there may be topological (non-steric) reasons for the instability of C72

The topology of fullerenes

Fullerenes are carbon molecules that form polyhedral cages. Their bond structures are exactly the planar cubic graphs that have only pentagon and hexagon faces. Strikingly, a number of chemical properties of a fullerene can be derived from its graph structure. A rich mathematics of cubic planar graphs and fullerene graphs has grown since they were studied by Goldberg, Coxeter, and others in the early 20th century, and many mathematical properties of fullerenes have found simple and beautiful solutions. Yet many interesting chemical and mathematical problems in the field remain open. In this paper, we present a general overview of recent topological and graph theoretical developments in fullerene research over the past two decades, describing both solved and open problems. WIREs Comput Mol Sci 2015, 5:96–145. doi: 10.1002/wcms.1207 Conflict of interest: The authors have declared no conflicts of interest for this article. For further resources related to this article, please visit the WIREs website

Cheminformatics for genome-scale metabolic reconstructions

Genome-scale metabolic reconstructions are an important resource in the study of metabolism. They provide both a system and component level view of the biochemical transformations of metabolites. As more reconstructions have been created it remains a challenge to integrate and reason about their contents. This thesis focuses on the development of computational methods to allow on-demand comparison and alignment of metabolic reconstructions. A novel method is introduced that utilises chemical structure representations to identify equivalent metabolites between reconstructions. Using a graph theoretic representation allows the identification and reasoning of metabolites that have a non-exact match. A key advantage is that the method uses the contents of reconstructions directly and does not rely on the creation or use of a common reference. To annotate reconstructions with chemical structure representations an interactive desktop application is introduced. The application assists in the creation and curation of metabolic information using manual, semi-auto\-mated, and automated methods. Chemical structure representations can be retrieved, drawn, or generated to allow precise metabolite annotation. In processing chemical information, efficient and optimised algorithms are required. Several areas are addressed and implementations have been contributed to the Chemistry Development Kit. Rings are a fundamental property of chemical structures therefore multiple ring definitions and fast algorithms are explored. Conversion and standardisation between structure representations present a challenge. Efficient algorithms to determine aromaticity, assign a Kekulé form, and generate tautomers are detailed. Many enzymes are selective and specific to stereochemistry. Methods for the identification, depiction, comparison, and description of stereochemistry are described.The project was funded by Unilever, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council [BB/I532153/1], and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory

Nenad Trinajstić – Pioneer of Chemical Graph Theory

We present a brief overview of many contributions of Nenad Trinajstić to Chemical Graph Theory, an important and fast developing branch of Theoretical Chemistry. In addition, we outline briefly the various activities of Trinajstić within the chemical community of Croatia. As can be seen, his scientific work has been very productive and has not abated despite the hostilities towards the Chemical Graph Theory in certain chemical circles over the past 30 years. On the contrary, Trinajstić continued, widened the areas of his research interest, which started with investigating the close relationship between Graph Theory and HMO, and demonstrated the importance of Chemical Graph theory for chemistry. In more than one way he has proven the opponents of Chemical Graph Theory wrong, though some continue to fail to recognize the importance of Graph Theory in Chemistry

Investigations of peptide structural stability in vacuo

Gas-phase analytical techniques provide very valuable tools for tackling the structural complexity of macromolecular structures such as those encountered in biological systems. Conformational dynamics of polypeptides and polypeptide assemblies underlie most biological functionalities, yet great difficulties arise when investigating such phenomena with the well-established techniques of X-ray crystallography and NMR. In areas such as these ion mobility interfaced with mass spectrometry (IMMS) and molecular modelling can make a significant contribution. During an IMMS experiment analyte ions drift in a chamber filled with an inert gas; measurement of the transport properties of analyte ions under the influence of a weak electric field can lead to determination of the orientationally-averaged collision cross-section of all resolved ionic species. A comparison with cross-sections estimated for model molecular geometries can lead to structural assignments. Thus IMMS can be used effectively to separate gas-phase ions based on their conformation. The drift tube employed in the experiments described herein is thermally regulated, which also enables the determination of collision cross-sections over a range of temperatures, and can provide a view of temperature-dependent conformational dynamics over the experimental (low microsecond) timescale. Studies described herein employ IMMS and a gamut of other MS-based techniques, solution spectroscopy and – importantly – molecular mechanics simulations to assess a) conformational stability of isolated peptide ions, with a focus on small model peptides and proteins, especially the Trp cage miniprotein; and b) structural characteristics of oligomeric aggregates of an amyloidogenic peptide. The results obtained serve to clarify the factors which dominate the intrinsic stability of non-covalent structure in isolated peptides and peptide assemblies. Strong electrostatic interactions are found to play a pivotal role in determining the conformations of isolated proteins. Secondary structures held together by hydrogen bonding, such as helices, are stable in the absence of solvent, however gas-phase protein structures display loss of their hydrophobic cores. The absence of a polar solvent, “self-solvation” is by far the most potent force influencing the gas-phase configuration of these systems. Geometries that are more compact than the folded state observed in solution are routinely detected, indicating the existence of intrinsically stable compact non-native states in globular proteins, illuminating the nature of proteins’ ‘unfolded’ states