Are the Crystal Structures of Enantiopure and Racemic Mandelic Acids Determined by Kinetics or Thermodynamics?

YesMandelic acids are prototypic chiral molecules where the sensitivity of crystallized forms (enantiopure/racemic compound/polymorphs) to both conditions and substituents provides a new insight into the factors that may allow chiral separation by crystallization. The determination of a significant number of single crystal structures allows the analysis of 13 enantiopure and 30 racemic crystal structures of 21 (F/Cl/Br/CH3/CH3O) substituted mandelic acid derivatives. There are some common phenyl packing motifs between some groups of racemic and enantiopure structures, although they show very different hydrogen-bonding motifs. The computed crystal energy landscape of 3-chloromandelic acid, which has at least two enantiopure and three racemic crystal polymorphs, reveals that there are many more possible structures, some of which are predicted to be thermodynamically more favorable as well as slightly denser than the known forms. Simulations of mandelic acid dimers in isolation, water, and toluene do not differentiate between racemic and enantiopure dimers and also suggest that the phenyl ring interactions play a major role in the crystallization mechanism. The observed crystallization behavior of mandelic acids does not correspond to any simple “crystal engineering rules” as there is a range of thermodynamically feasible structures with no distinction between the enantiopure and racemic forms. Nucleation and crystallization appear to be determined by the kinetics of crystal growth with a statistical bias, but the diversity of the mandelic acid crystallization behavior demonstrates that the factors that influence the kinetics of crystal nucleation and growth are not yet adequately understood.EPSRC, Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Sciences, UCL-MPS Impact Ph.D. Fellowship, EU COST Actio

Structural systematics of 4,4'-disubstituted benzenesulfonamidobenzenes. 1. Overview and dimer-based isostructures

One hundred 4,4'-disubstituted benzenesulfonamidobenzenes, X-C6H5-SO2-NH-C6H5-Y, where X, Y = NO2, CN, CF3, I, Br, Cl, F, H, Me, OMe, have been synthesized and their crystal structures determined. The resulting set of 133 structures, which includes polymorphic forms, is used to make a comparative study of the molecular packing and the nature of the intermolecular interactions, including the formation of hydrogen-bonding motifs and the influence of the two substituents X and Y on these features. Nine distinct supramolecular connectivity motifs of hydrogen bonding are encountered. There are 74% of all the structures investigated which exhibit one of two motifs based on N-HO=S interactions, a dimer or a chain. There are three other, infrequent motifs, also employing N-HO=S links, which exhibit more complexity. Four different chain motifs result from either N-HO=N, N-HCN or N-HOMe interactions, arising from the presence of a nitro (position Y), nitrile (X or Y) or methoxy (Y) substituent. The program XPac [Gelbrich & Hursthouse (2005). CrystEngComm, 7, 324-336] was used to systematically analyse the packing relationships between crystal structures. Similar discrete (zero-dimensional) and extended (one-dimensional and two-dimensional) structure components, as well as cases of isostructurality were identified. A hierarchy for the classification of the 56 distinct structure types of this set is presented. The most common type, a series of 22 isostructures containing the simple centrosymmetric N-HO=S-bonded dimer, is discussed in detail

Polymorph VI of sulfapyridine: interpenetrating two- and three-dimensional hydrogen-bonded nets formed from two tautomeric forms

Polymorph VI of 4-amino-N-(2-pyridyl)benzenesulfonamide, C11H11N3O2S, is monoclinic (space group P21/n). The asymmetric unit contains two different tautomeric forms. The structure displays N-HN and N-HO hydrogen bonding. The two independent molecules form two separate two- and three-dimensional hydrogen-bonded networks which interpenetrate. The observed patterns of hydrogen bonding are analogous to those in polymorph I of sulfathiazole

Further errors in polymorph identification: furosemide and finasteride

Reassessment of the reported single-crystal X-ray diffraction characterization of polymorphs of furosemide and finasteride shows that, in each case, incomplete data collections have resulted in the mistaken identification of two forms that are, in fact, identical

Global urban environmental change drives adaptation in white clover

Urbanization transforms environments in ways that alter biological evolution. We examined whether urban environmental change drives parallel evolution by sampling 110,019 white clover plants from 6169 populations in 160 cities globally. Plants were assayed for a Mendelian antiherbivore defense that also affects tolerance to abiotic stressors. Urban-rural gradients were associated with the evolution of clines in defense in 47% of cities throughout the world. Variation in the strength of clines was explained by environmental changes in drought stress and vegetation cover that varied among cities. Sequencing 2074 genomes from 26 cities revealed that the evolution of urban-rural clines was best explained by adaptive evolution, but the degree of parallel adaptation varied among cities. Our results demonstrate that urbanization leads to adaptation at a global scale