3 research outputs found
Influence of Water on the Oxidation of Dimethyl Sulfide by the <sup>·</sup>OH Radical
Oxidative stress
of sulfur-containing biological molecules in aqueous
environments may lead to the formation of adduct intermediates that
are too short-lived to be experimentally detectable. In this study
we have modeled the simplest of such oxidative reactions: the attack
of dimethyl sulfide (DMS) by a hydroxyl radical (<sup>·</sup>OH) to form a radical adduct, whose subsequent heterolytic dissociation
leads to a radical cation (DMS<sup>+</sup>) that is important for
further reactions. We have modeled the aqueous environment with a
limited number of discrete water molecules, selected after an original
multistep procedure, and further embedded in a polarizable continuum
model, to observe the impact of the water configuration on the heterolytic
dissociation of the radical adduct. Molecular dynamics and quantum
chemical methods (DFT, MP2, and CCSD) were used to elucidate the lowest
energy structures resulting from the <sup>·</sup>OH attack on
DMS. Subsequent high level <i>ab initio</i> valence bond
(BOVB) calculations revealed the possibility for the occurrence of
subsequent heterolytic dissociation
Multicenter Bonding in Ditetracyanoethylene Dianion: A Simple Aromatic Picture in Terms of Three-Electron Bonds
The nature of the multicenter, long
bond in ditetracyanoethylene
dianion complex [TCNE]<sub>2</sub><sup>2–</sup> is elucidated
using high level <i>ab initio</i> Valence Bond (VB) theory
coupled with Quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) methods. This dimer is the
prototype of the general family of pancake-bonded dimers with large
interplanar separations. Quantitative results obtained with a compact
wave function in terms of only six VB structures match the reference
CCSD(T) bonding energies. Analysis of the VB wave function shows that
the weights of the VB structures are not compatible with a covalent
bond between the π* orbitals of the fragments. On the other
hand, these weights are consistent with a simple picture in terms
of two resonating bonding schemes, one displaying a pair of interfragment
three-electron σ bonds and the other displaying intrafragment
three-electron π bonds. This simple picture explains at once
(1) the long interfragment bond length, which is independent of the
countercations but typical of three-electron (3-e) CC σ bonds,
(2) the interfragment orbital overlaps which are very close to the
theoretical optimal overlap of 1/6 for a 3-e σ bond, and (3)
the unusual importance of dynamic correlation, which is precisely
the main bonding component of 3-e bonds. Moreover, it is shown that
the [TCNE]<sub>2</sub><sup>2–</sup> system is topologically
equivalent to the square C<sub>4</sub>H<sub>4</sub><sup>2–</sup> dianion, a well-established aromatic system. To better understand
the role of the cyano substituents, the unsubstituted diethylenic
Na<sup>+</sup><sub>2</sub>[C<sub>2</sub>H<sub>4</sub>]<sub>2</sub><sup>2–</sup> complex is studied and shown to be only metastable
and topologically equivalent to a rectangular C<sub>4</sub>H<sub>4</sub><sup>2–</sup> dianion, devoid of aromaticity
Coupled Valence-Bond State Molecular Dynamics Description of an Enzyme-Catalyzed Reaction in a Non-Aqueous Organic Solvent
Enzymes are widely
used in nonaqueous solvents to catalyze non-natural
reactions. While experimental measurements showed that the solvent
nature has a strong effect on the reaction kinetics, the molecular
details of the catalytic mechanism in nonaqueous solvents have remained
largely elusive. Here we study the transesterification reaction catalyzed
by the paradigm subtilisin Carlsberg serine protease in an organic
apolar solvent. The rate-limiting acylation step involves a proton
transfer between active-site residues and the nucleophilic attack
of the substrate to form a tetrahedral intermediate. We design the
first coupled valence-bond state model that simultaneously describes
both reactions in the enzymatic active site. We develop a new systematic
procedure to parametrize this model on high-level <i>ab initio</i> QM/MM free energy calculations that account for the molecular details
of the active site and for both substrate and protein conformational
fluctuations. Our calculations show that the reaction energy barrier
changes dramatically with the solvent and protein conformational fluctuations.
We find that the mechanism of the tetrahedral intermediate formation
during the acylation step is similar to that determined under aqueous
conditions, and that the proton transfer and nucleophilic attack reactions
occur concertedly. We identify the reaction coordinate to be mostly
due to the rearrangement of some residual water molecules close to
the active site