The water-promoted hydrolysis of a highly twisted amide is studied using density functional theory in conjunction with a continuum dielectric method to introduce bulk solvent effects. The aim of these studies is to reveal how the twisting of the C-N bond affects the neutral hydrolysis of amides. To do so, both concerted and stepwise mechanisms are studied and the results compared to the ones from the hydrolysis of an undistorted amide used as reference. In addition, an extra explicit water molecule that assists in the required proton-transfer processes is taken into account. Our results predict important rate accelerations of the neutral hydrolysis of amides when the C-N bond is highly twisted, the corresponding barrier relaxation depending on the specific reaction pathway and transition state involved. Moreover, our calculations strongly suggest a change in reaction mechanism with degree of amide bond twist, and clearly point to a concerted mechanism at neutral pH for the hydrolysis of highly twisted amides. In addition, the twisting of the amide bond also provokes a higher dependence on an auxiliary water molecule for the concerted mechanism, due to the orthogonality of the lone pair of the nitrogen and the carbonyl pi orbital. There is a direct implication of these findings for biological catalytic mechanism of peptide cleavage reactions that undergoes ground-state destabilization of the peptide.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/ja044873v | DOI Listing |
Acc Chem Res
January 2025
Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720, United States.
ConspectusThe electronic properties of atomically thin van der Waals (vdW) materials can be precisely manipulated by vertically stacking them with a controlled offset (for example, a rotational offset─i.e., twist─between the layers, or a small difference in lattice constant) to generate moiré superlattices.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChem Asian J
January 2025
Department of Chemistry, University at Albany, State University of New York, Albany, NY, 12222, USA.
The two-fold reduction of tetrabenzo[a,c,e,g]cyclooctatetraene (TBCOT, or tetraphenylene, 1) with K, Rb, and Cs metals reveals a distinctive core transformation pathway: a newly formed C-C bond converts the central eight-membered ring into a twisted core with two fused five-membered rings. This C-C bond of 1.589(3)-1.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Am Chem Soc
January 2025
Department of Chemistry, The Hong Kong Branch of Chinese National Engineering Research Center for Tissue Restoration and Reconstruction, Division of Life Science, State Key Laboratory of Molecular Neuroscience, and Department of Chemical & Biological Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong 999077, China.
The two contradictory entities in nature often follow the principle of unity of opposites, leading to optimal overall performance. Particularly, aggregation-induced emission luminogens (AIEgens) with donor-acceptor (D-A) structures exhibit tunable optical properties and versatile functionalities, offering significant potential to revolutionize cancer treatment. However, trapped by low molar absorptivity (ε) owing to the distorted configurations, the ceilings of their photon-harvesting capability and the corresponding phototheranostic performance still fall short.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPhys Chem Chem Phys
January 2025
College of Materials and Textile Engineering, Jiaxing University, Jiaxing 314001, China.
Programmable organization of uniform organic/inorganic functional building blocks into large-scale ordered superlattices has attracted considerable attention since the bottom-up self-organization strategy opens up a robust and universal route for designing novel and multifunctional materials with advanced applications in memory storage devices, catalysis, photonic crystals, and biotherapy. Despite making great efforts in the construction of superlattice materials, there still remains a challenge in the preparation of organic/inorganic hybrid superlattices with tunable dimensions and exotic configurations. Here, we report the spontaneous self-organization of polystyrene-tethered gold nanoparticles (AuNPs@PS) into freestanding organic/inorganic hybrid superlattices templated at the diethylene glycol-air interface.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSpectrochim Acta A Mol Biomol Spectrosc
January 2025
Instituto de Ciencia de Materiales de Madrid (ICMM), CSIC, Cantoblanco, 28049 Madrid, Spain; Departamento de Química Orgánica y Química Inorgánica, Universidad de Alcalá, 28805 Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, Spain. Electronic address:
7,7'-Diazaisoindigos are π-conjugated compounds but with poor luminescence properties. Their poor luminescence is generally attributed to the twisting around the central C-C bond in the excited state which favors non-radiative decay. We have found an unusual high fluorescence quantum yield (Φ ≈ 15 %) in a N,N‑Octyl-7,7'-diazaisoindigo derivative incorporating two triphenylamine (TPA) subunits at 5,5'-positions (called compound 12).
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