• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.24 no.12
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• pp.1742-1750
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• 2003

In order to characterize the hydrophobic parameters of N-acetyl amino acid amides in 1-octanol/water, a theoretical calculation was carried out using a solvation free energy density model. The hydrophobicity parameters of the molecules are obtained with the consideration of the solvation free energy over the solvent volume surrounding the solute, using a grid model. Our method can account for the solvent accessible surface area of the molecules according to conformational variations. Through a comparison of the hydrophobicity of our calculation and that of other experimental/theoretical works, the solvation free energy density model is proven to be a useful tool for the evaluation of the hydrophobicity of amino acids and peptides. In order to evaluate the solvation free energy density model as a method of calculating the activity of drugs using the hydrophobicity of its building blocks, the contracture of Bradykinin potentiating pentapeptide was also predicted from the hydrophobicity of each residue. The solvation free energy density model can be used to employ descriptors for the prediction of peptide activities in drug discovery, as well as to calculate the hydrophobicity of amino acids.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.589-593
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• 2005

The solvation free energy of proton in methanol was calculated by B3LYP flavor of density functional calculations in combination with the Poisson-Boltzmann continuum solvation model. In order to check the adequacy of the computation level, the free energies of clustering in the gas phase were compared with the experimental data. The solvents were taken into account in a hybrid manner, i.e. one to five molecules of methanol were explicitly considered while other solvent molecules were represented with an implicit solvation model.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.33 no.8
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• pp.2711-2718
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• 2012

The alkylation of the ambident enolates of a methyl glycinate Schiff base with ethyl chloride was studied at B3LYP and MP2 levels with $6-31+G^*$ basis set. The free (E)-enolates and (Z)-enolate are similar in energy and geometry. The transition states for the alkylation of the free (E)/(Z)-enolate with ethyl chloride have similar energy barriers of ~13 kcal/mol. However, with a lithium ion, the (E)-enolate behaves as an ambident enolate and makes a cyclic lithium-complex in bidentate pattern which is more stable by 11-23 kcal/mol than the (Z)-enolate-lithium complexes. And the TS for the alkylation of (E)-enolate-lithium complex coordinated with one methyl ether is lower in energy than those from (Z)-enolate-lithium complexes by 4.3-7.3 kcal/mol. Further solvation model (SCRF-CPCM) and reaction coordinate (IRC) were studied. This theoretical study suggests that the alkylation of ambident enolates proceeds with stable cyclic bidentate complexes in the presence of metal ion and solvent.

• Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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• v.33 no.8
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• pp.2669-2674
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• 2012

Crown ether is one of well-known host molecules and able to selectively sequester metal cation. We employed M06-2X density functional theory with IEFPCM and SMD continuum solvation models to study selectivity of dibenzo-18-crown-6-ether (DB18C6) for alkaline earth dications, $Ba^{2+}$, $Sr^{2+}$, $Ca^{2+}$, and $Mg^{2+}$ in the gas phase and in aqueous solution. $Mg^{2+}$ showed predominantly strong binding affinity in the gas phase because of strong polarization of CO bonds by cation. In aqueous solution, binding free energy differences became smaller among these dications. However, $Mg^{2+}$ had the best binding, being incompatible with experimental observations in aqueous solution. The enthalpies of the dication exchange reaction between DB18C6 and water cluster molecules were computed as another estimation of selectivity in aqueous solution. These results also demonstrated that $Mg^{2+}$ bound to DB18C6 better than $Ba^{2+}$. We speculated that the species determining selectivity in water could be 2:1 complexes of two DB18C6s and one dication.