Electronic spectra and structures of some biologically important xanthines

Abstract

Abstract Electronic absorption and fluorescence spectra of aqueous solutions of xanthine, caffeine, theophylline and theobromine have been studied at different pH. The observed spectra have been interpreted in terms of neutral and ionic forms of the molecules with the help of molecular orbital calculations. At neutral and acidic pH, the spectra can be assigned to the corresponding most stable neutral forms, with the exception that the fluorescence of xanthine at acidic pH appears to originate from the lowest singlet excited state of a cation of the molecule. At alkaline pH, xanthine and theophylline exist mainly as their monoanions. In xanthine and theophylline at alkaline pH, fluorescence originates from the lowest singlet excited state of the corresponding anion. However, in caffeine and theobromine, even at alkaline pH, fluorescence belongs to the neutral species. On the whole, the properties of xanthine are quite different from those of the methyl xanthines.