Structure determination and conformation analysis of symmetrical dimers

Abstract

Conformational and stereochemical analysis of six new symmetrical dimers was performed using proton-proton vicinal coupling measured from (1)H NMR and (13)C satellites of (1)H NMR signals, natural abundance (13)C-edited nuclear overhauser effect (NOE) experiments, comprehensive NOE analysis and molecular modeling. The (13)C satellite analysis and (13)C-edited NOE experiments were carried out to extract spectral information between equivalent protons. Molecular modeling was applied for estimations of three-dimensional parameters of the studied dimers, which were subsequently used to generate a set of theoretical NOE for each possible conformation. The J-coupling, (13)C-edited NOE and quantitative NOE analyses showed the predominance of gauche conformation for three dimers, whereas a mixture of gauche and anti conformations (45:55) for three other dimers was established by quantitative NOE analysis. X-ray crystallographic study confirmed the stereochemistry of one of the dimers and revealed a discrepancy in conformation stability between liquid and solid states.