Hydrogen Tunneling in Carboxylic and Amino Acids

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The proposed research intends to unearth the important role of hydrogen tunneling in the dynamics of organic compounds of biological significance, namely, the α-keto carboxylic (1) and α-amino acid (2) paradigms. For this purpose, an international collaboration will be built that weds matrix isolation experiments in Germany with high-level ab initio theory in the United States. Our combined experimental and theoretical work will focus on tunneling phenomena in the rotational isomerizations of numerous molecules of type 1 [with R = H, CH3, aryl, cyclopropyl, (CH2)nCOOH] and 2 (beginning with Gly, Ala, Phe, Cys). The results could have profound implications for understanding kinetic stability and conformational dynamics in such systems.