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Developing a triangular tessellation method for the analysis of medium ring pucker conformations

The main focus of this thesis is to investigate the relative conformational flexibilities of α-, β- and γ-cyclodextrins in water by analysing their macrocyclic ring puckering motion from Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations. In particular, the puckering of the CDs is investigated through a coarse gra...

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Main Author: Khalili, Pegah
Other Authors: Naidoo, Kevin J
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: Department of Chemistry 2014
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access_status_str Open Access
author Khalili, Pegah
author2 Naidoo, Kevin J
author_browse Khalili, Pegah
Naidoo, Kevin J
author_facet Naidoo, Kevin J
Khalili, Pegah
author_sort Khalili, Pegah
collection Thesis
description The main focus of this thesis is to investigate the relative conformational flexibilities of α-, β- and γ-cyclodextrins in water by analysing their macrocyclic ring puckering motion from Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations. In particular, the puckering of the CDs is investigated through a coarse grained analysis of full atomistic simulations, where the CD conformational motions are studied on the macrocyclic scale rather than the atomistic scale. The flexibilities of the cyclodextrins (CDs) are then compared to their experimentally-observed aqueous solubility trend in order to try explain the anomalously flow solubility of β-cyclodextrin. β-CD has important applications in industry, such as the pharmaceutical industry, thus exploring the conformational reasons for its low solubility can help to design more effective cyclodextrin-based products in future. The ring puckering of the CDs is measured quantitatively using a reduced system of puckering coordinates based on the method of triangular tessellation. The triangular tessellation definition for monocylic 6-membered rings is first extended to 7- and 8-membered rings, and the corresponding puckering coordinates are derived mathematically. The macrocyclic CD rings are then simplified to monocyclic representations through an appropriate coarse graining of the molecules (specifically, α-, β- and γ-cyclodextrins are simplified to 6-, 7- and 8-sided rings, respectively), and the corresponding triangular tessellation definition is then used to measure their macrocyclic puckering. The rates of decay of the puckering motion are then calculated using time correlation functions, from which the relative flexibilities of the CDs is determined. Probability distributions are also used to investigate the ranges of the CD puckering. In addition, the horizontal contraction and expansion of the macrocyclic rings (termed """"breathing"""" herein) is analysed to supplement the puckering analysis. Puckering coordinates based on the triangular tessellation of 6-membered rings have been used previously to characterise all 38 canonical states of cyclohexane. In this thesis, a systematic procedure is developed to generate the triangular tessellation puckering coordinates of all the canonical states of 6-, 7- and 8-membered rings, and the coordinates for all canonical states of cycloheptane and cyclooctane are subsequently generated. These puckering coordinates can be useful not only in the conformational analysis of cyclohexane, cycloheptane and cyclooctane, but also to quantitatively characterise the conformations of 6-, 7- and 8-membered rings in general, both from experimental and computational studies.
format Thesis
id oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/6636
institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language eng
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:33:40.116Z
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2014
publishDateRange 2014
publishDateSort 2014
publisher Department of Chemistry
publisherStr Department of Chemistry
record_format dspace
source_str UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/6636 Developing a triangular tessellation method for the analysis of medium ring pucker conformations Khalili, Pegah Naidoo, Kevin J The main focus of this thesis is to investigate the relative conformational flexibilities of α-, β- and γ-cyclodextrins in water by analysing their macrocyclic ring puckering motion from Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations. In particular, the puckering of the CDs is investigated through a coarse grained analysis of full atomistic simulations, where the CD conformational motions are studied on the macrocyclic scale rather than the atomistic scale. The flexibilities of the cyclodextrins (CDs) are then compared to their experimentally-observed aqueous solubility trend in order to try explain the anomalously flow solubility of β-cyclodextrin. β-CD has important applications in industry, such as the pharmaceutical industry, thus exploring the conformational reasons for its low solubility can help to design more effective cyclodextrin-based products in future. The ring puckering of the CDs is measured quantitatively using a reduced system of puckering coordinates based on the method of triangular tessellation. The triangular tessellation definition for monocylic 6-membered rings is first extended to 7- and 8-membered rings, and the corresponding puckering coordinates are derived mathematically. The macrocyclic CD rings are then simplified to monocyclic representations through an appropriate coarse graining of the molecules (specifically, α-, β- and γ-cyclodextrins are simplified to 6-, 7- and 8-sided rings, respectively), and the corresponding triangular tessellation definition is then used to measure their macrocyclic puckering. The rates of decay of the puckering motion are then calculated using time correlation functions, from which the relative flexibilities of the CDs is determined. Probability distributions are also used to investigate the ranges of the CD puckering. In addition, the horizontal contraction and expansion of the macrocyclic rings (termed """"breathing"""" herein) is analysed to supplement the puckering analysis. Puckering coordinates based on the triangular tessellation of 6-membered rings have been used previously to characterise all 38 canonical states of cyclohexane. In this thesis, a systematic procedure is developed to generate the triangular tessellation puckering coordinates of all the canonical states of 6-, 7- and 8-membered rings, and the coordinates for all canonical states of cycloheptane and cyclooctane are subsequently generated. These puckering coordinates can be useful not only in the conformational analysis of cyclohexane, cycloheptane and cyclooctane, but also to quantitatively characterise the conformations of 6-, 7- and 8-membered rings in general, both from experimental and computational studies. 2014-08-20T19:27:37Z 2014-08-20T19:27:37Z 2013 Master Thesis Masters MSc http://hdl.handle.net/11427/6636 eng application/pdf Department of Chemistry Faculty of Science University of Cape Town
spellingShingle Khalili, Pegah
Developing a triangular tessellation method for the analysis of medium ring pucker conformations
thesis_degree_str Master's
title Developing a triangular tessellation method for the analysis of medium ring pucker conformations
title_full Developing a triangular tessellation method for the analysis of medium ring pucker conformations
title_fullStr Developing a triangular tessellation method for the analysis of medium ring pucker conformations
title_full_unstemmed Developing a triangular tessellation method for the analysis of medium ring pucker conformations
title_short Developing a triangular tessellation method for the analysis of medium ring pucker conformations
title_sort developing a triangular tessellation method for the analysis of medium ring pucker conformations
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/6636
work_keys_str_mv AT khalilipegah developingatriangulartessellationmethodfortheanalysisofmediumringpuckerconformations