Damian Mikulski

Quantum-chemical investigation of the structure and the antioxidant properties of α-lipoic acid and its metabolites

Quantum-chemical computations were used to investigate the structure–antioxidant parameter relationships of α-lipoic acid and its natural metabolites bisnorlipoic acid and tetranorlipoic acid in their oxidized and reduced forms. The enantiomers of lipoic and dihydrolipoic acid were optimized using the B3LYP/6-311+G(3df,2p), B3LYP/aug-cc-pVDZ and MP2(full)/6-31+G(d,p) levels of theory as isolated molecules and in the presence of water. The geometries of the metabolites and the values of their antioxidant parameters (proton affinity, bond dissociation enthalpy, adiabatic ionization potential, spin density, and the highest occupied molecular orbital energy) were calculated at the B3LYP/6-311+G(3df,2p) level of theory. The results obtained reveal similarities between these structures: a pentatomic, nonaromatic ring is present in the oxidized forms, while an unbranched aliphatic chain (as found in saturated fatty acids) is present in both the oxidized and the reduced forms. Analysis of the spin density and the highest occupied molecular orbital energy revealed that the SH groups exhibited the greatest electron-donating activities. The values obtained for the proton affinity, bond dissociation enthalpy and adiabatic ionization potential indicate that the preferred antioxidant mechanisms for α-lipoic acid and its metabolites are sequential proton loss electron transfer in polar media and hydrogen atom transfer in vacuum.

Quantum-chemical study on relationship between structure and antioxidant properties of hepatoprotective compounds occurring in Cynara scolymus and Silybum marianum

Accurate quantum computations based on the density functional theory have been performed to study the relationship between the electronic geometry and antioxidant capacity of chlorogenic acid, sily...

Quantum-mechanical computations on the electronic structure of trans-resveratrol and trans-piceatannol: a theoretical study of the stacking interactions in trans-resveratrol dimers.

Accurate quantum-chemical calculations based on the second-order Møller–Plesset perturbation method (MP2) and density functional theory (DFT) were performed for the first time to investigate the electronic structures of trans-resveratrol and trans-piceatannol, as well as to study the stacking interaction between trans-resveratrol molecules. Ab initio MP2 calculations performed with using standard split-valence Pople basis sets led us to conclude that these compounds have structures that deviate strongly from planarity, whereas the DFT computations for the same basis sets revealed that the equilibrium geometries of these bioactive polyphenols are planar. Furthermore, the results obtained at the MP2(full)/aug-cc-pVTZ and B3LYP/aug-cc-pVTZ levels indicated that the geometries of trans-resveratrol and trans-piceatannol are practically planar at their absolute energy minima. The relative energies of the equilibrium geometries of trans-resveratrol on its potential energy surface were computed at the MP2(full)/aug-cc-pVTZ level. According to the results obtained, a T-shaped (edge-to-phase) conformer of trans-resveratrol dimer is the most stable in vacuum. This T-shaped conformer is mainly stabilized by strong hydrogen bonding and weak C–H…π interactions. Stacked structures with parallel-displaced trans-stilbene skeletons were also found to be energetically stable. The vertical separation and twist angle dependencies of the stacking energy were investigated at the MP2(full)/aug-cc-pVTZ, B3LYP/aug-cc-pVTZ, and HF/aug-cc-pVTZ levels. The standard B3LYP functional and the Hartree–Fock method neglect long-range attractive dispersion interactions. The MP2 computations revealed that the London dispersion energy cannot be neglected at long or short distances. The stacked model considered here may be useful for predicting the quantum nature of the interactions in π-stacked systems of other naturally occurring stilbenoids, and can help to enhance our understanding of the antioxidant and anticancer activities of trans-resveratrol.

On an algebraic approach to the Kratzer oscillator

The ladder operators for the Kratzer‐Fues oscillator have been derived within the algebraic approach. The method is extended to include the rotating Kratzer‐Fues oscillator. For these operators, SU(2) Lie algebra has been constructed. The results obtained differ significantly from those recently derived by Setare and Karimi (2007 Phys. Scr. 75 90‐3). We have shown that in their study the ladder operators and the solutions of the Schrodinger equations with the Kratzer potential have no physical meaning.

Exact solution of the Schrödinger equation with a new expansion of anharmonic potential with the use of the supersymmetric quantum mechanics and factorization method

The study involves finding exact eigenvalues of the radial Schrödinger equation for new expansion of the anharmonic potential energy function. All analytical calculations employ the mathematical formalism of the supersymmetric quantum mechanics. The novelty of this study is underlined by the fact that for the first time the recurrence formulas for rovibrational bound energy levels have been derived employing factorization method and algebraic approach. The ground state and the excited states have been determined by means of the hierarchy of the isospectral Hamiltonians. The Riccati nonlinear differential equation with superpotentials has been solved analytically. It has been shown that exact solutions exist when the potential and superpotential parameters satisfy certain supersymmetric constraints. The results obtained can be utilized both in computations of quantum chemistry and theoretical spectroscopy of diatomic molecules.

Quantum-chemical study of interactions of trans-resveratrol with guanine-thymine dinucleotide and DNA-nucleobases

Trans-resveratrol, a natural phytoalexin present in red wine and grapes, has gained considerable attention because of its antiproliferative, chemopreventive and proapoptotic activity against human cancer cells. The accurate quantum-chemical computations based on the density functional theory (DFT) and ab initio second-order Møller-Plesset perturbation method (MP2) have been performed for the first time to study interactions of trans-resveratrol with guanine-thymine dinucleotide and DNA-derived nitrogenous bases: adenine, guanine, cytosine and thymine in vacuum and water medium. This compound is found to show high affinity to nitrogenous bases and guanine-thymine dinucleotide. The electrostatic interactions from intermolecular hydrogen bonding increase the stability of complexes studied. In particular, significantly strong hydrogen bonds between 4′-H atom of trans-resveratrol and imidazole nitrogen as well as carbonyl oxygen atoms of nucleobases studied stabilize these systems. The stabilization energies computed reveal that the negatively charged trans-resveratrol-dinucleotide complex is more energetically stable in water medium than in vacuum. MP2 method gives more reliable and significantly high values of stabilization energy of trans-resveratrol-dinucleotide, trans-resveratrol-guanine and trans-resveratrol-thymine complexes than B3LYP exchange-correlation functional because it takes into account London dispersion energy. According to the results, in the presence of trans-resveratrol the 3′-5′ phosphodiester bond in dinucleotide can be cleaved and the proton from 4′-OH group of trans-resveratrol migrates to the 3′-O atom of dinucleotide. It is concluded that trans-resveratrol is able to break the DNA strand. Hence, the findings obtained help understand antiproliferative and anticancer properties of this polyphenol.

The construction of ladder operators and coherent states for the Wei Hua anharmonic oscillator using the supersymmetric quantum mechanics

The unknown ladder operators for the Wei Hua potential have been derived within the algebraic approach. The method is extended to include the rotating oscillator. The annihilation and creation operators have been obtained with the use of the factorization method. The coherent states for the Wei Hua anharmonic oscillator, which are eigenstates of the annihilation operator and minimize the generalized position-momentum uncertainty relation, are constructed in the framework of the supersymmetric quantum mechanics. The constructed ladder operators can be applied to compute the matrix elements in theoretical spectroscopy due to the fact that this potential is widely used to a proper description the large-amplitude vibrations of diatomic molecules.

The algebraic approach for the derivation of ladder operators and coherent states for the Goldman and Krivchenkov oscillator by the use of supersymmetric quantum mechanics

The ladder operators for the Goldman and Krivchenkov anharmonic potential have been derived within the algebraic approach. The method is extended to include the rotating oscillator. The coherent states for the Goldman and Krivchenkov oscillator, which are the eigenstates of the annihilation operator and minimize the generalized position-momentum uncertainty relation, are constructed within the framework of supersymmetric quantum mechanics. The constructed ladder operators can be a useful tool in quantum chemistry computations of non-trivial matrix elements. In particular, they can be employed in molecular vibrational–rotational spectroscopy of diatomic molecules to compute transition energies and dipole matrix elements.

The supersymmetric quantum mechanics theory and Darboux transformation for the Morse oscillator with an approximate rotational term

Anharmonic potentials with a rotational terms are widely used in quantum chemistry of diatomic systems, since they include the influence of centrifugal force on motions of atomic nuclei. For the first time the Taylor-expanded renormalized Morse oscillator is studied within the framework of supersymmetric quantum mechanics theory. The mathematical formalism of supersymmetric quantum mechanics and the Darboux transformation are used to determine the bound states for the Morse anharmonic oscillator with an approximate rotational term. The factorization method has been applied in order to obtain analytical forms of creation and annihilation operators as well as Witten superpotential and isospectral potentials. Moreover, the radial Schrödinger equation with the Darboux potential has been converted into an exactly solvable form of second-order Sturm–Liouville differential equation. To this aim the Darboux transformation has been used. The efficient algebraic approach proposed can be used to solve the Schrödinger equation for other anharmonic exponential potentials with rotational terms.

The construction of the Gilmore–Perelomov coherent states for the Kratzer–Fues anharmonic oscillator with the use of the algebraic approach

By applying the algebraic approach and the displacement operator to the ground state, the unknown Gilmore–Perelomov coherent states for the rotating anharmonic Kratzer–Fues oscillator are constructed. In order to obtain the displacement operator the ladder operators have been applied. The deduced SU(1, 1) dynamical symmetry group associated with these operators enables us to construct this important class of the coherent states. Several important properties of these states are discussed. It is shown that the coherent states introduced are not orthogonal and form complete basis set in the Hilbert space. We have found that any vector of Hilbert space of the oscillator studied can be expressed in the coherent states basis set. It has been established that the coherent states satisfy the completeness relation. Also, we have proved that these coherent states do not possess temporal stability. The approach presented can be used to construct the coherent states for other anharmonic oscillators. The coherent states proposed can find applications in laser-matter interactions, in particular with regards to laser chemical processing, laser techniques, in micro-machinning and the patterning, coating and modification of chemical material surfaces.