Ab initio studies of aspartic acid conformers in gas phase and in solution.

Systematic and extensive conformational searches of aspartic acid in gas phase and in solution have been performed. For the gaseous aspartic acid, a total of 1296 trial canonical structures and 216 trial zwitterionic structures were generated by allowing for all combinations of internal single-bond rotamers. All the trial structures were optimized at the B3LYP/6-311G* level and then subjected to further optimization at the B3LYP/6-311++G** level. A total of 139 canonical conformers were found, but no stable zwitterionic structure was found. The rotational constants, dipole moments, zero-point vibrational energies, harmonic frequencies, and vertical ionization energies of the canonical conformers were determined. Single-point energies were also calculated at the MP2/6-311++G** and CCSD/6-311++G** levels. The equilibrium distributions of the gaseous conformers at various temperatures were calculated. The proton affinity and gas phase basicity were calculated and the results are in excellent agreement with the experiments. The conformations in the solution were studied with different solvation models. The 216 trial zwitterionic structures were first optimized at the B3LYP/6-311G* level using the Onsager self-consistent reaction field model (SCRF) and then optimized at the B3LYP/6-311++G** level using the conductorlike polarized continuum model (CPCM) SCRF theory. A total of 22 zwitterions conformers were found. The gaseous canonical conformers were combined with the CPCM model and optimized at the B3LYP/6-311++G** level. The solvated zwitterionic and canonical structures were further examined by the discrete/SCRF model with one and two water molecules. The incremental solvation of the canonical and zwitterionic structures with up to six water molecules in gas phase was systematically examined. The studies show that combining aspartic acid with at least six water molecules in the gas phase or two water molecules and a SCRF solution model is required to provide qualitatively correct results in the solution.