Weak noncovalent interactions in two positional isomers of acrylonitrile derivatives: inputs from PIXEL energy, Hirshfeld surface and QTAIM analyses.

A single crystal X-ray diffraction analysis was performed on two positional isomers (m-tolyl and p-tolyl) of acrylonitrile derivatives, namely, (Z)-3-(4-(pyridin-2-yl) phenyl)-2-(m-tolyl) acrylonitrile (1) and (Z)-3-(4-(pyridin-2-yl)phenyl)-2-(p-tolyl) acrylonitrile (2). Compound 1 crystallized in the monoclinic P21/n space group with two crystallographically independent molecules. Compound 2 also possesses two crystallographically independent molecules and crystallized in the triclinic P-1 space group. The Hirshfeld surface analysis revealed that, in both isomers, intermolecular H⋅⋅⋅H/C/N contacts contribute significantly to the crystal packing. More than 40% of the contribution arises from intermolecular C-H⋅⋅⋅C(π) contacts. In both compounds, the relative contribution of these contacts is comparable, indicating that the positional isomeric effects are marginal. The structures in which these isomers are arranged in the solid state are very similar, and the lattice energies are also comparable between the isomers. The Coulomb-London-Pauli-PIXEL (CLP-PIXEL) energy analysis identified the energetically significant dimers. The strength of the intra- and intermolecular interactions was evaluated using the quantum theory of atoms in molecules approach. The UV-Vis absorbance in three different solvents (chloroform, ethanol, and ethyl acetate) for isomers 1 and 2 are very similar. This result is in good agreement with the time-dependent density-functional theory (TD-DFT) calculations.

Qu-anti-tative analysis of weak non-covalent inter-actions in (Z)-3-(4-chloro-phen-yl)-2-phenyl-acrylo-nitrile: insights from PIXEL and Hirshfeld surface analysis.

In the solid state, the title compound, C15H10ClN, is disordered over two orientations with a refined occupancy ratio of 0.86 (2):0.14 (2). The crystal structure is mainly stabilized by inter-molecular C-H⋯N and C-H⋯Cl hydrogen bonds, and C-H⋯π inter-actions. The mol-ecules pack in columns and adjacent columns are linked by weak C-H⋯Cl inter-actions. The PIXEL energy analysis suggests that the inter-molecular C-H⋯π inter-actions form a strong dimer in the major component. Hirshfeld analysis reveals that H⋯C, H⋯H, H⋯Cl and H⋯N contacts are the most important contributors to the crystal packing.

Active motif finder - a bio-tool based on mutational structures in DNA sequences.

Active Motif Finder (AMF) is a novel algorithmic tool, designed based on mutations in DNA sequences. Tools available at present for finding motifs are based on matching a given motif in the query sequence. AMF describes a new algorithm that identifies the occurrences of patterns which possess all kinds of mutations like insertion, deletion and mismatch. The algorithm is mainly based on the Alignment Score Matrix (ASM) computation by comparing input motif with full length sequence. Much of the effort in bioinformatics is directed to identify these motifs in the sequences of newly discovered genes. The proposed bio-tool serves as an open resource for analysis and useful for studying polymorphisms in DNA sequences. AMF can be searched via a user-friendly interface. This tool is intended to serve the scientific community working in the areas of chemical and structural biology, and is freely available to all users, at http://www.sastra.edu/scbt/amf/.