Subtle hydrogen bond preference and dual Franck-Condon activity - the interesting pairing of 2-naphthol with anisole.

The hydrogen-bonded complexes between 2-naphthol (or ß-naphthol) and anisole are explored by detecting their IR absorption in the OH stretching range as well as their UV absorption by means of laser-induced fluorescence and resonance-enhanced two-photon UV ionisation. For the more stable cis and the metastable trans conformations of the OH group in 2-naphthol, hydrogen bonding to the oxygen atom of anisole is consistently detected in different supersonic jet expansions. Alternative hydrogen bonding to the aromatic ring of anisole remains elusive, although the majority of state-of-the-art hybrid DFT functionals with London dispersion correction and - less surprisingly - MP2 wavefunction theory predict it to be slightly more stable at zero-point level, unless three-body dispersion correction is added to the B3LYP-D3(BJ) approach. This changes at the CCSD(T) level, which forecasts an energy advantage of 1-3 kJ mol-1 for the classical hydrogen bond arrangement even after including (DFT) zero-point energy contributions. The UV and IR spectra of the cis complex exhibit clear evidence for intensity redistribution of the primary OH stretch oscillator to combination states with the same low-frequency intermolecular bending mode by Franck-Condon-type vertical excitation mechanisms. This rare case of dual (vibronic and vibrational) Franck-Condon activity of a low-frequency mode invites future studies of homologues where aromatic ring docking of the OH group may be further stabilised, e.g. through anisole ring methylation.

Halogens in Acetophenones Direct the Hydrogen Bond Docking Preference of Phenol via Stacking Interactions.

Phenol is added to acetophenone (methyl phenyl ketone) and to six of its halogenated derivatives in a supersonic jet expansion to determine the hydrogen bonding preference of the cold and isolated 1:1 complexes by linear infrared spectroscopy. Halogenation is found to have a pronounced effect on the docking site in this intermolecular ketone balance experiment. The spectra unambiguously decide between competing variants of phenyl group stacking due to their differences in hydrogen bond strength. Structures where the phenyl group interaction strongly distorts the hydrogen bond are more difficult to quantify in the experiment. For unsubstituted acetophenone, phenol clearly prefers the methyl side despite a predicted sub-kJ/mol advantage that is nearly independent of zero-point vibrational energy, turning this complex into a challenging benchmark system for electronic structure methods, which include long range dispersion interactions in some way.

The reduced cohesion of homoconfigurational 1,2-diols.

By a combination of linear FTIR and Raman jet spectroscopy, racemic trans-1,2-cyclohexanediol is shown to form an energetically unrivalled S4-symmetric heterochiral dimer in close analogy to 1,2-ethanediol. Analogous experiments with enantiopure trans-1,2-cyclohexanediol reveal the spectral signature of at least three unsymmetric homochiral dimers. A comparison to signal-enhanced spectra of 1,2-ethanediol and to calculations uncovers at least three transiently homochiral dimer contributions as well. In few of these dimer structures, the intramolecular OHO contact present in monomeric 1,2-diols survives, despite the kinetic control in supersonic jet expansions. This provides further insights into the dimerisation mechanism of conformationally semi-flexible molecules in supersonic jets. Racemisation upon dimerisation is shown to be largely quenched under jet cooling conditions, whereas it should be strongly energy-driven at higher temperatures. The pronounced energetic preference for heterochiral aggregation of vicinal diols is also discussed in the context of chirality-induced spin selectivity.

Novel function assignment to a member of the essential HP1043 response regulator family of epsilon-proteobacteria.

HP1043 of Helicobacter pylori is an orphan response regulator (RR) with a highly degenerate receiver sequence incapable of phosphorylation, which is essential for cell viability. In contrast, the orthologous RR protein of Helicobacter pullorum, an enterohepatic Helicobacter species mainly isolated from poultry, harbours a consensus receiver sequence and is associated with a cognate histidine kinase (HK). Here, we show that this two-component system of H. pullorum, denoted HPMG439/HPMG440, is involved in the control of nitrogen metabolism by regulating the expression of glutamate dehydrogenase, an AmtB ammonium transporter and a PII protein. However, the role of the RR HPMG439 is not restricted to nitrogen regulation since, in contrast with the HK HPMG440, HPMG439 is essential for growth of H. pullorum under nutrient-rich conditions.