Experimental and theoretical specific optical rotations (OR) of anhydro, epithio, and epiminoderivatives of methyl tetrofuranosides in chloroform solutions have been compared and used as a tool for exploring their conformational behavior. The potential energy surfaces of these saccharides with reduced flexibility were examined with the density functional theory and the MP2 and CCSD(T) wavefunctions methods. Theoretical ORs were obtained by Boltzmann averaging of values calculated for local minima. Resultant rotations could be used to assess the quality of the DFT and MP2 relative conformer energies. OR values calculated for equilibrium geometries in vacuum were significantly improved when the solvent was accounted for by a polarizable continuum model and first and diagonal second OR derivatives were used for an anharmonic vibrational averaging. The DFT used as a default method reproduced the experimental data fairly well. A modified B3LYP functional containing 70% of HF exchange further improved the results. Because of the strong dependence of OR on the conformation, not only the absolute configuration could be determined, but also the conformational populations were estimated. Likewise, the predicted dependence of OR on the light wavelength well agreed with experiment. The increasing precision of the contemporary computational methods thus makes it possible to relate the specific rotation to more detailed features in molecular structure.

Indirect spin-spin NMR 1 H-1 H coupling constants of newly synthesized furanose monosaccharide derivatives were interpreted on the basis of ab initio modeling. Epoxy, epithio, and epimino groups were inserted into the sugars and significantly limited their conformational flexibility, which was confirmed by a systematic conformer analysis. Because of the restriction, the performance of the computations and the dependence of the coupling constants on the geometry could be estimated more easily. Conventional Karplus equations are not optimized for this class of compounds and cannot be used for reliable interpretation of the NMR spectra. Fully analytical B3LYP/IGLOII computations of the coupling constants were performed including all the four important magnetic terms (SD, DSO, PSO, FC) in the Hamiltonian. Good agreement of the calculated and the experimental coupling constants was achieved, and computed structural parameters are consistent with available X-ray data. The influence of the different functional groups on the spin-spin coupling constants was discussed.

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