Conformation and tautomerism of the cimetidine molecule: a theoretical study

The cimetidine molecule conformation and tautomer stability was studied at the ab initio HF/6-31G** level and for single point energies at the MP2/6-31G** level. The most stable N3-H cimetidine tautomer was found to be more stable than the most stable N1-H tautomer by ca. 3.7 and 5.0 kcal/mol, at the HF/6-31G** and MP2/6-31G**//HF/6-31G** level, respectively. At the HF/6-31G** level, the most stable N3-H and 1-H forms are stabilized by the intramolecular N3′-H?N1 hydrogen bond and N1-H?N4′, respectively. However, when the correlation effects are included at the MP2/6-31G**//HF/6-31G** level, the most stable N3-H and N1-H tautomers appeared to be folded forms without hydrogen bonds.