On the importance of intramolecular hydrogen bond cooperativity in d‐glucose – an NMR and QTAIM approach

The idea that hydrogen bond cooperativity is responsible for the structure and reactivity of carbohydrates is examined. Density functional theory and gauge‐including atomic orbital calculations on the known conformers of the α and β anomers of d ‐glucopyranose in the gas phase are used to compute proton NMR chemical shifts and interatomic distances, which are taken as criteria for probing intramolecular interactions. Atom–atom interaction energies are calculated by the interacting quantum atoms approach in the framework of the quantum theory of atoms in molecules. Association of OH1 in the counterclockwise conformers with a strong acceptor, pyridine, is accompanied by cooperative participation from OH2, but there is no significant change in the bonding of the two following 1,2‐diol motifs. The OH6 ^... O5 (G?g+/cc/t and G+g?/cc/t conformers) or OH6 ^... O4 (Tg+/cc/t conformer) distance is reduced, and the OH6 proton is slightly deshielded. In the latter case, this shortening and the associated increase in the OH6–O4 interaction energy may be interpreted as a small cooperative effect, but intermolecular interaction energies are practically the same for all three conformers. In most of the pyridine complexes, one ortho proton interacts with the endocyclic oxygen O5. Analogous results are obtained when the clockwise conformer, G?g+/cl/g?, detected for the α anomer, and a hypothetical conformer, Tt/cl/g?, are complexed with pyridine through OH6. Generally, the cooperative effect does not go beyond the first two OH groups of a chain. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.