Experimental studies of charge density distribution in the crystals of cytisine and N-methylcytisine. Inside the Fake Tobacco

Abstract

The high-resolution X-ray data for two bioactive molecules: cytisine (1) and its N-methyl derivative (2) have been collected up to sinθ/λ = 1.12 Å−1 for 1 and 1.0 Å−1 for 2. This data was used for modeling of the fine features of electron density distribution, including bonding density and electron lone pairs. The quality of the model was checked by, e.g., rigid bond test and RDA analysis. The topological analysis (gradient field analysis) has been also performed for both inter- and intramolecular interactions. In case of 1 a number of intermolecular interactions, from relatively strong N-HO hydrogen bonds to weak HH contacts was found, and their topological features were analyzed. For N-methyl derivative, only few intermolecular bonding contacts were found. The analyzed features show that besides the structural similarities of both alkaloids, the electron density distribution and consequently all its derivatives differ quite significantly in places.