Structural and vibrational studies of equilenin, equilin and estrone steroids

Abstract

Three species associated with estrogens have been studied in this work, equilenin, equilin and estrone. Their molecular structures have been theoretically studied in gas phase with the hybrid B3LYP/6-31G method. NBO, AIM and frontier orbital calculations were computed for the three species at the same level of theory. Higher dipole moment and volume were observed for estrone while equilin presents higher volume than equilenin but lower dipole moment value. Probably, the unsaturated C=C in the B ring of equilin could explain those differences. The differences observed in the properties could be clearly explained by differences in the dihedral angles. The analyses of MK and Mulliken charges evidence the higher variations on the C atoms common to the B, C and D rings in the three species. The mapped MEP surfaces show that both A and B rings of equilenin are different from the other ones because they have aromatic naphthalene core, as was evidenced experimentally. The NBO studies support the higher stability of equilin, in relation to equilenin and estrone while the AIM analyses reveal the higher stability for estrone. The gap values suggest that equilenin is the most reactive species due to its higher global electrophilicity value, in agreement with the higher stability observed for this species while the higher global nucleophilicty values are observed for equilin and estrone. Here, the harmonic force fields, scaled force constants and the complete assignments of 108, 114 and 120 vibration modes for equilenin, equilin and estrone, respectively are reported for first time.