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Vibrational Circular Dichroism Unravels Supramolecular Chirality and Hydration Polymorphism of Nucleoside Crystals

Publication at Third Faculty of Medicine |
2022

Abstract

Vibrational circular dichroism (VCD) spectroscopy has been widely used to study (bio)molecules in solution. However, its solid-state applications have been restricted due to experimental limitations and artifacts.

Having overcome some of them, the first VCD study of nucleoside crystals is now presented. A two-orders-of-magnitude enhancement of VCD signal was observed due to high molecular order in the crystals and resulting supramolecular chirality.

This allowed to obtain high-quality VCD spectra within minutes using minute amounts of samples. The VCD technique is extremely sensitive in detecting changes in a crystal order and is able to distinguish different hydration states of crystals.

This elevates it to a new level, as a fast and efficient tool to study chiral crystalline samples. This study demonstrates that VCD is capable of near-instantaneous detection of hydration polymorphs and crystal degradation, which is of substantial interest in pharmaceutical industry (quality and stability control).