Vibrational spectra of cysteine zwitterion and mechanism of its formation: Bulk and specific solvent effects and geometry optimization in aqueous media

Vibrational spectrum of the zwitterionic (Z)-forms of cysteine has been studied considering full geometry optimization under the bulk solvent effect of aqueous media combined with the solvent effect of up to three specific water molecules. The tautomerization barrier energy of the molecule from its normal (N) to the Z form has also been obtained. Geometry optimization was performed at the B3LYP/AUG-cc-pVDZ level which was followed by single point energy calculations at the MP2/AUG-cc-pVDZ level of theory in both gas phase and aqueous media. Transition states (TS) were located between the N and Z-forms of cysteine complexed with one to three water molecules and also without any complexed water molecule. The bulk solvent effect of aqueous media was treated using the integral equation formalism of the polarizable continuum model (IEF-PCM). It has been found that the barrier energy decreases with the increasing number of complexed water molecules significantly. Two conformers (A, B) of Z-cysteine are found to have comparable stabilities. It is shown that agreement between the experimentally observed and our calculated vibrational frequencies for Z-cysteine, at the present level of treatment, is improved significantly for 22 out of 27 frequencies. For these 22 frequencies, for the more stable conformer (A) of Z-cysteine, the rms value of differences between our calculated and experimentally observed frequencies reduces from 22 to 11 cm−1 in going from 0 to 3 complexed water molecules. Certain vibrational frequencies have been identified with the help of which the conformers A and B of Z cysteine can be identified.