Hydrogen bond assisted interaction of glutamine with chromium (III) complex of 8-hydroxyquinoline: Experimental and theoretical studies

Chromium (III) complex [Cr (hq)3;C2H5OH] of 8-hydroxyquinoline (hq) was prepared and its structure was resolved by X-ray diffraction analysis at low-temperature, showing that Cr3+ ion presents in distorted octahedral geometry, and it is consistent with the DFT optimized structure. It was observed that solvent ethanol is involved a hydrogen bond with 8-hydroxyquinoline anion. Furthermore, the molecular orbital contributions to spectral bands observed for the complex were determined by TD-DFT. The interaction of [Cr (hq)3;C2H5OH] with glutamine (Gln) or asparagine (Asn) shows that the complex binds effectively with glutamine through hydrogen bonding (H2N+-H⋅⋅⋅Oethanol) to form a possible stable adduct [Cr (hq)3;C2H5OH)Gln], yielding its binding constant 10,000 times greater (1.4315 M-1) than that for Asn (5.0 × 10−4 M−1). This is apparently due to the formation of stable secondary coordination sphere through the hydrogen bond between the metal complex with Gln. This observation is good agreement with the total molecular energy as well as with the molecular orbital study, i.e. in the DFT calculation, a lower total molecular energy (−8299,549.441 kcal/mmol) for [Cr (hq)3;C2H5OH) Gln] was obtained than that resulted for [Cr (hq)3;C2H5OH)Asn] (−8194,799.867 kcal/mmol), establishing ethanol effectively stabilizes the interaction between glutamine and the complex. Finally, antibacterial properties of [Cr (hq)3;C2H5OH] against Gram positive Bacillus cereus and Gram negative Escherichia coli was also studied, and compared its bacterial growths for its adducts of glutamine or of asparagine.