Vibrational infrared and Raman spectra of polypeptides: Fragments-in-fragments within molecular tailoring approach

The present work reports the calculation of vibrational infrared (IR) and Raman spectra of large molecular systems employing molecular tailoring approach (MTA). Further, it extends the grafting procedure for the accurate evaluation of IR and Raman spectra of large molecular systems, employing a new methodology termed as Fragments-in-Fragments (FIF), within MTA. Unlike the previous MTA-based studies, the accurate estimation of the requisite molecular properties is achieved without performing any full calculations (FC). The basic idea of the grafting procedure is implemented by invoking the nearly basis-set-independent nature of the MTA-based error vis-à-vis the respective FCs. FIF has been tested out for the estimation of the above molecular properties for three isomers, viz., β-strand, 310- and α-helix of acetyl(alanine)nNH2 (n = 10, 15) polypeptides, three conformers of doubly protonated gramicidin S decapeptide and trpzip2 protein (PDB id: 1LE1), respectively, employing BP86/TZVP, M06/6-311G**, and M05-2X/6-31G** levels of theory. For most of the cases, a maximum difference of 3 cm(-1) is achieved between the grafted-MTA frequencies and the corresponding FC values. Further, a comparison of the BP86/TZVP level IR and Raman spectra of α-helical (alanine)20 and its N-deuterated derivative shows an excellent agreement with the existing experimental spectra. In view of the requirement of only MTA-based calculations and the ability of FIF to work at any level of theory, the current methodology provides a cost-effective solution for obtaining accurate spectra of large molecular systems.