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Updated: Aug 28, 2025

Measuring Biomolecular DSC Profiles with Thermolabile Ligands to Rapidly Characterize Folding and Binding Interactions
Published on: November 21, 2017
A solvent-mediated conformational switch in sulfanilamide
Sergio Mato1, Raúl Aguado1, Santiago Mata1
1Grupo de Espectrocopía Molecular (GEM), Edificio Quifima, Laboratorios de Espectroscopia y Bioespectroscopia, Unidad Asociada CSIC, Parque Científico UVa, Universidad de Valladolid, 47011, Valladolid, Spain. iker.leon@uva.es.
Abstract:
Sulfanilamide, a widely used antibacterial drug, has been brought into the gas phase using laser ablation techniques, and its structure has been characterized in the isolated conditions of a supersonic expansion using Fourier transform microwave techniques. A single conformer stabilized by an N-H⋯OS intramolecular interaction in an equatorial disposition has been unequivocally characterized. To emulate the microsolvation process, we studied its hydrated cluster. The results show that a single water molecule alters the conformational preference and forces sulfanilamide to switch from its initial eclipsed configuration to a staggered disposition. The observed hydrated cluster adopts a structure in which water forms three hydrogen bonds with sulfanilamide stabilizing the molecule.
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