ROLE OF WATER MOLECULES IN THE CRYSTAL STRUCTURE OF ACYCLOVIR
Kinga Suwinska1, Bozenna Golankiewicz2 and Wojciech Zielenkiewicz1
1Institute of Physical Chemistry, Polish
Academy of Sciences, Warszawa, Poland
2Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Polish
Academy of Sciences, Poznan, Poland
The biologically important molecule of acyclovir shows conformational flexibility which is observed in the solid state as two symmetrically independent molecules with different conformation of the side chain. Additionally, one of these molecules exhibits disorder of the side chain and it turns out that three different conformations exist in the crystal.
Water molecules found in the crystal form (H2O)8
clusters which are located between acyclovir molecules. The
complex hydrogen bond network formed between water and acyclovir
molecules in the solid state may be related to the salvation of
the molecules in solution. Details of this supramolecular
assembly will be discussed.