Reducing Molecular Flexibility by Cyclization for Elucidation of Absolute Configuration by CD Calculations: Daurichromenic Acid

Circular dichroism (CD) calculations of flexible natural products have been difficult because of the large number of low-energy conformers and ambiguous Boltzmann distributions. In this article, through electronic (ECD) and vibrational (VCD) studies on a natural product, (+)-daurichromenic acid, we demonstrate that derivatization of a flexible molecule can dramatically reduce its flexibility. This work also shows the usefulness of derivatization for diminishing computational expenses required for optimization and CD calculations, and for increasing the reliability of the assignment of absolute configuration. Chirality 28:453-459, 2016.