Vibrational analysis of cinchona alkaloids in the solid state and aqueous solutions

Cinchona alkaloids are well-known antimalarial compounds also used in asymmetric synthesis in organic chemistry. In this work, vibrational spectra of quinine, quinidine, cinchonine, and cinchonidine were acquired and interpreted on the basis of theoretical calculations. Normal Raman spectra of the alkaloids in solution exhibit similar patterns and cannot be used for differentiation between the derivatives (e.g. quinine and cinchonidine) and corresponding pseudoenantiomers (e.g. quinine and quinidine). Thus, Raman Optical Activity (ROA) method was applied to show distinct differences related to the configuration of chiral atoms. ROA allowed unequivocal identification of the pseudoenantiomers based on the sign of the characteristic bands from a single measurement. The experiments were supported by the theoretical approach including conformational study followed by wavenumber calculations and Potential Energy Distribution (PED) analysis. For quinine, vibrational spectroscopy was additionally used to show its structural changes in aqueous solutions at various pH and its distribution in a pharmaceutical product. Spatial distribution of quinine in a drug was observed by the FT-Raman mapping technique. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Additional supporting information may be found in the online version of this article at the publisher’s web site.