Abstract
Do the functional groups which are hydrogen-bond acceptors play an important role in determining the geometry of bonding patterns in biological molecules? Since the attractive force of the hydrogen bond is primarily electrostatic, the strong directionality associated with covalent bonding is not expected. If it is to be observed with respect to the acceptor atom, it will be only for those atoms where the electron distribution in the direction of the hydrogen bond is likely to be anisotropic. For this reason, the attention directed to this question has been focused on the oxygen atom [58, 60, 475, 476]. This is understandable, since it is the hydroxyl, ether, carboxylate, carbonyl, and water oxygen which are the predominant hydrogen-bond acceptors in biological systems [477].
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© 1994 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Jeffrey, G.A., Saenger, W. (1994). Hydrogen-Bond Acceptor Geometries. In: Hydrogen Bonding in Biological Structures. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-85135-3_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-85135-3_12
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-57903-8
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