DETERMINATION OF ABSOLUTE-CONFIGURATIONS AND PREDOMINANT CONFORMATIONS OF GENERAL INHALATION ANESTHETICS - DESFLURANE

Although the mechanism of anesthetic action is not yet clearly underst ood, ft was recently shown that the pure enantiomers of chiral inhalat ion anesthetic agents interact differentially with the ion channels in the central nervous system. This differential interaction was suggest ed to arise from stereospecific binding of chiral enantiomers to prote ins. To understand and model the differential nature of binding of ena ntiomers it is necessary to determine their absolute configurations an d the number of predominant conformers. From studies on circular dichr oism in the vibrational transitions of desflurane (CF2HOCHFCF3), we fo und that (+)-desflurane has the (R)-configuration and (-)-desflurane h as the (S)-configuration. In addition, each enantiomer existed in two distinct conformations at room temperature.