Investigation on the molecular, electronic and spectroscopic properties of rosmarinic acid: an intuition from an experimental and computational perspective

Various drugs such as corticosteroids, salbutamol, and β2 agonist are available for the treatment of asthma an inflammatory disease and its symptoms, although the ingredient and the mode of action of these drugs are not clearly elucidated. Hence this research aimed at carrying out improved scientific research with respect to the use of natural product rosmarinic acid which poses minima, side effects. Herein, we first carried out extraction, isolation, and spectroscopic (FT-IR, ¹H-NMR and ¹³C-NMR) investigation, followed by molecular modeling analysis on the naturally occurring rosmarinic acid extracted from Rosmarinus officinalis. A detailed comparison of the experimental and theoretical vibrational analysis has been carried out using five DFT functionals: BHANDH, HSEH1PBE, M06-2X, MPW3PBE and THCTHHYB with the basis set 6-311++G (d, p) to investigate into the structural, reactivity, and stability of the isolated compound. Frontier molecular orbital analysis and appropriate quantum descriptors were calculated. Results showed that the compound was more stable at M06-2X and more reactive at HSEH1PBE with an energy gap of 6.43441 eV and 3.8047 eV, respectively, which was later affirmed by the global quantum reactivity parameters. From natural bond orbital analysis, π* (Formula presented.) π* is the major contributor to electron transition with the summation perturbation energy of 889.57 kcal/mol, while π (Formula presented.) π* had the perturbation energy totaling of 145.3 kcal/mol. Geometry analysis shows BHANDH to have lower bond length values and lesser deviation from 120^° in carbon–carbon angle. The potency of the title molecule as an asthma drug was tested via a molecular docking approach and the binding score of −8.2 kcal/mol was observed against −7.0 of salbutamol standard drug, suggesting romarinic acid as a potential natural organic treatment for asthma. Communicated by Ramaswamy H. Sarma.