Atomic Structures of Riboflavin (Vitamin B2) and its Reduced Form with Bond Lengths Based on Additivity of Atomic Radii

TL;DR

This paper determines the atomic structures of riboflavin and its reduced form using the additivity of atomic radii, extending previous findings on bond lengths in various molecules.

Contribution

It applies the additivity of atomic radii to elucidate the atomic structures of riboflavin and its reduced form, a novel approach for these biological molecules.

Findings

Bond lengths in riboflavin and its reduced form match sums of atomic radii.

Atomic structures are consistent with additivity principles used in other molecules.

Supports the universality of atomic radii additivity in biological compounds.

Abstract

It has been shown recently that chemical bond lengths, in general, like those in the components of nucleic acids, caffeine related compounds, all essential amino acids, methane, benzene, graphene and fullerene are sums of the radii of adjacent atoms constituting the bond. Earlier, the crystal ionic distances in all alkali halides and lengths of many partially ionic bonds were also accounted for by the additivity of ionic as well as covalent radii. Here, the atomic structures of riboflavin and its reduced form are presented based on the additivity of the same set of atomic radii as for other biological molecules.