Benzimidazole is an important heterocyclic fragment, present in many biologically active compounds with a great variety of therapeutic purposes. Most of the benzimidazole activities are explained through the existence of 1,3-tautomeric equilibrium. As the binding affinity of each tautomer to a protein target depends on an established bioactive conformation, the effect of tautomers on the ligand protein binding mechanism is determinant. In this work, we searched and analyzed a series of reported 13C-NMR spectra of benzazoles and benzazolidine-2-thiones with the purpose of estimating their tautomeric equilibrium. Herein, several approaches to determine this problem are presented, which makes it a good initial introduction to the non-expert reader. This chemical shift difference and C4/C7 signals of benzimidazolidine-2-thione and 1-methyl-2-thiomethylbenzimidazole as references were used in this work to quantitatively calculate, in solution, the pyrrole-pyridine tautomeric ratio in equilibrium. The analysis will help researchers to correctly assign the chemical shifts of benzimidazoles and to calculate their intracyclic or exocyclic tautomeric ratio as well as mesomeric proportion in benzimidazoles.
Keywords: 13C NMR; benzimidazoles; mesomery; pyridine nitrogen atom; pyrrole nitrogen atom; tautomeric equilibrium.