Resonance Raman spectroscopy of non-planar nickel porphyrins

Non-planar conformational distortions have recently been implicated in the biological activity of porphyrins and related tetrapyrroles in proteins, and several studies have used highly substituted porphyrins to model these non-planar conformational distortions. Several aspects of non-planarity in the highly substituted metalloporphyrins are discussed, focusing on resonance Raman spectroscopy as a technique for investigating these structural issues. First, different non-planar distortions cause characteristic changes in the Raman spectrum. Specifically, the decreases in frequency of several Raman lines when compared with planar porphyrin analogs are shown to be similar for several classes of non-planar highly substituted porphyrins. Second, the effect of the central metal ion [ M = Ni(II), Co(II)