Conformational preferences of monohydrated clusters of imidazole derivatives revisited

IR-UV double resonance spectroscopy was used to identify the conformers of monohydrated benzimidazole andN-methylbenzimidazole in a supersonic jet. A new OH–N bound conformer relevant to histidine containing proteins was discovered. The long standing differences in the literature about the relative energies and abundance of the monohydrated imidazole derivatives have also been resolved.