Amino groups in nucleic acid bases, aniline, aminopyridines, and aminotriazine are nonplanar: Results of correlated ab initio quantum chemical calculations and anharmonic analysis of the aniline inversion motion

Abstract

The amino group nonplanarity in nucleic acid bases, aniline, aminopyridines, and aminotriazine was investigated by ab initio methods with and without inclusion of correlation energy utilizing medium and extended basis sets. For all the systems studied, the amino group was found to be nonplanar and the coupled cluster method [CCSD(T)] ‘‘nonplanarities’’ and inversion barriers slightly higher than their second-order many-body perturbation-theory (MP2) counterparts. To assess the reliability of the calculations, inversion splittings for aniline and aniline-ND2 were evaluated by solving a two-dimensional vibrational Schrödinger equation for the large-amplitude inversion and torsion motions, while respecting the role of small-amplitude C–N stretching and H–N–H bending motions. Because a large number of points is required for the description of the aniline potential energy surface, the Hartree–Fock (HF) method with 6-31G* basis set was utilized. The vibrational calculations were performed within the framework of the semirigid bender Hamiltonian of Landsberg and Bunker. Excellent agreement between experimental and theoretical inversion-torsion frequencies for fundamental, overtone, and combination modes was found, which gives strong evidence for the adequacy of the theoretical model used in general, and potential energy surface in particular. Similarity between the HF, MP2, and CCSD(T) aniline inversion barriers and amino group nonplanarities gives us confidence that the MP2 and CCSD(T) inversion barriers and amino group nonplanarities of the DNA bases, aminopyridine, and aminotriazine, are close to the actual values which are still experimentally unknown.