Tautomerism in nucleic acid bases and base pairs: a brief overview

Abstract

AbstractThis article provides a brief overview of current status of studies on nucleic acid bases and base pairs tautomeric properties in the different environments. Applications of high‐level theoretical calculations have been found to be extremely useful in interpreting and enlightening complex experimental results. Actually, theory and experiments are complementary to each other and therefore it is not surprising that application of theoretical calculations were necessary to assign relatively higher energy tautomers of guanine in the gas phase. Inability to observe the stable tautomers in the laser‐desorbed guanine in the jet‐cooled beam demands more experiments and rigorous analysis. The usefulness of theoretical methods in the assignment of tautomeric forms of other bases and base pairs has also been discussed. Furthermore, we would like to state that recent surge in the high‐level computation of system such as nucleic acid bases and base pairs is only possible due to the advancement in state‐of‐the‐art computer hardware and computational algorithms. Afterward, it is not unexpected to assume that future investigations would utilize high‐level quantum chemistry calculation more rigorously in explaining complex experimental data as well as in revealing new phenomena not studied by experiments. WIREs Comput Mol Sci 2013, 3:637–649. doi: 10.1002/wcms.1145This article is categorized under: Structure and Mechanism > Molecular Structures Structure and Mechanism > Computational Biochemistry and Biophysics