Adenine Tautomers Research Articles

Chemical models of adenine precursors cyanamide and carbodiimide in the interstellar medium

ABSTRACT Cyanamide (NH2CN) and its isomer, carbodiimide (HNCNH), may form adenine in the interstellar medium (ISM) via a series of reactions. Therefore, they are considered key prebiotic molecules in the study of the origin of life. We used the three-phase NAUTILUS chemical code, which includes the gas, the dust surface, and the icy mantle, to investigate the formation and destruction of cyanamide and carbodiimide. We added over 200 new chemical reactions of the two isomers and related species and established a relatively complete network. We applied cold core, hot corino/core, and shock models to simulate the different physical environments, and found that the two isomers are mainly produced by the free radical reactions on grain surfaces. Our simulated results suggest that cyanamide and carbodiimide molecules come from surface chemistry at early evolutionary stages. Then they are released back to the gas phase, either by thermal process (in hot cores, hot corinos) or by shock-induced desorption (in shock regions). We speculate that it is an inefficient route to form a tautomer of adenine by starting from molecules cyanoacetylene (C3NH), cyanamide, and carbodiimide in ISM.

Rationalizing the Unexpected Sensitivity in Excited State Lifetimes of Adenine to Tautomerization by Nonadiabatic Molecular Dynamics.

The remarkable photostability of canonical nucleobases makes them ideal building blocks for DNA and RNA. Even minor structural changes are expected to lead to drastic alteration of their subpicosecond excited state lifetimes. However, it is interesting to note that while the 9H- and 7H-amino tautomers of adenine possess drastically different lifetimes, 9H- and 7H-keto guanine possess similar excited state lifetimes. With an aim to explain this unexpected difference in sensitivity of lifetimes to tautomerization, we have investigated the excited state relaxation mechanism of UV-excited adenine and guanine tautomers using surface hopping based nonadiabatic molecular dynamics. We find that internal conversion in both guanine tautomers is almost barrierless while both adenine tautomers encounter significant barriers before they can deactivate. Moreover, the major deactivation channel (C2-puckering) in 9H-amino adenine is overall more efficient than the one (C6-puckering) in the 7H-amino form. We trace this difference to the frequent rotation of the amino group which disrupts its conjugation with the heterocyclic ring thereby reducing the strength of nonadiabatic coupling and, hence, delaying internal conversion.

Effect of the Solvent and Substituent on Tautomeric Preferences of Amine-Adenine Tautomers.

Adenine is one of the basic molecules of life; it is also an important building block in the synthesis of new pharmaceuticals, electrochemical (bio)sensors, or self-assembling molecular materials. Therefore, it is important to know the effects of the solvent and substituent on the electronic structure of adenine tautomers and their stability. The four most stable adenine amino tautomers (9H, 7H, 3H, and 1H), modified by substitution (C2– or C8−) of electron-withdrawing NO2 and electron-donating NH2 groups, are studied theoretically in the gas phase and in solvents of different polarities (1 ≤ ε < 109). Solvents have been modeled using the polarizable continuum model. Comparison of the stability of substituted adenine tautomers in various solvents shows that substitution can change tautomeric preferences with respect to the unsubstituted adenine. Moreover, C8 substitution results in slight energy differences between tautomers in polar solvents (<1 kcal/mol), which suggests that in aqueous solution, C8–X-substituted adenine systems may consist of a considerable amount of two tautomers—9H and 7H for X = NH2 and 3H and 9H for X = NO2. Furthermore, solvation enhances the effect of the nitro group; however, the enhancement strongly depends on the proximity effects. This enhancement for the NO2 group with two repulsive N···ON contacts can be threefold higher than that for the NO2 with one attractive NH···ON contact. The proximity effects are even more significant for the NH2 group, as the solvation may increase or decrease its electron-donating ability, depending on the type of proximity.

Investigation of stability of adenine and its tautomers in RNA and DNA, and their interaction with Na+, K+, Mg2+, Ca2+ and Zn2+

Tautomeric reactions of adenine base (A1 → An, n = 2–16) were investigated in the gas and aqueous phases which some cases were reported for the first time. All 25 tautomers and 33 transition states were obtained on their ground state potential energy surface, while four types such as N–H→N, N–H→C, C–H→N and C–H→C were hydrogen abstractions. Also, the interactions of important cations such Na+, K+, Mg2+, Ca2+ and Zn2+ with adenine tautomers were studied in the gas and aqueous phases. There were three types of interactions between (N1 and N10), (N7 and N10), and (N3 and N9) of tautomers and cations. The interaction energy of all complexes demonstrated the stability of complexes so that interaction tautomers with Mg2+ and Zn2+ were stronger than others. In addition, the tautomers stability and their complexes were compared with each other in gas and aqueous phases.

Impact of the Substituents on the Electronic Structure of the Four Most Stable Tautomers of Purine and Their Adenine Analogues.

Substituent effects at the C2-, C8-, and N-positions of adenine and purine on the structural and π-electronic changes in their four tautomers were studied using the B97D3/aug-cc-pvdz computational level. The effect of various substituents (NO2, CN, CHO, Cl, F, H, Me, OMe, OH, and NH2) was characterized by the charge of the substituent active region (cSAR) approach and Hammett substituent constants σ. It has been found that for both adenine and purine derivatives, substituents from the C8–X position have a stronger influence on their electronic structure than from the C2–X and N–X positions. The presence of the amino group in adenine enhances the substituent effect compared to that which occurs in purine. In addition, its electronic structure is more sensitive to the effect of the substituent in 3H and 1H than in the 9H and 7H adenine tautomers. For a given substituent, a large variation in cSAR(X) values is observed, strongly dependent on the substitution position. For 7H and 9H adenine tautomers for C8–X systems, substituents reduce the aromaticity of the five-membered rings but increase the aromaticity of the six-membered rings.

Aromaticity of the most stable adenine and purine tautomers in terms of Hückel's 4N+2 principle

Electron structures of the fused rings in 7H and 9H tautomers of purine and adenine follow the 4N + 2 rule; the values of pEDA, HOMA, NICS and FLU indices document their aromatic character. In the 1H and 3H tautomers, these rings contain five or seven π electrons, hence they do not follow this rule and consequently exhibit lower aromaticity. This also applies to the aromaticity of whole molecules.

Substituent effects on the stability of the four most stable tautomers of adenine and purine.

Substituent effects at the C2-, C8- and N-positions of adenine and purine in their four the most stable tautomers are studied by means of B97D3/aug-cc-pvdz computation applying substituents of varying electronic properties: NO2, CN, CHO, Cl, F, H, Me, OMe, OH and NH2. The substituent effect is characterized by the substituent effect stabilization energy (SESE) and substituent Hammett constant σ. For adenine, SESE is obtained with purine as the reference system. Additionally, for both adenine and purine, SESE characteristics are estimated with benzene, imidazole and amino-pyrimidine as reference systems, when possible, taking into account substitution in topologically equivalent positions. The role of a C6–NH2 group in adenine in modifying the substitution effect is observed and discussed. Additionally, the proximity effect for some asymmetric substituents (e.g. CHO, OMe) is recognized and meticulously analyzed.

DFT study of adenine–cytosine mismatch in quaternary systems involving DNA bases

In the present work, the adenine–cytosine mismatch is theoretically investigated in quaternary systems involving DNA bases. The calculations, in gas phase, are performed at M06-2X/6-311++G(d,p) level. The results indicate that the quaternary systems involving G–C base pair are more stable than those containing A–T. Moreover, in the presence of A–T or G–C base pairs, the absolute values of formation energy in quaternary systems involving imino tautomer of adenine (A*) are higher than those including imino form of cytosine (C*). A comparison between systems having A* indicates that the absolute value of formation energy in quaternary systems increases when A* stacks with pyrimidine bases (C or T). In the case of systems containing C*, this behavior is observed when C* stacks with purine bases (G or A). Similar to binary systems, the quaternary systems involving A*–C thermodynamically prefer to transform their geometries into systems containing A–C*. The base pairs are stabilized by hydrogen bonds. The strength of hydrogen bonds in binary and quaternary systems is also examined using atoms in molecules (AIM) and natural bond orbital (NBO) analyses.

Dynamics of dipole- and valence bound anions in iodide-adenine binary complexes: A time-resolved photoelectron imaging and quantum mechanical investigation.

Dipole bound (DB) and valence bound (VB) anions of binary iodide-adenine complexes have been studied using one-color and time-resolved photoelectron imaging at excitation energies near the vertical detachment energy. The experiments are complemented by quantum chemical calculations. One-color spectra show evidence for two adenine tautomers, the canonical, biologically relevant A9 tautomer and the A3 tautomer. In the UV-pump/IR-probe time-resolved experiments, transient adenine anions can be formed by electron transfer from the iodide. These experiments show signals from both DB and VB states of adenine anions formed on femto- and picosecond time scales, respectively. Analysis of the spectra and comparison with calculations suggest that while both the A9 and A3 tautomers contribute to the DB signal, only the DB state of the A3 tautomer undergoes a transition to the VB anion. The VB anion of A9 is higher in energy than both the DB anion and the neutral, and the VB anion is therefore not accessible through the DB state. Experimental evidence of the metastable A9 VB anion is instead observed as a shape resonance in the one-color photoelectron spectra, as a result of UV absorption by A9 and subsequent electron transfer from iodide into the empty π-orbital. In contrast, the iodide-A3 complex constitutes an excellent example of how DB states can act as doorway state for VB anion formation when the VB state is energetically available.

Possible use of BN-modified fullerene as a nano-biosensor to detect adenine–thymine Watson–Crick base pair in mutagenic tautomeric form: Theoretical approach

The present work deals with the theoretical investigation of electronic structure features and stability of adenine–thymine (AT) and rare tautomer of adenine–thymine (rAT) base pairs along with their complexes with Cu2+cation and their interactions with BN doped fullerene ( C58BN ). All the calculations have been performed with density functional theory using B3LYP functional. Electronic structures of the two base pairs are almost identical. Hence, it is rather difficult to distinguish between the two base pairs on the basis of their electronic properties. As per our theoretical calculations, we have observed that, BN modified fullerene could act as a nano-biosensor for detection of mispairing between these two complementary bases as well as their Cu2+complexes.

Silver- and gold-mediated nucleobase bonding.

We report the results of a density functional theory investigation of the bonding of nucleobases mediated by silver and gold atoms in the gas phase. Our calculations use the Becke exchange and Perdew-Wang correlation functional (BPW91) combined with the Stuttgart effective core potentials to represent the valence electrons of gold, silver, and platinum, and the all-electron DGTZVP basis set for C, H, N, and O. This combination was chosen based on tests on the metal atoms and tautomers of adenine, cytosine, and guanine. To establish a benchmark to understand the metal-mediated bonding, we calculated the binding energy of each of the base pairs in their canonical forms. Our calculations show rather strong bonds between the Watson-Crick base pairs when compared with typical values for N-H-N and N-H-O hydrogen bonds. The neutral metal atoms tend to bond near the nitrogen atoms. The effect of the metal atoms on the bonding of nucleobases differs depending on whether or not the metal atoms bond to one of the hydrogen-bonding sites. When the silver or gold atoms bond to a non-hydrogen-bonding site, the effect is a slight enhancement of the cytosine-guanine bonding, but there is almost no effect on the adenine-thymine pairing. The metal atoms can block one of the hydrogen-bonding sites, thus preventing the normal cytosine-guanine and adenine-thymine pairings. We also find that both silver and gold can bond to consecutive guanines in a similar fashion to platinum, albeit with a significantly lower binding energy.

Adenine formation without HCN.

From a historic point of view adenine was always presumed to be the product of HCN pentamerization. In this work a new mechanism for adenine synthesis in the gas phase without HCN is proposed. The concept of retrosynthetic analysis was employed to create a tautomer of adenine, which can be reached from previously observed interstellar molecules C3NH and HNCNH and its isomer H2NCN. MP2/6-311++G(2d,2p) calculations were performed to calculate the Gibbs free energy of the minimum and the transition state (TS) structures involved in the six step mechanism. This new mechanism requires a smaller number of steps, the reaction energy is twice as exergonic, and the rate determining TS is lower in energy than the corresponding ones proposed elsewhere in the literature.

Effect of H-bonding and complexation with metal ions on the π-electron structure of adenine tautomers

Influence of H-bonding and interactions with metals via complexation (probed by HF, F(-), Li(+) and Na(+)) on structural and π-electronic changes in four of the most stable amino adenine tautomers has been studied in the gas phase using the B3LYP/6-311++G(2d,2p) computational level. It has been found that the presence of the amino group in adenine increases its energetic sensitivity to structural changes caused by tautomeric effects as compared to its analogue deprived of this group (purine). Furthermore, its shape depends not only on tautomerism but also on intermolecular interactions. The observed variability of its pyramidalizations caused by H-bonding indicates the dramatic changes of electron donating/accepting properties of -NH2 as a substituent, which results in a variation of aromaticity of particular rings in adenine tautomers. Bifurcated coordination of metal cations by two nitrogen atoms of adenine is also an important factor influencing aromaticity. The overall range of H-bond strengths is between -4.64 and -26.39 kcal mol(-1), whereas energies for Li(+) and Na(+) complexes are in the ranges -41.45 to -67.50 and -25.04 to -51.39 kcal mol(-1), respectively. However, the highest aromaticity changes, expressed by the HOMA index, have been found to be about 24% of the HOMA scale for all types of complexes depending on the location of the intermolecular interaction.

Theoretical study on the static and dynamic first-order hyperpolarisabilities of adenine tautomers

Static and dynamic electronic and vibrational first-order hyperpolarisabilities (β) of the lowest energy neutral adenine tautomers (amine forms A7 and A9) were obtained in gaseous and aqueous phases by using Hartree–Fock, Møller–Plesset second-order and fourth-order perturbation theory (MP2 and MP4-SDQ) and conventional and long-range corrected density functional theory methods with the Dunning's correlation-consistent cc-pVDZ, aug-cc-pVDZ, aug-cc-pVTZ and d-aug-cc-pVDZ basis sets. Frequency-dependent properties were calculated at the characteristic wavelength of the Nd:YAG laser (1064 nm) for the second harmonic generation and electro-optical Pockels effect nonlinear optical processes. Solvent effects were introduced under the polarised continuum model approximation. The electronic βe values of the investigated isomers are noticeably affected by the theoretical level, basis set and solvation. In vacuum, the static and dynamic βe values of A9 are greater than the corresponding data of A7, whereas the contribution of the solvent significantly enhances the hyperpolarisabilities of the A7 tautomer, resulting in βe(A9)/βe(A7) ratios between 0.5 and 0.6. The vibrational hyperpolarisabilities of the adenine tautomers are quite close to each other.

Theoretical study of the pre- and post-translational effects of adenine and thymine tautomers and methyl derivatives

The study of pre-translational effects (ionization, tautomerization) and post-translational effects (methylation) of adenine and thymine has only recently been the focus of some studies. These effects can potentially help regulate gene expression as well as potentially disrupt normal gene function. Because of this wide array of roles, greater insight into these effects in deoxyribonucleic acids (DNA) are paramount. There has been considerable research of each phenomenon (tautomerization, methylation and ionization) individually. In this work, we attempt to shed light upon the pre-translational effects and post translational effects of adenine and thymine by investigating the electron affinities (EAs) and ionization potentials (IPs) of the major and minor tautomers and their methyl derivatives. We performed all calculations using the density functional theory (DFT) B3LYP functional accompanied with 6-311G(d,p), 6-311+G(d,p) and 6-311++G(df,pd) basis sets. Our results reveal that the thymine tautomer has a higher EA and IP than the adenine tautomers. The higher EA suggests that an electron that attaches to the AT base pair would predominately attach to the thymine instead of adenine. The higher IP would suggest that an electron that is removed from the AT base pair would be predominately removed from the adenine within the base pair. Understanding how tautomerization, ionization and methylation differences change effects, discourages, or promotes one another is lacking. In this work, we begin the steps of integrating these effects with one another, to gain a greater understanding of molecular changes in DNA bases.

DPT tautomerization of the long A∙A* Watson-Crick base pair formed by the amino and imino tautomers of adenine: combined QM and QTAIM investigation

Combining quantum-mechanical (QM) calculations with quantum theory of atoms in molecules (QTAIM) and using the methodology of sweeps of the energetic, electron-topological, geometric and polar parameters, which describe the course of the tautomerization along the intrinsic reaction coordinate (IRC), we showed for the first time that the biologically important A∙A base pair (Cs symmetry) formed by the amino and imino tautomers of adenine (A) tautomerizes via asynchronous concerted double proton transfer (DPT) through a transition state (TS), which is the A(+)∙A(-) zwitterion with the separated charge, with Cs symmetry. The nine key points, which can be considered as electron-topological "fingerprints" of the asynchronous concerted A∙A ↔A ∙A tautomerization process via the DPT, were detected and completely investigated along the IRC of the A∙A*↔A*∙A tautomerization. Based on the sweeps of the H-bond energies, it was found that intermolecular antiparallel N6Н⋯N6 (7.01 kcal mol(-1)) and N1H⋯N1 (6.88 kcal mol(-1)) H-bonds are significantly cooperative and mutually reinforce each other. It was shown for the first time that the A∙A ↔A ∙A tautomerization is assisted by the third C2H⋯HC2 dihydrogen bond (DHB), which, in contrast to the two others N6H⋯N6 and N1H⋯N1 H-bonds, exists within the IRC range from -2.92 to 2.92 Å. The DHB cooperatively strengthens, reaching its maximum energy 0.42 kcal mol(-1) at IRC = -0.52 Å and minimum energy 0.25 kcal mol(-1) at IRC = -2.92 Å, and is accompanied by strengthening of the two other aforementioned classical H-bonds. We established that the C2H⋯HC2 DHB completely satisfies the electron-topological criteria for H-bonding, in particular Bader's and all eight "two-molecule" Koch and Popelier's criteria. The positive value of the Grunenberg's compliance constant (5.203 Å/mdyn) at the TSA∙A ↔A ∙A proves that the C2H⋯HC2 DHB is a stabilizing interaction. NBO analysis predicts transfer of charge from σ(C2-H) bonding orbital to σ (H-C2) anti-bonding orbital; at this point, the stabilization energy E((2)) is equal to 0.19 kcal mol(-1) at the TSA∙A ↔A ∙A.

Quantum-Chemical Studies on the Favored and Rare Tautomers of Neutral and Redox Adenine

All possible twenty-three prototropic tautomers of neutral and redox adenine (nine amine and fourteen imine forms, including geometric isomerism of the exo ═NH group) were examined in vacuo {DFT(B3LYP)/6-311+G(d,p)}. The NH → NH conversions as well as those usually omitted, NH → CH and CH → CH, were considered. An interesting change of the tautomeric preference occurs when proceeding from neutral to reduced adenine. One-electron reduction favors the nonaromatic amine C8H-N10H tautomer. This tautomeric preference is similar to that (C2H) for reduced imidazole. Water molecules (PCM model) seem to not change this trend. They influence solely the relative energies. The DFT vertical detachment energy in the gas phase is positive for each tautomer, e.g., 0.03 eV for N9H-N10H and 1.84 eV for C8H-N10H. The DFT adiabatic electron affinity for the favored process, neutral N9H-N10H → reduced C8H-N10H (ground states), is equal to 0.18 eV at 0 K (ZPE included). One-electron oxidation does not change the tautomeric preference in the gas phase. The aromatic amine N9H-N10H tautomer is favored for the oxidized molecule similarly as for the neutral one. The DFT adiabatic ionization potential for the favored process, neutral N9H-N10H → oxidized N9H-N10H (ground states), is equal to 8.12 eV at 0 K (ZPE included). Water molecules (PCM model) seem to influence solely the composition of the tautomeric mixture and the relative energies. They change the energies of the oxidation and reduction processes by ca. 2 eV.

Quantum-chemical study on adenine nitrosonium complexes

Adenine complexes with nitrosonium ion have been studied by the RI-MP2/L1 quantum-chemical method. Addition of nitrosonium ion to adenine tautomers produces a set of nitrosonium complexes of different types (1η–3η). n-Complexes involving NO+ coordination to nitrogen atoms are more energetically favorable than π-complexes. The global minimum on the potential energy surface is occupied by the complex of 7H-adenine tautomer with nitrosonium ion coordinated at the N3 atom.

A Theoretical Study of NBO, NICS, and 14N NQR Parameters of Adenine Tautomers in the Gas Phase via DFT

The natural bond orbital (NBO) analysis, nucleus independent chemical shift (NICS), and 14N NQR parameters of the most stable tautomers of adenine in the gas phase were predicted using density functional theory method. The NBO analysis revealed that the resonance interaction between lone pair of the nitrogen atom and empty non‐Lewis NBO increases with increasing the p character of the nitrogen lone pair. The present investigation indicated the π clouds in both the considered heterocyclic rings containing six electrons, and these tautomers has the aromatic character. The NICS study utilizing the gauge‐invariant atomic orbital method showed that there are diatropic currents in the heterocyclic rings of the tautomers, so we determined the order of overall aromaticity of these tautomers. The results of NQR parameter calculations showed three parameters are effective on nuclear quadrupole coupling constant; the p character value of lone pair electrons of nitrogens, and the related occupancies and whenever, the lone pair electrons of nitrogens participate in the formation of chemical bond and/or π system of the ring, the qzz and consequently its χ decreases.

Quantum-mechanical calculations of the intensity distribution in spectra of adenine tautomers: II. Two-photon absorption spectra

We have performed quantum-mechanical calculations of the two-photon absorption spectra of three tautomeric forms of adenine in the gas phase and of four forms in the aqueous solution. Based on a comparison of the results of these calculations with experimental data, the occurrence of three structures, Ade-N9,N1H+, Ade-N9H (am), and Ade-N7H(am), in aqueous solution of adenine has been confirmed.