title: Tautomeric selectivity of the excited-state lifetime of guanine/cytosine base pairs: the role of electron-driven proton-transfer processes.
abstract: The UV spectra of three different conformers of the guanine/cytosine base pair were recorded recently with UV-IR double-resonance techniques in a supersonic jet [Abo-Riziq, A., Grace, L., Nir, E., Kabelac, M., Hobza, P. & de Vries, M. S. (2005) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 102, 20-23]. The spectra provide evidence for a very efficient excited-state deactivation mechanism that is specific for the Watson-Crick structure and may be essential for the photostability of DNA. Here we report results of ab initio electronic-structure calculations for the excited electronic states of the three lowest-energy conformers of the guanine/cytosine base pair. The calculations reveal that electron-driven interbase proton-transfer processes play an important role in the photochemistry of these systems. The exceptionally short lifetime of the UV-absorbing states of the Watson-Crick conformer is tentatively explained by the existence of a barrierless reaction path that connects the spectroscopic (1)pi pi * excited state with the electronic ground state via two electronic curve crossings. For the non-Watson-Crick structures, the photochemically reactive state is located at higher energies, resulting in a barrier for proton transfer and, thus, a longer lifetime of the UV-absorbing (1)pi pi * state. The computational results support the conjecture that the photochemistry of hydrogen bonds plays a decisive role for the photostability of the molecular encoding of the genetic information in isolated DNA base pairs.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw.
authors.forename: Andrzej L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Sobolewski
authors.forename: Wolfgang
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Domcke
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Hättig
mesh_terms: D020029:Base Pairing; D003596:Cytosine / Q000737:chemistry*; D006147:Guanine / Q000737:chemistry*; D006860:Hydrogen Bonding; D008956:Models, Chemical; D010777:Photochemistry; D011522:Protons; D014466:Ultraviolet Rays
chemical_list: D011522:Protons; D006147:Guanine; D003596:Cytosine