The amino group in adenine: MP2 and CCSD(T) complete basis set limit calculations of the planarization barrier and DFT/B3LYP study of the anharmonic frequencies of adenine.
The amino group in adenine plays a key role in formation of hydrogen bonds in nucleic acids and in other molecular systems. Thus, the structure of this group is of fundamental importance in the molecular recognition phenomena. Ab initio MP2 and density functional B3LYP methods with various basis sets have been used to calculate the optimized structure and the infrared spectrum of adenine (the N9-H tautomer). Calculations at the MP2 level with larger basis sets tend to decrease the degree of pyramidalization of the C-NH2 group, whereas the B3LYP method consistently yields the planar or nearly planar structure of adenine. MP2 complete basis set (CBS) limit method with the aug-cc-pVTZ --> aug-cc-pVQZ (aTZ --> aQZ) extrapolation scheme has predicted very small planarization barrier of adenine, 0.015 kcal/mol, which is in very good agreement with the MP2-predicted planarization barrier of 0.020 kcal/mol, reported by S. Wang and H. F. Schaefer III, J. Chem. Phys. 2006, 124, 044303. Similar results were obtained in calculations by the coupled cluster CCSD(T) CBS method. Thus, it can be concluded that the amino group in adenine, in the gas phase, is very flexible with a small degree of nonplanarity. Extremely low planarization barrier implies that adenine requires very little energy to conform the structure of the amino group to formation of the complementary hydrogen bonds with other molecules. This fact is very important for base pairing in nucleic acids or other polymers containing adenine residues. The anharmonic frequencies of adenine have been calculated at the B3LYP/6-311++G(df,pd) level of theory. The theoretical results show excellent agreement with the available experimental data. The revised assignment of the infrared spectrum of adenine in Ar matrix has been made. The predicted anharmonic frequency of the NH2 inversion, 181 cm(-1), is supported by the experimental data. It is demonstrated that the vibrational frequencies and potential energy distribution (PED) obtained from the B3LYP calculations are more reliable than those obtained at the MP2 level.
Zierkiewicz
Wiktor
W
Faculty of Chemistry, Wrocław University of Technology, Wybrzeze Wyspianskiego 27, 50-370 Wrocław, Poland. wiktor.zierkiewicz@pwr.wroc.pl
Komorowski
Ludwik
L
Michalska
Danuta
D
Cerny
Jiri
J
Hobza
Pavel
P
D000225:Adenine / Q000737:chemistry*; D006860:Hydrogen Bonding; D013816:Thermodynamics
D000225:Adenine