Structure and torsional flexibility of the linkage between guanine and fluorene residues in the deoxyguanosine–aminofluorene and deoxyguanosine–acetylaminofluorene carcinogenic adducts

Potential energy surfaces for rotations around two central CN bonds in N-(deoxyguanosin-8-yl)-2-acetylaminofluorene (AAF–dG) and its deacetylated derivative (AF–dG) were studied using Amber 95 molecular mechanics. Both of these adducts are known to be strong mutagens and carcinogens. New Amber 95 force field parameters were derived for the linkage connecting guanine and fluorene moieties in AAF–dG and AF–dG. For this purpose, we determined ab initio MP2/cc-pVDZ//B3-LYP/6-31G* and polarized continuum model Hartree–Fock/6-31G* potential energy surfaces of smaller model systems that included the N-methylimidazole–acetylaniline and N-methylimidazole–aniline adducts. The molecular mechanics parameters were adjusted to minimize differences between the gas-phase ab initio and molecular mechanics surfaces of these model systems. The resulting parameters were transferred to AF–dG and AAF–dG. The barrier for the rotation of the fluorene residue in AF–dG was found to be less than 2 kcal/mol. Such a small barrier renders the fluorene moiety freely rotatable at room temperature. In contrast, the fluorene rotation in AAF–dG is hindered by a significantly larger barrier of 10 kcal/mol. This barrier corresponds to conformations in which the fluorene and acetyl groups lie in the same plane, and is largely due to steric repulsion. Similarly, the coplanar arrangement of guanine and the bridging amino or acetyl groups is disfavored by 5–10 kcal/mol, with AAF–dG again being the more rigid of the two molecules. Energy minima for a rotation around a bond between guanine and the bridging nitrogen are found at ±80° in AAF–dG, and at 120° and –90° for AF–dG. Overall, the fluorene–dG linkages in AF–dG and AAF–dG adducts have significantly different equilibrium structures and torsional flexibilities. These differences may be contributing factors for the observed disparity in mutagenic effects of these adducts.Electronic Supplementary Material: Supplementary material is available in the online version of this article at Acknowledgements. This work was supported by the NSF REU grant no. CHE-0243825 to Loyola University Chicago. We thank to Tom Ellenberger and Shuchismita Dutta for providing us with their results prior to publication.