Mass spectrometric and ab initio study of the interaction between 9-methylguanine and amino acid amide group

The temperature dependent field ionization mass spectrometry method combined with ab initio calculations was used to determine the interaction energies and the structures of 9-methylguanine-acrylamide dimers. Acrylamide mimics the side chain amide group of the natural amino acids asparagine and glutamine. The experimental enthalpy of the dimer formation derived from the van't Hoff plot is ?59.5 ± 3.8 kJ mol^?1. The value is higher than interaction energies between acrylamide and other nucleic acid bases which were determined to be ?57.0 for 1-methylcytosine, ?52.0 for 9-methyladenine, and ?40.6 kJ mol^?1 for 1-methyl-uracil. In total, eight hydrogen bonded dimers formed by the three lowest energy 9-methylguanine tautomers and acrylamide were found in the quantum chemical calculations performed at the DFT/B3LYP/6-31++G?? and MP2/6-31++G?? levels of theory. The relative stability and the interaction energies of the dimers were calculated accounting for the basis set superposition error and the zero-point vibrational energy correction. The lowest energy dimer found in the calculations is formed by acrylamide (Ac) with the keto tautomer of 9-methylguanine (Gk). It is stabilized by two intermolecular H bonds, C6=O(Gk) · · · H—N(Ac) and Nl—H(Gk) · · ·O(Ac), and it is more stable than the second lowest energy dimer by ≈ 25 kJ mol^?1. The calculated interaction energies of the lowest energy 9-methylguanine-acrylamide dimer are ?65.0 kJ mol^?1 and ?67.7 kJ mol^?1 at the MP2 and DFT levels of theory, respectively. The experimental enthalpy of the dimer formation is in good agreement with both the calculated interaction energies of the GkAc dimer and much higher than the interaction energies calculated for all other 9-methylguanine-acrylamide dimers. This proved that only one dimer was present in the experimental samples. To verify whether acrylamide is a good model of the amino acid-amide group, we performed direct calculations of the 9-methylguanine-glutamine dimers at the same levels of theory as used for the complexes involving acrylamide. The interaction energies found for the lowest energy 9-methylguanine-glutamine dimer are ?65.1 kJ mon^?1 (MP2/6-31++G??) and ?66.2 kJ mol^?1 (DFT/B3LYP/6-31++G??) and these values are very close (within 0.5 kJ mol^?1) to the interaction energies obtained for the 9-methylguanine-acrylamide dimers.     

Combined Raman scattering and ab initio investigation of the interaction between pyrene and carbon SWNT

Raman spectra of HiPco SWNT and SWNT-pyrene films were measured in the 160–1800 cm^?1 range. Due to the non-covalent interaction between SWNT and pyrene the most intensive component of the SWNT G mode (1590 cm^?1) is downshifted by 2 cm^?1 and becomes narrower. Also the intensity of the low-frequency component of the G mode (1550 cm^?1) decreases by about 30%. Structures and interaction energies in the complexes of pyrene and zigzag (n, 0) SWNTs [6 ≤ n ≤ 20] were determined at the MP2 level of theory. The BSSE-free geometry optimization of the pyrene-zigzag (12,0) SWNT complex converged to a structure with a 1/2staggered conformation and with an intermolecular distance of 3.5 Å. The BSSE-free interaction energy in the complex is ?30.8 kj mol^?1. Increasing of the nanotube diameter leads to a higher interaction energy. This energy becomes equal to ?37.2 kJ mol^?1 in the case of a planar carbon surface.     

Interaction of the uracil dipole-bound electron with noble gas atoms

Very diffuse, but localized, electrons trapped in dipole—bound states of polar polyatomic molecules may provide excellent targets for testing electron—molecule interactions. Ab initio calculations are used to investigate systems where a dipole—bound electron attached to a uracil molecule is interacting with noble gas atoms (He and Ne) and forming very weakly bound adducts. In these adducts, the noble gas atoms are separated from the uracil molecule by considerable distances, and the excess electron is suspended between the uracil molecule and the noble gas atom. Calculations are performed to determine the vertical electron detachment energies of these systems and to determine what happens when the excess electrons are removed from them.