Vibrational markers of structural distortion in adenine nucleobases upon DNA damage

Oxidation is one of the common causes of chemical damage of DNA. Among the oxidized nucleobases in DNA, 8-oxoadenine (8-oxoA) and 4,6-diamino-5-formamidoadenine (FaPyA) are two of the most commonly found lesions. Relatively little information has been published so far on these lesions compared to the more mutagenic modified purines like 8-oxoguanine. In this study, we investigate the structure and vibrational spectra of these two lesions using Density Functional Theory relative to the parent compound adenine. In addition, we have incorporated a solvent environment through the Polarizable Continuum Model (PCM), as well as explicit solvent model calculations to test for the best prediction of the vibrational wavenumbers of adenine. We find that, while the explicit solvent model predicts the structure of the lesions better with respect to published X-ray diffraction structures, they do not reproduce the vibrational wavenumbers as accurately. In comparison, PCM predicts the wavenumbers better with less of the typical overestimation seen in the absence of solvent effects. Intriguingly, uniform linear scaling of the 'gas phase' calculations provides the best agreement with published experimental spectra. Finally, we demonstrate that 8-oxoA and FaPyA have unique spectral features compared to adenine by characterizing the differences in their normal modes. We propose the use of their distinct spectra as site-specific Raman probes of systems such as base-specific local probing of a DNA strand and DNA-enzyme active site interactions where the substrate can be used as an in situ probe.