A DFT study of a novel oxime anticancer trans platinum complex: Monofunctional and bifunctional binding to purine bases

The first and second substitution reactions binding of the anticancer drug trans‐[Pt((CH₃)₂C?NOH)((CH₃)₂CHNH₂)Cl₂] to purine bases were studied computationally using a combination of density functional theory and isoelectric focusing polarized continuum model approach. Our calculations demonstrate that the trans monoaqua and diaqua reactant complexes (RCs) can generate either trans‐ or cis‐monoadducts via identical or very similar trans trigonal‐bipyramidal transition‐state structures. Furthermore, these monoadducts can subsequently close by coordination to the adjacent purine bases to form 1,2‐intrastrand Pt‐DNA adducts and eventually distort DNA in the same way as cisplatin. Thus, it is likely that the transplatin analogues have the same mechanism of anticancer activity as cisplatin. For the first substitutions, the activation free energies of monoaqua complexes are always lower than that of diaqua complexes. The lowest activation energy for monoaqua substitutions is 16.2 kcal/mol for guanine and 16.5 kcal/mol for adenine, whereas the lowest activation energy for diaqua substitutions is 17.1 kcal/mol for guanine and 25.9 kcal/mol for adenine. For the second substitutions, the lowest activation energy from trans‐monoadduct to trans‐diadduct is 19.1 kcal/mol for GG adduct and 20.7 kcal/mol for GA adduct, whereas the lowest activation energy from cis‐monoadduct to cis‐diadduct is 18.9 kcal/mol for GG adduct and 18.5 kcal/mol for GA adduct. In addition, the first and second substitutions prefer guanine over adenine, which is explained by the remarkable larger complexation energy for the initial RC in combination with lower activation energy for the guanine substitution. Overall, the hydrogen‐bonds play an important role in stabilizing these species of the first and second substitutions. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Quantum Chem, 2011