Comprehensive study of the effects of methylation on tautomeric equilibria of nucleic acid bases

Role of graphene in scavenging methyl cations: a DFT study

CONTEXT

It is known that methylating agents methylate DNA by transferring a methyl cation (CH3+) to the nucleophilic sites in DNA bases and DNA methylation is implicated in cancer and other pathological conditions. Therefore, it is important to scavenge CH3+ ion in order to protect DNA from methylation. Graphene is considered to be a versatile material for use in a wide variety of fields including sensors, antioxidants, drug delivery and DNA sequencing. In this work, we have theoretically investigated the interaction of CH3+ ions with graphene surface with an aim to understand if pristine graphene can be used as a substrate to adsorb CH3+ cations generated from harmful methylating agents. The computed adsorption energies show that adsorption of one, two and three CH3+ ions on graphene is favourable as the adducts thus formed are found to be substantially stable in both gas phase and aqueous media. The Bader charge transfer analysis and density of states (DOS) calculation also indicate a strong interaction between graphene and CH3+ ions. Thus, our results show that pristine graphene can be used as a substrate to scavenge CH3+ ions.

METHODS

The spin polarised density functional theory (DFT) calculations employing PBE functional, ultrasoft pseudopotentials and plane wave basis set having kinetic energy cut-offs of 40 Ry and 400 Ry, respectively, for wave functions and charge densities were carried out to study the adsorption of CH3+ ion(s) on the pristine graphene surface. The Grimme's DFT-D2 method was used for the estimation of van der Waals interactions. The 'dipole correction' along z-direction was also applied for adsorption study. The Marzari-Vanderbilt smearing and Monkhorst-Pack k-point grid were employed for the Brillouin zone sampling. A 6 × 6 graphene supercell with a vertical cell dimension of 18 Å was considered for the adsorption study. The charge transfer between the CH3+ ion(s) and graphene was estimated using Bader charge analysis. The implicit solvation model (SCCS) was used to estimate the solvent effect of aqueous media. All the calculations were performed using QUANTUM ESPRESSO package.

Effect of N7-methylation on base pairing patterns of guanine: a DFT study

In this paper, we aim to determine whether the N7-methylation can influence the base pairing properties of guanine by promoting the formation of guanine enol-tautomers. The keto- to -enol-tautomerization of N7-methylguanine (N7mG) and its base pairing patterns with all the canonical DNA bases have been investigated at the M06-2X/6-311+G(d,p) level of density functional theory. The barrier free energy calculations reveal that N7-methylation does not promote the keto- to enol- tautomerization of guanine. The Watson-Crick-like enol-N7mG:T1 or enol-N7mG:T2 base pair similar to what is observed experimentally is found to be energetically more stable than the keto-N7mG:T base pairs. However, the keto-N7mG:C1 which is structurally similar to the canonical G:C base pair is the most stable base pair among all the base pairs studied here. Thus, our calculations predict that N7mG would pair preferably with cytosine during DNA replication but there is also a probability that it can cause mutation through mispairing with thymine, in agreement with experimental observations.

Combinations of Tautomeric Forms and Neutral-Cationic Forms in the Cocrystals of Sulfamethazine with Carboxylic Acids

The cocrystals of sulfamethazine with different acids, namely, 2-mercaptophenylcarboxylic acid, 2,6-pyridinedicarboxylic acid, 4-(4-hydroxyphenylazo)phenylcarboxylic acid, 3-(4-hydroxyphenyl)propanoic acid, and 4-(phenyl)phenylcarboxylic acid, are studied here. Each has distinct notable supramolecular features. The pyrimidin-2-amine unit of the sulfamethazine provided unique examples of cocrystals in which amidine and imidine forms or neutral and protonated forms of sulfamethazine are observed in 2:2 ratios. Hence, this study provides avenues to explore cocrystals with tautomeric forms together in a cocrystal and also neutral and protonated cocrystal partners as apparent multicomponents in cocrystals. Among the cocrystals, three of them have the amidine form of the sulfamethazine in respective self-assembly. The cocrystal of 2-mercapto-phenylcarboxylic acid with sulfamethazine has the amidine form and it has the distinction of having S-H···π interactions. The cocrystal of sulfamethazine with 2,6-pyridinecarboxylic acid is a rare example of a 1:1 cocrystal of sulfmethazine with dicarboxylic acid. It has methanol molecules as a solvent of crystallization. Sulfamethazine forms a hydrated cocrystal with 4-(4-hydroxyphenylazo)-phenylcarboxylic acid that has conventional R 2 2(8) synthons of amidine hydrogen-bonding with carboxylic acid. The phenolic part of the acid component is anchored to the water molecule and provides a robust self-assembly. The hydrated cocrystal of sulfamethazine with 3-(4-hydroxyphenyl)propanoic acid (2:2 cocrystal) has two independent molecules of sulfamethazine, one in amidine form and the other in imidine form. It has two neutral carboxylic acids anchored through complementary hydrogen bonds and also has two water molecules of crystallization. The cocrystal of sulfamethazine with 4-(phenyl)phenylcarboxylic acid is also a 2:2 cocrystal. It is a di-hydrate, which has a neutral and protonated form of sulfamethazine. The neutral form is hydrogen-bonded to a neutral carboxylic acid, whereas the protonated form is charge-assisted hydrogen-bonded to the corresponding carboxylate anion.

Thermochemistry of Guanine Tautomers Re-Examined by Means of High-Level CCSD(T) Composite Ab Initio Methods

We obtained accurate gas-phase tautomerization energies for a set of 14 guanine tautomers by means of high-level thermochemical procedures approximating the CCSD(T) energy at the complete basis set (CBS) limit. For the five low-lying tautomers, we use the computationally demanding W1-F12 composite method for obtaining the tautomerization energies. The relative W1-F12 tautomerization enthalpies at 298K are: 0.00 (1), 2.37 (2), 2.63 (3), 4.03 (3′), and 14.31 (4) kJmol−1. Thus, as many as four tautomers are found within a small energy window of less than 1.0kcalmol−1 (1kcalmol−1=4.184kJmol−1). We use these highly accurate W1-F12 tautomerization energies to evaluate the performance of a wide range of lower-level composite ab initio procedures. The Gn composite procedures (G4, G4(MP2), G4(MP2)-6X, G3, G3B3, G3(MP2), and G3(MP2)B3) predict that the enol tautomer (3) is more stable than the keto tautomer (2) by amounts ranging from 0.36 (G4) to 1.28 (G3(MP2)) kJmol−1. We also find that an approximated CCSD(T)/CBS energy calculated as HF/jul-cc-pV{D,T}Z+CCSD/jul-cc-pVTZ+(T)/jul-cc-pVDZ results in a root-mean-square deviation (RMSD) of merely 0.11kJmol−1 relative to the W1-F12 reference values. We use this approximated CCSD(T)/CBS method to obtain the tautomerization energies of 14 guanine tautomers. The relative tautomerization enthalpies at 298K are: 0.00 (1), 2.20 (2), 2.51 (3), 4.06 (3′), 14.30 (4), 25.65 (5), 43.78 (4′), 53.50 (6′), 61.58 (6), 77.37 (7), 82.52 (8′), 86.02 (9), 100.70 (10), and 121.01 (8) kJmol−1. Using these tautomerization enthalpies, we evaluate the performance of standard and composite methods for the entire set of 14 guanine tautomers. The best-performing procedures emerge as (RMSDs are given in parentheses): G4(MP2)-6X (0.51), CCSD(T)+ΔMP2/CBS (0.52), and G4(MP2) (0.64kJmol−1). The worst performers are CCSD(T)/AVDZ (1.05), CBS-QB3 (1.24), and CBS-APNO (1.38kJmol−1).

Theoretical study of the pre- and post-translational effects of adenine and thymine tautomers and methyl derivatives

The study of pre-translational effects (ionization, tautomerization) and post-translational effects (methylation) of adenine and thymine has only recently been the focus of some studies. These effects can potentially help regulate gene expression as well as potentially disrupt normal gene function. Because of this wide array of roles, greater insight into these effects in deoxyribonucleic acids (DNA) are paramount. There has been considerable research of each phenomenon (tautomerization, methylation and ionization) individually. In this work, we attempt to shed light upon the pre-translational effects and post translational effects of adenine and thymine by investigating the electron affinities (EAs) and ionization potentials (IPs) of the major and minor tautomers and their methyl derivatives. We performed all calculations using the density functional theory (DFT) B3LYP functional accompanied with 6-311G(d,p), 6-311+G(d,p) and 6-311++G(df,pd) basis sets. Our results reveal that the thymine tautomer has a higher EA and IP than the adenine tautomers. The higher EA suggests that an electron that attaches to the AT base pair would predominately attach to the thymine instead of adenine. The higher IP would suggest that an electron that is removed from the AT base pair would be predominately removed from the adenine within the base pair. Understanding how tautomerization, ionization and methylation differences change effects, discourages, or promotes one another is lacking. In this work, we begin the steps of integrating these effects with one another, to gain a greater understanding of molecular changes in DNA bases.

Microhydration of protonated nucleic acid bases and protonated nucleosides in the gas phase

Thermochemical data, DeltaH(o)(n), DeltaS(o)(n), and DeltaG(o)(n), for the hydration of protonated nucleic acid bases and protonated nucleosides have been experimentally studied by equilibrium measurements using an electrospray high-pressure mass spectrometer equipped with a pulsed ion-beam reaction chamber. For protonated nucleobases the hydration enthalpies were found to be similar for all studied systems and varied between 12.4-13.1 kcal/mol for the first and 11.2-11.5 kcal/mol for the second water molecule. While for protonated nucleosides the water binding enthalpies (11.7-13.3 kcal/mol) are very close to those for protonated nucleobases, the entropy values are "more negative." The structural and energetic aspects of hydrated ions are discussed in conjunction with the available theoretical data.