Ab initio Study of the Structural, Tautomeric, Pairing and Electronic Properties of Seleno-Derivatives of Thymine
- ORNL
- Universitat de Barcelona
- Institut de Recerca Biomedica, Parc Cientific de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
- INFM-CNR National Research Center S3
- University of Pennsylvania
The structural, tautomeric, hydrogen-bonding, stacking and electronic properties of a seleno-derivative of thymine (T), denoted here as 4SeT and created by replacing O4 in T with Se, are investigated by means of ab initio computational techniques. The structural properties of T and 4SeT are very similar and the geometrical differences are mainly limited to the adjacent environment of the C-Se bond. The canonical keto form is the most stable tautomer, in gas phase and in aqueous solution, for both T and 4SeT. It is argued that the competition between two opposite trends, i.e. a decrease in the base-pairing ability and an increase of the stacking interaction upon incorporation of 4SeT into a duplex, likely explains the similar experimental melting points of a seleno-derivative duplex (Se-DNA) and its native counterpart. Interestingly, the underlying electronic structure shows that replacement of O4 with Se promotes a reduction in the HOMO-LUMO gap and an increase in inter-plane coupling, which suggests that Se-DNA could be potentially useful for nanodevice applications. This finding is further supported by the fact that transfer integrals between 4SeT---A stacked base pairs are larger than those determined for similarly stacked natural T---A pairs.
- Research Organization:
- Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility (OLCF); Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS); Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States). National Center for Computational Sciences (NCCS)
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC)
- DOE Contract Number:
- DE-AC05-00OR22725
- OSTI ID:
- 966410
- Journal Information:
- Journal of Physical Chemistry B, Vol. 113, Issue 43
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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