Computational Study on the Excited-State Decay of 5-Methylcytosine and 5-Hydroxymethylcytosine: The Common Form of DNA Methylation and Its Oxidation Product

Photochemical Stability of 5-Methylcytidine Relative to Cytidine: Photophysical Insight for mRNA Therapeutic Applications

5-Methylcytidine (5mCyd) has recently been investigated with renewed interest in its utilization in mRNA therapeutics. However, its photostability following exposure to electromagnetic radiation has been overlooked. This Letter compares the photostability and excited-state dynamics of 5mCyd with those of the canonical RNA nucleoside, cytidine (Cyd), using steady-state and femtosecond transient absorption spectroscopy under physiologic conditions. 5mCyd is shown to have a 5-fold higher fluorescence yield and a 5-fold longer 1ππ* excited-state decay lifetime. Importantly, however, the excited-state population in 5mCyd decays primarily by internal conversion, with a photodegradation rate 3 times smaller than that in Cyd. In Cyd, the population of a 1nπ* state with a lifetime of ca. 45 ps is implicated in the formation 6-hydroxycytidine and other photoproducts.

Excited State Dynamics of Methylated Guanosine Derivatives Revealed by Femtosecond Time-resolved Spectroscopy

Methylated DNA/RNA nucleobases are important epigenetic marks in living species and play an important role for targeted therapies. Moreover, they could bring significant changes to the photo-stability of nucleic acid, leading these sites become mutational hotspots for disease such as skin cancer. While a number of studies have demonstrated the relationship between excited state dynamics and the biological function of methylated cytosine in DNA, investigations aimed at unraveling the excited state dynamics of methylated guanosine in RNA have been largely overlooked. In this work, influence of methylation on the excited state dynamics of guanosine is studied by using femtosecond time-resolved spectroscopy. Our results suggest that the effect of methyl substitution on the photophysical properties of guanosine is position sensitive. N1-methylguanosine shows very similar excited state dynamics as that in guanosine, while almost one order of magnitude longer lifetime of the La state is observed in N2, N2-dimethylguanosine. Notably, N7-methylation can lead to a new minimum on the La state, which shows a two orders of magnitude longer excited state lifetime compared with guanosine. These findings not only help understanding excited state dynamics of methylated guanosines, but also lay the foundation for further studying DNA/RNA strands incorporated with these bases.

Unified Description of Ultrafast Excited State Decay Processes in Epigenetic Deoxycytidine Derivatives

Epigenetic DNA modifications play a fundamental role in modulating gene expression and regulating cellular and developmental biological processes, thereby forming a second layer of information in DNA. The epigenetic 2'-deoxycytidine modification 5-methyl-2'-deoxycytidine, together with its enzymatic oxidation products (5-hydroxymethyl-2'-deoxycytidine, 5-formyl-2'-deoxycytidine, and 5-carboxyl-2'-deoxycytidine), are closely related to deactivation and reactivation of DNA transcription. Here, we combine sub-30-fs transient absorption spectroscopy with high-level correlated multiconfigurational CASPT2/MM computational methods, explicitly including the solvent, to obtain a unified picture of the photophysics of deoxycytidine-derived epigenetic DNA nucleosides. We assign all the observed time constants and identify the excited state relaxation pathways, including the competition of intersystem crossing and internal conversion for 5-formyl-2'-deoxycytidine and ballistic decay to the ground state for 5-carboxy-2'-deoxycytidine. Our work contributes to shed light on the role of epigenetic derivatives in DNA photodamage as well as on their possible therapeutic use.

Epigenetically modified nucleobases (5hmc, 5fc, and 5caC) interaction with boron and nitrogen doped porous graphene (B/N-pGr) as promising materials for biosensing application: A density functional theory calculations

In this present work, porous graphene (pGr), boron (B-pGr), and nitrogen (N-pGr) doped porous sheets are explored as a bio-sensor device for sensing modified nucleobases (MBs) in cancer therapy using density functional theory (DFT). The obtained geometrical, energetic and electronic properties revealed that the B-pGr is highly reactive and it adsorbs MBs better than the pGr and N-pGr, because B atom holds empty p-orbitals which easily interact with partially filled p-orbital of N and O atom. Thus, the adsorption energies of 5hmc, 5caC, and 5fc on B-pGr are high rather than the pGr and N-pGr. The corresponding adsorption energies are -96.074, -77.0, and -60.721 kcal/mol for 5hmc, 5caC, and 5fc respectively. The positive signature of ΔN values (0.005 eV, 0.076 eV, and 0.047 in MBs on pGr and 0.171 eV, 0.252 eV and 0.205 eV in MBs on N-pGr) are obtained at MBs on pGr and N-pGr complex. The negative ΔN values (-0.141 eV, -0.032 eV, and -0.061 eV in MBs on B-pGr) are obtained at MBs of B-pGr. The calculated absorption values shows that the B-pGr is strongly adsorbed MBs at 342 nm. The obtained results exhibit that the B-pGr sheet retains significant therapeutic potential as a bio-sensing application for cancer therapy.