Cooperative Effects: Stabilization of the Isoguanine Trimer

Disrupting bonding in azoles through beryllium bonds: Unexpected coordination patterns and acidity enhancement

Although triazoles and tetrazole are amphoteric and may behave as weak acids, the latter property can be hugely enhanced by beryllium bonds. To explain this phenomenon, the structure and bonding characteristics of the complexes between triazoles and tetrazoles with one and two molecules of BeF₂ have been investigated through the use of high-level G4 ab initio calculations. The formation of the complexes between the N basic sites of the azoles and the Be center of the BeF₂ molecule and the (BeF₂)₂ dimer leads to a significant bonding perturbation of both interacting subunits. The main consequence of these electron density rearrangements is the above-mentioned increase in the intrinsic acidity of the azole subunit, evolving from a typical nitrogen base to a very strong nitrogenous acid. This effect is particularly dramatic when the interaction involves the (BeF₂)₂ dimer, that is, a Lewis acid much stronger than the monomer. Although the azoles investigated have neighboring N-basic sites, their interaction with the (BeF₂)₂ dimer yields a monodentate complex. However, the deprotonated species becomes extra-stabilized because a second N-Be bond is formed, leading to a new five-membered ring, with the result that the azole-(BeF₂)₂ complexes investigated become stronger nitrogenous acids than oxyacids such as perchloric acid.

Non-additive interactions of nucleobases in model dinucleotide steps occurring in B-DNA crystals

Non-additivity of base-base interactions in all ten possible model dinucleotide steps were analyzed on MP2/aug-cc-pvDZ quantum chemistry level. Conformations of four nucleobases exactly matched to ones occurring in B-DNA crystals. In most of thw 162 analyzed tetramers both three- and four-body contributions are negligible except for d(GpG) steps. However, in these dinucleotides both contributions are always of opposite signs and in all cases the sum of all non-additive part of intermolecular interactions do not exceed 2.6 kcal mol(-1). This stands for less than 5% of the overall binding energy of dinucleotide steps. Also replacements of guanine with 8-oxoguanine in d(GpG) systems introduces non-additivity of the same magnitude as for canonical dinucleotides. It is observed linear relationships between values of total binding energy obtained in the tetramer basis set and estimated energy exclusively in dimers basis sets with assumption of pairwise additivities. For all analyzed dinucleotides steps there are also linear correlations between amount of non-additive contributions and magnitude of pairs interactions. Based on differences in electrostatic contribution to the total binding energy of four nucleobases and polarity of dinucleotide steps three distinct classes of dinucleotide steps were identified.

Three- and four-body nonadditivities in nucleic acid tetramers: a CCSD(T) study

Three- and four-body nonadditivities in the uracil tetramer (in DNA-like geometry) and the GC step (in crystal geometry) were investigated at various levels of the wave-function theory: HF, MP2, MP3, L-CCD, CCSD and CCSD(T). All of the calculations were performed using the 6-31G**(0.25,0.15) basis set, whereas the HF, MP2 and the MP3 nonadditivities were, for the sake of comparison, also determined with the much larger aug-cc-pVDZ basis set. The HF and MP2 levels do not provide reliable values for many-body terms, making it necessary to go beyond the MP2 level. The benchmark CCSD(T) three- and four-body nonadditivities are reasonably well reproduced at the MP3 level, and almost quantitative agreement is obtained (fortuitously) either on the L-CCD level or as an average of the MP3 and the CCSD results. Reliable values of many-body terms (especially their higher-order correlation contributions) are obtained already when the rather small 6-31G**(0.25,0.15) basis set is used. The four-body term is much smaller when compared to the three-body terms, but it is definitely not negligible, e.g. in the case of the GC step it represents about 16% of all of the three- and four-body terms. While investigating the geometry dependence of many-body terms for the GG step at the MP3/6-31G**(0.25,0.15) level, we found that it is necessary to include at least three-body terms in the determination of optimal geometry parameters.

CLOPPA-IPPP analysis of cooperative effects in hydrogen-bonded molecular complexes. Application to intermolecular 2hJ(N,C) spin-spin coupling constants in linear (CNH)n complexes

The cooperative effects on NMR indirect nuclear coupling constants are analyzed by means of the IPPP-CLOPPA approach (where CLOPPA is the Contributions from Localized Orbitals within the Polarization Propagator Approach and IPPP is the Inner Projections of the Polarization Propagator). The decomposition of the J coupling allows one to classify these effects as those due to changes in the geometric structure and those that directly involve the transmission mechanisms. This latter contribution admits a further classification, taking into account its electronic origin. As an example, the cooperative effects on intermolecular 2hJ(N,C) couplings of the linear complexes (CNH)n (n = 2, 3, 4) are discussed.

Benchmark RI-MP2 database of nucleic acid base trimers: performance of different density functional models for prediction of structures and binding energies

A new database of nucleic acid base trimers has been developed that includes 141 geometries and stabilization energies obtained at the RI-MP2 level of theory with the TZVPP basis set. Compared to previously compiled biologically oriented databases, this new construct includes considerably more complicated structures; the various intermolecular interactions in the trimers are quite heterogeneous and in particular include simultaneous hydrogen bonding and stacking interactions, which is similar to the situation in actual biopolymers. Validation against these benchmark data is therefore a more demanding task for approximate models, since correct descriptions of all energy terms are unlikely to be accomplished by fortuitous cancellations of systematic errors. The density functionals TPSS (both with and without an empirical dispersion term), PWB6K, M05-2X, and BH&H, and the self-consistent charge density functional tight binding method augmented with an empirical dispersion term (SCC-DFTB-D) were assessed for their abilities accurately to compute structures and energies. The best reproduction of the BSSE corrected RI-MP2 stabilization energies was achieved by the TPSS functional (TZVPP basis set) combined with empirical dispersion; removal of the dispersion correction leads to significantly degraded performance. The M05-2X and PWB6K functionals performed very well in reproducing the RI-MP2 geometries, but showed a systematic moderate underestimation of the magnitude of base stacking interactions. The SCC-DFTB-D method predicts geometries in fair agreement with RI-MP2; given its computational efficiency it represents a good option for initial scanning of analogous biopolymeric potential energy surfaces. BH&H gives geometries of comparable quality to the other functionals but significantly overestimates interaction energies other than stacking.

DNA Base Trimers: Empirical and Quantum Chemical Ab Initio Calculations versus Experiment in Vacuo

A complete scan of the potential-energy surfaces for selected DNA base trimers has been performed by a molecular dynamics/quenching technique using the force field of Cornell et al. implemented in the AMBER7 program. The resulting most stable/populated structures were then reoptimized at a correlated ab initio level by employing resolution of the identity, Møller-Plesset second-order perturbation theory (RI-MP2). A systematic study of these trimers at such a complete level of electronic structure theory is presented for the first time. We show that prior experimental and theoretical interpretations were incorrect in assuming that the most stable structures of the methylated trimers corresponded to planar systems characterized by cyclic intermolecular hydrogen bonding. We found that stacked structures of two bases with the third base in a T-shape arrangement are the global minima in all of the methylated systems: they are more stable than the cyclic planar structures by about 10 kcal mol(-1). The different behaviors of nonmethylated and methylated trimers is also discussed. The high-level geometries and interaction energies computed for the trimers serve also as a reference for the testing of recently developed density functional theory (DFT) functionals with respect to their ability to correctly describe the balance between the electrostatic and dispersion contributions that bind these trimers together. The recently reported M052X functional with a polarized triple-zeta basis set predicts 11 uracil trimer interaction energies with a root-mean-square error of 2.3 kcal mol(-1) relative to highly correlated ab initio theoretical calculations.

Density functional study of isoguanine tetrad and pentad sandwich complexes with alkali metal ions

Isoguanine tetraplexes and pentaplexes contain two or more stacked polyads with intercalating metal ions. We report here the results of a density functional study of sandwiched isoguanine tetrad and pentad complexes consisting of two polyads with Na(+), K(+) and Rb(+) ions at the B3LYP level. In comparison to single polyad metal ion complexes, there is a trend towards increased non-planarity of the polyads in the sandwich complexes. In general, the pentad sandwiches have relatively planar polyad structures, whereas the tetrad complexes contain highly non-planar polyad building blocks. As in other sandwich complexes and in metal ion complexes with single polyads, the metal ion-base interaction energy plays an essential role. In iG sandwich structures, this interaction energy is slightly larger than in the corresponding guanine sandwich complexes. Because the base-base interaction energy is even more increased in passing from guanine to isoguanine, the isoguanine sandwiches are thus far the only examples where the base-base interaction energy is larger than the base-metal ion interaction energy. Stacking interactions have been studied in smaller models consisting of two bases, retaining the geometry from the complete complex structures. From the data obtained at the B3LYP and BH&H levels and with Møller-Plesset perturbation theory, one can conclude that the B3LYP method overestimates the repulsion in stacked base dimers. For the complexes studied in this work, this is only of minor importance because the direct inter-tetrad or inter-pentad interaction is supplemented by a strong metal ion-base interaction. Using a microsolvation model, the metal ion preference K(+) approximately Rb(+) > Na(+) is found for tetrad complexes. On the other hand, for pentads the ordering is Rb(+) > K(+) > Na(+). In the latter case experimental data are available that agree with this prediction.

Theoretical Study on the Bromomethane−Water 1:2 Complexes

Bromomethane-water 1:2 complexes have been theoretically studied to reveal the role of hydrogen bond and halogen bond in the formation of different aggregations. Four stable structures exist on the potential energy surface of the CH3Br(H2O)2 complex. The bromine atom acts mainly as proton acceptor in the four studied structures. It is also capable of participating in the formation of the halogen bond. The properties and characteristics of the hydrogen bond and the halogen bond are investigated employing several different quantum chemical analysis methods. Cooperative effects for the pure hydrogen bonds or the mixed hydrogen bonds with halogen bonds and the possibility of describing cooperative effects in terms of the topological analysis of the electronic density or the charge-transfer stabilization energy are discussed in detail. An atoms-in-molecules study of the hydrogen bond or the halogen bond in the bromomethane-water 1:2 complexes suggests that the electronic density topology of the hydrogen bond or the halogen bond is insensitive to the cooperative effect. The charge-transfer stabilization energy is proportional to the cooperative effect, which indicates the donor-acceptor electron density transfer to be mainly responsible for the trimer nonadditive effect.