Chemical shift tensors in isomers of adenine: relation to aromaticity of purine rings?

The (13)C and (15)N chemical shift tensors are measured, calculated, and compared for three N-benzyladenine isomers with an attempt to characterize differences in electron distribution in the purine ring related to the position of the substituent. Furthermore, the aromaticity of the purine rings is evaluated on the basis of nucleus-independent chemical shifts, and variations among the isomers are discussed. Both parameters indicate significant differences between the electronic properties of the N3-substituted compound and the N7/N9 pair of structures, which can be viewed more generally as the reason for the different stabilities of the individual tautomers.

Interpretation of indirect nuclear spin-spin couplings in isomers of adenine: novel approach to analyze coupling electron deformation density using localized molecular orbitals.

Adenine, an essential building block of nucleic acids present in all living systems, can occur in several tautomeric forms. The phenomenon of tautomerism can be investigated by several experimental methods, including nuclear magnetic resonance. In this study, long-range (1)H-(13)C and (1)H-(15)N coupling constants for N-alkyl derivatives related to four tautomers of adenine are investigated in DMSO and DMF solutions. To investigate the structural dependence of the coupling constants and to understand how polarization propagates in the system, Fermi contact (FC) terms were calculated for the individual isomers and analyzed by using density functional theory (DFT), and the coupling pathways were visualized using real-space functions. The coupling electron deformation densities (CDD) of several (1)H-X (X = (13)C, (15)N) pairs are evaluated and compared. In order to analyze the CDD in more detail, a new approach to break down the CDD into contributions from Boys or Pipek-Mezey localized molecular orbitals (LMOs) has been developed. A similar approach has been applied to split the value of the FC contribution to the J coupling into the LMO contributions. On the basis of chemical concepts, the contributions of sigma-bonds, pi-electrons, and lone pairs of electrons are discussed. The lone pair of electrons at the nitrogen atom contributes significantly to the (1)H-C horizontal line(15)N coupling, whereas the (1)H-C=N-(13)C coupling is affected in a somewhat different way. Surprisingly, the contribution of the intervening C horizontal lineN bond to the FC term for (1)H-C=(15)N coupling originates exclusively in sigma-electrons, with a vanishingly small contribution calculated for the pi-electrons of this fragment. This behavior is rationalized by introducing the concept of "hard and soft J elements" derived from the polarizability of the individual components.

Understanding the NMR chemical shifts for 6-halopurines: role of structure, solvent and relativistic effects.

A prototypical study of NMR chemical shifts in biologically relevant heteroaromatic compounds containing a heavy halogen atom is presented for two isomers of halogen-substituted purines. Complete sets of (1)H-, (13)C- and (15)N-NMR chemical shifts are determined experimentally in solution. Experimental results are complemented by quantum-chemical calculations that provide understanding of the trends in the chemical shifts for the studied compounds and which show how different physical effects influence the NMR parameters. Chemical shifts for isolated molecules are calculated using density-functional theory methods, the role of solvent effects is studied using polarised continuum models, and relativistic corrections are calculated using the leading-order Breit-Pauli perturbation theory. Calculated values are compared with the experimental data and the effects of structure, solvent and relativity are discussed. Overall, we observe a good agreement of theory and experiment. We find out that relativistic effects cannot be neglected even in the chlorine species when aiming at high precision and a good agreement with the experimental data. Relativity plays a crucial role in the bromine and iodine species. Solvent effects are of smaller importance for (13)C shifts but are shown to be substantial for particular (15)N shifts. The test of method performance shows that the BLYP and B3LYP functionals provide the most reliable computational results after inclusion of the solvent and relativistic effects while BHandHLYP may--depending on atom in question--slightly improve but mostly deteriorate the data. Ab initio Hartree-Fock suffers from triplet instability in the Breit-Pauli relativistic part while MP2 provides no clear improvement over DFT in the nonrelativistic region. This work represents the first full application of the Breit-Pauli perturbation theory to an organic chemistry problem.

13C chemical shift tensors in hypoxanthine and 6-mercaptopurine: effects of substitution, tautomerism, and intermolecular interactions.

Principal values of the (13)C chemical shift tensor (CST) are measured for two biologically interesting and structurally related compounds, hypoxanthine and 6-mercaptopurine, and differences in the values are discussed with an attempt to reveal chemical shifts sensitive to substitution and prototropic tautomerism in the purine ring. Furthermore, methods of density-functional theory (DFT) are used to calculate principal values of the (13)C chemical shift tensor and orientations of the principal components. Values calculated for isolated molecules are compared to those for several supramolecular clusters and then to experimental data to investigate the degree of modulation of the (13)C CSTs by molecular packing. Focusing on the protonated carbons, C2 and C8, which are crucial for relaxation measurements, we show that neglecting intermolecular interactions can lead to errors as large as 30 ppm in the delta(22) principal component. This has significant implications for the studies of molecular dynamics, employing spin relaxation, in large fragments of nucleic acids at high magnetic fields.

Intermediate motions and dipolar couplings as studied by Lee-Goldburg cross-polarization NMR: Hartmann-Hahn matching profiles.

In this article, we evaluate the use of simple Lee-Goldburg cross-polarization (LG-CP) NMR experiments for obtaining quantitative information of molecular motion in the intermediate regime. In particular, we introduce the measurement of Hartmann-Hahn matching profiles for the assessment of heteronuclear dipolar couplings as well as dynamics as a reliable and robust alternative to the more common analysis of build-up curves. We have carried out dynamic spin dynamics simulations in order to test the method's sensitivity to intermediate motion and address its limitations concerning possible experimental imperfections. We further demonstrate the successful use of simple theoretical concepts, most prominently Anderson-Weiss (AW) theory, to analyze the data. We further propose an alternative way to estimate activation energies of molecular motions, based upon the acquisition of only two LG-CP spectra per temperature at different temperatures. As experimental tests, molecular jumps in imidazole methyl sulfonate, trimethylsulfoxonium iodide, and bisphenol A polycarbonate were investigated with the new method.

Experimental and quantum-chemical studies of 1H, 13C and 15N NMR coordination shifts in Au(III), Pd(II) and Pt(II) chloride complexes with picolines.

(1)H, (13)C and (15)N NMR studies of gold(III), palladium(II) and platinum(II) chloride complexes with picolines, [Au(PIC)Cl(3)], trans-[Pd(PIC)(2)Cl(2)], trans/cis-[Pt(PIC)(2)Cl(2)] and [Pt(PIC)(4)]Cl(2), were performed. After complexation, the (1)H and (13)C signals were shifted to higher frequency, whereas the (15)N ones to lower (by ca 80-110 ppm), with respect to the free ligands. The (15)N shielding phenomenon was enhanced in the series [Au(PIC)Cl(3)] < trans-[Pd(PIC)(2)Cl(2)] < cis-[Pt(PIC)(2)Cl(2)] < trans-[Pt(PIC)(2)Cl(2)]; it increased following the Pd(II) --> Pt(II) replacement, but decreased upon the trans --> cis-transition. Experimental (1)H, (13)C and (15)N NMR chemical shifts were compared to those quantum-chemically calculated by B3LYP/LanL2DZ + 6-31G**//B3LYP/LanL2DZ + 6-31G*.

Theoretical and experimental NMR study of protopine hydrochloride isomers.

The 1H and 13C NMR chemical shifts of cis- and trans-protopinium salts were measured and calculated. The calculations of the chemical shifts consisted of conformational analysis, geometry optimization (RHF/6-31G** method) and shielding constants calculations (B3LYP/6-31G** method). Based on the results of the quantum chemical calculations, two sets of experimental chemical shifts were assigned to the particular isomers. According to the experimental results, the trans-isomer is more stable and its population is approximately 68%.