In this paper we address a longstanding debate concerning the proton transfer reaction of DNA and RNA compounds. The sample tested is β-uridine, one of the four basic components of RNA, which has been suggested to have the capacity to adopt lactam and lactim tautomeric forms. The essential biological importance of this RNA nucleoside has motivated a number of experimental and theoretical invest...

Tautomerization is a fundamental chemical reaction which involves the relocation of proton in reactants. Studying optical properties tautomeric species challenging because ensemble averaging. Many molecules, such as porphines, porphycenes, or phenanthroperylene quinones, exhibit reorientation transition dipole moment (TDM) during tautomerization, can be directly observed single-molecule experim...

The title Schiff base compound, 0.57C(17)H(12)FNO·0.43C(17)H(12)FNO, reveals both the enol (OH) and keto (NH) tautomeric forms with occupancies of 0.57 (6) and 0.43 (6), respectively. The tautomeric forms are stabilized by intra-molecular O-H⋯N (enol) and N-H⋯O (keto) hydrogen bonds. The dihedral angle between the naphthalene ring system and the benzene ring is 32.76 (1)°.

The method described here is based on a brief report by Harley-Mason and Archer. It involves the use of p-dimethylaminocinnamaldehyde (DMACA), a vinylogue of Ehrlich's reagent, as a color reagent for indoles. Colorimetric analyses of indoleacetic acid (IAA) oxidation reaction mixtures were made with the DMACA reagent as a solution rather than a spray. DMACA reagent will yield a wine-red color w...

The molecular geometry of orotic acid was fully optimized using the gradient minimization technique. The computed geometrical parameters at the B3LYP/6-311G** level correspond well to those determined experimentally by X-ray diffraction. The relative stability of both the syn and anti conformations was investigated at the B3LYP/6-311G** level, where the syn-form was shown to be slightly more st...

Keto-enol tautomerism was investigated for ionized pyruvic acid using the DFT(B3LYP) method and the larger basis sets [6-31++G(d,p), 6-311++G(3df, 3pd) and aug-cc-pVDZ]. Change of the tautomeric preference was observed when going from the neutral to ionized tautomeric mixture. Ionization favors the enolization process (ketoenol) of pyruvic acid, whereas the ketonization (ketoenol) is preferred ...

Tridentate amine-imine-phosphine ligands, R2PC5H7NC2H4NEt2 [(R)PNN(H)], where R = Pr(i) or Bu(t) are synthesized using a straightforward protocol of condensation, deprotonation, and addition of a chlorodialkylphosphine. Multinuclear NMR spectroscopy shows the ligands exist exclusively in the enamine tautomeric form in solution. Treating these ligands with RuHCl(PPr(i)3)2(CO) forms the desired c...

The energies of the canonical (standard, amino-keto) and tautomeric (non-standard, imino-enol) charge-neutral forms of the adenine-thymine base pair (A-T and A*-T*, respectively) are calculated using density functional theory. The reaction pathway is then computed using a transition state search to provide the asymmetric double-well potential minima along with the barrier height and shape, whic...

In his book The Double Helix, James Watson describes an early proposal for DNA structure in which equal bases pair with each other. He writes: ‘‘My scheme was torn to shreds the following noon. Against me was the awkward chemical fact that I had chosen the wrong tautomeric forms for guanine and thymine.’’ This fact was pointed out to him by the American crystallographer Jerry Donahue who ‘‘ . ....

We study the tautomeric transitions in base pairs of DNA considering elastic properties of DNA as classical and tunneling of protons as quantum, and show that the dynamics of the transitions admits of soliton like solutions whose shape and size strongly depend on the structure of the double helix. In particular, we have found that the set of discrete breathers can be drastically modified by the...