Electrons purines

The aromaticity of the pyrimidine and purine ring systems and the electron-rich nature of their —OH and —NHg substituents endow them with the capacity to undergo keto-enol tautomeric shifts. That is, pyrimidines and purines exist as tautomeric pairs, as shown in Figure 11.6 for uracil. The keto tautomer is called a lactam, whereas the enol form is a lactim. The lactam form vastly predominates at neutral pH. In other words, pA) values for ring nitrogen atoms 1 and 3 in uracil are greater than 8 (the pAl, value for N-3 is 9.5) (Table 11.1). 

A hypothesis for the oxidation of purines in the presence of this enzyme has been elaborated by Bergmann and his colleagues. It postulates that the purine, often in one of its less prevalent tautomeric forms, is adsorbed on the protein, or the riboflavin coenzyme, of the enzyme then hydration occurs under the influence of the electronic field of the enz5rme, and this must involve a group that is not sterically blocked by the enzyme but which is accessible to the electron-transport pathway of the riboflavin moiety. Finally, the secondary alcohol is assumed to be dehydrogenated in this pathway to give a doubly... 

Just as there are heterocyclic analogs of benzene, there are also many heterocyclic analogs of naphthalene. Among the most common are quinoline, iso-quinoline, indole, and purine. Quinoline, isoquinoline, and purine all contain pyridine-like nitrogens that are part of a double bond and contribute one electron to the aromatic it system. Indole and purine both contain pyrrole-like nitrogens that contribute two - r electrons. 

How many electrons does each of the four nitrogen atoms in purine contribute to the aromatic w system ... 

Purine has three basic, pyridine-like nitrogens with lone-pair electrons in sp2 orbitals in the plane of the ring. The remaining purine nitrogen is nonbasic and pyrrole-like, with its lone-pair electrons as part of the aromatic i- electron system. 

Heterocyclic amines are compounds that contain one or more nitrogen atoms as part of a ring. Saturated heterocyclic amines usually have the same chemistry as their open-chain analogs, but unsaturated heterocycles such as pyrrole, imidazole, pyridine, and pyrimidine are aromatic. All four are unusually stable, and all undergo aromatic substitution on reaction with electrophiles. Pyrrole is nonbasic because its nitrogen lone-pair electrons are part of the aromatic it system. Fused-ring heterocycles such as quinoline, isoquinoline, indole, and purine are also commonly found in biological molecules. 

The reaction temperature varies between -40 and 110 °C, depending on the reactivity of both counterparts, amine and chlorophosphane. As usual, aliphatic amino groups react faster than aromatic and heteroaromatic ones due to their greater nucleophilic strength. These differences in reactivity allow chemose-lective phosphinous amide formation, as that represented in Scheme 2 where the P-N bond is formed exclusively at the aliphatic NH2 group of 2 but not at the heteroaromatic NH2, whose lone pair is extensively delocalized in the electron-withdrawing purine ring [35]. 

One-Electron Oxidation Reactions of the Pyrimidine and Purine DNA Bases... 

However, the biochemical significance of the latter studies is challenged by the fact that the transformation of transient purine and pyrimidine radicals into diamagnetic decomposition products is oxygen-independent in the solid state. Therefore, it is necessary to study the chemistry of one-electron nucleobase intermediates in aerated aqueous solutions in order to investigate the role of oxygen in the course of reactions that give rise to oxidation products within DNA and model compounds. In this respect, type I photo-... 

Interestingly, the nucleophilic addition of water in the sequence of events giving rise to 41 represents a relevant model system for investigating the mechanism of the generation of DNA-protein cross-links under radical-mediated oxidative conditions [80, 81]. Thus, it was shown that lysine tethered to dGuo via the 5 -hydroxyl group is able to participate in an intramolecular cyclization reaction with the purine base at C-8, subsequent to one electron oxidation [81]. 

One-electron oxidation of the adenine moiety of DNA and 2 -deoxyadenos-ine (dAdo) (45) gives rise to related purine radical cations 46 that may undergo either hydration to generate 8-hydroxy-7,8-dihydroadenyl radicals (47) or deprotonation to give rise to the 6-aminyl radicals 50. The formation of 8-oxo-7,8-dihydro-2 -deoxyadenosine (8-oxodAdo) (48) and 4,6-diamino-5-formamidopyrimidine (FapyAde) (49) is likely explained in terms of oxidation and reduction of 8-hydroxy-7,8-dihydroadenyl precursor radicals 47, respectively [90]. Another modified nucleoside that was found to be generated upon type I mediated one-electron oxidation of 45 by photoexcited riboflavin and menadione is 2 -deoxyinosine (51) [29]. The latter nucleoside is likely to arise from deamination of 6-aminyl radicals (50). Overall, the yield of formation of 8-oxodAdo 48 and FapyAde 49 upon one-electron oxidation of DNA is about 10-fold-lower than that of 8-oxodGuo 44 and FapyGua 43, similar to OH radical mediated reactions [91]. 

As A. and B. Pullman showed more than 40 years ago, the purine base adenine occupies a unique situation in the purine family in comparison to the other purines, it has the greatest resonance energy per -electron, i.e., it is more stable, and thus likely to have been incorporated preferentially into biomolecules (Pullman, 1972). 

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