Purine, aromaticity

Tphe complexing of virtually all purines with aromatic molecules seems - to have far-reaching biological significance. For example, it is known that caffeine affects the rates of many enzymatic reactions (e.g., 0.01, 0.05, and 0.10M caffeine will inhibit salivary amylase 29, 54, and 72% respectively) (12), and purine can decrease the helix-coil transition temperature of the proteins bovine serum albumin and lysozyme (2). It is not unreasonable to expect the involvement of caffeine-aromatic and purine-aromatic complexes because caffeine derivatives and purine complex with the aromatic amino acids tyrosine, phenylalanine, and tryptophan (2). (In fact tryptophan forms a stable 1 to 1 crystalline complex in 0.5M theophylline glycol.)... 

The only purine-aromatic complex crystal structure published thus far is the tetramethyluric acid-pyrene structure (6). The orientation of the molecules in this complex is shown below in VIII. 

Why is purine aromatic How many p electrons does each nitrogen donate to ( aromatic v system (See Section 28.7.)... 

Nucleic acids are acidic substances present m the nuclei of cells and were known long before anyone suspected they were the primary substances involved m the storage transmission and processing of genetic information There are two kinds of nucleic acids ribonucleic acid (RNA) and deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) Both are complicated biopolymers based on three structural units a carbohydrate a phosphate ester linkage between carbohydrates and a heterocyclic aromatic compound The heterocyclic aro matic compounds are referred to as purine and pyrimidine bases We 11 begin with them and follow the structural thread... 

Two nitrogen containing heterocyclic aromatic compounds—pyrimidine and purine— are the parents of the bases that constitute a key structural unit of nucleic acids... 

Both pynmidme and purine are planar You will see how important this flat shape is when we consider the structure of nucleic acids In terms of their chemistry pyrimidine and purine resemble pyndme They are weak bases and relatively unreactive toward elec trophilic aromatic substitution... 

Section 28 1 Many biologically important compounds are related to the heterocyclic aromatic compounds pyrimidine and purine... 

The pyrimidine ring system is planar, while the purine system deviates somewhat from planarity in having a slight pucker between its imidazole and pyrimidine portions. Both are relatively insoluble in water, as might be expected from their pronounced aromatic character. 

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). 

Another property of pyrimidines and purines is their strong absorbance of ultraviolet (UV) light, which is also a consequence of the aromaticity of their heterocyclic ring structures. Figure 11.8 shows characteristic absorption spectra of several of the common bases of nucleic acids—adenine, uracil, cytosine, and guanine—in their nucleotide forms AMP, UMP, CMP, and GMP (see Section 11.4). This property is particularly useful in quantitative and qualitative analysis of nucleotides and nucleic acids. 

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. 

Hiickel 4n -r 2 rule and, 523-524 imidazole and, 529 Indole and. 533 ions and,525-527 isoquinoline and, 533 naphthalene and, 532 polycyclic aromatic compounds and,531-532 purine and, 533... 

Charge-transfer complexes with pyrimidine and purine bases as well as with solvents like hexa-methylphosphoramide and dimethyl sulfoxide are reported in Ref 66. The action of aromatic amines (primary, secondary, or tertiary) resulted in fume-offs or unidentifiable tars, in all cases purple or red colors developed prior to more violent reactions (Ref 66)... 

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]. 

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