Protonated nucleobases are not fully ionized in their chloride salt crystals and form metastable base pairs further stabilized by the surrounding anions.

ABSTRACT: This paper presents experimental charge-density studies of cytosinium chloride, adeninium chloride hemihydrate and guaninium dichloride crystals based on ultra-high-resolution X-ray diffraction data and extensive theoretical calculations. The results confirm that the cohesive energies of the studied systems are dominated by contributions from intermolecular electrostatic interactions, as expected for ionic crystals. Electrostatic interaction energies (E_es) usually constitute 95% of the total interaction energy. The E_es energies in this study were several times larger in absolute value when compared, for example, with dimers of neutral nucleobases. However, they were not as large as some theoretical calculations have predicted. This was because the molecu

SUBMITTER: Kumar P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6038959 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature