The influence of Mg2+ coordination on 13C and 15N chemical shifts in CKI1RD protein domain from experiment and molecular dynamics/density functional theory calculations.

Sequence dependence of (13) C and (15) N chemical shifts in the receiver domain of CKI1 protein from Arabidopsis thaliana, CKI1RD , and its complexed form, CKI1RD •Mg(2+), was studied by means of MD/DFT calculations. MD simulations of a 20-ns production run length were performed. Nine explicitly hydrated structures of increasing complexity were explored, up to a 40-amino-acid structure. The size of the model necessary depended on the type of nucleus, the type of amino acid and its sequence neighbors, other spatially close amino acids, and the orientation of amino acid NH groups and their surface/interior position. Using models covering a 10 and a 15 Å environment of Mg(2+), a semi-quantitative agreement has been obtained between experiment and theory for the V67-I73 sequence. The influence of Mg(2+) binding was described better by the 15 Å as compared to the 10 Å model. Thirteen chemical shifts were analyzed in terms of the effect of Mg(2+) insertion and geometry preparation. The effect of geometry was significant and opposite in sign to the effect of Mg(2+) binding. The strongest individual effects were found for (15) N of D70, S74, and V68, where the electrostatics dominated; for (13) Cß of D69 and (15) N of K76, where the influences were equal, and for (13) Cα of F72 and (13) Cß of K76, where the geometry adjustment dominated. A partial correlation between dominant geometry influence and torsion angle shifts upon the coordination has been observed.

Understanding the Electronic Factors Responsible for Ligand Spin-Orbit NMR Shielding in Transition-Metal Complexes.

The significant role of relativistic effects in altering the NMR chemical shifts of light nuclei in heavy-element compounds has been recognized for a long time; however, full understanding of this phenomenon in relation to the electronic structure has not been achieved. In this study, the recently observed qualitative differences between the platinum and gold compounds in the magnitude and the sign of spin-orbit-induced (SO) nuclear magnetic shielding at the vicinal light atom ((13)C, (15)N), σ(SO)(LA), are explained by the contractions of 6s and 6p atomic orbitals in Au complexes, originating in the larger Au nuclear charge and stronger scalar relativistic effects in gold complexes. This leads to the chemical activation of metal 6s and 6p atomic orbitals in Au complexes and their larger participation in bonding with the ligand, which modulates the propagation of metal-induced SO effects on the NMR signal of the LA via the Spin-Orbit/Fermi Contact (SO/FC) mechanism. The magnitude of the σ(SO)(LA) in these square-planar complexes can be understood on the basis of a balance between various metal-based 5d → 5d* and 6p → 6p* orbital magnetic couplings. The large and positive σ(SO)(LA) in platinum complexes is dominated by the shielding platinum-based 5d → 5d* magnetic couplings, whereas small or negative σ(SO)(LA) in gold complexes is related to the deshielding contribution of the gold-based 6p → 6p* magnetic couplings. Further, it is demonstrated that σ(SO)(LA) correlates quantitatively with the extent of M-LA electron sharing that is the covalence of the M-LA bond (characterized by the QTAIM delocalization index, DI). The present findings will contribute to further understanding of the origin and propagation of the relativistic effects influencing the experimental NMR parameters in heavy-element systems.

Mechanism of Spin-Orbit Effects on the Ligand NMR Chemical Shift in Transition-Metal Complexes: Linking NMR to EPR.

Relativistic effects play an essential role in understanding the nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) chemical shifts in heavy-atom compounds. Particularly interesting from the chemical point of view are the relativistic effects due to heavy atom (HA) on the NMR chemical shifts of the nearby light atoms (LA), referred to as the HALA effects. The effect of Spin-Orbit (SO) interaction originating from HA on the nuclear magnetic shielding at a neighboring LA, σ(SO), is explored here in detail for a series of d(6) complexes of iridium. Unlike the previous findings, the trends in σ(SO) observed in this study can be fully explained neither in terms of the s-character of the HA-LA bonding nor by trends in the energy differences between occupied and virtual molecular orbitals (MOs). Rather, the σ(SO) contribution to the total NMR shielding is found to be modulated by the d-orbital participation of the heavy atom (Ir) in the occupied and virtual spin-orbit active MOs, i.e., those which contribute significantly to the σ(SO). The correlation between the d-character of σ(SO)-active MOs and the size of the corresponding SO contribution to the nuclear magnetic shielding constant at LA is so tight that the magnitude of σ(SO) can be predicted in a given class of compounds on the basis of d-orbital character of relevant MO with relative error smaller than 15%. This correspondence is supported by an analogy between the perturbation theory expressions for the spin-orbit induced NMR σ-tensor and those for the EPR g-tensor as well as the A-tensor of the ligand. This correlation is demonstrated on a series of d(5) complexes of iridium. Thus, known qualitative relationships between electronic structure and EPR parameters can be newly applied to reproduce, predict, and understand the SO-induced contributions to NMR shielding constants of light atoms in heavy-atom compounds.

Toward Reproducing Sequence Trends in Phosphorus Chemical Shifts for Nucleic Acids by MD/DFT Calculations.

This work addresses the question of the ability of the molecular dynamics-density functional theory (MD/DFT) approach to reproduce sequence trend in (31)P chemical shifts (δP) in the backbone of nucleic acids. δP for [d(CGCGAATTCGCG)]2, a canonical B-DNA, have been computed using density functional theory calculations on model compounds with geometries cut out of snapshots of classical molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. The values of (31)P chemical shifts for two distinct B-DNA subfamilies BI and BII, δP/BI and δP/BII, have been determined as averages over the BI and BII subparts of the MD trajectory. This has been done for various samplings of MD trajectory and for two sizes of both the model and the solvent embedding. For all of the combinations of trajectory sampling, model size, and embedding size, sequence dependence of δP/BI in the order of 0.4-0.5 ppm has been obtained. Weighted averages for individual (31)P nuclei in the studied DNA double-helix have been calculated from δP/BI and δP/BII using BI and BII percentages from free MD simulations as well as from approaches employing NMR structural restraints. A good qualitative agreement is found between experimental sequence trends in δP and theoretical δP employing short (24 ns) MD run and BI, BII percentages determined by Hartmann et al. or via MD with the inclusion of NMR structural restraints. Theoretical δP exhibit a systematic offset of ca. 11 ppm and overestimation of trends by a factor of ca. 1.7. When scaled accordingly, theoretical δP/BI and δP/BII can be used to determine the expected percentage of BII to match the experimental value of δP. As evidenced by the calculations on snapshots from Car-Parrinello molecular dynamics, the systematic offsets of the theoretical δP obtained by MD/DFT approach result primarily from the unrealistic bond lengths employed by classical MD. The findings made in this work provide structure-δP relationships for possible use as NMR restraints and suggest that NMR calculations on MD snapshots can be in the future employed for the validation of newly developed force fields.

Validation of Relativistic DFT Approaches to the Calculation of NMR Chemical Shifts in Square-Planar Pt(2+) and Au(3+) Complexes.

Recently implemented hybrid density functional methods of calculating nuclear magnetic shielding using the two-component zeroth-order regular approximation approach (J. Phys. Chem. A2009, 113, 11495) have been employed for a series of compounds containing heavy transition-metal atoms. These include Pt(2+), Pd(2+), and Au(3+) organometallics and metal complexes with azines, some of which exhibit interesting biological and catalytic activities. In this study we investigate the effects of geometry, exchange-correlation functional, solvent, and scalar relativistic and spin-orbit corrections on the nuclear magnetic shielding-mainly for (13)C and (15)N atoms connected to a heavy-atom center. Our calculations demonstrate that the B3LYP method using effective core potentials and a cc-pwCVTZ-PP/6-31G** basis set augmented with the polarizable continuum model of the dimethylsulfoxide solvent provides geometries for the complexes in question which are compatible with the experimental NMR results in terms of both the trends and the absolute values of the (13)C shifts. The important role of the exact exchange admixture parameter for hybrid functionals based on B3LYP and PBE0 is investigated systematically for selected Pt(2+) and Au(3+) complexes. The (13)C and (15)N NMR chemical shifts are found to be best reproduced by using a B3LYP or PBE0 approach with 30% and 40-50% exact exchange admixtures for the Pt(2+) and Au(3+) complexes, respectively. The spin-orbit contributions to the (15)N NMR chemical shifts reflect metal-ligand bonding that is much more ionic for the Au(3+) than for the Pt(2+) complex. Finally, an optimized density functional method is applied to a series of transition-metal complexes to estimate the scope and the limitations of the current approach.

Phosphorus chemical shifts in a nucleic acid backbone from combined molecular dynamics and density functional calculations.

A comprehensive quantum chemical analysis of the influence of backbone torsion angles on (31)P chemical shifts in DNAs has been carried out. An extensive DFT study employed snapshots obtained from the molecular dynamics simulation of [d(CGCGAATTCGCG)]2 to construct geometries of a hydrated dimethyl phosphate, which was used as a model for the phosphodiester linkage. Our calculations provided differences of 2.1 ± 0.3 and 1.6 ± 0.3 ppm between the B(I) and B(II) chemical shifts in two B-DNA residues of interest, which is in a very good agreement with the difference of 1.6 ppm inferred from experimental data. A more negative (31)P chemical shift for a residue in pure BI conformation compared to residues in mixed B(I)/B(II) conformation states is provided by DFT, in agreement with the NMR experiment. Statistical analysis of the MD/DFT data revealed a large dispersion of chemical shifts in both B(I) and B(II) regions of DNA structures. δP ranges within 3.5 ± 0.8 ppm in the B(I) region and within 4.5 ± 1.5 ppm in the B(II) region. While the (31)P chemical shift becomes more negative with increasing α in B(I)-DNA, it has the opposite trend in B(II)-DNA when both α and ζ increase simultaneously. The (31)P chemical shift is dominated by the torsion angles α and ζ, while an implicit treatment of ß and ε is sufficient. The presence of an explicit solvent leads to a damping and a 2-3 ppm upfield shift of the torsion angle dependences.

31P chemical shift tensors for canonical and non-canonical conformations of nucleic acids: a DFT study and NMR implications.

31P chemical shift anisotropy (CSA) tensors have been calculated for a set of selected DNA and RNA backbone conformations using density functional theory. The set includes canonical A-RNA, A-DNA, BI-DNA, BII-DNA, ZI-DNA, and ZII-DNA as well as four A-RNA-type, seven non-A-RNA-type, and three non-canonical DNA conformations. Hexahydrated dimethyl phosphate has been employed as a model. The 31P chemical shift tensors obtained are discussed in terms of similarities in the behavior observed for gauche-gauche (gg) and gauche-trans (gt) conformations around the P-O bonds. We show that torsion angles alpha and zeta are major determinants of the isotropic chemical shift deltaiso and of the deltaCSA11 component of the traceless chemical shift tensor, which is revealed in separate ranges of both deltaiso and deltaCSA11 for gg- and gt-conformers, respectively. A clear distinction between the two conformation types has not been found for the deltaCSA22 and deltaCSA33 components, which is attributed to their different directional properties. The 31P CSA tensors exhibit considerable variations resulting in large spans of approximately 16 ppm for deltaCSA11 and approximately 22 ppm for deltaCSA22 and deltaCSA33. We examine the consequences of the CSA variations for predicting the chemical shift changes upon partial alignment deltacsa and for the values of CSA order parameters extracted from the analysis of 31P NMR relaxation data. The theoretical 31P CSA tensors as well as the experimental 31P CSA tensor of barium diethyl phosphate (BDEP) are used to calculate deltacsa for two eclipsed orientations of the CSA and molecular alignment tensors. Percentage differences between the CSA order parameters obtained using the theoretical 31P CSA tensors and the experimental 31P CSA tensor of BDEP, respectively, are also determined.

Relationships between 31P chemical shift tensors and conformation of nucleic acid backbone: a DFT study.

Density functional theory (DFT) has been applied to study the conformational dependence of 31P chemical shift tensors in B-DNA. The gg and gt conformations of backbone phosphate groups representing BI- and BII-DNA have been examined. Calculations have been carried out on static models of dimethyl phosphate (dmp) and dinucleoside-3',5'-monophosphate with bases replaced by hydrogen atoms in vacuo as well as in an explicit solvent. Trends in 31P chemical shift anisotropy (CSA) tensors with respect to the backbone torsion angles alpha, zeta, beta, and epsilon are presented. Although these trends do not change qualitatively upon solvation, quantitative changes result in the reduction of the chemical shift anisotropy. For alpha and zeta in the range from 270 degrees to 330 degrees and from 240 degrees to 300 degrees , respectively, the delta22 and delta33 principal components vary within as much as 30 ppm, showing a marked dependence on backbone conformation. The calculated 31P chemical shift tensor principal axes deviate from the axes of O-P-O bond angles by at most 5 degrees . For solvent models, our results are in a good agreement with experimental estimates of relative gg and gt isotropic chemical shifts. Solvation also brings the theoretical deltaiso of the gg conformation closer to the experimental gg data of barium diethyl phosphate.

Measurement of long-range 1H-19F scalar coupling constants and their glycosidic torsion dependence in 5-fluoropyrimidine-substituted RNA.

Long-range scalar 5J(H1',F) couplings were observed in 5-fluoropyrimidine-substituted RNA. We developed a novel S3E-19F-alpha,beta-edited NOESY experiment for quantitation of these long-range scalar 5J(H1',F) couplings, where the J-couplings can be extracted from inspection of intraresidual (H1',H6) NOE cross-peaks. Quantum chemical calculations were exploited to investigate the relation between scalar couplings and conformations around the glycosidic bond in oligonucleotides. The theoretical dependence of the observed 5J(H1',F) couplings on the torsion angle chi can be described by a generalized Karplus relationship. The corresponding density functional theory (DFT) analysis is outlined. Additional NMR experiments facilitating the resonance assignments of 5-fluoropyrimidine-substituted RNAs are described, and chemical shift changes due to altered shielding in the presence of fluorine-19 (19F) are presented.

Comparative density-functional study of the electron paramagnetic resonance parameters of amavadin.

Electronic g tensors and hyperfine coupling tensors have been calculated for amavadin, an unusual eight-coordinate vanadium(IV) complex isolated from Amanita muscaria mushrooms. Different density-functional methods have been compared, ranging from local via gradient-corrected to hybrid functionals with a variable Hartree-Fock exchange admixture. For both electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) properties, hybrid functionals with an appreciable exact-exchange admixture provide the closest agreement with experimental data. Second-order spin-orbit corrections provide non-negligible contributions to the 51V hyperfine tensor. The orientation of g and A tensors relative to each other also depends on spin-orbit corrections to the A tensor. A rationalization for the close resemblance of the EPR parameters of amavadin to those of the structurally rather different vanadyl complexes is provided, based on the nature of the relevant frontier orbitals.

Experiments for correlating quaternary carbons in RNA bases.

The paper presents a set of triple-resonance two-dimensional experiments for correlating all quaternary carbons in RNA bases to one or more of the base protons. The experiments make use of either three-bond proton-carbon couplings and one selective INEPT step (the long-range selective HSQC experiment) to transfer the magnetization between a proton and the carbon of interest and back, or they rely on one- and/or two-bond heteronuclear (the H(CN)C and H(N)C experiments) or carbon-carbon (the H(C)C experiment) couplings and multiple INEPT transfer steps. The effect of the large one-bond carbon-carbon coupling in t(1) is removed by a constant time evolution or by a selective refocusing. The performance of the proposed approach is demonstrated on a 0.5 mM 25-mer RNA. The results show that the experiments are applicable to samples containing agents for weak molecular alignment. The design of the correlation experiments has been supported by ab initio calculations of scalar spin-spin couplings in the free bases and the AU and GC base pairs. The ab initio data reveal surprisingly high values of guanine (2)J(N1C5) and uracil (2)J(N3C5) couplings that are in a qualitative agreement with the experimental data. The sensitivity of the spin-spin couplings to base pairing as well as the agreement with the experiment depend strongly on the type of nuclei involved and the number of bonds separating them.

DFT analysis of NMR scalar interactions across the glycosidic bond in DNA.

The relationship between the glycosidic torsion angle chi, the three-bond couplings (3)J(C2/4-H1') and (3)J(C6/8-H1'), and the one-bond coupling (1)J(C1'-H1') in deoxyribonucleosides and a number of uracil cyclo-nucleosides has been analyzed using density functional theory. The influence of the sugar pucker and the hydroxymethyl conformation has also been considered. The parameters of the Karplus relationships between the three-bond couplings and chi depend strongly on the aromatic base. (3)J(C2/4-H1') reveals different behavior for deoxyadenosine, deoxyguanosine, and deoxycytidine as compared to deoxythymidine and deoxyuridine. In the case of (3)J(C6/8-H1'), an opposite trans to cis ratio of couplings is obtained for pyrimidine nucleosides in contrast to purine nucleosides. The extremes of the Karplus curves are shifted by ca. 10 degrees with respect to syn and anti-periplanar orientations of the coupled nuclei. The change in the sugar pucker from S to N decreases (3)J(C2/4-H1') and (3)J(C6/8-H1'), while increasing (1)J(C1'-H1') for the syn rotamers, whereas all of the trends are reversed for the anti rotamers. The influence of the sugar pucker on (1)J(C1'-H1') is interpreted in terms of interactions between the n(O4'), sigma*(C1'-H1') orbitals. The (1)J(C1'-H1') are related to chi through a generalized Karplus relationship, which combines cos(chi) and cos(2)(chi) functions with mutually different phase shifts that implicitly accounts for a significant portion of the related sugar pucker effects. Most of theoretical (3)J(C2/4-H1') and (3)J(C6/8-H1') for uracil cyclo-nucleosides compare well with available experimental data. (3)J(C6/8-H1') couplings for all C2-bridged nucleosides are up to 3 Hz smaller than in the genuine nucleosides with the corresponding chi, revealing a nonlocal aspect of the spin-spin interactions across the glycosidic bond. Theoretical (1)J(C1'-H1') are underestimated with respect to the experiment by ca. 10% but reproduce the trends in (1)J(C1'-H1') vs chi.

Three-bond sugar-base couplings in purine versus pyrimidine nucleosides: a DFT study of Karplus relationships for (3)J(C2/4-H1') and (3)J(C6/8-H1') in DNA.

(3)J(C2/4-H1') and (3)J(C6/8-H1') scalar spin-spin coupling constants have been calculated for deoxyadenosine, deoxyguanosine, deoxycytidine, and deoxythymidine as functions of the glycosidic torsion angle chi by means of density functional theory. Except for deoxythymidine, (3)J(C2/4-H1') depends little on the base type. On the contrary, (3)J(C6/8-H1') follows the usual trans to cis ratio ((3)J(C-H(cis)) < (3)J(C-H(trans))) for purine nucleosides, but reveals the opposite relation ((3)J(C-H(cis)) > (3)J(C-H(trans))) for pyrimidine nucleosides. Our results compare well with the experiment for deoxyguanosine and predict a novel trend in the case of pyrimidine bases for which no NMR results are available in the syn region. A breakdown of the key Fermi contact part of (3)J(C6/8-H1') into MO contributions rationalizes this trend in terms of an unusual coupling mechanism in the syn orientation that is very effective for pyrimidine nucleosides and considerably weaker for purine nucleosides.

Strong electronic consequences of intercalation in cuprate superconductors: the case of a trigonal planar AuI(3) complex stabilized in the Bi(2)Sr(2)CaCu(2)O(y) lattice.

Recently, a molecular AuI(3) complex was stabilized in the interlayer space of the Bi(2)Sr(2)CaCu(2)O(y) (Bi2212) high-T(c) superconducting phase, adopting an exceptional D(3)(h) structure (Choy, J.-H.; et al. J. Phys.Chem. B 2000, 104, 7273). If the gold were formally Au(III), a strong Jahn-Teller distortion to T- and Y-shaped structures would be expected. In this work, we try to understand the structural preferences of AuI(3) in both the gas phase and the Bi2212 lattice, as well as the influence of the AuI(3) intercalation on the superconductor lattice. What we think actually happens is that there is an effective electron transfer from the s-type Bi lone pair to the gold, increasing the formal oxidation state of Bi from +3 to +5 and decreasing that of Au from +3 to +1. A trigonal Au(I) trihalide is just fine. The DFT results confirm in the Bi-rich regions the same kind of electron transfer as encountered on the EHT level of theory, but they reveal additional complexities of the problem. The effect of the Bi to intercalating molecule electron transfer on the cuprate layer may be important, quite apart from this specific example, in tuning superconductivity in the cuprates.

Electron-rich three-center bonding: role of s,p interactions across the p-block.

This paper analyzes the importance of s,p mixing-a necessary addition to the simplest Rundle-Pimentel picture-and periodic and group trends in electron-rich three-center bonding. Our analysis proceeds through a detailed quantum chemical study of the stability of electron-rich three-center bonding in triatomic 22-valence electron anions. To provide interpretations, a perturbational molecular orbital (MO) analysis of s,p mixing is carried out. This analysis of the orbitals and the overlap populations is then tested by density functional calculations for a number of linear trihalides, trichalcogenides, and tripnictides. The most important effect of s,p mixing on the in-line bonding is in destabilization of the 3sigma(g) orbital and is determined by the overlap between the s orbital of the central atom and the p orbital of the terminal atom. Further destabilization arises from the repulsion of p(pi) lone pairs. Both of these antibonding effects increase with increasing negative charge of the system. The stability of isoelectronic X(3) systems thus decreases when moving from right to left in the periodic table. Interesting group trends are discerned; for instance, for the electron-rich tripnictides, the ability to accommodate a hypervalent electron count is the largest in the middle rather at the end of the group. Particularly strong s,p mixing can reverse the bonding/antibonding character of MOs: thus MO 2sigma(u) that is responsible for bonding for trihalides and trichalcogenides is actually antibonding in N(3)(7)(-).