PNNL

Abstract

In summary, guanine supports many adiabatically bound valence anions, which result from enamine-imine transformations of the most stable neutral tautomers. These stable anionic tautomers have been found using combinatorial-computational prescreening at the B3LYP level of theory followed by CCSD(T)/aug-cc-pVDZ calculations. The new anionic tautomers contradict a common opinion that guanine has the lowest electron affinity among nucleobases. The new anionic tautomers might be formed in the course of dissociative electron attachment followed by a hydrogen atom attachment to a carbon atom. They might affect the structure and properties of DNA and RNA exposed to low-energy electrons. Chemical transformations of DNA triggered by the new anionic tautomers will be explored in our future studies.