Evidence for Hidden Involvement of N3-Protonated Guanine in RNA Structure and Function

Halder, Antarip and Vemuri, Saurabh and Roy, Rohit and Katuri, Jayanth and Bhattacharyya, Dhananjay and Mitra, Abhijit (2019) Evidence for Hidden Involvement of N3-Protonated Guanine in RNA Structure and Function. In: ACS OMEGA, 4 (1). pp. 699-709.

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Abstract

Charged nucleobases have been found to occur in several known RNA molecules and are considered essential for their structure and function. The mechanism of their involvement is however not yet fully understood. Revelation of the role of N7-protonated guanine, in modulating the geometry and stability of noncanonical base pairs formed through its unprotonated edges Watson-Crick (WC) and sugar], has triggered the need to evaluate the feasibility of similar roles of other protonated nucleobases Halder et al., Phys Chem Chem Phys, 2015, 17, 26249]. In this context, N3 protonation of guanine makes an interesting case as its influence on the charge distribution of the WC edge is similar to that of N7 protonation, though its thermodynamic cost of protonation is significantly higher. In this work, we have carried out structural bioinformatics analyses and quantum mechanics-based calculations to show that N3 protonation of guanine may take place in a cellular environment, at least in the G:C W:W Trans and G:G W:H Cis base pairs. Our results provide a reasonable starting point for future investigations in order to address the larger mechanistic question.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	ACS OMEGA
Publisher:	AMER CHEMICAL SOC
Additional Information:	copyright for this article belongs to ACS OMEGA
Department/Centre:	Division of Chemical Sciences > Solid State & Structural Chemistry Unit
Date Deposited:	16 May 2019 12:40
Last Modified:	16 May 2019 12:40
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/62441

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