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Stereochemistry of nucleic acids and polynucleotides. VI. Minimum energy conformations of dimethyl phosphate
Author(s) -
Sasisekharan V.,
Lakshminarayanan A. V.
Publication year - 1969
Publication title -
biopolymers
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.556
H-Index - 125
eISSN - 1097-0282
pISSN - 0006-3525
DOI - 10.1002/bip.1969.360080407
Subject(s) - polynucleotide , chemistry , phosphodiester bond , nucleic acid , stereochemistry , phosphate , nucleotide , potential energy , nucleic acid structure , crystallography , rna , biochemistry , physics , quantum mechanics , gene
As part of a study on the conformation of polynucleotides and nucleic acids the preferred conformations of the model conpound dimethyl phosphate are worked out using potential energy functions. In calculating the total potential energy associated with the conformation, nonbonded, torsional, and electrostatic terms have been considered. The variation of the total conformational energy is represented as a function of two torsion angles ϕ and ψ which are the rotations about the two phosphoester bonds. The most stable conformations are found to be the gauche – gauche conformations about these bonds. The conformations observed for phosphodiesters in the solid state and in the proposed structures of polynucleotides and nucleic acids cluster around the minimum. Also, regions of minimum energy correspond well with the typical allowed regions of a representative dinucleotide.