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Noncovalent Helicene Structure between Nucleic Acids and Cyanuric Acid
Author(s) -
Alenaizan Asem,
Fauché Kévin,
Krishnamurthy Ramanarayanan,
Sherrill C. David
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
chemistry – a european journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.687
H-Index - 242
eISSN - 1521-3765
pISSN - 0947-6539
DOI - 10.1002/chem.202004390
Subject(s) - helicene , non covalent interactions , hydrogen bond , chemistry , cyanuric acid , crystallography , nucleic acid , stereochemistry , nanotechnology , molecule , materials science , biochemistry , organic chemistry , melamine
Cyanuric acid (CA), a triazine heterocycle, is extensively utilized for noncovalent self‐assembly. The association between poly(adenine) and CA into micron‐length fibers was a remarkable observation made by Sleiman and co‐workers, who proposed that adenine and CA adopt a hexameric rosette configuration in analogy with previously reported structures for CA assemblies. However, recent experimental observations from the Krishnamurthy group led to a reevaluation of the hexameric rosette model, wherein they have proposed a hydrogen‐bonded helicene model as an alternative. Our molecular dynamics simulations show that the hexad model is indeed unlikely and that this novel noncovalent helicene geometry, where the adenine and CA bases form an extended helical hydrogen‐bond network across the system, is a more probable structural motif. The existence of noncovalent helicene compounds may have wide‐ranging applications in DNA nanotechnology and helicene chemistry.