Backbone conformational properties of nucleotides in solution determined by 1H nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy

Abstract

The backbone conformational properties of adjacent O(5′)–C(5′) and C(5′)–C(4′) bonds of nucleotides in aqueous solution have been investigated from available n.m.r. results for monomers, dimers, trimers, and polynucleotides. Results for monoribonucleotides show that the backbone conformation depends, primarily, on the glycosidic bond conformation and, to a lesser extent, on the sugar ring conformation of the monomer. On the other hand, the backbone conformational properties of oligoribonucleotides (dimer and trimer) depend, primarily, on the sugar ring conformation (i.e. base-stacking on the Altona model) and, to a much lesser extent, on the glycosidic bond conformation. The implications of this nucleotide conformational model for polymer results are discussed.