Issue 33, 2009

Hydrolysis of aspartic acid phosphoramidate nucleotides: a comparative quantum chemical study

Abstract

L-Aspartic acid has recently been found to be a good leaving group during HIV reverse transcriptase catalyzed incorporation of deoxyadenosine monophosphate (dAMP) in DNA. This showed that L-Asp is a good mimic for the pyrophosphate moiety of deoxyadenosine triphosphate. The present work explores the thermochemistry and mechanism for hydrolysis of several models for L-aspartic-dAMP using B3LYP/DGDZVP, MP2/6-311++G** and G3MP2 level of theory. The effect of the new compound is gradually investigated: starting from a simple methyl amine leaving group up to the aspartic acid leaving group. The enzymatic environment was mimicked by involving two Mg2+ ions and some important active site residues in the reaction. All reactions are compared to the corresponding O-coupled leaving group, which is methanol for methyl amine and malic acid for aspartic acid. With methyl amine as a leaving group a tautomeric associative or tautomeric dissociative mechanism is preferred and the barrier is lower than the comparable mechanism with methanol as a leaving group. The calculations on the aspartic acid in the enzymatic environment show that qualitatively the mechanism is the same as for triphosphate but the barrier for hydrolysis by the associative mechanism is higher for L-aspartic-dAMP than for L-malic-dAMP and pyrophosphate.

Graphical abstract: Hydrolysis of aspartic acid phosphoramidate nucleotides: a comparative quantum chemical study

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
25 Mar 2009
Accepted
18 May 2009
First published
11 Jun 2009

Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2009,11, 7274-7285

Hydrolysis of aspartic acid phosphoramidate nucleotides: a comparative quantum chemical study

S. Michielssens, N. Tien Trung, M. Froeyen, P. Herdewijn, M. Tho Nguyen and A. Ceulemans, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2009, 11, 7274 DOI: 10.1039/B906020K

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