Are guanine tetrads stabilised by bifurcated hydrogen bonds? An AIM topological analysis of the electronic density

Abstract

Following a previous publication (M. Meyer, M. Brandl and J Sühnel, J. Phys. Chem. A, 2001, 105, 8223–8225) on quantum mechanical calculations of guanine tetrads where the issue of the difference between bifurcated and Hoogsteen conformations was addressed geometrically and energetically, we tackle the problem from the Atoms in Molecules (AIM) point of view of the topological analysis of the electronic density. We provide electronic argumentation to discuss the bifurcated or Hoogsteen issue, from the analysis of density and laplacian at the bond critical point criteria, and from the integration of atomic properties. The Hoogsteen hydrogen bonding network appears to be stronger than the bifurcated one, and benefits more from cooperativity.