Identification of reaction sites and chlorinated products of purine bases and nucleosides during chlorination: a computational study

Abstract

Hypochlorous acid (HOCl) released from activated leukocytes plays a significant role in the human immune system, but is also implicated in numerous diseases due to its inappropriate production. Chlorinated nucleobases induce genetic changes that potentially enable and stimulate carcinogenesis, and thus have attracted considerable attention. However, their multiple halogenation sites pose challenges to identify them. As a good complement to experiments, quantum chemical computation was used to uncover chlorination sites and chlorinated products in this study. The results indicate that anion salt forms of all purine compounds play significant roles in chlorination except for adenosine. The kinetic reactivity order of all reaction sites in terms of the estimated apparent rate constant k_obs-est (in M⁻¹ s⁻¹) is heterocyclic NH/N (10²–10⁷) > exocyclic NH₂ (10⁻²–10) > heterocyclic C8 (10⁻⁵–10⁻¹), but the order is reversed for thermodynamics. Combining kinetics and thermodynamics, the numerical simulation results show that N9 is the most reactive site for purine bases to form the main initial chlorinated product, while for purine nucleosides N1 and exocyclic N²/N⁶ are the most reactive sites to produce the main products controlled by kinetics and thermodynamics, respectively, and C8 is a possible site to generate the minor product. The formation mechanisms of biomarker 8-Cl- and 8-oxo-purine derivatives were also investigated. Additionally, the structure–kinetic reactivity relationship study reveals a good correlation between lg k_obs-est and APT charge in all purine compounds compared to FED² (HOMO), which proves again that the electrostatic interaction plays a key role. The results are helpful to further understand the reactivity of various reaction sites in aromatic compounds during chlorination.