THE SPECIFICITY OF HYDROGEN BOND FORMATION BETWEEN DERIVATIVES OF NUCLEIC ACID BASES AND SOME ANALOGUES

Abstract

Hydrogen bonding between pairs of derivatives of the base constituents of nucleic acids and their analogues has been studied in chloroform solution by infrared spectrophotometry. The strongest interactions occur between derivatives of guanine and cytosine. The introduction of the additional ring nitrogen atom in the pharmacologically active 5-azacytosine and 6-azacytosine derivatives does not change the complexing behavior. The positions of the N—H stretching bands in the infared spectra indicate that these complexes have a structure similar to that of the complexes formed between the corresponding pairs of bases in the naturally occurring desoxyribonucleic acid chain.