Molecular Interactions of Nucleic Acid Bases. A Review of Quantum-Chemical Studies

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Abstract
Ab initio quantum-chemical calculations with inclusion of electron correlation significantly contributed to our understanding of molecular interactions of DNA and RNA bases. Some of the most important findings are introduced in the present overview: structures and energies of hydrogen bonded base pairs, nature of base stacking, interactions between metal cations and nucleobases, nonplanarity of isolated nucleobases and other monomer properties, tautomeric equilibria of nucleobases, out-of-plane hydrogen bonds and amino acceptor interactions. The role of selected molecular interactions in nucleic acids is discussed and representative examples where these interactions occur are given. Also, accuracy of density functional theory, semiempirical methods, distributed multipole analysis and empirical potentials is commented on. Special attention is given to our very recent reference calculations on base stacking and H-bonding. Finally, we briefly comment on the relationship between advanced ab initio quantum-chemical methods and large-scale explicit solvent molecular dynamics simulations of nucleic acids.