Hydration of DNA bases: Analysis of crystallographic data

Abstract
We present a systematic analysis of water structure around nucleic acid bases. We have examined 28 crystal structures of oligonucleotides, and have studied the patterns of water around the four bases, guanine, cytosine, adenine, and thymine. The geometries of water positions were calculated up to 4.00 Å from base atoms. We have found conformation‐dependent differences in both the geometry and extent of hydration of the bases.