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Updated: Oct 7, 2026

Synthesis of a Water-soluble Metal–Organic Complex Array
Published on: October 8, 2016
Metal-modified nucleobase sextet: joining four linear metal fragments (trans-a2PtII) and six model nucleobases to an
R K Sigel1, S M Thompson, E Freisinger
1Fachbereich Chemie, Universität Dortmund, Germany.
Abstract:
Crosslinking of three different model nucleobases (9-ethyladenine, 9-EtA; 9-ethylguanine, 9-EtGH; 1-methyluracil, 1-MeU) by two linear trans-aPtII (a = NH3 or CH3NH2) entities leads to a flat metal-modified base triplet, trans,trans-[(NH3)2Pt(1-MeU-N3)(mu-9-EtA-N7,N1)Pt(CH3NH2)2(9-EtGH-N7)]3+ (4b). Upon hemideprotonation of the 9-ethylguanine base at the N1 position. 4b spontaneously dimerizes to the metalated nucleobase sextet 5, [(4b)(triple bond)(4b-H)]5+. In this dimeric structure a neutral and an anionic guanine ligand, which are complementary to each other, are joined through three H bonds and additionally by two H bonds between guanine and uracil nucleobases. Four additional interbase H bonds maintain the approximate coplanarity of all six bases. The two base triplets form an exceedingly stable entity (KD = 500 +/- 150 M(-1) in DMSO), which is unprecedented in nucleobase chemistry. The precursor of 4b and several related complexes are described and their structures and solution properties are reported.
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