Electronic properties of DNA: Description of weak interactions in TATA-box-like chains

DNA is one of the most important biomolecules since it contains all the genetic information about an organism. The tridimensional structure of DNA is a determinant factor that influences the physiological and biochemical mechanisms by which this molecule carries out its biological functions. It is believed that hydrogen bonds and π-π stacking are the most relevant non-covalent interactions regarding DNA stability. Due to its importance, several theoretical works have been made to describe these interactions, however, most of them often consider only the presence of two nitrogenous bases, having a limited overview of the participation of these in B-DNA stabilization. Furthermore, due to the complexity of the system, there are discrepancies between which involved interaction is more important in duplex stability. Therefore, in this project we describe these interactions considering the effect of chain length on the energy related to both hydrogen bonds and π-π stacking, using as model TATA-box-like chains with n base pairs (n=1 to 14) and taking into consideration two different models: ideal and optimized B-DNA. We have found that there is a cooperative effect on hydrogen bond and π-π stacking mean energies when the presence of other base pairs is considered. In addition, it was found that hydrogen bonds contribute more importantly than π-π stacking to B-DNA stability; nevertheless, the participation of π-π stacking is not negligible: when B-DNA looks for a conformation of lower energy, π-π stacking interaction are the first to be optimized. All work was realized under the framework of DFT using the DMol³ code (M06-L/DNP).