The helix-inversion mechanism in double-stranded helical oligomers bridged by rotary cyclic boronate esters

Attracted by the numerous regulatory functions of double-helical biopolymers such as DNA, many researchers have synthesized various double-helical systems. A recently synthesized double-stranded helical oligomer covalently bridged by rotary boronate esters (BBDD) was shown to undergo helix-inversion that might serve as platform to design rotor systems. However, the detailed helix-inversion mechanism could not be investigated experimentally. Direct molecular dynamics simulations based on density-functional tight-binding energies and gradients computed on-the-fly reveal that disentanglement to the unraveled form and following exchange of the twisted terminal trimethylsilyl (TMS) groups are prerequisites for the observed helix-inversion. The potential of mean force confirms that the originally assumed "concurrent" rotation of the boronate esters and the helix-inversion involves shorter time scale "step-wise" processes, triggered by the disentanglement and exchange of the TMS groups. These results indicate that inversion dynamics of double-helical molecules such as BBDD may be controllable by chemical fine-tuning of the terminal groups. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.