Vibronic spectra of jet-cooled 2-aminopurine·H2O clusters studied by UV resonant two-photon ionization spectroscopy and quantum chemical calculations.

For understanding the major- and minor-groove hydration patterns of DNAs and RNAs, it is important to understand the local solvation of individual nucleobases at the molecular level. We have investigated the 2-aminopurine·H(2)O monohydrate by two-color resonant two-photon ionization and UV/UV hole-burning spectroscopies, which reveal two isomers, denoted A and B. The electronic spectral shift δν of the S(1) ← S(0) transition relative to bare 9H-2-aminopurine (9H-2AP) is small for isomer A (-70 cm(-1)), while that of isomer B is much larger (δν = -889 cm(-1)). B3LYP geometry optimizations with the TZVP basis set predict four cluster isomers, of which three are doubly H-bonded, with H(2)O acting as an acceptor to a N-H or -NH2 group and as a donor to either of the pyrimidine N sites. The "sugar-edge" isomer A is calculated to be the most stable form with binding energy D(e) = 56.4 kJ/mol. Isomers B and C are H-bonded between the -NH2 group and pyrimidine moieties and are 2.5 and 6.9 kJ/mol less stable, respectively. Time-dependent (TD) B3LYP/TZVP calculations predict the adiabatic energies of the lowest (1)ππ* states of A and B in excellent agreement with the observed 0(0)(0) bands; also, the relative intensities of the A and B origin bands agree well with the calculated S(0) state relative energies. This allows unequivocal identification of the isomers. The R2PI spectra of 9H-2AP and of isomer A exhibit intense low-frequency out-of-plane overtone and combination bands, which is interpreted as a coupling of the optically excited (1)ππ* state to the lower-lying (1)nπ* dark state. In contrast, these overtone and combination bands are much weaker for isomer B, implying that the (1)ππ* state of B is planar and decoupled from the (1)nπ* state. These observations agree with the calculations, which predict the (1)nπ* above the (1)ππ* state for isomer B but below the (1)ππ* for both 9H-2AP and isomer A.