Direct detection of the mercury-nitrogen bond in the thymine-HgII-thymine base-pair with 199Hg NMR spectroscopy

Abstract

We have observed the 1-bond 199Hg-15N J-coupling (1J(199Hg,15N) = 1050 Hz) within the HgII-mediated thymine-thymine base pair (T-HgII-T). This strikingly large 1J(199Hg,15N) is the first one for canonical sp2-nitrogen atoms, which can be a sensitive structure-probe of N-mercurated compounds and a direct evidence for N-mercuration. This journal is