DFT study of water-assisted intramolecular proton transfer in the tautomers of thymine radical cation

Abstract

Density functional theory calculations are applied to investigate the intramolecular proton transfer in the tautomers of thymine radical cation and its hydrated complexes with one water molecule. The optimized structures and energies for 6 tautomers and 6 transition states of thymine radical cation are calculated at the B3LYP/6-311++G(d,p) level. It is predicted that the order of relative stability for the keto and enol tautomers of thymine radical cation is the same with that of the neutral thymine tautomers, though the enol tautomers are more stabilized with respect to the di-keto form in the radical cation than in the neutral state. A new channel of proton transfer from >C5-CH3 of thymine is found to open and have the lowest energy barrier of other proton transfer processes in thymine radical cation. The roles of hydration are also investigated with thymine-water 1 : 1 complex ions. The presence of water significantly lowers the barrier of the proton transfer, which clearly shows the assisting role of hydration even with one water molecule.