Survey of the proton affinities of adenine, cytosine, thymine and uracil dideoxyribonucleosides, deoxyribonucleosides and ribonucleosides.

The kinetic method was applied to the determination of the proton affinities (PAs) of modified deoxy- and dideoxyribonucleosides. A correlation between the measured PAs and the replacement of one of the three hydroxyl groups of the ribose unit is presented. A PA scale was obtained which shows that the replacement of the primary or of one or both secondary hydroxyl groups of a ribonucleoside with a hydrogen atom induces the lowering or the enhancement of the nucleoside PA, respectively. The scale extends over a very narrow range of approximately 2 kcal mol(-1), thus demonstrating the sensitivity of the kinetic method in the evaluation of small differences in thermodynamic parameters. Copyright 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.