Electronic spectra of adenine and 2-aminopurine: an ab initio study of energy level diagrams of different tautomers in gas phase and aqueous solution.

Ground and lowest two singlet excited state geometries of four tautomeric forms (N9H, N7H, N3H and N1H) of each of adenine and 2-aminopurine (2AP) were optimized using an ab initio approach employing a mixed basis set (6-311 + G* on the nitrogen atom of the amino group and 4-31G basis set on the other atoms). Excited states were generated employing configuration interaction involving single electron excitations (CIS). Subsequently, the different species were solvated in water employing the self-consistent reaction field (SCRF) approach along with the corresponding gas phase optimized geometries. Thus the observed absorption and fluorescence spectra of adenine and 2AP have been explained successfully. It is concluded that both the N9H and N7H forms of 2AP would contribute to absorption and fluorescence spectra. Further, the fluorescence of 2AP would be absorbed by its cation in which both the N9 and N7 atoms are protonated, the fluorescence of which can have an anti-Stokes component. Among the different tautomers of adenine, the N9H form would be present dominantly in the ground state in aqueous solutions but the N7H form would be produced by energy transfer and subsequent fluorescence. The N3H form of adenine appears to be responsible for the observed absorption near 300 nm by its solutions intermittently exposed to ultraviolet radiation. The rings of the different species related to 2AP and adenine remain almost planar in the pi-pi* and n-pi* singlet excited states as in the ground state. The pyramidal character of the amino group is usually less in the pi-pi* excited states than that in the corresponding ground or n-pi* excited states. Molecular electrostatic potential (MEP) maps of the molecules provide useful clues regarding phototautomerism.