QM/MM Lineshape Simulation of the Hydrogen-bonded Uracil NH Stretching Vibration of the Adenine:Uracil Base Pair in CDCl${}_3$

Abstract

A hybrid Car-Parrinello QM/MM molecular dynamics simulation has been carried out for the Watson-Crick base pair of 9-ethyl-8-phenyladenine and 1-cyclohexyluracil in deuterochloroform solution at room temperature. The resulting trajectory is analyzed putting emphasis on the N-H$...$N Hydrogen bond geometry. Using an empirical correlation between the $\NN$-distance and the fundamental NH-stretching frequency, the time-dependence of this energy gap along the trajectory is obtained. From the gap-correlation function we determine the infrared absorption spectrum using lineshape theory in combination with a multimode oscillator model. The obtained average transition frequency and the width of the spectrum is in reasonable agreement with recent experimental data.

revised version with small changes submitted to Chem. Phys. Lett