Pterin-photosensitization of thymine under anaerobic conditions in the presence of guanine

Abstract

Pterin (Ptr) is a model photosensitizer that acts mainly through type I mechanism and is able to photoinduce the one-electron oxidation of purine and pyrimidine nucleobases. However, under anaerobic conditions Ptr reacts with thymine (T) to form photoadducts (Ptr-T) but does not lead to the photodegradation of guanine (G), which is the nucleobase with the lowest ionization potential. Accordingly, G is thermodynamically able to reduce the radicals of the other nucleobases and has been described in this sense as the “hole sink” of the DNA double helix. Here we analyze by steady-state and time-resolved studies the effect of G in the anaerobic photosensitization of T by Ptr, using nucleotides and oligonucleotides of different sequences. We demonstrated that G is able to reduce T radicals but does not prevent the formation of Ptr-T adducts. Our results suggest that after the encounter between the excited Ptr and T, and completion of the electron transfer step, part of the radicals escape from the solvent cage, to further react with other species. However, a proportion of radicals do not escape and evolve to photoadducts before separation. We provide new evidence that contributes to understand the photosensitizing properties of Ptr in the absence of O2, the mechanism of formation of photoadducts in the DNA and the protective role of G towards the photodamage in other nucleobases.