On isomers and tautomers of Nitro-1-deazapurine: A DFT study

The 1-deazapurine molecules substituted by the NO 2 group at three different positions of the six-membered ring were subject of computational study performed at the B3LYP/cc-pVTZ level. For each substitution three tautomers were considered. The N3H tautomers are relatively instable in the gas and water phases which is due to significant decrease in aromaticity of the N3H forms. In the gas phase, the equilibria between the N7H and N9H tautomers are determined by a competition of the repulsive and attractive intermolecular interaction of different moieties of Nitro-1-deazapurine. The close neighborhood of the two tertiary N atoms and attractive close neighborhood of the tertiary N atom and the NH group result in preference of the N9H tautomer over the N7H one by ca. 3.5 kcal/mol. By comparing energy of different forms and proposed isodesmic reaction we showed that the Gibbs free energy of the attractive interaction between the NO 2 and HN groups is equal to ca. 1.0 kcal/mol, whereas the repulsive interaction between the NO 2 group and the tertiary N atom of the imidazole is equal to ca. 6.4 kcal/mol. It was shown also that the increase in dipole moment in the water media is the crucial effect influencing the N7H/N9H tautomeric equilibria of Nitro-1-deazapurines. For the three isomers dissolved in water, the two tautomers, N7H and N9H, are predicted to be observed and the former should dominate slightly for the 2-Nitro isomer whereas the latter for the 6-Nitro and 1-Nitro isomers. The NBO analysis showed that the NO 2 group withdraws 0.3 e of the σ-electrons from the pyridine ring of 1-deazapurine and has no influence on the σ-electrons of the imidazole ring. The NBO analysis shows also that the ratio between number of π-electrons which are withdrawed from imidazole vs. pyridine ring is characteristic for position of the substitution. The isodesmic reaction used revealed also that the NO 2 group destabilizes the N3H-1-deazapurine system, whereas it stabilizes the N7H- and N9H-1-deazapurine systems.