J . Am. Chem. SOC.1983, 105, 636-638
636
Table I. Vibrations Observed and Normal Coordinate Assignmentsa for Nickel(l1) Porphyrin Schiff s Base Species SB
SBH'
assignment (no.)
1652 1639
1657
Blg(ulo) V,(-N=CH--) us(-+NH=CH-) u,(-+ND=CH-) Alg(u2) Baz(uii)
1598
1650 1640 1602 1575
SB 1564 1517 1378 1305 1123
SBH+
assignment (no.) EU(U38)
1518 1381 1306 1154 1122
Alg(u3)
Alg(u4) A2g(~21) Bzg(u30) A,g(u,,)
a Symmetries and mode numbers from Abe e t aLi3 In the more correct C l h group for 3 and 4, {Alg, B,,, A,,, Bzg} become A,.
ranged from 0.1 to 0.75, consistent with the Franck-Condon scattering mechanism which dominates with Soret excitation.l2 Using the normal coordinate analysis of octaethylporphyrinatoNi(II), we have collected several of the prominent vibrations of the Schiff's base species in Table I and assigned these in analogy with the results of Abe et al.13 We have retained the Ddhsymmetry notation characteristic of the porphyrin core. The Raman spectrum of 3 shows strong enhancement of totally symmetric modes at 1598 (uZ), 1518 ( v J , and 1383 cm-' (v4). The line observed at 1652 cm-' corresponds to a B,, mode (vl0), which is most likely enhanced through a Jahn-Teller or intramanifold coupling mechanism;14 it is commonly observed when studying hemes and heme proteins by Soret excitation Raman.15 The Schiffs base C=N stretching vibration is responsible for the line observed at 1639 cm-'. We do not observe a clearly identifiable vinyl stretching mode. For the protonated Schiff's base, we note little change in the frequencies of the observed ring vibrations,I6 consistent with the N M R data above, which indicated that protonation effects are localized at the Schiff's base and do not strongly perturb the basic porphyrin bonding pattern. However, the decrease in symmetry, which is apparent in the optical spectrum, also appears to be reflected in the Raman spectrum of SBH' in that the scattered intensity from non-totally symmetric modes (B,,, A2,, B2,) is stronger relative to the free Schiffs base." Protonation of the Schiffs base shifts the N=C stretching frequency into the 1650-cm-' region where it overlaps strongly with vl0. In order to determine its frequency more precisely, we carried out analogous IR experiments that showed ij(+NH=CH) = 1650 cm-'; these data form the basis for the assignment of the two vibrational frequencies in Table I. If DC1 is used to deuterate the porphyrin Schiff s base, the stretching frequency decreases to 1640 cm-'. A similar pattern of -C=X- stretching vibration frequency shifts is observed in retinal Schiff s bases upon protonation and deuteration, and the physical mechanism underlying these shifts has been discussed in detail by Aton et a1.I8 It appears as if the interaction between the C=N stretching vibration and the C=N-H bending mode is somewhat less in the porphyrin case than in the linear polyene retinal case. The N M R and Raman data do not suggest an extensive a delocalization as the origin of the visible absorption spectral changes occurring in SBH', despite the apparent spectral simi(1 1) Ondrias, M. R.; Babcock, G. T. Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 1980, 93, 29-35.
(12) Felton, R. H.; Yu, N.-T. In "The Porphyrins"; Dolphin, D., Ed.; Academic Press: New York, 1978; Vol. 111, pp 347-393. (13) Abe, M.; Kitagawa, T.; Kyogoku, Y. J . Chem. Phys. 1978, 69, 4526-4534. (14) Shelnutt, J. A. J . Chem. Phys. 1981, 74, 6644-6657. (15) Callahan, P. M.; Babcock, G.T. Biochemistry 1981, 20, 952-958. (16) The 3-4-cm-I increases, which are apparent in v 2 and in q 0 upon formation of the protonated SchifFs base, most likely arise from a slight porphyrin core contraction accompanying the protonation reaction.15 (17) The shifts observed in relative intensity for the symmetric and nontotally symmetric modes (D,h notation) upon protonation of the Schiffs base may arise from symmetry reduction, which allows Franck-Condon enhancement of both classes of vibration. Alternatively, these shifts in intensity may arise from interference effects or changes in vibronic coupling introduced by the splitting observed in the optical absorption spectrum. (18) Aton, B.; Doukas, A. G.; Narva, D.; Callender, R. H.; Dinur, U.; Honig, B. Biophys. J . 1980, 29, 79-94.
0002-7863/83/1505-0636$01.50/0
larities between 4 and the many well-characterized porphyrin a-cation radi~a1s.l~While the optical band shifts can result from a decrease in molecular symmetry, quantitative interpretation of the spectrum must await detailed MO calculations. We speculated earlierZothat a protonated Schiff s base linkage may be responsible for the unusual behavior of cytochrome a.'I While the vibrational frequency of the Ni(I1)-porphyrin +NH=CH- substituent is in reasonable agreement with that observed in oxidized cytochrome a, the optical spectrum of the protonated Schiff's base shows a significantly larger visible absorption red shift and Soret absorption band split than observed for the in situ chromophore. For this reason, it seems unlikely that a protonated Schiff's base is a good model for cytochrome a.21 However, the unusual spectral properties of protonated metalloporphyrin Schiff s bases may have significant implications for other porphyrin-based systems. Photosynthetic systems provide a possible example in that chlorophyll absorption red shifts of the magnitude we report here are commonly observed in situ. These have sometimes been interpreted as resulting from dimer or higher order aggregate formation;2zour results indicate that similar shifts can be obtained in a monomer system if protein/chromophore interactions occur. Acknowledgment. This research was supported by grants from NIH (GM25480 to G.T.B.) and from NSF (to C.K.C.). C.K.C. is an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow (1980-1984) and a Camille and Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar (1 98 1-1985). Registry No. 2, 84195-13-1; 3, 84195-14-2; 4, 84195-15-3; butylamine, 109-73-9. (19) Felton, R. H. In 'The Porphyrins"; Dolphin, D., Ed.; Academic Press: New York, 1978; Vol. V, p 53. (20) Babcock, G. T.; Callahan, P. M.; Ondrias, M. R.; Salmeen, I . Biochemistry 1981, 20, 959-966. (21) In a separate series of experiments, however, we have found that a hydrogen-bond interaction between the formyl group of cytochrome a and a protein amino acid side chain provides an adequate explanation of the unusual properties of cytochrome a (Callahan, P. M.; Babcock, G. T . Biochemistry, in press). (22) For a discussion of this point see: Davis, R. C.; Pearlstein, R. M. Nature (London) 1979, 280, 413-415.
Methylated Bases Stabilize Short RNA Duplexes P. L. D'Andrea, D. Alkema, R . A. Bell,* J. M. Coddington, P. A. Hader, D. W. Hughes, and T. Neilson* Departments of Biochemistry and Chemistry McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8N 32.5 Received August 9, 1982 The triribonucleotide GpCpA forms a stable duplex containing two G C Watson-Crick base pairs and two 3'-dangling adenoDangling bases have been found to increase base stacking and thus improve overall duplex strength.14 In this study, GpCpX sequences (where X = m6A, m;A, mlG) were used as model systems to examine the effect of heterobase methylation on duplex stability (Figure 1). Results indicate that the stability of RNA duplexes 5'-Gp
