CHED 1024 |
| Methylation of arginine is a post-translational modification with many identified roles in RNA processing, signal transduction, DNA repair, cardiovascular diseases and cancer. Methylated guanidinium ions serve as good models for studying interactions of arginine side chains in proteins and with nucleic acids. It has been assumed that at physiological conditions arginine side chains are protonated. However, a reduced guanidinium cation, triaminomethyl, can exist as a transient species in the gas phase [C.Hao et al. J. Phys. Chem. A 2007, 111, 8829]. We have calculated the structures and the energies of mono-, di-, and tri- methylated guanidinium radicals. The calculations were performed using the Gaussion03 program with B3LYP density functional, using aug-cc-pVTZ and cc-pVTZ basis sets. We compare our results with those for triaminomethyl radical and assess the possibility that methylated guanidinium ions are reduced in biological systems. |
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Undergraduate Research Poster Session: Physical Chemistry
2:00 PM-4:00 PM, Monday, April 7, 2008 Morial Convention Center -- Hall A, Poster
Division of Chemical Education |