Lifetimes of the first electronic excited state (S(1)) of fluorine and methyl (o-, m-, and p-) substituted phenols and their complexes with one ammonia molecule have been measured for the 0(0) transition and for the intermolecular stretching σ(1) levels in complexes using picosecond pump-probe spectroscopy. Excitation energies to the S(1) (ππ*) and S(2) (πσ*) states are obtained by quantum chemical calculations at the MP2 and CC2 level using the aug-cc-pVDZ basis set for the ground-state and the S(1) optimized geometries. The observed lifetimes and the energy gaps between the ππ* and πσ* states show a good correlation, the lifetime being shorter for a smaller energy gap. This propensity suggests that the major dynamics in the excited state concerns an excited state hydrogen detachment or transfer (ESHD/T) promoted directly by a S(1)/S(2) conical intersection, rather than via internal conversion to the ground-state. A specific shortening of lifetime is found in the o-fluorophenol-ammonia complex and explained in terms of the vibronic coupling between the ππ* and πσ* states occurring through the out-of-plane distortion of the C-F bond.

The very fast relaxation of the excited states to the ground state in DNA/RNA bases is a necessary process to ensure the photostability of DNA and its rate is highly sensitive to the tautomeric form of the bases.Protonation of the bases plays a crucial role in many biochemical and mutagenic processes and it can result in alternative tautomeric structures, thus making important the knowledge of the properties of protonated DNA/RNA bases. We report here the photofragmentation spectra of the five protonated DNA/RNA bases. In most of the cases, the spectra exhibit well resolved vibrational structures, with broad bands associated with very short excited state lifetimes. The similarity between the electronic properties e.g. excitation energy and very short excited state lifetimes for the canonical tautomers of protonated and neutral DNA bases, suggests that the former could also play an important role in the photostability mechanism of DNA.2

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A picosecond pump and probe experiment has been applied to study the excited state dynamics of 7-azaindole-water 1 ∶ 2 and 1 ∶ 3 clusters [7AI(H(2)O)(2,3)] in the gas phase. The vibrational-mode selective Excited-State-Triple-Proton Transfer (ESTPT) in 7AI(H(2)O)(2) proposed from the frequency-resolved study has been confirmed by picosecond decays. The decay times for the vibronic states involving the ESTPT promoting mode σ(1) (850-1000 ps) are much shorter than those for the other vibronic states (2100-4600 ps). In the (1 + 1) REMPI spectrum of 7AI(H(2)O)(3) measured by nanosecond laser pulses, the vibronic bands with an energy higher than 200 cm(-1) above the origin of the S(1) state become very weak. In contrast, the vibronic bands in the same region emerge in the (1 + 1') REMPI spectrum of 7AI(H(2)O)(3) with picosecond pulses. The decay times drastically decrease when increasing the vibrational energy above 200 cm(-1). Ab initio calculations show that a second stable "cyclic-nonplanar isomer" exists in addition to a "bridged-planar isomer", and that an isomerization from a bridged-planar isomer to a cyclic-nonplanar isomer is most probably responsible for the short lifetimes of the vibronic states of 7AI(H(2)O)(3).

Gas phase protonated guanine-cytosine (CGH) pair was generated using an electrospray ionization source from solutions at two different pH (5.8 and 3.2). Consistent evidence from MS/MS fragmentation patterns and differential ion mobility spectra (DIMS) point toward the presence of two isomers of the CGH pair, whose relative populations depend strongly on the pH of the solution. Gas phase infrared multiphoton dissociation (IRMPD) spectroscopy in the 900-1900 cm spectral range further confirms that the Watson-Crick isomer is preferentially produced (91%) at pH = 5.8, while the Hoogsteen isomer predominates (66%) at pH = 3.2). These fingerprint signatures are expected to be useful for the development of new analytical methodologies and to trigger isomer selective photochemical studies of protonated DNA base pairs.

The study of metal ion-DNA interaction aiming to understand the stabilization of artificial base pairing and a number of noncanonical motifs is of current interest, due to their potential exploitation in developing new technological devices and expanding the genetic code. A successful strategy has been the synthesis of metal-mediated base pairs, in which a coordinative bond to a central metal cation replaces a H-bond in a natural pair. In this work, we characterized, for the first time, the gas phase structure of the cytosine···Ag···cytosine (C-Ag-C) complex by means of InfraRed-MultiPhoton-Dissociation (IR-MPD) spectroscopy and theoretical calculation. The IR-spectrum was confidently assigned to one structure with the Ag acting as a bridge between the heteronitrogen atoms in each cytosine (both in the keto-amino form). This structure is biologically relevant since it mimics the structure of the hemiprotonated C-H-C dimer responsible for the stabilization of the i-motif structure in DNA, with the replacement of the NH···N bond by a stronger N···Ag···N bond. Moreover, since the structure of the C-Ag-C complex is planar, it allows an optimum intercalation between pairs of the two antiparallel strand duplex in the DNA i-motif structure.

The study of the phenol–(NH3)3 cluster with two-color two-photon ionization shows that the main ion observed with delays between the lasers up to a few hundred nanoseconds is the (NH4)+(NH3)2 fragment, resulting from direct ionization of the (NH4)(NH3)2 product coming from the reaction: PhOH(S1)–(NH3)3→PhO•+(NH4)(NH3)2.

Photodetachment leads to a stable radical and to dissociation. Both processes are characterized by the kinetic energy release of the neutral particles.