A New Mechanism Towards Understanding the Origin of DNA Oxidation
Biomarkers Under Hypoxia Condition -- a Theoretical Perspective
Abstract
Reactivity of thymine peroxy radical in DNA and its fate under hypoxia
or oxygen-less conditions are studied at the M06-2X/6-31+G(d,p) level.
The spaciously most accessible H2’ can be abstracted by C6-peroxy
radical in an intranucleotidyl manner with the estimated barriers of
18.8 ~ 21.1 kcal/mol. The calculations show that
C6-peroxy radical has a highly more reactivity towards C(sp3)-H
abstraction reactions than its relative C6-yl, which is a
counter-intuitive case. The formed hydroperoxide with the C6-OaObH2’
constituent can fast transfer ObH2’ group to C2’ radical in an
intranucleotidyl manner with a low barrier (ca. 13.2 kcal/mol) and very
strong heat release. The results show that the formed hydroperoxide
product is unstable so that it could be quickly transformed into other
species and thus is very hard to be experimentally observed. Afterwards,
H2’ can be again abstracted by C6-oxyl radical to result in formation of
thymine glycol which is the main products. The parallel C5-C6 bond
scission reaction leads to formation of the precursor for
5-hydroxy-5-methylhydantion. The two competitive reactions have very low
barriers. Based on our present calculations, the new radical reaction
paths to formation of the DNA oxidation products are suggested under
hypoxia or oxygen-less conditions, which is different from the
previously suggested paths under high oxygen concentration surroundings.