Excited-State Dynamics in O-Methylguanosine: Impact of O-Methylation on the Relaxation Mechanism of Guanine Monomers.

Absorption of ultraviolet radiation by DNA bases results in ultrafast internal conversion to the ground state, which minimizes photodamage. However, exogenous and endogenous alkylating agents present in the cellular environment can methylate the nucleobases in DNA. In particular, methylation of guanosine at the O position in DNA leads to the formation of the O-methylguanosine adduct, which may alter the photostability of DNA. This contribution demonstrates that O-methylation of guanosine red shifts its ground-state absorption spectrum and slows down the rate of internal conversion to the ground state by ∼40-fold in aqueous solution. The 40-fold decrease in the rate of excited-state decay increases the probability of photodamage within cellular DNA. It is proposed that the longer decay lifetime corresponds to relaxation of the excited-state population in O-methylguanosine along a C6-puckered reaction coordinate in the ππ*(L) potential energy surface that runs parallel to an ultrafast internal conversion pathway along a C2-puckered coordinate.