Force field for platinum binding to adenine

The antitumor drug cis-diamminedichloroplatinum(II) (cisplatin) binds preferentially to GpG and ApG sequences of DNA, forming N7,N7 intrastrand chelates. Molecular modeling of the intrastrand adducts have been handicapped, so far, by the lack of force-field data describing the Pt–guanine and Pt–adenine binding. We used ab initio calculations with relativistic pseudopotentials to evaluate three important parameters for the platinum–adenine model complex [Pt(NH3)3(Ade)]2+: (1) the force constant for the PtN7 bond bending out of the adenine plane; (2) the energy profile for the torsion about PtN7; (3) a set of fractional atomic charges that reproduce the ab initio potential for a number of space points placed around the adduct. A population analysis and comparative study on the tetrammine complex [Pt(NH3)4]2+ have shown that for platinum adenine is a better σ-donor than NH3, but its capacity as a π-acceptor is weak. © 1993 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.