Scandium, Interactions with Nucleotide and Nucleic Acids

Definition

This entry refers to the interactions between scandium element/compounds and nucleic acids. Metal ion-nucleotide complexes have significant chemical and biological properties. Their structures have been studied extensively by various physical techniques such as NMR, IR, UV, and others.

Shyy et al. (1985) studied the interaction of scandium with adenosine 5′-triphosphate (ATP) by ¹⁷O NMR, ³¹P NMR, and ¹H NMR, and confirmed the formation of 1:2 Sc(III)/ATP complex. The Sc(III)/ATP complexes are mixtures of rapidly exchanging diastereomers. The ¹⁷O NMR results showed that binding of Sc induced a small chemical shift effect and a large broadening effect for the line widths of [α-¹⁷O₂]ATP, [β-¹⁷O₂]ATP, and [γ-¹⁷O₃]ATP. Comparison of the relative magnitudes of the line-broadening effect for all of the three phosphates of ATP suggested that the predominant macroscopic structure of Sc³⁺(ATP)₂ is the α, β, γ-tridentate. Such a conclusion is further supported by ¹H NMR. The strength...