On the unusual stability of valence anions of thymine based on very rare tautomers: A computational study

We characterized anionic states of thymine using various electronic structure methods, with the most accurate results obtained at the CCSD(T)/aug-cc-pVDZ level of theory followed by extrapolations to complete basis set limits. We found that the most stable anion in the gas phase is related to an imino-oxo tautomer, in which the N1H proton is transferred to the C5 atom. This valence anion, a T_n1^c5, is characterized by an electron vertical detachment energy (VDE) of 1251 meV and it is adiabatically stable with respect to the canonical neutral nT_can by 2.4 kcal/mol. It is also more stable than the dipole-bound (aT_can^dbs) and valence anion (aT_can^val) of the canonical tautomer. The VDE values for aT_can^dbs and aT_can^val, are 55 and 457 meV, respectively. Another, anionic, low-lying imino-oxo tautomer with a VDE of 2458 meV has a proton transferred from N3H to C5 (aT_n3^c5). It is less stable than aT_can^val, by 3.3 kcal/mol. The mechanism of formation of anionic tautomers with the carbons C5 or C6 protonated may involve intermolecular proton transfer or dissociative electron attachment to the canonical neutral tautomer followed by a barrier-free attachment of a hydrogen atom to C5. The six-member ring structure of the anionic tautomers with carbon atoms protonated is unstable upon an excess electron detachment. Within the PCM hydration model, the low-lying valence anions become adiabatically bound with respect to the canonical neutral; aT_n3^c5 becomes the most stable, being followed by aT _n1^c5, aT_n3^c5, aT_can, and aT_n1^c6 © 2006 American Chemical Society.