Contact: Paul Preuss
paul_preuss@lbl.gov
510-486-6249
DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Caption: Uracil is one of the four bases of RNA (carbon atoms are brown, nitrogen purple, oxygen red, hydrogen white). Because methyl groups discourage hydrogen bonding, methylated uracil should be incapable of proton transfer. But after ionization of methylated uracil dimers, a proton moves by a different route, from one monomer to the other.
Credit: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of Southern California
Usage Restrictions: with credit as given
Related news release: A surprising new kind of proton transfer