Density Functional Theory Study on Interaction between Catechin and Thymine

The interacting patterns and mechanism of the catechin and thymine have been investigated with the density functional theory Becke's three-parameter nonlocal exchange functional and the Lee, Yang, and Parr nonlocal correlation functional (B3LYP) method by 6-31+G* basis set. Thirteen stable structures for the catechin-thymine complexes have been found which form two hydrogen bonds at least. The vibrational frequencies are also studied at the same level to analyze these complexes. The results indicated that catechin interacted with thymine by three different hydrogen bonds as N-H center dot center dot center dot O, C-H center dot center dot center dot O, O-H center dot center dot center dot O and the complexes are mainly stabilized by the hydrogen bonding interactions. Theories of atoms in molecules and natural bond orbital have been adopted to investigate the hydrogen bonds involved in all systems. The interaction energies of all complexes have been corrected for basis set superposition error, which are from -18.15 kJ/mol to -32.99 kJ/mol. The results showed that the hydrogen bonding contribute to the interaction energies dominantly. The corresponding bonds stretching motions in all complexes are red-shifted relative to that of the monomer, which is in agreement with experimental results.