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Adenine




Adenine

Systematic (IUPAC) name
7H-purin-6-amine
Synonyms
6-aminopurine
Identifiers
CAS number 73-24-5
EINECS 200-796-1
PubChem         190
Chemical data
Formula C5H5N5 
Molar mass 135.127
SMILES Nc1ncnc2[nH]cnc12
Physical data
Melt. point 360 - 365 °C (-265 °F)
Complete data

Adenine is a purine with a variety of roles in biochemistry including cellular respiration, in the form of both the energy-rich adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and the cofactors nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) and flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD), and protein synthesis, as a chemical component of DNA and RNA.[1]

Contents

Structure

It forms several tautomers, compounds that can be rapidly interconverted and are often considered equivalent.

Biosynthesis

The Purine metabolism involves the formation of Adenine and Guanine. Both adenine and guanine are derived from the nucleoside inosine monophosphate (IMP), which is synthesised on a pre-existing ribose through a complex pathway using atoms from the amino acids glycine, glutamine, and aspartic acid, as well as formate ions transferred from the coenzyme tetrahydrofolate.

Function

Adenine is one of the two purine nucleobases used in forming nucleotides of the nucleic acids. In DNA, adenine binds to thymine via two hydrogen bonds to assist in stabilizing the nucleic acid structures. In RNA, which is used in the cytoplasm for protein synthesis, adenine binds to uracil.

Adenine forms adenosine, a nucleoside, when attached to ribose, and deoxyadenosine when attached to deoxyribose. It forms adenosine triphosphate (ATP), a nucleotide, when three phosphate groups are added to adenosine. Adenosine triphosphate is used in cellular metabolism as one of the basic methods of transferring chemical energy between chemical reactions.

History

In older literature, adenine was sometimes called Vitamin B4.[2] It is no longer considered a true vitamin or part of the Vitamin B complex. However, two B vitamins, niacin and riboflavin, bind with adenine to form the essential cofactors nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) and flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD), respectively.

Some think that, at the origin of life on Earth, the first adenine was formed by the polymerization of five hydrogen cyanide (HCN) molecules. However, this has been criticized by some chemists.[3]


References

  1. ^ Definition of Adenine from the Genetics Home Reference - National Institutes of Health
  2. ^ Vera Reader (1930). "The assay of vitamin B4". Biochem J. 24 (6): 1827–31..
  3. ^ Shapiro, Robert (June, 1995). "The prebiotic role of adenine: A critical analysis". Origins of Life and Evolution of Biospheres 25: 83-98. doi:10.1007/BF01581575.


Nucleobases: Purine (Adenine, Guanine) | Pyrimidine (Uracil, Thymine, Cytosine)
Nucleosides: Adenosine/Deoxyadenosine | Guanosine/Deoxyguanosine | Uridine | Thymidine | Cytidine/Deoxycytidine
Nucleotides: monophosphates (AMP, GMP, UMP, CMP) | diphosphates (ADP, GDP, UDP, CDP) | triphosphates (ATP, GTP, UTP, CTP) | cyclic (cAMP, cGMP, cADPR)
Deoxynucleotides: monophosphates (dAMP, dGMP, TMP, dCMP) | diphosphates (dADP, dGDP, TDP, dCDP) | triphosphates (dATP, dGTP, TTP, dCTP)
Ribonucleic acids: RNA | mRNA (pre-mRNA/hnRNA) | tRNA | rRNA | gRNA | miRNA | ncRNA | piRNA | shRNA | siRNA | snRNA | snoRNA
Deoxyribonucleic acids: DNA | cDNA | gDNA | msDNA | mtDNA
Nucleic acid analogues: GNA | LNA | PNA | TNA | morpholino
Cloning vectors: phagemid | plasmid | lambda phage | cosmid | P1 phage | fosmid | BAC | YAC | HAC
 
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Adenine". A list of authors is available in Wikipedia.
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