Direct covalent mercuration of nucleotides and polynucleotides

Nucleotides of cytosine and uracil are readily mercurated by heating at 37-50 degrees in buffered aqueous solutions (pH 5.0-8.0) containing mercuric acetate. Proton magnetic resonance, elemental, electrophoretic, and chromatographic analyses have shown the products to be 5-mercuricytosine and 5-mercuriuracil derivatives, where the mercury atom is covalently bonded. Polynucleotides can be mercurated under similar conditions. Cytosine and uracil bases are modified in RNA while only cytosine residues in DNA are substituted. There is little, if any, reaction with adenine, thymine, or guanine bases. The rate of polymer mercuration is, unlike that of mononucleotides, markedly influenced by the ionic strength of the reaction mixture: the lower the ionic strength the faster the reaction rate. Pyrimidine residues in single- and double-stranded polymers react at essentially the same rate. Although most polynucleotides can be extensively mercurated at pH 7.0 in sodium or Trisacetate buffers, tRNA undergoes only limited substitution in Tris buffers. The mild reaction conditions give minimal single-strand breakage and, unlike direct iodination procedures, do not produce pyrimidine hydrates. Mercurated polynucleotides can be exploited in a variety of ways, particularly by crystallographic and electron microscopic techniques, as tools for studying polynucleotide structure.