Water-chromophore electron transfer determines the photochemistry of cytosine and cytidine

Many of the UV-induced phenomena observed experimentally for aqueous cytidine were lacking the mechanistic interpretation for decades. These processes include the substantial population of the puzzling long-lived dark state, photohydration, cytidine to uridine conversion and oxazolidinone formation. Here, we present quantum-chemical simulations of excited-state spectra and potential energy surfaces of N1-methylcytosine clustered with two water molecules using the second-order approximate coupled cluster (CC2), complete active space with second-order perturbation theory (CASPT2), and multireference configuration interaction with single and double excitation (MR-CISD) methods. We argue that the assignment of the long-lived dark state to a singlet nπ* excitation involving water-chromophore electron transfer might serve as an explanation for the numerous experimental observations. While our simulated spectra for the state are in excellent agreement with experimentally acquired data, the electron-driven proton transfer process occurring on the surface may initiate the subsequent damage in the vibrationally hot ground state of the chromophore.