Tautomerism of uracil and related compounds: A mass spectrometry study

It has been demonstrated that uracil has a preponderant tautomeric form, but it is also known that different tautomers co-exist in this equilibrium. In this work, mass spectrometry is used as a helpful tool to analyse the equilibria, using derivative compounds to forbid the presence of some tautomers and ion trap mass spectrometry to follow relevant fragmentation pathways. Theoretical calculations were performed to confirm tautomers abundance by energy minimization in gas phase. Analysis of mass spectra of uracil, three methyl-substituted uracils, 2-thiouracil and three benzouracils suggest that uracil exists mainly as three tautomers in gas phase: one major structure that corresponds to the classical structure of uracil (pyrimidine-2,4(1H,3H)-dione) bearing two carbonyls and two NH moieties, and two minor enolic forms (4-hydroxypyrimidin-2(1H)-one and 2-hydroxypyrimidin-4(1H)-one). Such tautomeric distribution is supported by theoretical calculations, which show that they are the three most stable tautomers.