High-pressure and low temperature study of the crystal structure of lithium xanthinate hydrate

What is it about?

The study examined the crystal structure of lithium xanthinate hydrate through single crystal X-ray diffraction and Raman spectroscopy, both under compression up to 5.3 GPa and cooling to 100 K. The researchers observed a phase transition at 4 GPa, but no phase transitions occurred upon cooling. Anisotropic strain and changes in intermolecular interactions were compared. The study contributes to a systematic investigation of the effects of temperature and pressure on crystals containing purine nucleobases, which can help understand interactions in biomolecules like nucleic acids. The researchers also noted that the ability of a single crystal of lithium xanthinate hydrate to withstand pressure without a phase transition is a significant achievement.

Featured Image

Photo by Олег Мороз on Unsplash

Photo by Олег Мороз on Unsplash

Why is it important?

This work is a part of a systematic study of the effects of temperature and pressure on crystals containing purine nucleobases. Such crystals can be considered as model systems, in order to study the interactions between the nucleobases in such important biomolecules as nucleic acids, similar to how the interactions in peptides are modeled by studying crystals of amino acids. The ability of a single crystal of lithium xanthinate hydrate to withstand the volume decrease to 16.6% at 3.9 GPa without a phase transition, is, to the best of our knowledge, up to now, the largest value achieved for crystals of nucleotides, DNA and RNA fragments and complexes

Perspectives