ABSTRACT
The objective here is to describe structural aspects of NTPs in the solid state. NTPs as metal complexes, especially metal complexes of adenosine 5¢-triphosphate (ATP), may function as substrates in many biochemical reactions involving the phosphoryl and nucleotidyl transfers or hydrolysis, source of metabolic energy, cofactor, and/or modulator of enzymatic activity.1,14 Although a large number of crystal structures of nucleotides,15 most of which are metal complexes,13 are now available, the number of crystal structures of NTPs reported to date is very small, mainly due to the difficulty in preparing suitable single crystals. Moreover, they are all metal complexes of ATP16-24 and thus the present chapter deals with structural aspects of ATP-metal complexes.
