3D ¹⁵N/¹⁵N/¹H chemical shift correlation experiment utilizing an RFDR-based ¹H/¹H mixing period at 100 kHz MAS

Homonuclear correlation NMR experiments are commonly used in the high-resolution structural studies of proteins. While (13)C/(13)C chemical shift correlation experiments utilizing dipolar recoupling techniques are fully utilized under MAS, correlation of the chemical shifts of (15)N nuclei in proteins has been a challenge. Previous studies have shown that the negligible (15)N-(15)N dipolar coupling in peptides or proteins necessitates the use of a very long mixing time (typically several seconds) for effective spin diffusion to occur and considerably slows down a (15)N/(15)N correlation experiment. In this study, we show that the use of mixing proton magnetization, instead of (15)N, via the recoupled (1)H-(1)H dipolar couplings enable faster (15)N/(15)N correlation. In addition, the use of proton-detection under ultrafast MAS overcomes the sensitivity loss due to multiple magnetization transfer (between (1)H and (15)N nuclei) steps. In fact, less than 300 nL (∼1.1 micromole quantity) sample is sufficient to acquire the 3D spectrum within 5 h. Our results also demonstrate that a 3D (15)N/(15)N/(1)H experiment can render higher resolution spectra that will be useful in the structural studies of proteins at ultrafast MAS frequencies. 3D (15)N/(15)N/(1)H and 2D radio frequency-driven dipolar recoupling (RFDR)-based (1)H/(1)H experimental results obtained from a powder sample of N-acetyla-L-(15)N-valyl-L-(15)N-leucine at 70 and 100kHz MAS frequencies are presented.

Proton-detected solid-state NMR spectroscopy of fully protonated proteins at slow to moderate magic-angle spinning frequencies

(1)H-detection offers a substitute to the sensitivity-starved experiments often used to characterize biomolecular samples using magic-angle spinning solid-state NMR spectroscopy (MAS-ssNMR). To mitigate the effects of the strong (1)H-(1)H dipolar coupled network that would otherwise severely broaden resonances, high MAS frequencies (>40kHz) are often employed. Here, we have explored the alternative of stroboscopic (1)H-detection at moderate MAS frequencies of 5-30kHz using windowed version of supercycled-phase-modulated Lee-Goldburg homonuclear decoupling. We show that improved resolution in the (1)H dimension, comparable to that obtainable at high spinning frequencies of 40-60kHz without homonuclear decoupling, can be obtained in these experiments for fully protonated proteins. Along with detailed analysis of the performance of the method on the standard tri-peptide f-MLF, experiments on micro-crystalline GB1 and amyloid-β aggregates are used to demonstrate the applicability of these pulse-sequences to challenging biomolecular systems. With only two parameters to optimize, broadbanded performance of the homonuclear decoupling sequence, linear dependence of the chemical-shift scaling factor on resonance offset and a straightforward implementation under experimental conditions currently used for many biomolecular studies (viz. spinning frequencies and radio-frequency amplitudes), we expect these experiments to complement the current (13)C-detection based methods in assignments and characterization through chemical-shift mapping.