Pre-Homonuclear Decoupling Enables High-Resolution NMR Analysis of Intrinsically Disordered Proteins in Solution

J Phys Chem Lett. 2019 Aug 15;10(16):4720-4724. doi: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.9b01773. Epub 2019 Aug 6.

Abstract

Probing the atomic details of intrinsically disordered proteins is crucial to understanding their biological function and relation to pathogenesis. Although amide-detected NMR experiments are widely employed in protein studies, 3JHNHα couplings between amide (1HN) and alpha (1Hα) protons impose an intrinsic limit on the achievable 1HN linewidth. Here, we present a homonuclear decoupling method that narrows the α-synuclein 1HN linewidths to 3-5 Hz. Tightly distributed 1JCαHα coupling values were employed to generate homogeneous antiphase coherences of 2HαzHNy and 4Hα(2)zHα(3)zHNy for nonglycine and glycine residues, respectively, which were combined with their in-phase HNy counterparts to achieve homonuclear decoupling. By reducing the multiplet structure to a singlet, the width of the 1HN cross-peak was reduced by ∼3-fold in the 2D HSQC and 3D intra-HNCA spectra, and good spectral quality was achieved without the need for postprocessing.

MeSH terms

  • Amides / chemistry
  • Glycine / chemistry
  • Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, Biomolecular*
  • Protons
  • Quantum Theory
  • Solutions / chemistry
  • alpha-Synuclein / chemistry*

Substances

  • Amides
  • Protons
  • Solutions
  • alpha-Synuclein
  • Glycine