Spatially Selective Heteronuclear Multiple-Quantum Coherence Spectroscopy for Biomolecular NMR Studies

Spatially selective heteronuclear multiple-quantum coherence (SS HMQC) NMR spectroscopy is developed for solution studies of proteins. Due to "time-staggered" acquisitioning of free induction decays (FIDs) in different slices, SS HMQC allows one to use long delays for longitudinal nuclear spin relaxation at high repetition rates. To also achieve high intrinsic sensitivity, SS HMQC is implemented by combining a single spatially selec-tive H-1 excitation pulse with nonselective H-1 1808 pulses. High-quality spectra were obtained within 66 s for a 7.6 kDa uniformly C-13, N-15-labeled protein, and within 45 and 90 s for, respectively, two proteins with molecular weights of 7.5 and 43 kDa, which were uniformly H-2, C-13, N-15-labeled, except for having protonated methyl groups of isoleucine, leucine and valine residues.