STRONG INADEQUATE,an experiment for detection of small J(C,C) couplings in symmetrical molecules

A new version of the two-dimensional INADEQUATE experiment was designed for detection of small couplings between equivalent carbon atoms separated in the molecule by several bonds, where other techniques fail due to rich line splitting and mutual peak cancellation in many molecules. As the proposed method is suitable for detection of couplings in strongly coupled systems in general, we propose the name STRONG INADEQUATE in the paper. Similar to other methods for detection of couplings between equivalent carbons, the STRONG INADEQUATE experiment utilizes one-bond carbon–proton coupling for creation of the effective chemical shift differences. The STRONG INADEQUATE experiment works superbly for ⁿJ_CC, where n ≥ 3. Then the F1 pattern is reduced to a simple antiphase doublet with ⁿJ_CC separation, and this pattern is also preserved when a symmetrical HC···C′H′ system is coupled to other protons. Even in the measurement of ²J_CC couplings, the STRONG INADEQUATE experiment generates a much simpler pattern than the original pulse sequences for measurement of couplings between equivalent carbons.     

Measurement of Aluminum–Carbon Distances Using S‐RESPDOR NMR Experiments

It is demonstrated that reliable aluminum–carbon distances can be measured in samples with ¹³C natural abundance by NMR spectroscopy. Overcoupled resonators, with only one radio‐frequency synthesizer and one amplifier, are used to irradiate in the same pulse sequence ²⁷Al and ¹³C nuclei, which differ by only 3.6 % in Larmor frequencies. The combination of ²⁷Al saturation pulse with heteronuclear dipolar recoupling yields dipolar dephasing of the ¹³C signal, which only depends on the Al? C distance and the efficiency of the saturation pulse. Therefore, reliable distances can be obtained by rapid fitting of experimental data to an analytical expression. It is demonstrated that with natural isotopic abundance this approach allows recovery of Al? C distances of 216 pm for the covalent bond in lithium tetraalkyl aluminates, commonly used as a co‐catalyst in olefin polymerization processes, and which range from 274 to 381 pm for the three carbon atoms in aluminum lactate. The accuracy of the measured internuclear distances is carefully estimated.     

Exclusively Heteronuclear NMR Experiments to Obtain Structural and Dynamic Information on Proteins

Provided that ¹³C‐detected NMR experiments are either preferable or complementary to ¹H detection, we report here tools to determine C^α? C′, C′? N, and C^α? H^α residual dipolar couplings on the basis of the CON experiment. The coupling constants determined on ubiquitin are consistent with the subset measured with the ¹H‐detected HNCO sequences. Since the utilization of residual dipolar couplings may depend on the mobility of the involved nuclei, we also provide tools to measure longitudinal and transverse relaxation rates of N and C′. This new set of experiments is a further development of a whole strategy based on ¹³C direct‐detection NMR spectroscopy for the study of biological macromolecules.     

HyperBIRD: A Sensitivity‐Enhanced Approach to Collecting Homonuclear‐Decoupled Proton NMR Spectra

Samples prepared following dissolution dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) enable the detection of NMR spectra from low‐γ nuclei with outstanding sensitivity, yet have limited use for the enhancement of abundant species like ¹H nuclei. Small‐ and intermediate‐sized molecules, however, show strong heteronuclear cross‐relaxation effects: spontaneous processes with an inherent isotopic selectivity, whereby only the ¹³C‐bonded protons receive a polarization enhancement. These effects are here combined with a recently developed method that delivers homonuclear‐decoupled ¹H spectra in natural abundance samples based on heteronuclear couplings to these same, ¹³C‐bonded nuclei. This results in the HyperBIRD methodology; a single‐shot combination of these two effects that can simultaneously simplify and resolve complex, congested ¹H NMR spectra with many overlapping spin multiplets, while achieving 50–100 times sensitivity enhancements over conventional thermal counterparts.     

Measurement of Large Dipolar Couplings of a Liquid Crystal with Terminal Phenyl Rings and Estimation of the Order Parameters

NMR spectroscopy is a powerful means of studying liquid‐crystalline systems at atomic resolutions. Of the many parameters that can provide information on the dynamics and order of the systems, ¹H–¹³C dipolar couplings are an important means of obtaining such information. Depending on the details of the molecular structure and the magnitude of the order parameters, the dipolar couplings can vary over a wide range of values. Thus the method employed to estimate the dipolar couplings should be capable of estimating both large and small dipolar couplings at the same time. For this purpose, we consider here a two‐dimensional NMR experiment that works similar to the insensitive nuclei enhanced by polarization transfer (INEPT) experiment in solution. With the incorporation of a modification proposed earlier for experiments with low radio frequency power, the scheme is observed to enable a wide range of dipolar couplings to be estimated at the same time. We utilized this approach to obtain dipolar couplings in a liquid crystal with phenyl rings attached to either end of the molecule, and estimated its local order parameters.     

Quantitative determination of aliphatic hydrocarbon compounds by 2D NMR

Quantitative analysis of complex mixtures by NMR is often hampered by heavily overlapping signals in 1D ¹H or ¹³C spectra. To resolve the overlap problem, we have been looking at the possibilities of using heteronuclear correlated 2D NMR methods for quantification. In this work, we applied 2D INEPT to analyze mixtures of tetradecane and squalane, which represent typical substructures of lube oil fractions. The factors affecting correlation peak volumes, namely the polarization transfer delays within pulse sequence, multiplicity of CH_n group and the magnitude of ¹J_{(C, H)} couplings were taken into account by product operator formalism calculations. The results indicate that if absolute precision in quantification is not essential, the current approach can be used for the quantitative analysis of the molecular composition of complex mixtures when conventional 1D NMR methods fail. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Ascorbigen A—NMR identification

The connectivities of all atoms in ascorbigen A, an important metabolite, were determined unambiguously for the first time. The connectivity between carbon atoms was established by 2D INADEQUATE, and one-bond ¹³C–¹³C coupling constants were determined for all pairs of directly connected carbon atoms except for two strongly coupled carbon pairs. The ¹³C–¹³C coupling in one of the pairs was proved by a modification of standard INADEQUATE; however, the signals from the other pair were too weak to be observed. The connectivity within the two strongly coupled C–C pairs was confirmed by a combination of COSY and gHSQC; the latter experiment also identified all C–H bonds. The proton nuclear magnetic resonance (¹H NMR) spectra in dry dimethyl sulfoxide allowed identification and assignment of the signals due to NH and OH protons. The derived structure, 3-((1H-indol-3-yl)methyl)-3,3a,6-trihydroxytetrahydrofuro[3,2-b]furan-2(5H)-one, agrees with the structure suggested for ascorbigen A in 1966. The density functional theory (DFT) calculations showed that among 16 possible stereoisomers, only two complied with the almost zero value of the measured ³J(H6–H6a). Of the two stereoisomers, 3S,3aS,6S,6aR and 3R,3aR,6R,6aS, the latter was excluded on synthetic grounds. The nuclear Overhauser effect measurements unveiled close proximity between H2′ proton of the indole and the H6a proton of the tetrahydrofuro[3,2-b]furan part. Detailed structural interpretation of the measured NMR parameters by means of DFT NMR was hampered by rotational flexibility of the indole and tetrahydrofuro[3,2-b]furan parts and inadequacy of Polarizable Continuum Model (PCM) solvent model.     

A set of triple-resonance nuclear magnetic resonance experiments for structural characterization of organophosphorus compounds in mixture samples

The ¹H, ¹³C correlation NMR spectroscopy utilizes J_CH couplings in molecules, and provides important structural information from small organic molecules in the form of carbon chemical shifts and carbon-proton connectivities. The full potential of the ¹H, ¹³C correlation NMR spectroscopy has not been realized in the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) related verification analyses due to the sample matrix, which usually contains a high amount of non-related compounds obscuring the correlations of the relevant compounds. Here, the results of the application of ¹H, ¹³C, ³¹P triple-resonance NMR spectroscopy in characterization of OP compounds related to the CWC are presented. With a set of two-dimensional triple-resonance experiments the J_HP, J_CH and J_PC couplings are utilized to map the connectivities of the atoms in OP compounds and to extract the carbon chemical shift information. With the use of the proposed pulse sequences the correlations from the OP compounds can be recorded without significant artifacts from the non-OP compound impurities in the sample. Further selectivity of the observed correlations is achieved with the application of phosphorus band-selective pulse in the pulse sequences to assist the analysis of multiple OP compounds in mixture samples. The use of the triple-resonance experiments in the analysis of a complex sample is shown with a test mixture containing typical scheduled OP compounds, including the characteristic degradation products of nerve agents sarin, soman, and VX. The viability of the approach in verification analysis is demonstrated in the analysis of the 30th OPCW Proficiency Test sample.     

ADEQUATE CR: 13C connectivity mapping in indirect detection mode with composite refocusing

We report a novel rare spin correlation experiment termed ADEQUATE with composite refocusing (CR), which is the ¹H‐detected version of 2D INADEQUATE CR. ADEQUATE CR begins with a polarization transfer from protons to the attached carbon, followed by ¹³C–¹³C double‐quantum (DQ) preparation. Unlike the ADEQUATE class of experiments, ¹³C DQ coherence is converted after evolution to single‐quantum single transitions (SQ‐STs) by CR. ¹³C SQ‐ST is then transferred back to the coupled protons by a coherence order selective reconversion. The present sequence produces partial transition selectivity in the ¹H dimension as does ¹H Indirect detected ¹³C Low‐Abundance Single‐transition correlation Spectroscopy (HICLASS), thereby mitigating the reduction in sensitivity enhancement because of the presence of homonuclear proton couplings. However, unlike HICLASS (which is an experiment that involves SQ‐TS evolution), no homonuclear zero quantum mixing is required on the ¹³C channel in the present experiment. Experimental results are demonstrated on a variety of samples, establishing the efficiency of the proposed method. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Pulse Fourier Transform 13C-NMR Spectroscopy,Principles and Applications

As a result of the development of pulse Fourier transform NMR spectroscopy ¹³C resonance has become accepted as a means of elucidating the structures of organic compounds having the natural ¹³C abundance. Assignment of the signals is facilitated by broad-band and off resonance proton decoupling and by knowledge of longitudinal relaxation times. The pulse Fourier technique, which is more sensitive and faster than conventional NMR spectroscopy because of multi-channel excitation, allows ¹³C measurements within a short time even on dilute samples of high molecular weight compounds without prior enrichment in ¹³C.     

Probing Long‐Range Anisotropic Interactions: a General and Sign‐Sensitive Strategy to Measure 1H–1H Residual Dipolar Couplings as a Key Advance for Organic Structure Determination

Residual dipolar couplings (RDCs) are amongst the most powerful NMR parameters for organic structure elucidation. In order to maximize their effectiveness in increasingly complex cases such as flexible compounds, a maximum of RDCs between nuclei sampling a large distribution of orientations is needed, including sign information. For this, the easily accessible one‐bond ¹H–¹³C RDCs alone often fall short. Long‐range ¹H–¹H RDCs are both abundant and typically sample highly complementary orientations, but accessing them in a sign‐sensitive way has been severely obstructed due to the overflow of ¹H–¹H couplings. Here, we present a generally applicable strategy that allows the measurement of a large number of ¹H–¹H RDCs, including their signs, which is based on a combination of an improved PSYCHEDELIC method and a new selective constant‐time β‐COSY experiment. The potential of ¹H–¹H RDCs to better determine molecular alignment and to discriminate between enantiomers and diastereomers is demonstrated.     

1H, 13C and 15N NMR spectral analysis of substituted 1,2,3,4‐tetrahydro‐pyrido[1,2‐a]pyrimidines

The NMR spectroscopic data of a series of thirty‐four 3‐acylpyrido[1,2‐a]pyrimidinium salts are analyzed, which were prepared as either perchlorates or chlorides. Methyl group substituted 3‐aroyltetrahydropyrido[1,2‐a]pyrimidines with the methyl substituent in positions 6, 8 and 9 as well as both in positions 6 and 8 were investigated bearing various aroyl substituents. Unequivocal assignment of all resonances was achieved via two‐dimensional ¹H,¹H‐COSY measurements, ¹H,¹³C and ¹H,¹⁵N HSQC as well as HMBC experiments, and important diagnostic CH and NH couplings in the heteroaromatic ring system are evaluated. The influence of the methyl substituents was analyzed on the proton, carbon and nitrogen shifts. A significant effect of the counter ion on some chemical shifts of the nuclei under discussion of the pyridopyrimidines is found, allowing the indirect detection of the anion, which is confirmed by direct measurement of the ³⁵Cl nucleus of the perchlorates. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Indirect detection of nitrogen-14 in solid-state NMR spectroscopy.

NMR spectra of (14)N (spin I=1) are obtained by indirect detection in powders spinning at the magic angle. The method relies on the transfer of coherence from a neighboring "spy" nucleus with S=1/2, such as (13)C or (1)H, to single- or double-quantum transitions of (14)N nuclei. The transfer of coherence can occur through a combination of scalar and residual dipolar splittings (RDS); the latter are also known as second-order quadrupole-dipole cross terms. The two-dimensional NMR spectra reveal powder patterns determined by second- and third-order quadrupolar couplings. These spectra depend on the quadrupolar coupling constant C(Q) (typically a few megahertz), on the asymmetry parameter eta(Q) of the (14)N nucleus, and on the orientation of the internuclear vector r(IS) between the I ((14)N) and S (spy) nuclei with respect to the quadrupolar tensor. These parameters, which can be subject to motional averaging, can reveal valuable information about the structure and dynamics of nitrogen-containing solids. Application of this technique to various amino acids, either enriched in (13)C or with natural carbon isotope abundance, with spectra recorded at various magnetic fields, illustrates the scope of the method.     

Improved pulse sequences for measurement of small long‐range couplings between heteronuclei (29Si?13C) at natural abundance

The gradient pulse sequences for measurement of small long‐range couplings between heteronuclei (²⁹Si? ¹³C) in natural abundance reported to date (INEPT‐(Si,C)gCOSY and INEPT‐(Si,C,Si)HMQC) suffer from significant signal loss when these nuclei (²⁹Si, ¹³C) are coupled through one‐bond couplings to protons. This negative effect can be completely eliminated by using non‐gradient versions (INEPT‐(Si,C)COSY) or by switching proton decoupling off during gradient pulses (modified INEPT‐(Si,C,Si)gHMQC pulse sequence). The beneficial effects of these two approaches on the quality of the spectra are demonstrated here. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Rapid Acquisition of 14N Solid‐State NMR Spectra with Broadband Cross Polarization

Nitrogen is an element of utmost importance in chemistry, biology and materials science. Of its two NMR‐active isotopes, ¹⁴N and ¹⁵N, solid‐state NMR (SSNMR) experiments are rarely conducted upon the former, due to its low gyromagnetic ratio (γ) and broad powder patterns arising from first‐order quadrupolar interactions. In this work, we propose a methodology for the rapid acquisition of high quality ¹⁴N SSNMR spectra that is easy to implement, and can be used for a variety of nitrogen‐containing systems. We demonstrate that it is possible to dramatically enhance ¹⁴N NMR signals in spectra of stationary, polycrystalline samples (i.e., amino acids and active pharmaceutical ingredients) by means of broadband cross polarization (CP) from abundant nuclei (e.g., ¹H). The BR oadband A diabatic IN version C ross‐ P olarization ( BRAIN–CP ) pulse sequence is combined with other elements for efficient acquisition of ultra‐wideline SSNMR spectra, including W ideband U niform‐ R ate S mooth‐ T runcation ( WURST ) pulses for broadband refocusing, C arr– P urcell M eiboom– G ill ( CPMG ) echo trains for T₂‐driven S/N enhancement, and frequency‐stepped acquisitions. The feasibility of utilizing the BRAIN–CP/WURST–CPMG sequence is tested for ¹⁴N, with special consideration given to (i) spin‐locking integer spin nuclei and maintaining adiabatic polarization transfer, and (ii) the effects of broadband polarization transfer on the overlapping satellite transition patterns. The BRAIN–CP experiments are shown to provide increases in signal‐to‐noise ranging from four to ten times and reductions of experimental times from one to two orders of magnitude compared to analogous experiments where ¹⁴N nuclei are directly excited. Furthermore, patterns acquired with this method are generally more uniform than those acquired with direct excitation methods. We also discuss the proposed method and its potential for probing a variety of chemically distinct nitrogen environments.     

LR-selHSQMBC: Simultaneous Detection and Quantification of Very Weak Long-Range Heteronuclear NMR Correlations

The optimum detection and accurate measurement of longer-range (⁴J and higher) heteronuclear NMR correlations is described. The magnitude and/or the sign of a wide range of large and small long-range couplings can be simultaneously determined for protonated and non-protonated ¹³C and ¹⁵N nuclei using the LR-selHSQMBC experiment.     

Biosynthesis of citreothiolactone,citreopyrone and pyrenocine B

¹³C NMR spectroscopy using INADEQUATE pulse sequence method has been used to deduce the labelling patterns of the three metabolites of $\text{Penicillium citreo-viride}$ B. derived from [1,2-¹³C]acetate, indicating that their carbon skeletons consist of two different units [CH₃COCH₂COCH₂COS-Enzyme and CH₃COCH₂COS-Enzyme].     

PSYCHE CPMG–HSQMBC: An NMR Spectroscopic Method for Precise and Simple Measurement of Long‐Range Heteronuclear Coupling Constants

Among the NMR spectroscopic parameters, long‐range heteronuclear coupling constants convey invaluable information on torsion angles relevant to glycosidic linkages of carbohydrates. A broadband homonuclear decoupled PSYCHE CPMG–HSQMBC method for the precise and direct measurement of multiple‐bond heteronuclear couplings is presented. The PSYCHE scheme built into the pulse sequence efficiently eliminates unwanted proton–proton splittings from the heteronuclear multiplets so that the desired heteronuclear couplings can be determined simply by measuring frequency differences between peak maxima of pure antiphase doublets. Moreover, PSYCHE CPMG–HSQMBC can provide significant improvement in sensitivity as compared to an earlier Zangger–Sterk‐based method. Applications of the proposed pulse sequence are demonstrated for the extraction of ⁿJ(¹H,⁷⁷Se) and ⁿJ(¹H,¹³C) values, respectively, in carbohydrates; further extensions can be envisioned in any J‐based structural and conformational studies.     

1H, 13C, 19F and 11B NMR spectral reference data of some potassium organotrifluoroborates

Complete ¹H, ¹³C, ¹⁹F and ¹¹B NMR spectral data for 28 potassium organotrifluoroborates are described. The resonance for the carbon bearing the boron atom is described for most of the studied compounds. A modified ¹¹B NMR pulse sequence was used and better resolution was observed allowing the observation of ¹¹B–¹⁹F coupling constants for some of the studied compounds. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Giant Residual Dipolar 13C–1H Couplings in High‐Spin Organoiron Complexes: Elucidation of Their Structures in Solution by 13C NMR Spectroscopy

High‐spin Fe^II–alkyl complexes with bis(pyridylimino)isoindolato ligands were synthesized and their paramagnetic ¹H and ¹³C NMR spectra were analyzed comprehensively. The experimental ¹³C—¹H coupling values are temperature (T^?1)‐ as well as magnetic‐field (B²)‐dependent and deviate considerably from typical scalar ¹J_CH couplings constants. This deviation is attributed to residual dipolar couplings (RDCs), which arise from partial alignment of the complexes in the presence of a strong magnetic field. The analysis of the experimental RDCs allows an unambiguous assignment of all ¹³C NMR resonances and, additionally, a structural refinement of the conformation of the complexes in solution. Moreover the RDCs can be used for the analysis of the alignment tensor and hence the tensor of the anisotropy of the magnetic susceptibility.