Absolute Minimal Sampling of Homonuclear 2D NMR TOCSY Spectra for High-Throughput Applications of Complex Mixtures

Modern applications of 2D NMR spectroscopy to diagnostic screening, metabolomics, quality control, and other high-throughput applications are often limited by the time-consuming sampling requirements along the indirect time domain t₁. 2D total correlation spectroscopy (TOCSY) provides unique spin connectivity information for the analysis of a large number of compounds in complex mixtures, but standard methods typically require >100 t₁ increments for an accurate spectral reconstruction, rendering these experiments ineffective for high-throughput applications. For a complex metabolite mixture it is demonstrated that absolute minimal sampling (AMS), based on direct fitting of resonance frequencies and amplitudes in the time domain, yields an accurate spectral reconstruction of TOCSY spectra using as few as 16 t₁ points. This permits the rapid collection of homonuclear 2D NMR experiments at high resolution with measurement times that previously were only the realm of 1D experiments.     

Absolute Minimal Sampling of Homonuclear 2D NMR TOCSY Spectra for High‐Throughput Applications of Complex Mixtures

Modern applications of 2D NMR spectroscopy to diagnostic screening, metabolomics, quality control, and other high‐throughput applications are often limited by the time‐consuming sampling requirements along the indirect time domain t ₁. 2D total correlation spectroscopy (TOCSY) provides unique spin connectivity information for the analysis of a large number of compounds in complex mixtures, but standard methods typically require >100 t ₁ increments for an accurate spectral reconstruction, rendering these experiments ineffective for high‐throughput applications. For a complex metabolite mixture it is demonstrated that absolute minimal sampling (AMS), based on direct fitting of resonance frequencies and amplitudes in the time domain, yields an accurate spectral reconstruction of TOCSY spectra using as few as 16 t ₁ points. This permits the rapid collection of homonuclear 2D NMR experiments at high resolution with measurement times that previously were only the realm of 1D experiments.     

New developments in the spatial encoding of spin interactions for single‐scan 2D NMR

Single‐scan 2D NMR relies on a spatial axis for encoding the indirect‐domain internal spin interactions. Various strategies have been demonstrated for fulfilling the needs underlying this procedure. All such schemes use gradient‐echoed sequences that leave at their conclusion solely the effects of the internal interactions along the indirect domain; they also include a real‐time scheme that though simple, yields in general mixed‐phase line shapes. The present paper introduces two new proposals geared up for easing the spatial encoding underlying single‐scan 2D NMR methodologies. One of these is capable of delivering dispersive‐free peaks along the indirect domain, and thereby purely‐absorptive 2D line shapes, in amplitude‐encoded experiments. The other demonstrates for the first time, the possibility to obtain single‐scan 2D spectra without echoing the effects of the encoding gradient–simply by applying a single‐pulse frequency sweep to encode the interactions. Both of these modes are compatible with homo‐ and heteronuclear correlations, and exhibit a number of complementary features vis‐à‐vis encoding alternatives that have so far been presented. The overall principles underlying these new spatially encoding protocols are derived, and their performance demonstrated with single‐scan 2D NMR TOCSY and HSQC experiments on model compounds. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Absolute Minimal Sampling in High‐Dimensional NMR Spectroscopy

Standard three‐dimensional Fourier transform (FT) NMR experiments of molecular systems often involve prolonged measurement times due to extensive sampling required along the indirect time domains to obtain adequate spectral resolution. In recent years, a wealth of alternative sampling methods has been proposed to ease this bottleneck. However, due to their algorithmic complexity, for a given sample and experiment it is often hard to determine the minimal sampling requirement, and hence the maximal achievable experimental speed up. Herein we introduce an absolute minimal sampling (AMS) method that can be applied to common 3D NMR experiments. We show for the proteins ubiquitin and arginine kinase that for widely used experiments, such as 3D HNCO, accurate carbon frequencies can be obtained with a single time increment, while for others, such as 3D HN(CA)CO, all relevant information is obtained with as few as 6 increments amounting to a speed up of a factor 7–50.     

Structure elucidation and NMR assignments for two xanthone derivatives from a mangrove endophytic fungus (No. ZH19)

The structure elucidations and complete ¹H and ¹³C NMR assignments are reported for two new xanthone derivatives: 1,7‐dihydroxy‐2‐methoxy‐3‐(3‐methylbut‐2‐enyl)‐9H‐xanthen‐9‐one (1) and 1‐hydroxy‐4,7‐dimethoxy‐6‐(3‐oxobutyl)‐9H‐xanthen‐9‐one (2). Both of these secondary metabolites were isolated from the fermentation medium of a mangrove endophytic fungus (No. ZH19). High‐resolution electron impact mass spectrometry (HREIMS), Fourier transform infrared (FT‐IR) absorption spectrometry, and NMR experiments including gCOSY, gHMQC, and gHMBC were used for the determination of the structures and NMR spectral assignments. Preliminary pharmacological test showed that compounds (1) and (2) inhibited KB cells with IC₅₀ values of 20 and 35 µmol/ml, and KB_V200 cells with IC₅₀ values of 30 and 41 µmol/ml, respectively. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Covariance nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy

Covariance nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is introduced, which is a new scheme for establishing nuclear spin correlations from NMR experiments. In this method correlated spin dynamics is directly displayed in terms of a covariance matrix of a series of one-dimensional (1D) spectra. In contrast to two-dimensional (2D) Fourier transform NMR, in a covariance spectrum the spectral resolution along the indirect dimension is determined by the favorable spectral resolution obtainable along the detection dimension, thereby reducing the time-consuming sampling requirement along the indirect dimension. The covariance method neither involves a second Fourier transformation nor does it require separate phase correction or apodization along the indirect dimension. The new scheme is demonstrated for cross-relaxation (NOESY) and J-coupling based magnetization transfer (TOCSY) experiments.     

Sensitivity enhancement for maximally resolved two‐dimensional NMR by nonuniform sampling

Resolving NMR signals which are separated in frequency on the order of their line widths requires obtaining the time domain free induction decay for a maximum time t_max = πT₂, where T₂ is the transverse relaxation time of the given signals. Unfortunately, samples acquired beyond ～1.26T₂ contribute more noise than signal to the data; and samples in the range of about (0.75–1.26)× T₂ have a negligible effect on the signal‐to‐noise ratio (SNR). Therefore, one must sacrifice SNR to reach evolution times of πT₂. One can preserve resolution in a shorter total experimental time by selecting a reduced set of samples from the Nyquist grid according to an exponential probability density which is on the order of the T₂ of the signals. This practice is widely termed nonuniform sampling (NUS). We derive analytic theory for the enhancement of the intrinsic SNR of NUS time domain data compared with uniformly sampled data when the total experimental times are equivalent. This theory is general for any t_max and exponential weighting and is further carefully validated with simulations. Enhancements of SNR in the time domain on the order of twofold are routinely available when t_max ～ πT₂ and are reflected in the subsequent maximum entropy reconstructed spectra. SNR enhancement by NUS is demonstrated to be helpful in enabling the acquisition of HMQC spectra of dilute bile salts in which high resolution in the indirect carbon dimension is required. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Keeping PASE with WEFT: SHWEFT–PASE pulse sequences for 1H NMR spectra of highly paramagnetic molecules

Metalloproteins are a category of biomolecules in which the metal site is usually the locus of activity or function. In many cases, the metal ions are paramagnetic or have accessible paramagnetic states, many of which can be studied using NMR spectroscopy. Extracting useful information from ¹H NMR spectra of highly paramagnetic proteins can be difficult because the paramagnetism leads to large resonance shifts (~400 ppm), extremely broad lines, extreme baseline nonlinearity, and peak shape distortion. It is demonstrated that employing polychromatic and adiabatic shaped pulses in simple pulse sequences, then combining existing sequences, leads to significant spectral improvement for highly paramagnetic proteins. These sequences employ existing technology, with available hardware, and are of short duration to accommodate short nuclear T₁ and T₂. They are shown to display uniform excitation over large spectral widths (~75 kHz), accommodate high repetition rates, produce flat baselines over 75 kHz while maintaining peak shape fidelity, and can be used to reduce spectral dynamic range. High‐spin (S = 5/2) metmyoglobin, a prototypical highly paramagnetic protein, was used as the test molecule. The resulting one‐dimensional (1D) pulse sequences combine shaped pulses with super‐water elimination Fourier transform, which can be further combined with paramagnetic spectroscopy to give shaped pulses with super‐water elimination Fourier transform–paramagnetic spectroscopy. These sequences require, at most, direct current offset correction and minimal phasing. The performance of these sequences in simple ¹H 1D, 1D NOE, and two‐dimensional NOESY experiments is demonstrated for metmyoglobin and Paracoccus denitrificans Co²⁺‐amicyanin (S = 3/2), and employed to make new heme hyperfine resonance assignments for high‐spin metBjFixLH_151–256, the heme sensing domain of Bradyrhizobium japonicum FixL. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Theory of covariance nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy

Covariance nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy provides an effective way for establishing nuclear spin connectivities in molecular systems. The method, which identifies correlated spin dynamics in terms of covariances between 1D spectra, benefits from a high spectral resolution along the indirect dimension without requiring apodization and Fourier transformation along this dimension. The theoretical treatment of covariance NMR spectroscopy is given for NOESY and TOCSY experiments. It is shown that for a large class of 2D NMR experiments the covariance spectrum and the 2D Fourier transform spectrum can be related to each other by means of Parseval's theorem. A general procedure is presented for the construction of a symmetric spectrum with improved resolution along the indirect frequency domain as compared to the 2D FT spectrum.     

Disentangling Complex Mixtures of Compounds with Near‐Identical 1H and 13C NMR Spectra using Pure Shift NMR Spectroscopy

The thorough analysis of highly complex NMR spectra using pure shift NMR experiments is described. The enhanced spectral resolution obtained from modern 2D HOBS experiments incorporating spectral aliasing in the ¹³C indirect dimension enables the distinction of similar compounds exhibiting near‐identical ¹H and ¹³C NMR spectra. It is shown that a complete set of extremely small Δδ(¹H) and Δδ(¹³C) values, even below the natural line width (1 and 5 ppb, respectively), can be simultaneously determined and assigned.     

Uncovering Key Structural Features of an Enantioselective Peptide‐Catalyzed Acylation Utilizing Advanced NMR Techniques

We report on a detailed NMR spectroscopic study of the catalyst‐substrate interaction of a highly enantioselective oligopeptide catalyst that is used for the kinetic resolution of trans‐cycloalkane‐1,2‐diols via monoacylation. The extraordinary selectivity has been rationalized by molecular dynamics as well as density functional theory (DFT) computations. Herein we describe the conformational analysis of the organocatalyst studied by a combination of nuclear Overhauser effect (NOE) and residual dipolar coupling (RDC)‐based methods that resulted in an ensemble of four final conformers. To corroborate the proposed mechanism, we also investigated the catalyst in mixtures with both trans‐cyclohexane‐1,2‐diol enantiomers separately, using advanced NMR methods such as T₁ relaxation time and diffusion‐ordered spectroscopy (DOSY) measurements to probe molecular aggregation. We determined intramolecular distance changes within the catalyst after diol addition from quantitative NOE data. Finally, we developed a pure shift EASY ROESY experiment using PSYCHE homodecoupling to directly observe intermolecular NOE contacts between the trans‐1,2‐diol and the cyclohexyl moiety of the catalyst hidden by spectral overlap in conventional spectra. All experimental NMR data support the results proposed by earlier computations including the proposed key role of dispersion interaction.     

Structure elucidation and complete NMR spectral assignments of glucosylated saponins of cantalasaponin I

Five new glucosylated steroidal glycosides, cantalasaponin I‐B₁ (1), I‐B₂ (2), I‐B₃ (3), I‐B₄ (4) and I‐B₅ (5), were isolated and purified from the transformed product of the cantalasaponin I by using Toruzyme 3.0 l as biocatalyst. Their structures were elucidated on the basis of high‐resolution electrospray ionization mass spectrometry, one‐dimensional (¹H and ¹³C NMR) and two‐dimensional [COSY, heteronuclear single‐quantum correlation (HSQC), HMBC and HSQC‐TOCSY] NMR spectral analyses and chemical evidence. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

SPEED: single‐point evaluation of the evolution dimension

Two‐dimensional NMR spectroscopy can be speeded up by orders of magnitude by severely restricting the number of sampling operations in the evolution dimension–we demonstrate that just a single measurement may suffice. The frequencies evolving in the indirect dimension (t₁) are deduced from the amplitudes of the signals acquired in the direct dimension (t₂). Prior measurements of the one‐dimensional spectra are required. Results are presented for the two‐dimensional ¹³C‐HSQC spectrum of 2‐ethylindanone recorded at a single fixed setting of the evolution time, demonstrating a speed advantage of 120. The method can be extended to multidimensional spectra, with correspondingly greater gains in speed. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

MQD--multiplex-quadrature detection in multi-dimensional NMR

With multiplex‐quadrature detection (MQD) the tasks of coherence selection and quadrature separation in N‐dimensional heteronuclear NMR experiments are merged. Thus the number of acquisitions required to achieve a desired resolution in the indirect dimensions is significantly reduced. The minimum number of transients per indirect data point, which have to be combined to give pure‐phase spectra, is thus decreased by a factor (3/4)^N?1. This reduction is achieved without adjustable parameters. We demonstrate the advantage by MQD 3D HNCO and HCCH‐TOCSY spectra affording the same resolution and the same per‐scan sensitivity as standard phase‐cycled ones, but obtained in only 56 % of the usual time and by resolution improvements achieved in the same amount of time.     

Solid-state NMR covariance of homonuclear correlation spectra

Direct covariance NMR spectroscopy, which does not involve a Fourier transformation along the indirect dimension, is demonstrated to obtain homonuclear correlation two-dimensional (2D) spectra in the solid state. In contrast to the usual 2D Fourier transform (2D-FT) NMR, in a 2D covariance (2D-Cov) spectrum the spectral resolution in the indirect dimension is determined by the resolution along the detection dimension, thereby largely reducing the time-consuming indirect sampling requirement. The covariance method does not need any separate phase correction or apodization along the indirect dimension because it uses those applied in the detection dimension. We compare in detail the specifications obtained with 2D-FT and 2D-Cov, for narrow and broad resonances. The efficiency of the covariance data treatment is demonstrated in organic and inorganic samples that are both well crystallized and amorphous, for spin -1/2 nuclei with 13C, 29Si, and 31P through-space or through-bond homonuclear 2D correlation spectra. In all cases, the experimental time has been reduced by at least a factor of 10, without any loss of resolution and signal to noise ratio, with respect to what is necessary with the 2D-FT NMR. According to this method, we have been able to study the silicate network of glasses by 2D NMR within reasonable experimental time despite the very long relaxation time of the 29Si nucleus. The main limitation of the 2D-Cov data treatment is related to the introduction of autocorrelated peaks onto the diagonal, which does not represent any actual connectivity.     

Study of near‐symmetric cyclodextrins by compressed sensing 2D NMR

The compressed sensing NMR (CS‐NMR) is an approach to processing of nonuniformly sampled NMR data. Its idea is to introduce minimal l_p‐norm (0 < p ≤ 1) constraint to a penalty function used in a reconstruction algorithm. Here, we demonstrate that 2D CS‐NMR spectra allow the full spectral assignment of near‐symmetric β‐cyclodextrin derivatives (mono‐modified at the C6 position). The application of CS‐NMR ensures experimental time saving and the resolution improvement, necessary because of very low chemical shift dispersion. In the overnight experimental time, the set of properly resolved 2D NMR spectra required for the unambiguous assignment of mono(6‐deoxy‐6‐(1‐1,2,3‐triazo‐4‐yl)‐1‐propane‐3‐O‐(phenyl)) β‐cyclodextrin was obtained. The highly resolved HSQC spectrum was reconstructed from 5.12% of the data. Moreover, reconstructed 2D HSQC–TOCSY spectrum yielded information about the correlations within one sugar unit, and 2D HSQC–NOESY technique allowed the sequential assignment of the glucosidic units. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

REAL‐t1, an Effective Approach for t1‐Noise Suppression in NMR Spectroscopy Based on Resampling Algorithm

Summaryof main observation and conclusionIn multidimensional(nD)NMR spectroscopy,t1noise usually appears as ridges along indirect dimen-sions,and affects observation of weak signals.The main source of t1noise is instrumental instability,which causes random variation of FID amplitude during data acquisitions and introduces random noise-like peaks into spectrum after Fourier transformation.A number of efforts have been devoted,in order to develop new method or to improve existing approaches for suppressing t1noise.Herein,we propose a novel t1noise suppression method based on resampling algorithm for data processing,shortenedas REAL-t1.The method was verified using simulated 2D spectra,and NOESY spectra of sucrose and protein GB1,showing that the spectral quality was improved in all cases.The performance of REAL-t1was also compared with another recently pro-posed method,which showed that these two methods provided similar performance while REAL-t1cost much shorter experimental time.     

Structure elucidation and NMR assignments for three anthraquinone derivatives from the marine fungus Fusarium sp. (No. ZH‐210)

The structure elucidations and complete ¹H and ¹³C NMR assignments are reported for three new anthraquinone derivatives: Fusaquinon A (1), B (2), and C (3) isolated from the fermentation medium of the marine fungus Fusarium sp. (No. ZH‐210). HREIMS, Fourier transform infrared absorption spectrometry (FT‐IR), NMR experiments including gCOSY, gHMQC, gHMBC, and NOESY were used for the determination of the structures and NMR spectral assignments. Preliminary pharmacological test showed that they exhibited low cytotoxic activity towards KB, KBv200, and MCF‐7 cell lines. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

High resolution in heteronuclear 1H–13C NMR experiments by optimizing spectral aliasing with one‐dimensional carbon data

In the chemistry literature it is common to provide NMR data on both proton and carbon spectra based on one‐dimensional experiments, but often only proton spectra are assigned. The absence of a complete attribution of the carbons is in good part due to the difficulty in reaching the necessary resolution in the carbon dimension of two‐dimensional experiments. It has already been shown that high‐resolution heteronuclear spectra can be acquired within nearly the same acquisition time using a violation of the Nyquist condition. For a spectral width reduction by a given factor k, the resolution increases by the same factor as long as it is not limited by relaxation. The price to pay for such an improvement is a k‐fold ambiguity in the chemical shift of the signal along the folded or aliased dimension. The computer algorithm presented in this paper takes advantage of the peak list stemming from one‐dimensional spectra in order to calculate spectral widths for which the ambiguities in the aliased dimension of heteronuclear experiments are eliminated or at least minimized. The resolution improvement factor is only limited by the natural lineshape and reaches a typical value higher than 100. The program may be set to run automatically on spectrometers equipped with automatic sample changers. Applications to short‐range HSQC experiments and long‐range HMBC spectra of steroids, carbohydrates, a peptide and a mixture of isomers are shown as examples. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Broadband 1H homodecoupled NMR experiments: recent developments,methods and applications

In recent years, a great interest in the development of new broadband ¹H homonuclear decoupled techniques providing simplified J_HH multiplet patterns has emerged again in the field of small molecule NMR. The resulting highly resolved ¹H NMR spectra display resonances as collapsed singlets, therefore minimizing signal overlap and expediting spectral analysis. This review aims at presenting the most recent advances in pure shift NMR spectroscopy, with a particular emphasis to the Zangger–Sterk experiment. A detailed discussion about the most relevant practical aspects in terms of pulse sequence design, selectivity, sensitivity, spectral resolution and performance is provided. Finally, the implementation of the different reported strategies into traditional 1D and 2D NMR experiments is described while several practical applications are also reviewed. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.