Determination of Internucleotide JHN Couplings by the Modified 2D JNN-Correlated [N, H] TROSY

Recent developments in the direct observation of J couplings across hydrogen bonds in proteins and nucleic acids provide additional information for structure and function studies of these molecules by NMR spectroscopy. A J_NN-correlated ¹⁵N, ¹H] TROSY experiment proposed by Pervushin et al. (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 95, 14147–14151, 1998) can be applied to measure ^hJ_HN in smaller nucleic acids in an E.COSY manner. However, it cannot be effectively applied to large nucleic acids, such as tRNA^Trp, since one of the peaks corresponding to a fast relaxing component will be too weak to be observed in the spectra of large molecules. In this Communication, we proposed a modified J_NN-correlated ¹⁵N, ¹H] TROSY experiment which enables direct measurement of ^hJ_HN in large nucleic acids.