Two- and Three-Dimensional H/C PISEMA Experiments and Their Application to Backbone and Side Chain Sites of Amino Acids and Peptides

Two-dimensional ¹H/¹³C polarization inversion spin exchange at the magic angle experiments were applied to single crystal samples of amino acids to demonstrate their potential utility on oriented samples of peptides and proteins. High resolution is achieved and structural information obtained on backbone and side chain sites from these spectra. A triple-resonance experiment that correlates the ¹H–¹³C_α dipolar coupling frequency with the chemical shift frequencies of the α-carbon, as well as the directly bonded amide ¹⁵N site, is also demonstrated. In this experiment the large ¹H–¹³C_α heteronuclear dipolar interaction provides an independent frequency dimension that significantly improves the resolution among overlapping ¹³C resonances of oriented polypeptides, while simultaneously providing measurements of the ¹³C_α chemical shift, ¹H–¹³C dipolar coupling, and ¹⁵N chemical shift frequencies and angular restraints for backbone structure determination.