A growing number of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopic studies are impaired by the limited information content provided by the standard set of experiments conventionally recorded.

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This is particularly true for studies of challenging biological systems including large, unstructured, membrane-embedded and/or paramagnetic proteins. Here we introduce the concept of unified time-optimized interleaved acquisition NMR (UTOPIA-NMR) for the unified acquisition of standard high-gamma (e.g. 1H) and low-gamma (e.g. 13C) detected experiments using a single receiver.

 

Our aim is to activate the high level of polarization and information content distributed on low-gamma nuclei without disturbing conventional magnetization transfer pathways. We show that using UTOPIA-NMR we are able to recover nearly all of the normally non-used magnetization without disturbing the standard experiments. In other words, additional spectra, that can significantly increase the NMR insights, are obtained for free.

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|"...using UTOPIA-NMR we are able to recover nearly all of the normally non-used magnetization without disturbing the standard experiments.

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This unified time-optimized interleaved acquisition offers a remarkable potential and flexibility for a multitude of applications. We anticipate that four areas of research will particularly benefit from the UTOPIA setup:

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1. NMR analytics/screening of (small) compounds. Here the acquisition of 1D or 2D spectra of high-g (e.g. 1H, 19F) and low-g (e.g. 13C, 15N, 31P) nuclei can be carried out simultaneously, significantly reducing the total measurement time and increasing throughput.

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2. The investigation of small soluble proteins at higher concentrations. Here excess in sensitivity can be split into additional experiments (using shared evolution periods).

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3. The characterization of natively unfolded and/or paramagnetic proteins, which often focuses on the acquisition of a set of low-g-detected experiments. If low-g-detected experiments are the priority, UTOPIA-NMR can offer 1H-detected experiments for free.

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4. . The investigation of perdeuterated biological systems including membrane proteins or large complexes.

 

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