Magic Angle Spinning NMR structure determination in magnetic environments on the cover of SSNMR
First author Rubin Dasgupta, PhD student at the Biophysical Organic Chemistry & Macromolecular Biochemistry groups at the Leiden Institute of Chemistry has made the cover of the June edition of Solid State Nuclear Magnetic Resonance.
The front cover of the journal Solid State Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Vol. 113, June 2021, ISSN 0926-2040 features the article “Dipolar dephasing for structure determination in a paramagnetic environment, Solid State Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, 113, 101728, 2021” by Rubin Dasgupta, who will defend his PhD thesis on June 15th.
The cover shows the dipolar dephasing curve of the methyl proton in a paramagnetic environment from the compound Cu(II)-(DL-Alanine)2.H2O. Using magic angle spinning (MAS; 30-35 kHz) solid-state NMR spectroscopic technique of Rotational Echo Double Resonance (REDOR) the article shows that reliable dipolar coupling strength information thus consequently structural information can be obtained from nuclei near (~ 3.5 Å) the paramagnetic metal center. The standard deviation on the values obtained is similar to that reported for diamagnetic systems thereby reinforcing the emerging conclusion that paramagnetic-NMR data can be interpreted in much the same way as the NMR spectra of diamagnetic solids. The research can in future be used to study the active site of metalloproteins and gain insight into the structure and dynamics that might have functional relevance.