JBC, Vol. 250, Issue 16, 6368-6380, Aug, 1975
Studies of individual carbon sites of proteins in solution by natural abundance carbon 13 nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Relaxation behavior
E. Oldfield, R. S. Norton and A. Allerhand
The aromatic regions in proton-decoupled natural abundance 13C Fourier
transform nuclear magnetic resonance spectra (at 14.2 kG) of small native
proteins contain broad methine carbon bands and narrow nonprotonated carbon
resonances. Some factors that affect the use of natural abundance 13C
Fourier transform NMR spectroscopy for monitoring individual nonprotonated
aromatic carbon sites of native proteins in solution are discussed. The
effect of protein size is evaluated by comparing the 13C NMR spectra of
horse heart ferrocytochrome c, hen egg white lysozyme, horse carbon
monoxide myoglobin, and human adult carbon monoxide hemoglobin. Numerous
single carbon resonances are observed in the aromatic regions of 13C NMR
spectra of cytochrome c, lysozyme, and myoglobin. The much larger
hemoglobin yields few resolved individual carbon resonances. Theoretical
and some experimental values are presented for the natural linewidths (W),
spin-lattice relaxation times (T1), and nuclear Overhauser enhancements
(NOE) of nonprotonated aromatic carbons and Czeta of arginine residues. In
general, the 13C-1H dipolar mechanism dominates the relaxation of these
carbons. 13C-14N dipolar relaxation contributes significantly to 1/T1 of C
epsilon2 of tryptophan residues and Czeta of arginine residues of proteins
in D2O. The NOE of each nonprotonated aromatic carbon is within
experimental error of the calculated value of about 1.2. As a result,
integrated intensities can be used for making a carbon count. Theoretical
results are presented for the effect of internal rotation on W, T1, and the
NOE. A comparison with the experimental T1 and NOE values indicates that if
there is internal rotation of aromatic amino acid side chains, it is not
fast relative to the over-all rotational motion of the protein.