Sensitivity enhancement in NMR of macromolecules by application of optimal control theory

NMR of macromolecules is limited by large transverse relaxation rates. In practice, this results in low efficiency of coherence transfer steps in multidimensional NMR experiments, leading to poor sensitivity and long acquisition times. The efficiency of coherence transfer can be maximized by design of relaxation optimized pulse sequences using tools from optimal control theory. In this paper, we demonstrate that this approach can be adopted for studies of large biological systems, such as the 800 kDa chaperone GroEL. For this system, the 1H-15N coherence transfer module presented here yields an average sensitivity enhancement of 20-25% for cross-correlated relaxation induced polarization transfer (CRIPT) experiments.