Structure determination of a DNA octamer in solution by NMR spectroscopy. Effect of fast local motions

NMR structures of biomolecules are primarily based on nuclear Overhauser effects (NOEs) between protons. For the interpretation of NOEs in terms of distances, usually the assumption of a single rotational correlation time corresponding to a rigid molecule approximation is made. Here we investigate the effect of fast internal motions of the interproton vectors in the context of the relaxation matrix approach for structure determination of biomolecules. From molecular dynamics simulations generalized order parameters were calculated for the DNA octamer d(GCGTTCGC).d(CGCAACGC), and these were used in the calculation of NOE intensities. The magnitudes of the order parameters showed some variation for the different types of interproton vectors. The lowest values were observed for the interresidue base H6/H8-H2" proton vectors (S2 = 0.60), while the cytosine H5-H6 interproton vectors were among the most motionally restricted (S2 = 0.92). Inclusion of the motion of the interproton vectors resulted in a much better agreement between theoretically calculated NOE spectra and the experimental spectra measured by 2D NOE spectroscopy. The interproton distances changed only slightly, with a maximum of 10%; nevertheless, the changes were significant and resulted in constraints that were better satisfied. The structure of the DNA octamer was determined by using restrained molecular dynamics simulations with H2O as a solvent, with and without the inclusion of local internal motions. Starting from A- or B-DNA, the structures showed a high local convergence (0.86 A), while the global convergence for the octamer was ca. 2.6 A.