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Updated: Jun 21, 2026

Atomic Scale Structural Studies of Macromolecular Assemblies by Solid-state Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy
Published on: September 17, 2017
Static solid-state (14)N NMR and computational studies of nitrogen EFG tensors in some crystalline amino acids
Luke A O'Dell1, Robert W Schurko
1Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario, Canada.
Abstract:
The recently reported direct enhancement of integer spin magnetization (DEISM) methodology for signal enhancement in solid-state NMR of integer spins has been used to obtain static (14)N powder patterns from alpha-glycine, L-leucine and L-proline in relatively short experimental times at 9.4 T, allowing accurate determination of the quadrupolar parameters. Proton decoupling and deuteration of the nitrogen sites were used to reduce the (1)H-(14)N dipolar contribution to the transverse relaxation time allowing more echoes to be acquired per scan. In addition, ab initio calculations using molecular clusters (Gaussian 03) and the full crystal lattice (CASTEP) have been employed to confirm these results, to obtain the orientation of the electric field gradient (EFG) tensors in the molecular frame, and also to correctly assign the two sets of parameters for L-leucine. The (14)N EFG tensor is shown to be highly sensitive to the surrounding environment, particularly to nearby hydrogen bonding.
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