Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 6, 2026
14:55
Atomic Scale Structural Studies of Macromolecular Assemblies by Solid-state Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy
Published on: September 17, 2017
NMR-spectroscopic analysis of mixtures: from structure to function
Ry R Forseth1, Frank C Schroeder
1Boyce Thompson Institute and Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA.
Current Opinion in Chemical Biology
|November 13, 2010
Summary
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is enhancing the study of metabolomes by enabling the analysis of complex mixtures. This technique helps identify difficult-to-isolate compounds and correlate metabolites with biological changes.
Area of Science:
- Biochemistry
- Analytical Chemistry
- Metabolomics
Background:
- Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is a powerful tool for structural and functional characterization.
- Traditionally limited to pure compounds, NMR is increasingly applied to complex metabolite mixtures.
- Advancements are crucial for understanding biological processes through metabolomics.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review recent NMR spectroscopic techniques for characterizing metabolite mixtures.
- To highlight NMR's utility in natural product chemistry and biological studies.
- To discuss NMR's role in comparative metabolomics and identifying metabolite-phenotype correlations.
Main Methods:
- Overview of recently developed NMR spectroscopic techniques.
- Application of comparative metabolomics and statistical analyses.
- Focus on methods for analyzing complex metabolite mixtures.
Main Results:
- NMR enables identification of small molecules, including those prone to decomposition.
- Comparative analyses effectively identify novel and known metabolites.
- NMR-based metabolomics aids in correlating metabolites with genotype or phenotype.
Conclusions:
- NMR spectroscopy is essential for advancing metabolomics and understanding biological processes.
- New NMR methods expand the characterization of complex biological samples.
- NMR is a versatile technique for discovery, biosynthesis studies, and comparative analyses.
Related Concept Videos
01:25Applications Of NMR In Biology
Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is a very valuable analytical technique for researchers. It has been used for more than 50 years as an analytical tool. F. Bloch and E. Purcell formulated NMR in 1946 and won the 1952 Nobel Prize in Physics for their work. Biological macromolecules such as proteins, nucleic acids, lipids, and organic molecules including pharmaceutical compounds, can be studied using this versatile tool that exploits the magnetic properties of certain nuclei.
The...
The...
01:13¹H NMR: Complex Splitting
A proton M that is coupled to a proton X results in doublet signals for M. However, NMR-active nuclei can be simultaneously coupled to more than one nonequivalent nucleus. When M is coupled to a second proton A, such as in styrene oxide, each peak in the doublet is split into another doublet.
Splitting diagrams or splitting tree diagrams are routinely used to depict such complex couplings. While drawing splitting diagrams, the splitting with the larger coupling constant is usually applied first.
Splitting diagrams or splitting tree diagrams are routinely used to depict such complex couplings. While drawing splitting diagrams, the splitting with the larger coupling constant is usually applied first.
01:14NMR Spectroscopy of Aromatic Compounds
Aromatic compounds can be identified or analyzed using proton NMR and carbon‐13 NMR. Typically, aromatic hydrogens or hydrogens directly bonded to the aromatic rings are strongly deshielded by the aromatic ring current. Therefore, they absorb in the range of 6.5–8.0 ppm in proton NMR spectra. For instance, aromatic hydrogens directly bonded to the benzene ring absorb at 7.3 ppm. However, aromatic hydrogens of larger rings absorb farther upfield or downfield than the ideal range. Consider...
01:15NMR Spectroscopy and Mass Spectrometry of Aldehydes and Ketones
In aldehydes, the hydrogen atom connected to the carbonyl carbon helps distinguish aldehydes from other carbonyl compounds using ¹H NMR spectroscopy. The closeness of aldehydic hydrogen to the electrophilic carbonyl carbon highly deshields the hydrogen atom causing its signal to appear around 10 ppm in the ¹H NMR spectra. α hydrogens split the aldehydic proton signal, which helps identify the number of α hydrogens in the molecule. For instance, one α hydrogen creates a doublet for an aldehydic...
01:21Mass Spectrometry: Complex Analysis
Mass spectrometry is an important technique for the identification of pure compounds. However, it has some limitations for the analysis of complex mixtures, often due to excessive fragmentation making the spectrum too complicated to decipher. Mass spectrometry can be combined with suitable separation methods in sequence, forming hyphenated methods, which are useful in the analysis of complex mixtures.
GC–MS is a powerful hyphenated method commonly used in forensics and environmental...
GC–MS is a powerful hyphenated method commonly used in forensics and environmental...
01:12Two-Dimensional (2D) NMR: Overview
The 1D NMR spectrum of large and complex molecules like natural products has complicated splitting patterns and overlapping signals, which can be easily interpreted using 2-dimensional (2D) NMR. Unlike 1D NMR, 2D NMR has two frequency axes that provide the coupling information between the nucleus A and nucleus B in a molecule. The process from which 2D spectra are obtained has four steps.
The first step is the preparation period, during which nucleus A is excited with a radiofrequency pulse.
The first step is the preparation period, during which nucleus A is excited with a radiofrequency pulse.