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Updated: May 28, 2026

Reconstitution of a Kv Channel into Lipid Membranes for Structural and Functional Studies
Published on: July 13, 2013
A 10,000-fold nuclear hyperpolarization of a membrane protein in the liquid phase via a solid-state mechanism
Eugenio Daviso1, Geertje Jacoba Janssen, A Alia
1Leiden Institute of Chemistry, Einsteinweg 55, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands.
Abstract:
Several techniques rely on electron-nuclear interactions to boost the polarization of nuclear spins in the solid phase. Averaging out of anisotropic interactions as a result of molecular tumbling strongly reduces the applicability of such hyperpolarization approaches in liquids. Here we show for the first time that anisotropic electron-nuclear interactions in solution can survive sufficiently long to generate nuclear spin polarization by the solid-state photo-CIDNP mechanism. A 10,000-fold NMR signal increase in solution was observed for a giant biomolecular complex of a photosynthetic membrane protein with a tumbling correlation time in the submicrosecond regime, corresponding to a molecular weight close to 1 MDa.
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