Determination of size and sign of hetero-nuclear coupling constants from 2D 19F-13C correlation spectra

Fluorinated organic compounds have become increasingly important within the polymer and the pharmaceutical industry as well as for clinical applications. For the structural elucidation of such compounds, NMR experiments with fluorine detection are of great value due to the favorable NMR properties of the fluorine nucleus. For the investigation of three fluorinated compounds, triple resonance 2D HSQC and HMBC experiments were adopted to fluorine detection with carbon and/or proton decoupling to yield F-C, F-C{H}, F-C{C(acq)} and F-C{H,C(acq)} variants. Analysis of E.COSY type cross-peak patterns in the F-C correlation spectra led, apart from the chemical shift assignments, to determination of size and signs of the J(CH), J(CF), and J(HF) coupling constants. In addition, the fully coupled F-C HMQC spectrum of steroid 1 was interpreted in terms of E.COSY type patterns. This example shows how coupling constants due to different nuclei can be determined together with their relative signs from a single spectrum. The analysis of cross-peak patterns, as presented here, not only provides relatively straightforward routes to the determination of size and sign of hetero-nuclear J-couplings in fluorinated compounds, it also provides new and easy ways for the determination of residual dipolar couplings and thus for structure elucidation. The examples and results presented in this study may contribute to a better interpretation and understanding of various F-C correlation experiments and thereby stimulate their utilization.