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Updated: Mar 8, 2026

Dissolution Dynamic Nuclear Polarization Instrumentation for Real-time Enzymatic Reaction Rate Measurements by NMR
Published on: February 23, 2016
Communication: Dissolution DNP reveals a long-lived deuterium spin state imbalance in methyl groups
Aditya Jhajharia1, Emmanuelle M M Weber1, James G Kempf2
1Département de Chimie, Ecole Normale Supérieure, CNRS, Laboratoire des Biomolecules (LBM), PSL Research University, UPMC University Paris 06, 24 Rue Lhomond, 75005 Paris, France.
Abstract:
We report the generation and observation of long-lived spin states in deuterated methyl groups by dissolution DNP. These states are based on population imbalances between manifolds of spin states corresponding to irreducible representations of the C3v point group and feature strongly dampened quadrupolar relaxation. Their lifetime depends on the activation energies of methyl group rotation. With dissolution DNP, we can reduce the deuterium relaxation rate by a factor up to 20, thereby extending the experimentally available time window. The intrinsic limitation of NMR spectroscopy of quadrupolar spins by short relaxation times can thus be alleviated.
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