Tailoring solid-state DNP methods to the study of α-synuclein LLPS

Dynamic Nuclear Polarization (DNP) is a technique that leverages the quantum sensing capability of electron spins to enhance the sensitivity of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) signals, especially for insensitive samples. Glassing agents play a crucial role in the DNP process by facilitating the transfer of polarization from the unpaired electron spins to the nuclear spins along with cryoprotection of biomolecules. DNPjuice comprising of glycerol-d₈/D₂O/H₂O has been extensively used for this purpose over the past two decades. Polyethylene glycol (PEG), also used as a cryoprotectant, is often used as a crowding agent in experimental setups to mimic cellular conditions, particularly the invitro preparation of liquid-liquid phase separated (LLPS) condensates. In this study, we investigate the efficacy of PEG as an alternative to glycerol in the DNP juice, critical for signal enhancement. The modified DNP matrix leads to high DNP enhancement which enables direct study of LLPS condensates by solid-state DNP methods without adding any external constituents. An indirect advantage of employing PEG is that the PEG signals appear at ∼72.5 ppm and are relatively well-separated from the aliphatic region of the protein spectra. Large cross-effect DNP enhancement is attained for ¹³C-glycine by employing the PEG-water mixture as a glassing agent and ASYMPOL-POK as the state-of-art polarizing agent, without any deuteration. The DNP enhancement and the buildup rates are similar to results obtained with DNP juice, conforming to that PEG serves as a good candidate for both inducing crowding and glassing agent in the study of LLPS.