Structure Determination by NMR Spectroscopy

Quantitative 1 H MRI and MRS of fatty acid composition

Adipose tissue as well as other depots of fat (triglycerides) are increasingly being recognized as active contributors to the human function and metabolism. In addition to the fat concentration, also the fatty acid chemical composition (FAC) of the triglyceride molecules may play an important part in diseases such as obesity, insulin resistance, hepatic steatosis, osteoporosis, and cancer. MR spectroscopy and chemical-shift-encoded imaging (CSE-MRI) are established methods for non-invasive quantification of fat concentration in tissue. More recently, similar techniques have been developed for assessment also of the FAC in terms of the number of double bonds, the fraction of saturated, monounsaturated, and polyunsaturated fatty acids, or semi-quantitative unsaturation indices. The number of papers focusing on especially CSE-MRI-based techniques has steadily increased during the past few years, introducing a range of acquisition protocols and reconstruction algorithms. However, a number of potential sources of bias have also been identified. Furthermore, the measures used to characterize the FAC using both MRI and MRS differ, making comparisons between different techniques difficult. The aim of this paper is to review MRS- and MRI-based methods for in vivo quantification of the FAC. We describe the chemical composition of triglycerides and discuss various potential FAC measures. Furthermore, we review acquisition and reconstruction methodology and finally, some existing and potential applications are summarized. We conclude that both MRI and MRS provide feasible non-invasive alternatives to the gold standard gas chromatography for in vivo measurements of the FAC. Although both are associated with gas chromatography, future studies are warranted.

Enhanced Efficiency of Direct-Space Structure Solution from Powder X-ray Diffraction Data in the Case of Conformationally Flexible Molecules

A strategy is reported for assessing the feasibility of molecular conformations within direct-space structure-solution calculations of organic molecular crystal structures from powder X-ray diffraction data, focusing in particular on the genetic algorithm technique for structure solution in which fitness is defined as a function of the whole-profile figure-of-merit Rwp. The strategy employs a readily computed distance-based function to assess the feasibility of the molecular conformation in each trial structure generated in the genetic algorithm calculation, and structures considered to have low-feasibility conformations are penalized within the evolutionary process. The strategy is shown to lead to significant improvements in the success rate of structure-solution calculations in the case of flexible molecules with a significant number of conformational degrees of freedom.