Deuterium quadrupolar tensors of L-histidine hydrochloride monohydrate-d7

Structural Insights into Bound Water in Crystalline Amino Acids: Experimental and Theoretical (17)O NMR

We demonstrate here that the (17)O NMR properties of bound water in a series of amino acids and dipeptides can be determined with a combination of nonspinning and magic-angle spinning experiments using a range of magnetic field strengths from 9.4 to 21.1 T. Furthermore, we propose a (17)O chemical shift fingerprint region for bound water molecules in biological solids that is well outside the previously determined ranges for carbonyl, carboxylic, and hydroxyl oxygens, thereby offering the ability to resolve multiple (17)O environments using rapid one-dimensional NMR techniques. Finally, we compare our experimental data against quantum chemical calculations using GIPAW and hybrid-DFT, finding intriguing discrepancies between the electric field gradients calculated from structures determined by X-ray and neutron diffraction.

Internal water and microsecond dynamics in myoglobin

Myoglobin (Mb) binds diatomic ligands, like O₂, CO, and NO, in a cavity that is only transiently accessible. Crystallography and molecular simulations show that the ligands can migrate through an extensive network of transiently connected cavities but disagree on the locations and occupancy of internal hydration sites. Here, we use water ²H and ¹⁷O magnetic relaxation dispersion (MRD) to characterize the internal water molecules in Mb under physiological conditions. We find that equine carbonmonoxy Mb contains 4.5 ± 1.0 ordered internal water molecules with a mean survival time of 5.6 ± 0.5 μs at 25 °C. The likely locations of these water molecules are the four polar hydration sites, including one of the xenon-binding cavities, that are fully occupied in all high-resolution crystal structures of equine Mb. The finding that water escapes from these sites, located 17–31 Å apart in the protein, on the same μs time scale suggests a global exchange mechanism. We propose that this mechanism involves transient penetration of the protein by H-bonded water chains. Such a mechanism could play a functional role by eliminating trapped ligands. In addition, the MRD results indicate that 2 or 3 of the 11 histidine residues of equine Mb undergo intramolecular hydrogen exchange on a μs time scale.

Intra- and inter-molecular interactions in salicylic acid — Theoretical calculations of 17O and 1H chemical shielding tensors and QTAIM analysis

A density functional theory (DFT) study was performed to examine intra- and inter-molecular hydrogen bond (HB) properties in crystalline salicylic acid (SA). BLYP, B3LYP, and M06 functionals with 6–311++G** basis set were employed to calculate NMR chemical shielding isotropy (σiso) and anisotropy (Δσ) at the sites of the 17O and 1H nuclei of SA. From this study, it appears that the intra- and inter-molecular O–H···O as well as C–H···O HBs around the SA molecule in the crystal lattice have a major influence on the chemical shielding tensors and more specifically on the carbonyl 17O isotropy value. The quantum theory of atoms in molecules (QTAIM) analysis was also employed to elucidate the interaction characteristics in SA H-bonded network. Based on QTAIM results, a partial covalent character is attributed to the intra- and inter-molecular O–H···O HBs in SA.