Sensitivity-enhanced nuclear magnetic resonance of biological solids

Dynamic Nuclear Polarization (DNP) enhances the sensitivity of solid-state Nuclear Magnetic Resonance experiments via transfer of polarization from electrons to nuclei. The polarization transfer is driven by microwave irradiation near the electron Larmor frequency. Signal enhancements of up to approx. 185 at 5 Tesla have previously been reported using a nitroxide radical in water/glycerol and a high-power gyrotron as a microwave source. This thesis describes the continuation of these experiments with a focus towards developing methodology for structural studies of biological solids. DNP experiments are typically performed at low temperatures since the DNP efficiency increases with the electronic and nuclear spin-lattice relaxation times. Many biological systems, especially membrane proteins, have relatively short nuclear relaxation times even at 10 K. DNP experiments on fd bacteriophage and purple membrane show that significant sensitivity enhancements can still be obtained on systems with short relaxation times. DNP-enhanced spectra of the coat protein and DNA of fd bacteriophage demonstrate that proton spin diffusion evenly distributes the enhanced polarization throughout a large macromolecular assembly.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Chemistry.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2001

Author dc:creator

• Rosay, Melanie Madeleine, 1973-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Robert G. Griffin.

• Chemistry.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/119613

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/119613