title: Site-specific backbone amide (15)N chemical shift anisotropy tensors in a small protein from liquid crystal and cross-correlated relaxation measurements.
abstract: Site-specific (15)N chemical shift anisotropy (CSA) tensors have been derived for the well-ordered backbone amide (15)N nuclei in the B3 domain of protein G (GB3) from residual chemical shift anisotropy (RCSA) measured in six different mutants that retain the native structure but align differently relative to the static magnetic field when dissolved in a liquid crystalline Pf1 suspension. This information is complemented by measurement of cross-correlated relaxation rates between the (15)N CSA tensor and either the (15)N-(1)H or (15)N-(13)C' dipolar interaction. In agreement with recent solid state NMR measurements, the (15)N CSA tensors exhibit only a moderate degree of variation from averaged values, but have larger magnitudes in alpha-helical (-173 +/- 7 ppm) than in beta-sheet (-162 +/- 6 ppm) residues, a finding also confirmed by quantum computations. The orientations of the least shielded tensor component cluster tightly around an in-peptide-plane vector that makes an angle of 19.6 +/- 2.5 degrees with the N-H bond, with the asymmetry of the (15)N CSA tensor being slightly smaller in alpha-helix (eta = 0.23 +/- 0.17) than in beta-sheet (eta = 0.31 +/- 0.11). The residue-specific (15)N CSA values are validated by improved agreement between computed and experimental (15)N R(1rho) relaxation rates measured for (15)N-{(2)H} sites in GB3, which are dominated by the CSA mechanism. Use of residue-specific (15)N CSA values also results in more uniform generalized order parameters, S(2), and predicts considerable residue-by-residue variations in the magnetic field strengths where TROSY line narrowing is most effective.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Chemical Physics, NIDDK, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland 20892-0520, USA.
authors.forename: Lishan
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Yao
authors.forename: Alexander
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Grishaev
authors.forename: Gabriel
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Cornilescu
authors.forename: Ad
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bax
mesh_terms: D000577:Amides / Q000737:chemistry*; D016880:Anisotropy; D050866:Liquid Crystals / Q000737:chemistry*; D009682:Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy; D009584:Nitrogen / Q000737:chemistry; D011506:Proteins / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D000577:Amides; D011506:Proteins; D009584:Nitrogen