Studies of Individual Carbon Sites of Proteins in Solution by Natural Abundance Carbon 13 Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy

The aromatic regions in proton-decoupled natural abundance 13C Fourier transform nuclear magnetic resonance spectra (at 14.2 kG) of small native proteins contain broad methine carbon bands and narrow nonprotonated carbon resonances. Some factors that affect the use of natural abundance 13C Fourier transform NMR spectroscopy for monitoring individual nonprotonated aromatic carbon sites of native proteins in solution are discussed. The effect of protein size is evaluated by comparing the 13C NMR spectra of horse heart ferrocytochrome c, hen egg white lysozyme, horse carbon monoxide myoglobin, and human adult carbon monoxide hemoglobin. Numerous single carbon resonances are observed in the aromatic regions of 13C NMR spectra of cytochrome c, lysozyme, and myoglobin. The much larger hemoglobin yields few resolved individual carbon resonances. Theoretical and some experimental values are presented for the natural linewidths (IV), spin-lattice relaxation times (T,), and nuclear Overhauser enhancements (NOE) of nonprotonated aromatic carbons and C’ of arginine residues. In general, the 13C-1H dipolar mechanism dominates the relaxation of these carbons. 13C-14N dipolar relaxation contributes significantly to l/T, of C ” of tryptophan residues and C’ of arginine residues of proteins in D,O. The NOE of each nonprotonated aromatic carbon is within experimental error of the calculated value of about 1.2. As a result, integrated intensities can be used for making a carbon count. Theoretical results are presented for the effect of internal rotation on W, T,, and the NOE. A comparison with the experimental T, and NOE values indicates that if there is internal rotation of aromatic amino acid side chains, it is not fast relative to the over-all rotational motion of the protein.