No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

Proteins directly control the nucleation and growth of biominerals, but the details of molecular recognition at the protein-biomineral interface remain poorly understood. The elucidation of recognition mechanisms at this interface may provide design principles for advanced materials development in medical and ceramic composites technologies. Here, we describe both the theory and practice of double-quantum solid-state NMR (ssNMR) structure-determination techniques, as they are used to determine the secondary structures of surface-adsorbed peptides and proteins. In particular, we have used ssNMR dipolar techniques to provide the first high-resolution structural and dynamic characterization of a hydrated biomineralization protein, salivary statherin, adsorbed to its biologically relevant hydroxyapatite (HAP) surface. Here, we also review NMR data on peptides designed to adsorb from aqueous solutions onto highly porous hydrophobic surfaces with specific helical secondary structures. The adsorption or covalent attachment of biological macromolecules onto polymer materials to improve their biocompatibility has been pursued using a variety of approaches, but key to understanding their efficacy is the verification of the structure and dynamics of the immobilized biomolecules using double-quantum ssNMR spectroscopy.

We present a two-dimensional NMR technique for the measurement of dipolar couplings in polycrystalline solids. This experiment is fully transverse and uses a windowless dipolar recoupling pulse sequence (DRAWS, described in Gregory, D. M.; et al. Chem. Phys. Lett. 1995, 246, 654−663) to effect coherence transfer. Direct, internuclear coherence transfer produces negative cross-peaks in the 2D spectrum. Cross-peak development and experimental requirements for obtaining distances from the two-dimensional solid-state NMR spectra of two- and three-spin systems are discussed, and demonstrations are shown for thymidine-2,4-13 C 2 and l-alanine-13 C 3. Internuclear distances are derived by comparison of experimental cross-peak buildup curves with numerical simulations. In the three-spin system, indirect coherence-transfer mechanisms prohibit the interpretation of buildup curves as due to isolated spin pair interactions and limit the accuracy of some distance measurements. This 2D technique can also be used for spectral assignment, as demonstrated by an application to l-arginine·HCl-U-13 C, N.