Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER 6
Paramagnetic NMR
Spectroscopy and Lowly
Populated States
JESIKA T. SCHILDER, MATHIAS A. S. HASS,
PETER H. J. KEIZERS AND MARCELLUS UBBINK*
Leiden Institute of Chemistry, Gorlaeus Laboratories, Leiden University,
P.O. Box 9502, 2300 RA Leiden, The Netherlands
*E-mail: m.ubbink@chem.leidenuniv.nl
6.1
Introduction
6.1.1 Lowly Populated States and Paramagnetic NMR
Spectroscopy
Traditionally, structural biology has focused on generating static models of
ground-state conformations, but most proteins are flexible and dynamic in
solution. Therefore, protein structures are better described as occupying
several conformations over time.
1
Both the ground-state and high-energy
conformations are critical to protein function and play key roles in molecular
recognition, signal transduction, enzyme catalysis and protein folding.
Ground-state conformations are easily isolated and studied; however, their
high-energy counterparts are sparsely populated, short-lived and cannotbe
isolated, making them practically invisible to conventional structural biology
techniques.
2
