This study builds upon our prior researches and seeks to investigate and clarify the influences of various characteristics of hydrogen bonds (H-bonds) and charge transfer (CT) interactions, which were detected within the inhibitor binding pockets (labeled as the QM models I–IV) of MraYAA–capuramycin, MraYAA–carbacaprazamycin, MraYAA–3′-hydroxymureidomycin A, and MraYAA–muraymycin D2 complexes by QTAIM and NBO analyses from DFT QM/MM MD calculations, on the 17O chemical shielding (CS) and electric field gradient (EFG) tensors of carboxylate (Oδ), carbonyl (C═O), and hydroxyl (O–H) oxygens in these models. The 17O CS and EFG tensors of these three types of oxygens in QM models I–IV were calculated at the M06-2X/6-31G** level by including the solvent effects using the polarizable continuum model. From the computed 17O CS and EFG tensors in these models, it was found that the nuclear shielding, σiso, for carboxylate or carbonyl oxygen increases (shielding effect) as the H-bond length decreases and the percentage p-character of nOδ/nC═O lone pair partner in the CT interaction enhances. In contrast, the σiso (17O–H) decreases (deshielding effect) with a reduction in the H-bond length as well as with an enhancement in percentage s-character of the nOH lone pair/σ*O–H antibond. By reducing the H-bond length or by increasing p-character of the nOδ/nC═O lone pair, the 17Oδ/17O═C quadrupole coupling constant smoothly decreases, while the 17Oδ/17O═C asymmetry parameter smoothly increases. Moreover, these calculated parameters are in a good agreement with the experimental values. The information garnered here is valuable particularly for further understanding of empirical correlations between 17O NMR spectroscopic and H-bonding characteristics in the protein–ligand complexes.
In this work, we elucidated the structural organization of stimuli-responsive peptide-polydiacetylene (PDA) conjugates that can self-assemble as 1D nanostructures under neutral aqueous conditions. The amino acid sequences bear positively or negatively charged domains at the periphery of the peptide segments to promote solubility in water while also driving assembly of the individual and combined components into β-sheets. The photopolymerization of PDA, as well as the sensitivity of the resulting optical properties of the polymeric material to external stimuli, highly depends on the structural organization of the assembly of amphiphilic peptide-diacetylene units into 1D-nanostructures. Solid-state NMR measurements on 13C-labeled and 15N-labeled samples show that positively charged and negatively charged peptide amphiphiles are each capable of self-assembly, but self-assembly favors antiparallel β-sheet structure. When positively and negatively charged peptide amphiphiles interact in stoichiometric solutions, cooperative coassembly dominates over self-assembly, resulting in the desired parallel β-sheet structure with a concomitant increase in structural order. These results reveal that rational placement of oppositely charged residues can control β-strand organization in a peptide amphiphile coassembly, which would have implications on the adaptive properties of stimuli-responsive biomaterials such as the peptide-PDAs studied here.
Planewave-corrected methods have proven effective for accurately modeling nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) parameters in crystalline systems. Recent work extended the application of planewave-corrected calculations beyond the second row, predicting EFG tensor parameters for 35Cl using a simple molecular correction to projector augmented-wave (PAW) density functional theory (DFT). Here we extend this work using fragment and cluster-based calculations coupled with polarizable continuum (PCM) methods to improve further the accuracy of planewave-corrected 35Cl EFG tensor calculations. Benchmark data from a test set comprised of 105 individual 35Cl EFG tensor principal components for chlorine-containing molecular crystals and crystalline chloride salts shows fragment-corrected planewave calculations using the PBE0 hybrid density functional improve the accuracy of predicted EFG tensor components by 30 % relative to traditional planewave calculations. We compare the influence of different geometry optimization methods and density functionals on the accuracy of predicted 35Cl EFG tensor parameters. Four cases of spectral assignment are presented to demonstrate the utility of improving the accuracy of predicted 35Cl EFG tensor parameters.
While syringyl units are the most abundant monolignols in hardwood lignin, their phenolic (i.e. hydroxyl) end group concentration has not been measured. In two uniformly 13C-enriched young hardwoods, from beech and oak, the syringyl units were quantitatively investigated by advanced solid-state 13C NMR. Small signals of OH-terminated syringyl units were resolved in spectrally edited two-dimensional 13C–13C NMR spectra of the two hardwoods. Their distinct peak positions predicted based on literature data were validated via the abundant OH-terminated syringyl units in hydrolyzed 13C-beechwood. In a two-dimensional 13C–13C exchange spectrum with diagonal-ridge suppression, a well-resolved peak of phenolic syringyl units was observed at the characteristic C–H peak position of syringyl rings, without significant overlap from guaiacyl peaks. Accurate 13C chemical shifts of regular and end-group syringyl units were obtained. Through spectrally edited 2D NMR after 1H inversion recovery, phenols of condensed tannin complexed with arginine were carefully analyzed and shown to overlap minimally with signals from phenolic syringyl units. The local structure and resulting spin dynamics of ether (chain) and hydroxyl (end-group) syringyl units are nearly the same, enabling quantification by peak integration or deconvolution, which shows that phenolic syringyl end groups account for 2 ± 1 % of syringyl units in beechwood and 5 ± 2 % in oakwood. The observed low end-group concentration needs to be taken into account in realistic molecular models of hardwood lignin structure.
A numerical simulation method, namely, SDNMR-WEBFIT, is reported for simulating proton spin diffusion NMR based on the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm and a pseudo-2D diffusion model. This method is used for the precise quantification of dynamics heterogeneity of the interphase within multiphase polymer systems. The numerical simulation method provides measurements of spin-lattice relaxation time (T1), proton density (ρH), lamellar thickness (d), and spin diffusion coefficient (D) for each component. The pseudo-2D diffusion model is employed to simulate the proton spin diffusion build-up/decay curves, simultaneously calculating the lateral fraction of island-like structures (x-ratio). Such approach was successfully applied to various polymer systems, such as semi-crystalline polymer (Poly(ε-caprolactone), PCL), block copolymers (Styrene-butadiene-styrene triblock copolymer, SBS), and plasticized semi-polymers (Polvinyl alcohol, PVA).
We report solid-state 1H, 13C, and 17O NMR determination of hyperfine coupling tensors (A-tensors) in several paramagnetic Cu(II) (d9, S = 1/2) complexes: trans-Cu(DL-Ala)2·H217O, Cu([1–13C]acetate)2·H2O, Cu([2–13C]acetate)2·H2O, and Cu(acetate)2·H217O. Using these new experimental results and some A-tensor data available in the literature for trans-Cu(L-Ala)2 and K2CuCl4·2H2O, we were able to examine the accuracy of A-tensor computation from a periodic DFT method implemented in the BAND program. We evaluated A-tensors on 1H (I = 1/2), 13C (I = 1/2), 14N (I = 1), 17O (I = 5/2), 39K (I = 3/2), 35Cl (I = 3/2), and 63Cu (I = 3/2) nuclei over a range spanning more than 3 orders of magnitude. We found that the BAND code can reproduce reasonably well the experimental results for both A-tensors and nuclear quadrupole coupling tensors.
Energy transfer from Zeeman to dipolar order discovered by Jeener et al. is usually observed in solids with a strong dipole-dipole interaction of nuclear spins. It is not observed in liquids, where fast molecular motion completely averages this interaction. The intermediate case, when the dipole-dipole interaction of nuclear spins is only partially averaged, has been poorly studied. We report on the first measurement of an angular-dependent proton spin relaxation of a dipolar reservoir in mobile water molecules confined in the interlayer pores of a vermiculite single crystal. In this layered crystal, the intramolecular dipole-dipole interactions of nuclear spins are only partially averaged due to the restricted anisotropic molecular motion in nanopores. We show that this allows the formation of dipolar echo. We measured the spin-lattice relaxation times of the dipolar order T1D at different angles between the normal to the crystal surface and the applied magnetic field and obtained a distinct angular dependence of T1D. The minimum relaxation rate R1D was found around the magic angle of 54.74°.
A recently developed dynamic mean-field theory for disordered spins (spinDMFT) is shown to capture the spin dynamics of nuclear spins very well. The key quantities are the spin autocorrelations. In order to compute the free induction decay (FID), pair correlations are needed in addition. They can be computed on spin clusters of moderate size which are coupled to the dynamic mean fields determined in a first step by spinDMFT. We dub this versatile approach non-local spinDMFT (nl-spinDMFT). It is a particular asset of nl-spinDMFT that one knows from where the contributions to the FID stem. We illustrate the strengths of nl-spinDMFT in comparison to experimental data for CaF2. Furthermore, spinDMFT provides the dynamic mean fields explaining the FID of the nuclear spins of 13C in adamantane up to some static noise. The spin Hahn echo in adamantane is free from effects of static noise and agrees excellently with the spinDMFT results without further fitting.
The NMR lineshapes produced by half-integer quadrupolar nuclei are sensitive to 11 distinct fit parameters per inequivalent site. To date, automatic fitting routines have failed to replace manual parameter insertion and evaluation due to the importance of local minima and the need for fitting multiple-field magic-angle spinning (MAS) and static spectra simultaneously. Herein we introduce a new tool, AMES-Fit (Automatic Multiple Experiment Simulation and Fitting), to automatically find the global best-fit simulation parameters for a series of multiple-field NMR lineshapes. AMES-Fit uses an adaptive step size random search algorithm to dynamically probe parameter space and requires minimal human input. The best fits are obtained in a few minutes of computation time that would otherwise have required several person-hours of work. The program is freely available and open-source.

